Retailers Press For Unified HD DVD Format

datemenatalie writes "While the war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray continues over who will be the direct successor to DVD, the Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) has issued a strong statement to Hollywood and the consumer electronics industry regarding the looming HD format war. The statement, which supports a single high-definition disc format, also offers advice on dimensions, packaging, features and even how marketing materials should be designed. The statement argues, "two formats, each capable of storing high definition movies on DVD, are planned for release into the market. Retailers uniformly agree that the concurrent distribution of more than one format is likely unsustainable, and that the launch of a single format is preferable to a format war which could confuse the public and lead to reluctance to embrace either format." This comes just weeks after early indications that HD-DVD will only allow playback of full 1080 resolution video signals through HDMI connectors, leaving consumers with older HDTVs (pre-HDMI) out of luck."

Comments

Only Marginally Good News

[Xesdeeni]

So yeah, they are rallying for a single format. Plus ten for style, but minus several hundred for insisting that the copy protection be severe, including the prohibition of analog HD.

Xesdeeni

The question and answer is:

[Anonymous Coward]

which format offers more pr0n? (blu-ray) That is the answer. That is always the answer.

Re:The question and answer is:

[dearreid]

Agreed. Besides, who really wants to see a porn-star's body in high definition? What if they have freckles or crabs or something?

I certainly hope

[Solr_Flare]

That for once these format developers can just agree on a single standard and stick with it. But, I think that will be highly unlikely. They will fight it out at the consumer's expense for a few years then finally settle down on a single format.

By all rights, Blu-ray *should* be the next-gen standard. It is superior in just about every way. Which, studying history, means that HD-DVD will probably win out in the end :P

Re:I certainly hope

[Adrilla]

Not only do the retailers wish for a single format but so do the consumers. No one wants to be stuck with an obsolete piece of equipment a year or so after they've purchased it. Let's avoid another VHS/Beta fiasco, and actually think about the consumers for once. I personally like the Blu-ray option, it's got more room and just seems like it's the better option to me, plus it doesn't look out all the consumers without HDMI. I'd like these companies to think about the customers just once, but that's probably asking too much.

Re:I certainly hope

[sTalking_Goat]

We just have to get the pr0n industry behind Blu-Ray. The rest will take care of itself.

HDMI Only?

[mbelly]

This comes just weeks after early indications that HD-DVD will only allow playback of full 1080 resolution video signals through HDMI connectors, leaving consumers with older HDTVs (pre-HDMI) out of luck.

This could be both good and bad for HD-DVD. Film makers will like the HDMI only for the DRM capability. On the other hand, consumers who are not ready to upgrade their TV's will shun away from them. It's going to be a toss up.

Re:HDMI Only?

[Solr_Flare]

What is really ironic here is....

Isn't HD-DVD's one big touted advantage supposed to be, and correct me if I'm recalling wrong here, easy backwards compatability?

It is rather self defeating if its backwards compatable in one way but forces hardware upgrades the other way. This will probably play more against the standard than for it.

Re:HDMI Only?

[fyonn]

I'm sure it wouldn't be long until somebody creates a little dongle that will convert HDMI to a S-Video or Component signal and defeats any DRM imposed at the same time.

why lose the quality by downconverting to svideo or component?

This box will strip the HDCP off an incoming DVI inut and output un-encrypted DVI. you can downconvert that if you want, or keep it as top notch 1080i/720p

dave

That really hurts HD-DVD

[EggyToast]

I used to say that, on a purely economic point, that HD-DVD had an advantage based on the fact that the initial discs would be cheaper, and that the hardware doesn't require two separate lasers in order to read HD-DVD and older DVD.

But that HDMI fact I did not know about. To me, that really, really hurts HD-DVD as a format. My TV supports HD up to 1080i, but has no HDMI connectors. So the format is entirely useless to me if I want to buy a TV. I just bought a TV.

Blu-Ray already fits more space per disc. I really see little reason at this point to not say "let's just go blu-ray, start retooling machines, and let the price come down." I hate the fact that Sony has its grubby mitts on it, but I'd rather have a format I can actually use without having to buy entirely new hardware. Just a player.

Re:That really hurts HD-DVD

[mr_flea]

Did anybody else realize that most of the people pushing HD-DVD and HDMI manufacture TVs?

Size

[tor528]

They're going to be the same size as current DVDs and CDs... Haven't they figured out how annoying those dimensions are? Just barely too big to fit in a pocket.

Dear MPAA, Manufacturers, distributors & pr0nz

[tod_miller]

My name is, erm, Paul Preamble, and I would like to point out that if you release HD-DVD formats, then it will take oh so much longer for me to re-encode them to xvid so it will fit onto a cheapo CD, and be more easily attainable through P2P applications.

