Sony and Toshiba Give Up On Unified DVD Format

HoTiCE_ is one of several to let us know, Reuters is reporting Sony and Toshiba have apparently given up efforts to develop a unified format for next-generation DVDs. The two companies had opened up negotiations but they fell through due to time constraints on new products from both groups.

Comments

One word:

[Pig Hogger]

Good!

Re:One word:

[XFilesFMDS1013]

Right, because a unified standard upon which every company could stand, and one which would allow a customer to buy a DVD and have it play in whatever DVD player they had, is a bad thing.

Re:One word:

[L0C0loco]

I agree. Let 'em enter into a pissing contest. I'll stay dry on the sidelines. Maybe if they both get hurt financially this sort of thing won't happen again.

Re:One word:

[croddy]

considering that most of these companies have come out strongly in favor of DRM and a bunch of useless crap like Java based menus... yes. this *is* good, precisely because it will increase the chances that *both* formats will fail -- particularly now that a significant number of customers have converted their collections over to DVD, and these discs would offer practically nothing except to a small percentage of high-resolution big-screen types.

Re:One word:

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Let 'em enter into a pissing contest. I'll stay dry on the sidelines.

Not if the wind blows...

Re:One word:

[Anonymous Coward]

Would that be like how they learned their lesson with VHS/Betamax? Or more like how they learned it with SACD/DVD-Audio?

Re:One word:

[indifferent children]

Maybe if they both get hurt financially this sort of thing won't happen again.

Yeah, because Sony learned their lesson when Betamax got kicked in the nuts. The only thing that could make this story funnier were if it were Panasonic instead of Toshiba going up against Sony.

Re:One word:

[mattspammail]

Hopefully it could be more like the DVD+R / DVD-R wars. Now both are implemented into everything.

My Prediction

[Gotung]

With the relatively low level of HDTVs out there, neither new format is going to catch on. People will just continue buying DVDs.

Re:My Prediction

[sik0fewl]

Yeah.. and DVD-Rs and DVD+Rs and DVD-RWs and DVD+RWs.

You're right.. two competing formats out there at the same time will never work.

Re:My Prediction

[rogabean]

Yes, but *most* current dvd players will read any of those formats.

apples to oranges.

Re:My Prediction

[sik0fewl]

Exactly my point. What's to stop manufacturers from including support for both standards?

Re:My Prediction

[ImaLamer]

If VHS tapes are any indicator, people will be buy DVD's 8 years after either one of these formats hit the streets.

A lot of retailers have dropped VHS, but Wal-Mart still caries them and they are the biggest retailer around. I even know a well-off kid with HDTV and all of the latest computer "toys" who still buys VHS movies for some stupid reason. Besides price I see no difference.

Think about how long you (the collective you) were still buying tapes after CD's were released. Being that DVD players are being factory installed in some cars and are everywhere it will be a while before people get rid of DVD. Shit, DVD players are the fastest (or highest?) selling consumer device category of all time (For trivia purposes, I believe the original GameBoy still holds the record for highest selling electronic consumer product of all time).

Re:My Prediction

[rogabean]

I'm actually interested to see how that plays out. Will it be possible, or will the two formats be so crippled as to be fully incompatible with each other?

Re:My Prediction

[Mean Ass Troll]

yes, but one disc to burn them all one disc to copy them and in the darkeness pirate them besides dvd-r is the defacto leader atm. this blu ray/hddvd is gonna be a little bit more complicated. and no the pissing contest won't stop, sony will always gample with shitty proprietary formats, even if it costs them millions. to a company that sells billions the risk doesn't matter the main thing thats going to destroy these formats is the fact that players will need to phone home to work... now for a dose of reality: sony, toshiba, etc. can get as greedy as they want with all kinds of copy protection schemes, but their format will never become popular until there are readily available, cheap Blank media. just look at vhs, it didnt take off until tapes were cheap. cdrom was the same, now dvd are cheap, but almost nobody is touchin the expensive dual layer crap. in the end it's the conmsuers that can wait out a new format. they have one simple question, what's in it for me? dvd's work just fine, and hd does not justify a few grand to upgrade everything. mebbe if it was a 3d holo tv people might be interested, but a few more pixels? with this attitude large companies quickly realize that they are in the money business, not the format business. they can try and add as much greed an copy protection to a new format, but the know if they arent careful, they can easily engineer themselves into the unemployment line.

Re:My Prediction

[Eightyford]

I even know a well-off kid with HDTV and all of the latest computer "toys" who still buys VHS movies for some stupid reason. Besides price I see no difference.

Then wouldn't the stupid reason be the price? I still buy VHS because the movies are always cheaper, and with a good VCR there is little difference in quality.

Re:My Prediction

[pete6677]

little difference in quality

What? Maybe the first 2 times you play the tape on a super-expensive VCR. Most people would rather just do it the easy way and pay $3 more for the DVD. Kind of like LPs vs. music CDs. Sure a record CAN sound better, but CDs are so much easier which is why they caught on.

Re:My Prediction

[SithGod]

What I still can't understand is why they will expect somebody to buy the Hi-Def version instead living with the DVD version of any movie that hasn't been made in the last couple of years. Up until that point, no movies were even made with a resolution higher than DVD. So unless there is someway to magically make pixels appear, how will the picture be any better than already released DVDs?

