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.

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.

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?

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)

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).

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.

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.

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.