So I urge you, as a consumer, please keep your bit rates low, and consider us warez geezerz.

Otherwise I will just have to draw upon the dark powers of bittorrent, that evil protocol, and distribute gigs of high resolution video to all my l33t friends on the w3b, you know, d4rkh0rz, m@niac, l0tt0rz and b4dger. (their real handles have been changed to protect the innocent)

Kindly,

Tod^H^H^H Paul

[X] Post Anonymously

why not just let them fight it out?

[Eugene]

sometimes I'd want to see another messy product war just so the manufactures behind the format war to see it's a no win situation for anyone. I guess most people forgot about the VHS vs Beta, or MD vs DCC (well, this one really isn't a war. since both lost to CD-R)

Same story, different product

[MudButt]

The consumer electronics industry will always have "compatibility wars". It was no different with the 56K modem wars (X2 vs K56Flex). Consumers: Don't go out and by the latest HDDVD player if you aren't prepared to have a worthless heap of circuits laying around 2 years later. Case in point: my very own K56Flex modem, retailing for $89.95. DOH!

hummm

[Anonymous Coward]

Hd-DVD or Blu-ray..

HDMI = BAD

however.. for blu-ray.. unless you have a HDCP enabled device on the DVI (-d) cable then your only gonna get 480i.. or perhaps 480p anyway..

SO.. they both suck..

but blu-ray sucks less because atleast component out is still going to be available and you don't have to by an interface box.

The chinese will fix it however.. shhh.. you can already get HDCP disabled devices, just don't let hollyweird know. Leave it to a communist regime to set the capitialist markets straight.

who cares?

[styxlord]

Is the adoption (or lack thereof) of DVD-Audio/SACD due to format competition? Nope. Much like CDs, DVDs provide more than acceptable quality to the masses.

HDMI analog converter

[adrenaline_junky]

A quick google of "HDMI analog converter" yields several interesting links, one of which is a device that removes HDCP encryption from an HDMI/DVI signal:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12115

Doomed to fail?

[interstellar_donkey]

Personally, I don't see either standard as being that successful. While I'll personally enjoy the better picture from a HD DVD standard, I don't see the average consumer willing to switch over.

DVD was successful because in addition to picture and sound quality, the format offered quite a few advantages over the prevailing standard VHS tapes. The new format was more durable (could be played over and over again without degradation), portable (smaller, easier to store), easier to manage (no rewinding, could easily jump to any portion of the film) and provided the viewer with quite a few new valuable features (extra features, commentary, switchable subtitles and foreign languages etc.)

A HD DVD standard only offers the advantage of better picture. I just can't see regular people willing to invest in new equipment and update their video libraries just for that, and in turn I don't see publishers being motivated to offer a large amount of titles in the new standard.

Sure, I'll buy it, but that's because I'm a dork and I like fancy electronic equipment, especially if it shows off the capabilities of my HD TVs. But most people aren't dorks (heck, a lot of people still prefer full screen versions of DVD movies).

Bias inherent to this document?

[Sv-Manowar]

The document published by the VSDA appears to set out a large number of criteria, all of which they seem to rate as essential for the end product. However, the fact that they've released this now, instead of when the new standards were under development would lead me to believe it is biased in the direction of one of the established formats and is more of a party piece to try and rally retailer support behind a particular format (HD-DVD springs to mind). Not to mention the talk of two competing formats being unworkable, and the need for a single format..

In 1989...

[michaelmalak]

I, and a bunch of others on CompuServe's CEFORUM, were putting off buying new TVs because HDTV was "just around the corner." 16 years later, evidently, it still is. 10 of those years were the broadcast standard wars, which was silly, because, overpaid steroid-pumped entertainers aside, the real value of HDTV was prerecorded movies, not over-the-air broadcasts. I.e. the important standard was HDMI, not what they were dickering over in the early 90's.

The other 6 of those years was, in my personal theory, due to DVD. DVD came out at just the wrong time (from the consumer's perspective). DVD purchasers in the late 90's thought they were getting HDTV. The manufacturers, I believe, let this myth continue and held off on HDTV-DVD so that all the consumers could finish buying all their movies in DVD, before they learned the bad news that they would have to buy them all over again in HDTV-DVD.

The only technology that is more laggard than home entertainment is space exploration.

Re:Why worry about it

[Anonymous Coward]

That's retarded. In fields where a product affects everybody, getting down to one good standard benefits everybody. One standard (as long as it's open - please note that Sony does not control Blu-ray - Philips and others are with them!) allows manufacturers to focus their research and development better, which brings prices down. Especially in a situation where you have more than one "standard" (what the fuck? If there is more than one "standard", none of them are standards at all!), manufacturers will find themselves in a position where they must make devices that support all of the standards, which results in HIGHER prices.