Re:My Prediction

[Eightyford]

What? Maybe the first 2 times you play the tape on a super-expensive VCR. Most people would rather just do it the easy way and pay $3 more for the DVD. Kind of like LPs vs. music CDs. Sure a record CAN sound better, but CDs are so much easier which is why they caught on.

First 2 times? I have 15 year old tapes that look just fine actually. Sure my VCR costed me more than my DVD player but it is also 10 years old, and I've gone through 3 DVD players in the last 5 years. And, I've gotten tapes for only $3 (not $3 more), when the DVD would have costed $20. Used DVDs would have also been less likely to play than the used tapes I've bought.

So, while I'm not saying VHS tapes are better than DVDs, they're still useful.

Oh, and who else is hates the fact that DVD players generally suck for fast-forward/rewind?

Re:My Prediction

[rolfwind]

I think people will buy DVDs much longer than 8 years after the new format.

The questions consumers will ask is "What is the benefit over the old system and is it worth the $X00 to buy a new player for it?"

DVDs had significant benefits - but the kicker probably was in the end the CD-like ability. No more long stretches of minutes spent fastforwarding nor rewinding - you can go to the scene you want as fast as you can access the menus. That and the space savings.

But what is the obvious benefit of these new discs? Crippling DRM? High Definition when HDTVs are still the exception not the norm? Multiple movies on one disc for a lower price? (YEAH RIGHT!) What exactly?

My prediction is that DVDs will probably be uncontested king till 2015 due to entrenchment and that the cool new next generation devices are struggling to hard to pander to the movie studios with absurd DRM schemes.

My other prediction is that "next" medium will be delivered not by need for HD movies but by the demands of computer consumers needing a storage devices that saves more gigabytes than DVDs can possibly hope for.

This device will be free of or have relatively easy DRM and HD movies will eventually be delivered in this format because the other formats companies try to make will be recieved like betamax/laserdisc.

Movies will also start being offered officially over the internet way before then.

Re:My Prediction

[timeOday]

My other prediction is that "next" medium will be delivered not by need for HD movies but by the demands of computer consumers needing a storage devices that saves more gigabytes than DVDs can possibly hope for.

Is there anything besides Blu Ray and HD-DVD on the horizon? I don't want to wait 5 years for something bigger than DVD.

I can't figure out why dual-layer writable DVD media have been SO slow to come about. All the drives already support DL, yet no media. I don't know whether it's lack of demand or pressure from content producers, but either way it doesn't bode well for a successor to 4.7GB DVD.

Re:My Prediction

[ImaLamer]

I think people will buy DVDs much longer than 8 years after the new format.

Not if content owners like Sony stop selling them... but I just said 8 years because DVD-Video was introduced in 1997.

DVDs had significant benefits - but the kicker probably was in the end the CD-like ability. No more long stretches of minutes spent fastforwarding nor rewinding - you can go to the scene you want as fast as you can access the menus. That and the space savings.

I've got to admit though that I am started to get tired of waiting the 1 or 2 seconds it takes to load a menu or the initial loading of the DVD - you get spoiled after a while.

My other prediction is that "next" medium will be delivered not by need for HD movies but by the demands of computer consumers needing a storage devices that saves more gigabytes than DVDs can possibly hope for.

I agree. I can fit 6 divx/xvid'd movies on a DVD or three 2-hour movies with AC3. I can't wait to put multiple trilogies on one disc... extended editions and all!

Movies will also start being offered officially over the internet way before then.

I see this happening in the next six months - but it won't be DRM free. If it's right, I'll bite though.

Re:My Prediction

[angle_slam]

Up until that point, no movies were even made with a resolution higher than DVD

Even today, almost all major motion pictures are shot on film. Film is higher resolution than DVD. They just need to reconvert the film into HD.

Re:My Prediction

[sik0fewl]

I'm sure it will be possible. You could even have two lasers, if necessary. I guess it will pan out to whether or not it's worth it. If Blu-ray just slaughters HD-DVD, then manufacturers won't bother supporting HD-DVD. On the other hand, what are the odds that one will slaughter the other? Blu-ray is going to be in PS3 and HD-DVD is apparently in Xbox 360. I wonder if it will get to the point that publishers have to sell both Bluray and HD-DVD version of movies because both formats are so popular.

Like you said, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. I think there's a good possiblity of having a duality, like DVD +/-.

Re:My Prediction

[admactanium]

Even today, almost all major motion pictures are shot on film. Film is higher resolution than DVD. They just need to reconvert the film into HD.

film itself has a very high resolution. but most of the post-production work done on film is done at a specific resolution (2k). so it woud be more than trivial to convert a lot of these movies into high def. a lot of effects work is done by hand and rendered out to the highest resolution needed at the time. for instance, nearly all title sequences would have to be re-rendered since nearly nobody shoots type on film anymore.

Re:My Prediction

[ColaMan]

I can't figure out why dual-layer writable DVD media have been SO slow to come about.

Dual layer (re)writeable media is a proper bitch to manufacture with (currently) a high failure rate, that's why. All the current manufacturers of DL media have struggled to get consistent batches.
This is why they still cost a packet. If they can iron out the kinks and go to full mass production they'd be nearly as cheap as normal DVDs.

Re:My Prediction

[rolfwind]

"I think people will buy DVDs much longer than 8 years after the new format."

Not if content owners like Sony stop selling them... but I just said 8 years because DVD-Video was introduced in 1997.

Hmmm.... Sony would be missing out on an awfully big market if they just stop. More than one Wolf in the chicken coop^_^

Also, it's not like a Video Game system - movies are easily sellable on the next-generation and current generation system.

I imagine they stopped selling cassettes mainly because people stopped buying them - but I remember music cassettes still being sold for the new albums in 2000 (!, do they still? Haven't been to a CD store since then.), many, many years after CDs came out.

People still bought cassettes for various reasons (car only played cassette, walkman the same thing, etcetera). Even stuff like self-help tapes came automatically in cassette until a few years back (annoyingly). I think the nail in the coffin was when recordable cds got popular......

I think the lesson is newer doesn't automatically mean new standard - new mediums need to find their audience at the right time and price point and fill a vacuum or they'll be passed over.

This is the lesson from Laserdisc to Sony's minidisc (which did well in Japan).

Re:My Prediction

[NanoGator]

"but most of the post-production work done on film is done at a specific resolution (2k). so it woud be more than trivial to convert a lot of these movies into high def."

Um, 'hi def' isn't even 2k. It's 1920. Even if they produce a standard that's higher than that, they'll just upsample it. It'll be a little soft, but they won't re-do the effects or avoid it altogether.

Re:My Prediction

[Eccles]

Why do you say that? 37" LCD flat panels are now in the $1500 range, that's tolerable for a middle-class family -- and the only reason I haven't bought one is the price is still dropping pretty rapidly. There will be little reason not to buy an HDTV soon.

Re:My Prediction

[farble1670]

i could not agree more. i really don't see consumers asking for higher resolution video for their at home movies. dvd is good enough for almost everyone except the most extreme videophiles. so they will either ship higher res movies, of which no one will care about, or add more "bonus" material to the discs, or maybe we'll see movie collections on one disc instead of two or three.

Re:My Prediction

[mrsaggy]

I'll bet on whatever format the Porn industry chooses. 8^).

Re:My Prediction

[jozeph78]

If VHS tapes are any indicator, people will be buy DVD's 8 years after either one of these formats hit the streets. A lot of retailers have dropped VHS, but Wal-Mart still caries them and they are the biggest retailer around. I even know a well-off kid with HDTV and all of the latest computer "toys" who still buys VHS movies for some stupid reason. Besides price I see no difference. Think about how long you (the collective you) were still buying tapes after CD's were released. Being that DVD players are being factory installed in some cars and are everywhere it will be a while before people get rid of DVD. Shit, DVD players are the fastest (or highest?) selling consumer device category of all time (For trivia purposes, I believe the original GameBoy still holds the record for highest selling electronic consumer product of all time).

I agree with the majority of your post, but don't you believe the backward compatibility will play into the adapatation of this new format? Some of the people who are still buying VHS may end up getting a Blu-Ray as their first DVD player once the novelity wears off and you can get one at that same Wal-mart for $99.

Another sell point would be archiving your VHS tapes onto HDVD format. A DVD could only record 2 hours of video while VHS can only record 8. What can HDVD/Blu-Crap do? I don't want to throw out a figure but hopefully you can record several VHS tapes to a single disk at VHS quality. It would be pointless to upscale to HD quality.

Re:My Prediction

[ElleyKitten]

>>>Oh, and who else is hates the fact that DVD players generally suck for fast-forward/rewind?

My DVD Player (ok, my PS2) fast-fowards/rewinds better than VHS. Tap L1/R1 to go back/forward a scene, hold L2/R2 to fast-foward/rewind. VHS doesn't go by scene, and when you stop it there's usually a delay, and then it's slightly off from where you wanted it. My PS2 doesn't do that.

Re:My Prediction

[rolfwind]

I don't know - haven't looked into this but can sympathize since I had to back-up data enough times that I eventually just had to pick and choose what's worth saving.

Makes one almost wish for the days when regular CD-roms could hold several times the magnitude than the hard drives of the computers they resided in. Or maybe wish to have that ratio back:)

Whatever the case, a made for computer solution could be implemented faster than a made for movies solution - in the made-for-movies option, it would take a good while before R/W drives and discs come out - if ever - remember the movie studios will try to dictate terms and if these drives/discs require licensing to build and market - the powers that be won't allow for read/write drives/discs.

This is why a made for computer storage option (or more correctly - an open standard) would be infinitely preferable this day and age - like linux, manfactures won't have to license the tech and won't be burdened by licensing baggage on what they can offer or expand on with an open standard - and the consumer will be in the front seat - not in the back seat taking it in the rear:P

Re:My Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunatley mine doesn;t work so well :(

Re:My Prediction

[aichpvee]

Blu-ray is going to be in PS3 and HD-DVD is apparently in Xbox 360.

Microsoft claims that HD-DVD drives will be available later in the XBox 360's life cycle (as a new version or an upgrade or something), but the unit shipping in November uses a standard DVD drive.

Re:My Prediction

[EggyToast]

We don't even need to look that far back. Look at the SACD market or the DVD-A market!

Well, you could, if one existed.

Re:My Prediction

[Brad1138]

The last 3 Star Wars were digitally recorded, the resolution is even better than HD. So with HDVD we will be able to see even more clearly how badly episodes 1 and 2 sucked.