I bet you think it's a good idea that you have no fewer than five different digital cellular phone standards in the United States. Inter-operator roaming is unheard-of (because of differing standards), resulting in every operator having to build their own network EVERYWHERE, which they obviously can't do. So you get worse call quality because there are less usable cellphone towers for you (since you can obviously only use one service at a time).

Europe went with GSM, and cellphone coverage has not been an issue in Europe since, oh, about 1995. Even the remotest locations in Finland tend to have perfect signal quality. The GSM standard is open, allowing any manufacturer to produce devices for it. All in all, this decision has benefited both consumers and the manufacturers. But boo fucking hoo, I guess fake freedom overrides sanity and clear consumer benefits on the other side of the pond.

(I call it fake freedom because the lack of a single standard actually makes it EASIER for operators in the United States to lock people into their service only - you can't take your mobile phone and use it with some other service. Don't give me the crap about being able to unlock your phone - most people don't realize that this is an option and the benefits are not transferred all the way to the customer anyway - you're paying the same $29,95 a month whether you bought a phone with the service or not!)

(Note: This post contains exaggerations which are necessary to drive the point through. If you reply, please concentrate on the meat instead of the hyperbole.)

ROFL!!!

[FunWithHeadlines]

"Consumers are not stupid."

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Oh, brother, I can barely catch my breath. Have you ever wandered through a Best Buy or Circuit City?

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

As far as I'm aware

[mcc]

Isn't HD-DVD's one big touted advantage supposed to be, and correct me if I'm recalling wrong here, easy backwards compatability?

As far as I'm aware, the advantage is and always has been easy backward compatibility for the content industries. From the consumer perspective, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will be equally backward compatible with DVD, and both will achieve this backward compatibility in the same way-- by adding a third laser to the two which DVD drives already possess (one laser for CD frequencies, one laser for DVD frequencies, one laser for the "blue" HD disc frequencies).

In fact from the consumer perspective if anything Blu-Ray is more backward compatible than HD-DVD-- because it is possible to manufacture Blu-Ray discs which can be placed in a standard DVD or CD player, and which appear as DVDs to a DVD player and Blu-Rays to a Blu-Ray player. (However, it is unclear if any such Blu-Ray discs will ever be manufactured, and anyway it may not be too late for HD-DVD to adopt this same feature.)

The tauted "backward compatibility" of HD-DVD is, as noted above, from the perspective of a content producer. That is to say, you can manufacture HD-DVDs in the same machines you manufacture DVDs in, with some slight upgrades. If you wish to manufacture Blu-Ray discs, you must buy a new machine. Of course, we are told, if it is cheaper to manufacture HD-DVDs than Blu-Ray discs because you don't have to buy new machines, then the discs will be cheaper for the consumer as well. Hooray for trickle-down economics!

And of course from the perspective of a content producer, forcing your cattle, I mean consumers, to buy new "secure" equipment-- as HD-DVD does and Blu-Ray probably will-- is a big plus.

Wow, read this part

[rbarreira]

Device keys and media keys are still there, with a major change, in the first steps of content decryption, a player has to find its specific key in a big ternary tree of keys, where each leaf corresponds to the key of a given device (brand and model). By denying a drive to find its key in the tree, Blu-ray and HD-DVD can easily revoke a single given device. If for instance a given player is cracked and its keys are published, the licensing authority will send new keys and navigation information to disc manufacturers. As a result, all discs pressed after the player has been cracked will refuse to play on this specific drive, but will play perfectly on all other (including older) devices.

This blacklisting of a single player model is quite powerful and can slow down mass piracy, but on the other hand it can also have some significant drawbacks for legitimate consumers. For instance, you could one day suddenly be unable to watch new movies on your player because it has been revoked after someone has successfully compromised this model. Practical use (as well as explanations to future customers) of this new revocation system will be very interesting to watch.

That absolutely sucks, and I had never heard about it... :(

Re:HD-DVD has a "built in DVD player"

[Wesley Felter]

HD-DVD and Blu-ray players can both play DVDs, so there's no difference.

Both formats destined to die?

[MrBandersnatch]

So to watch this new format I need :-

1) A new TV @ £1500 Sterling.
2) A new HD-DVD/blueray player @ £?
3) Copies of Films I possibly already have to play on it @ £?
4) An upgrade to my satalite equipment to receive HD content (2 channels atm?) @ £?
5) An upgraded sat subscripition. @ £?

You know...to me (IMO) the above does NOT lead to :-

6) Profit!!

Why? Because in 5 years time, when all this stuff is priced at a more reasonable level and the quality/quanity of content could justify upgrading...there WILL be a new/better/cheaper format on the horizon (and VERY close to the horizon as well given this tech were talking about now is nearly 2 (lab) years old).