Re:My Prediction

[GoRK]

You seem to know an awful lot about film production not to know that digital effects done at 2K or 4K are still much higher resolutions than the top end of hdtv -- ie 1080p at 1920x1080. And even still, reworking them in a higher resolution would not necessarily be the huge challenge you suggest it is. Film is already edited digitally using lower resolution stand-in footage to proof before it's rendered out in full glory. Increasing the resolution might require recapturing the frames (at higher resolution) and rerendering the color, effects, etc, but this process, though time consuming, is largely automated by software and hardware.

Re:My Prediction

[rtb61]

But what really counts is the content. It is already getting more difficult to disasscociate and escape with the visual quality of DVD. A lot of the content needs to be blurry so you can try and enjoy it. Poor acting, out of sync facial expressions, botox overdoses (I see dead faces), plastic sugery (they still believe people can't see it), the visible ravages of drug and alcohol abuse and finally the etched in desperation of trying to spend a lifetime beliving the marketing about themselves and failing (the ones that believe it are even worse).

I have seen and really enjoyed the high definition demo bits containing nothing but scenery. I forecast that by far the most popular high definition content will be live scenery (now the media companies can own the sunrise and sunset - NO FREE VIEWING - with out paying the appropriate licence fee).

Re:My Prediction

[dnoyeb]

I buy VHS because my son likes to bite the DVDs, so he keeps messing them up, but the tapes are much more durable.

Re:My Prediction

[xthrob]

unfortunately, there is no quick fix to going to beyond any resolution you are currently working in.
taking any film now and making it into a hidef format is lalmost zero work.
all the films i have worked on, i worked on them at 2k. 4k is the exception and not the rule. 35mm print has a max res (the scanners anyway) of 8k. it will be a while before we start working at 4k as common place at any rate.
the "automation" you speak of is called manpower. it takes a LONG time to ensure the thing you rendered at 2k holds up at 4k, which is 4 times the original size frame wise. it's very very tricky and vertainly time consuming.

Re:My Prediction

[PorkNutz]

That really makes no difference these days. I've got a DVD+-r/rw drive in my machine and a DVD player that will work with either kind of disk. Every DVD player at wal mart will work with either kind of disk.

It doesn't matter anymore.

Re:My Prediction

[zakezuke]

VHS doesn't go by scene, and when you stop it there's usually a delay, and then it's slightly off from where you wanted it. My PS2 doesn't do that.

I have *never* owned a VHS player that didn't at the very least allow me to jump scene by scene. Even my first Toshiba unit... early generation front loader with analog dials for any one of the 14 channels, even that went scene by scene... as does my current JVC. It's a nice feature i used to trim commericals out of things I tapped but without a flying erase head I tended to get rainbow noise. Jog and shuttle on the other hand, I have never owned a deck that had that feature.

Re:My Prediction

[zakezuke]

I even know a well-off kid with HDTV and all of the latest computer "toys" who still buys VHS movies for some stupid reason. Besides price I see no difference.

The only reason I can think of that anyone would choose VHS over DVD is the fact that a vhs tape can take more external abuse than a DVD disc. If DVDs were like 3.5 inch floppies this would be another story.

I honestly know people who prefer to rent VHS tapes over DVDs because they feel rental DVDs are too damanged to watch. These people have spiffy players that can't play jack even under normal condtions, and they can't seem to grasp that they got a bum unit and should have returned it... but that's not the point. The point is for whatever reason some people, not me, prefer VHS.

Re:My Prediction

[aqxi]

All is good and fair in comparing the differences between disc technologies. Blu-ray has A and B, HD-DVD has X and Y. Great. However, the driver for technology adoption is in my view greatly dependent on content.

If the studios release a movie in Blu-ray (as Sony's Columbia certainly will attempt to), the consumers will have a compelling reason to upgrade. I know I would - particularly if it cost me something like $200 to buy the player in the local supermarket, while I'm doing my grocery shopping. Or even better, I may already have a player when the shiny PS3 makes its way into my TV cabinet.

I don't particularly care about the quality improvement - I still sometimes watch DivX movies where the quality is VHS'ish at best. It's OK, good enough. DVD is good enough, SVCD is good enough, DivX is good enough, I really don't mind.

But I guess to reiterate the point, content is king.

Re:My Prediction

[admactanium]

You seem to know an awful lot about film production not to know that digital effects done at 2K or 4K are still much higher resolutions than the top end of hdtv -- ie 1080p at 1920x1080. And even still, reworking them in a higher resolution would not necessarily be the huge challenge you suggest it is. Film is already edited digitally using lower resolution stand-in footage to proof before it's rendered out in full glory. Increasing the resolution might require recapturing the frames (at higher resolution) and rerendering the color, effects, etc, but this process, though time consuming, is largely automated by software and hardware.

i'm not a digital effects artist myself. i only work with them regularly as part of overseeing the whole post-production process. i stand corrected on the resolution issue as i've yet to work in high-def.

Re:My Prediction

[KillShill]

and what evidence do you have to back that up with?

it seems far more likely that it's due to sheer greed and "because they can" than due to bad batches.

that they've been massively massively overcharging for current cds and dvds... i won't be giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Re:My Prediction

[loraksus]

Perhaps licensing terms that prohibit the manufacturer from creating any products that use the alternate format (a la Coke / Pepsi in schools)?
Or prohibitively expensive licensing fees that preclude a company from being able to license both "technologies"
Make no mistake about it; this is the ultimate form of petty bullshit and both sides win while the consumer ultimately loses.

Re:My Prediction

[loraksus]

At the same time, you have to admit that it isn't something that someone can do in their garage on a small budget. You need a fair bit of processing power and moderately expensive equipment to be able to do it.

Re:My Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus Christ, man! Ha' ye na' haird of the CAPS key? Or paragraphs?

Re:My Prediction

[el_womble]

I couldn't understand why anyone would want a blu-ray either - until I got a 20" iMac G5. The fact is that a hi-def screen makes DVDs look like VHS. Its like the artifacts just come and bite you in the ass - and to be honest, once the price is reasonable (£100 for a firewire drive) I'll be in the queue ready to by my Blu-ray drive and a selection of my favourite films.

I think the success of Blu-ray is going to be directly linked to the success of hi-def TV. With Sky pushing hi-def in the UK in the next few months (probably in time for Christmas) I can see a lot of Brits trading annual gym membership for a brand spanking new hi-def LCD TV - especially once people see how much better football (soccer) looks in hi-def (MPEG2 just wasn't designed for sports). So I think blu-rays success in the living room will be driven by broadcast sport, followed by that itiching knowledge that the movie your watching could look better.

As for your prediction about storage. I'm not so sure. When I bought my first CD-ROM drive I had 120MB of harddisk space. Encarta, Monkey Island et al were all run from the ROM. I didn't buy a CD-ROM drive to steal music, I bought it because that was the only way of getting and running the software. I bought my first CD-WORM when my coursework began to be measured in MB not kB at Uni. It was the only way to get the files from home to campus. I bought my first DVD-RW when I got my first Mac 2 years a go, I've burnt a couple of home movies, and occasionally burnt some PVR stuff for friends and relatives. Its too small for backups, its too slow for transfering data. My love affair with spinning data disks is over.

CD Type media is terrible for data. A life span measured in years (fade in sunlight), makes it a poor solution for backing up. They are slow, resource hungry and have always been overly complicated to use (at least to write). I used it because it was the only solution. Now, I have an iPod with 40GB of storage that is faster, safer and more portable. If thats too bulky (?!?) I have a USB key for small files that can move 512MB of data. Both of these solutions are more robust and scaleable than plastic disks will ever be.

As for getting software, broadband is my delivery medium of choice. The only situation I can see my actually 'needing' blu-ray is for entertainment - be it Hi-Def home movies or buying the latest blockbuster and even then I've stopped buying DVDs in favour of renting them from Amazon. If iTunes offered this service with H.264 I wouldn't even need it for that. (I think Lord Jobs would agree with me that the renting model fits movies far better than it fits music)

If my next Mac didn't have optical drive I don't think I would be too gutted, in the same way I just don't miss floppy drives - I just don't use them any more.

Re:My Prediction

[igb]

Actually, it's not the competition or the lack of HDTV: it's the DRM. Not because the man in the street cares about the philosophical issues of information freedom, of course. But because a huge portion of the reason people have DVD players is to play pirate material. Not just slacker college kids, but yummy mummys outside my kids' school are buying and watching hooky copies of films.

I have a moral aversion to piracy so don't partake, but I routinely buy US region coded stuff in advance of its UK release, which will also presumably go by the board in the new DRM paradise.

Format wars and market confusion killed DCC and (for practical purposes) MD, but they were doomed anyway because of hard disk MP3 players for portable and CD burners for archive. However, no-one seriously doubted that cassette was not a long term strategy, so there was a niche to fight for.

VHS likewise had serious issues (low quality, lack of random access) which meant that DVD and TiVO-alikes were going to eat its lunch. And going back in time, the lack of random access and the (for consumers, not geeky Linn LP12+Itok+Troika owners) poor quality provided market pull for CD over 33pm 12" vinyl. But DVD? Who's screaming ``not enough quality''? Who's screaming ``not enough capacity''? Who's screaming ``not enough DRM?''

The heavy DVD users I know are all stashing the DVD images on hard disks and streaming them over wireless networks. They're not pleading for more bits. And they're certainly not pleading for more DRM.

ian

Re:My Prediction

[iainl]

There might be licensing problems, but on a purely technical basis the only challenge is lasers that read both formats. Every hardware decoder designer I know is working chips that will decodes both bitstreams, if nothing else because it means one chip to fab, not two.

Both formats support the same video and audio codecs anyway; the only differences are menu code and the physical disc structure.

Re:My Prediction

[EpsCylonB]

Two lasers will be expensive though, at least in the beginning. If the companies behind the formats are going to be happy with duality then they will also need to be happy with a slow adoption rate.

I think its obvious that HD video will be very slowly adopted at least until HDTV prices drop low enough.

Re:My Prediction

[metricmusic]

they are all variants of the dvd format while blu-ray and hd-dvd are vastly different. not only are their licensing hurdles to overcome but technical as well.

Re:My Prediction

[Stuart Gibson]

Although I take the point that the two formats can be a cause for consumers to be reticent to buy, I think the bigger factor in the failure of these formats is the simple fact that 95% of people don't have the hardware to make them worth having. Even a system at around uk£200 isn't up to the job of faithfully recreating the level of detail in the source. Ultimately, if the consumer isn't able to hear the difference then they won't see the point (hell, most can't tell the difference between CD and 64kbps mp3).