Even worse is MANY consumers (well those of us with better than NTSC) WONT be able to see the real benefits to the upgrade and are NOT going to be replacing that DVD collection; uptake in the mass market is likely to be quite slow.

This is quite probably going to lead to this generation of "technology" being largely shuned in the market place or only occupying a niche in the "videophiles" high end market and eventually going the way of laserdisc!!

So let the release both formats!! It will only quicken the demise for both and HOPEFULLY somewhere in the implosion the draconion copy protection measures will take some of the flak!

Re:Both formats destined to die?

[evilviper]

1) A new TV @ £1500 Sterling.

I doubt many people are going to go out and buy a new TV so they can watch HighDef Discs. In the US, most everyone is going to end up with a new digital TV over the next few years, with or without HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.

2) A new HD-DVD/blueray player @ £?

It's most likely that you are going to need to buy a new DVD player to hook-up to your new digital TV, anyhow.

3) Copies of Films I possibly already have to play on it @ £?

Nonsense. You can play all of your current DVDs on the next gen of DVD players. No re-buying necessary, unless you're die-hard, and WANT to spend money to get copies of your current movies in HD.

4) An upgrade to my satalite equipment to receive HD content (2 channels atm?) @ £?

The two big sat companies in the US essentially GIVE AWAY their equipment, and I don't see the upgrade to HDTV equipment being any different. They will also be carrying far more HDTV channels, very soon.

5) An upgraded sat subscripition. @ £?

This is up in the air. I think it's most likely the satellite and cable companies will charge about the same rates for HD as they do for current television. They are making such huge profits as-is, and they have equal operating costs whether they have 1 subscriber, or 1 billion.

So, to summarize.

1) Everyone will be getting a new HDTV eventually.
2) You'll want a new DVD player, and high-def ones may be nearly as cheap.
3) You don't need to re-buy any movies.
4) Probably Free.
5) Probably the same as current prices.

Because in 5 years time, when all this stuff is priced at a more reasonable level [...] there WILL be a new/better/cheaper format on the horizon

That's a pretty ridiculous claim to make. We've stuck with the current TV standard for 50+ years now. I can't see anything above HDTV comming along in the next few decades. Since BluRay/HD-DVD have enough room to do full-resolution HDTV, it's very unlikely something else will come along to replace it on HDTVs.

Even worse is MANY consumers (well those of us with better than NTSC) WONT be able to see the real benefits to the upgrade

Absolutely ridiculous. No doubt you're talking about PAL, which is just slightly higher res than NTSC... HDTV DOUBLES the vertical resolution, and almost triples the horizontal resolution.

That would be 1.8 times the vertical, and 2.5 times the horizontal, if upgrading from PAL. Plus, you'll get a 20% increase in refresh-rate, which is a huge improvement.

and are NOT going to be replacing that DVD collection;

NOBODY NEEDS TO REPLACE THEIR DVD COLLECTION.

This is quite probably going to lead to this generation of "technology" being largely shuned in the market place

Since you've got almost everything else wrong, I can't see any reason to have any faith in your conclusions.

or only occupying a niche in the "videophiles" high end market and eventually going the way of laserdisc!!

LaserDiscs were huge and cumbersome, and you needed multiple discs for one single movie. The price was also prohibitive. BluRay/HD-DVD are certain not to suffer from the first problem. The second, though, is entirely up to the studios. Whether the HighDef formats live or die depends on the prices of the movies released for them, and the difficulty of circumventing the copy protection to a lesser extent.

Since I don't know how they are going to price the HD movies, I can't say if it will be a success or not, but it's certainly got everything else going for it.

The fight is over

[HBergeron]

the HD-DVD folks just don't know it yet.

In the same 18 month period that the most optomistic forcasts have 500,000 HD-DVD players sold Sony is projected to sell 15-20 million PS3's - which will include a BD player. Given the forecast price of the PS3 you can bet a large percentage of families are not going to be willing to buy that and a seperate hd-disk player when they get both in the Sony package.

Given that the studios are complete whores and given the substantial decline in DVD sales, they are going to sell BDs for the PS3 no matter how much they prefer HD-DVD - they won't have a choice if they want to keep their phony-baloney jobs.

After two years - an installed base of 20M+ vs. an installed base of 2M+.... It won't even be a contest, and there are no viable theories that contest these well hashed over market projections (with the possible exception of the PS3 never being released.) Even if the X-box takes 50% of the market (Microsofts finest dream, not considered likely) that's still 15M PS3s in the first 18 months.

Oh, and for all the HD-DVD partisans who try to say that Sony will drop BD from the PS3 (other the n the complete absurdity of that contention) Just keep in mind that Sony can count the royalties it gets from every BD sold (and into the future) to subsidize the market price of the PS3 from day one due to the lock it will give it on the next generation format.