On the other hand, everyone that sees our hi-def shop demo running is amazed at the level of detail compared to standard broadcast and even DVD. Coupled with the increase in average screen size as LCDs drop in price and just how bad standard broadcasts look when blown up to 42" and above and there will be a real possibility that people will be looking for the format.

Unlike high resolution audio, even Joe Schmoe is starting to hear about this "hi-def" thing that is going to take over.

Hearts and minds are what makes a technology and getting the public to be aware of it is more important than technical superiority.

Stuart

Re:My Prediction

[LordSnooty]

Make no mistake about it; this is the ultimate form of petty bullshit and both sides win while the consumer ultimately loses.

Quite right - but you can make sure that they utimately lose by not buying into the format.

Re:My Prediction

[Kjella]

What's to stop manufacturers from including support for both standards?

Considerable technical differences. DVD-R and DVD+R are almost identical, as you can see by their identical capacity. While both Blue-Ray and HD-DVD work with blue lasers, they use different platters, different focus and so on. Personally I wish they could agree on a media-independent content structure (i.e. you can make a CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blue-Ray and the only difference was capacity), but no such luck.

Kjella

Re:My Prediction

[Morky]

Your very wrong. Film is much, much sharper that DVD and has been for a long time. I have an HDTV and I can assure you that movies from the 70's shot in 35mm are as crisp in HD as any movie shot today. 35mm film has a much higher resolution than HD. DVD's are painful to watch on an HDTV after seeing movies broadcast in HD.

Re:My Prediction

[Morky]

Christ, I did the "your/you're thing". Just a typo, folks. Move along.

Re:My Prediction

[TheRaven64]

And even if they're not (wait until he discovers how to get the tape out of the cassette) they're a lot cheaper to replace. Of course, under fair use laws, you could always back up your DVDs - oh, wait.

Re:My Prediction

[Eunuchswear]

especially once people see how much better football (soccer) looks in hi-def (MPEG2 just wasn't designed for sports).

So what are they going to use instead of MPEG2 then?

Re:My Prediction

[swillden]

they've been massively massively overcharging for current cds and dvds

And what evidence do you have to back that up with?

Re:My Prediction

[el_womble]

Feel free to blow me out of the water, especially as I'm too lazy to find the Sky press release I read a few months ago, but I'm almost certain they said they would be switching to H.264 (MPEG4) for Hi-Def. It makes sense. Better quality for the same bandwidth or less. Sky are pretty short of bandwidth, HD could kill them if they don't change compression technologies.

Re:My Prediction

[Eunuchswear]

Have the existing set top boxes got the oomph to do MPEG4? (Don't they do MPEG2 in dedicated hardware?)

Apparentlty not:

WHAT KIND OF DIGITAL TV RECEIVER WILL YOU NEED TO RECEIVE SKY'S HDTV SERVICE? Sky is introducing a new HDTV receiver that will initially be manufactured by Thomson.

And you're right about the format:

Sky's HD service will also utilise the advanced compression technology MPEG4. MPEG4 is a more efficient means of compressing the data in a TV picture.

Re:My Prediction

[I'm Troy McClure]

Patents. "Intellectual" property.

Re:My Prediction

[sik0fewl]

If necessary, the players could have two different lasers. Sure, this isn't the ideal solution, but if the demand is there, it might just happen.

We'll just have to wait to see if the demand is actually there for more than one format.

A media-independent content structure would be great, but I have a feeling that it wouldn't be quite as simple as it sounds. Of course, that really isn't my area of expertise.

Re:My Prediction

[QMO]

"maybe we'll see movie collections on one disc instead of two or three."

That will only happen when the movies are old/unpopular. Making milti-disc packages helps people feel justified in paying more.

Re:My Prediction

[QMO]

"The only reason I can think of that anyone would choose VHS over DVD is the fact that a vhs tape can take more external abuse than a DVD disc"

DVDs are much more expensive than VHS.
(Not to manufacture, transport, store, etc, but there is more price-gouging in DVDs.)

"If DVDs were like 3.5 inch floppies this would be another story."

I had a PD disc once. It is a CD-like (same size, same capacity) optical disk in a plastic case with a shutter. A job where we had PD drives gave it to me. I think I gave it to my brother when he picked up a used computer with a PD drive.

Re:My Prediction

[GoRK]

Do what? Produce HD resolution footage or an HD-DVD? I made one last weekend. You can make a pretty good stab at it on an iMac with a $2000 camera (Sony HDR-HC1) and $1200 of software (Final Cut Studio). That is less than $5K of equipment. Granted, it's not going to rival a professional setup, but it is high definition and you can do some really amazing work with a budget setup. If you want it to look like film, there are some really affordable and amazing plugins for motion-compensated deinterlacing and dropping the frame rate.

If you are talking about digitally editing film on a budget, then no, any work with film is generally beyond the budget of a garage filmmaker. Unless you want to shoot on 8mm or 16mm (and I know some people do) then the film alone is going to cost more than the above setup.

Re:My Prediction

[HTH NE1]

Personally I wish they could agree on a media-independent content structure (i.e. you can make a CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blue-Ray and the only difference was capacity), but no such luck.

I'm just hoping the burners come out fast enough and the players are good enough to play back multiple DVD images stored on a single HD-DVD/Blu-Ray burned disk, similar to how some players will play CD-Rs as DVDs if the filesystem is right. (No, I'm not talking about Video-CD.) It would be nice to be able to fit a whole SD run of a series on one disk, or at least a season or three, playing them back either as mountable images or remastered as one really big DVD filesystem.

Otherwise, with hard drives occasionally dropping to 8 GB for a dollar (160 GB for $120 - $20 coupon - $50 rebate - $30 rebate), I might just replace the DVD drive of a suitable player with a swappable drive bay.

Re:My Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

/shrug

I refuse to buy until they figure out what is going on with HDTV, next-gen video disks, and all of the overly-restrictive copy-protection formats.

(Going on 5 years that I've been ready to buy a shiny new TV, but have held off due to the various standards wars.)

Re:My Prediction

[HTH NE1]

I'll bet on whatever format the Porn industry chooses. 8^).

Don't think the porn industry won't go both ways (and a few others besides).

Seriously though, there was porn available on BetaMax. That industry is big enough to be able to afford covering all the bases.

Re:My Prediction

[Alsee]

I buy VHS because my son likes to bite the DVDs, so he keeps messing them up, but the tapes are much more durable.

And tastier too!

-

Re:My Prediction

[Woody77]

The biggest issue I see with SACD and DVD-A is that the engineers don't know how to deal with it. HiDef is easy, as you can easily see all the added detail.

However, it seems like as time goes on, audio gets more and more dynamically compressed (not size-compressed, but dynamic range compression). I know the dynamic compressors were first used for radio, to make FM sound better (knock down the spikes in volume, bring up the volume of the quiet passages).

My modest stereo at home sounds decent, until I throw in a very well put together CD (which usually means it was simply recorded with a pair of stereo mics, and left alone by the engineer), and the result is just astounding. It sounds amazingly good.

SACD would be mind-blowing, but the material on the disc has to actually have the bandwidth to take advantage of it.

What's the advantage of DVD-Audio if the source material was already filtered to 20Khz before it was encoded at 96Khz. Or 24-bit dynamic range vs 16, when the source material has been compressed down to about 8 bits of range.

And all the surround modes that I've heard are utter crap. No nice evelopment of sound around the listener, but instead this very disjoint placement of sounds into the back channels.

Re:My Prediction

[computechnica]

I can see this going as well as the UMD discs for the PSP, A few people woth more money than sense will buy into for a while. DiVX DVDs made you player call for permission and it's dead.

Re:My Prediction

[EggyToast]

I do agree that the state of music does tend to give higher quality recordings less of a chance to shine and more of a chance of having an ultra-flat frequency response. One of my friends always complains about compression nowadays, as it seems like the only way to find an album that isn't overcompressed is to wait for an artist to become established, release an overcompressed album, develop a following, break ties with its original label, and follow up on an indie. That indie release will not be overcompressed. ;D

But you're definitely right in the fact that many of the features of these newer formats would need to be explicitly mixed for. It could be done, but it would be a separate process. You can't just mix for good stereo imaging with the standard "vocals in the middle" process -- engineers need to actually place things in the surround sound mix appropriately, and for a small market. There really isn't much incentive for a market so driven by radio to invest in these newer formats, and, yeah, you end up with stuff that's really not suited for SACD or DVD-A coming out on the format.

Most of the people I've spoken to who really enjoy their new-format audio setups are big fans of classical music, and to them the cost and difficulty of maintaining such a setup is worthwhile. Oh, and live music, which, to me at least, is somewhat unsurprising with the advantages that surround sound hi-def audio provides.

Re:My Prediction

[chadmg]

I doubt that in 8 years any media type that has to be physically relocated to be used will stand up to networked resources anyway. All this stuff about which new DVD format is going to be the winner will be all a much-ado-about-nothing. I look forward to turning on my flat panel TV, searching for the movie (or any other media) in an on-line library and streaming and watching the content real-time, instantly. It's really not that far off . . . :D

Re:My Prediction

[EggyToast]

I totally agree that people are more keen to visual differences than audible differences, but I'm skeptical of the statements that say that film's resolution is significantly higher than even 1080i format video. Film puts a significant amount of grain into a recording, which, while not a bad thing, does reduce the overall clarity of an image IMO. For example, those grainy "artistic" shots aren't going to look any better at 1080i compared to 480p -- they're still going to be grainy. "Pi" isn't going to look any better.

I have HDTV and some HD channels at home, and it is pretty neat to see individual pores on people's faces on PBS. But I compare it to a DVD and I don't notice it nearly as much compared to regular TV (which is awful after seeing HD).

So yes, it is all about capturing the hearts and minds. That still doesn't bring the price down. I think most people are comfortable spending under $1000USD on a TV. How much does your demo setup cost, to consumers? At some point, it's cheaper to just go see it on film in the movie theater if you're that concerned with quality.

(and, as another layer of skeptibility on my part, at the smaller screen sizes that most consumers watch TV on, the increased resolution will be that much less noticeable. Blowing a DVD up to a 9' screen may not look as good as a 1080i show, but on a 30" screen?)

Re:My Prediction

[Woody77]

The other issue I've noticed with the DVD-A formats (or std dvds of music), is that the surround mixed audio sounds distinctly "off" compared to the straight stereo mix of the same thing. I've especially noticed this on my Metallica S&M DVD and on a friend's Blue Man Group DVD. The sound changes radically, and on my system at home, it's still going through the same 2.1 setup either way.

I haven't sat down and figured out how the sound is engineered differently for the two systems, but I know it sounds a hell of a lot better on both my system and a friends (~$10K) system when left in stereo instead of in the surround modes.

Re:My Prediction

[EggyToast]

I've heard that too (no pun intended). I don't have an audio setup at home for ultra-hi-fi, but numerous reports I've read say that the surround mix is "airy" or flat in some way. Almost like the "surround option" on cheapy all-in-one systems.

So at least HD video has a much more tangible advantage over HD audio -- it's just bumping up the quality, and not requiring a remixing of the source. But that's still the only real advantage it's offering over DVD.

Re:My Prediction

[Woody77]

"hollow" or "empty" would have been my psuedo-audiophile term of choice. It think it has a lot to do with the subwoofer channel usage, and how the mix is directed to the LFE channel vs. the main L/R, and possibly also the fact that most center-channel speakers don't do low frequencies well, but a lot of content is centered, so it ends up needed to be produced there.

What I want to do is sit down with my stereo (has preamp outs) and record the outputs in different modes, and then compare the frequency contents of the different recordings, and see if the sound is actually "shaped" differently, or it just changes sound due to the speakers it's routed to.

Re:My Prediction

[admactanium]

If you are talking about digitally editing film on a budget, then no, any work with film is generally beyond the budget of a garage filmmaker. Unless you want to shoot on 8mm or 16mm (and I know some people do) then the film alone is going to cost more than the above setup.

digitally editing film isn't any more expensive than digitally editing video. the filmstock itself is more than video, but the editing process is the same once you get a dailies transfer done. unless i'm misunderstanding you.

Re:My Prediction

[hazydave]

VHS vs. DVD was a different story -- analog linear tape vs. digital random access disc. VHS sucked (in the sense of the engineering term "it sucks"), DVD isn't bad, even on a good HDTV.

The post-DVD war, unfortunately, is looking more like DVD-Audio vs. SACD than VHS vs. Beta. Yeah, they'll be better. But worth the extra cashish to most people? That's debatable, for exactly the same reasons as the extended rez audio discs. While predictions claim as much as 40% HDTV penetration by 2007, that's still missing the point: that's at least one set per house. You might watch HD-DVD/Blu-Ray on your HD set, but it doesn't play in the kids' room, in the car, on the portable, on the older PCs, etc.

Meanwhile, you can buy a DVD player that'll play DiVX-HD, Microsoft WMV9/VC-1, and HDV-compatible MPEG-2.... today. The hardware guys already grok the fact that the 5" round shiny thing is just a disc, and the player can host any number of applications. And must, to remain competitive in a hard market.

Re:My Prediction

[hazydave]

If you're upconverting VHS to DVD, you can pretty easily get 6 hours of VHS-quality video on today's DVD. The 720x480 format (NTSC and NTSCfilm resolutions) is fine for commercial films (and on a dual layer, you can store well beyond two hours worth, even at that resolution), but for VHS, it's overkill. DVD also supports 352x480 MPEG-2 and 352x240 MPEG-1 resolutions, either of which will do justice to plain old VHS tape (you'll want full resolution for well recorded SVHS).

Re:My Prediction

[jp10558]

There are made for computer storage/backup solutions already available. They just aren't as affordable as DVD-Rs.

I'd say, off the top of my head:
1) Cheap consumer RAID arrays in a home fileserver (this should cost about what the average person pays for a low - mid range PC) ~$600-$800 depending on whether they want to build it and use Linux or buy it and use windows. In any case, you would have to add the extra drives.

2) Various tape drives, I believe these are up to near HD capacity - 40-80 GB each. About the same cost as option 1) to buy in with a tape.

3) Various online file backup services. These range from free for limited space (heck, you can use google + software for 2GB) to a moderate cost of $100 a year to things like FolderShare for unlimited space.

Re:My Prediction

[Mean Ass Troll]

aye top of the line hd looks really sweet. saw a 45k ($) plasma a couple of years ago, an it was sportin a footbal game. you could see every blade of grass. the only problem was the satellite feed didnt have enough bandwidth, and every time the camera panned the frames started to slow down. 45 grand to see choppy frames, that gave me a big warning about the early adopters gettin burned worse than ever before. got a cheapo lcd projector at home, an had a boxin match come in hd, that was really nice too, even with native svga resolution.

        Watchin burned out actors can be pretty depressing, and doesnt justify any extra outlay. the real cool things are going to be in animation and special effects. as far as paying for sunsets. the studio would love to find a way to charge anything, even the air we breathe. but a sunset will always be free.

        Why are they making a hardware gap so that you will need the newest extra special display to veiw content? My gues is the fact that even the most decrepit crt can do xga resolution. Hd tv is a little higher in its top spec, but a 1600x1200 21 inch monitor would give a really nice picture, even if its only 21".--if hd tv could plug into pc monitors they wouldnt sell many tv's neh?

      dvd's are crap now. if you look at all the old dvd ports from video tape, the are 2,3 maybe 4 gigs ona dvd. since dvd burners became popular, almost everything clocks in at over 4.35 gigs, even if the original signal was nowhere near that. they just stuff it with crap.

        This is a very old, disturbing trend in how media is given to us. it started with floppy disks. I remember them being 720k per disk. but the manufacturers were too cheap to have 2 assembly lines for 720k and 1.44m disk. the 1.44 were quite a bit more than the 720k disks, way more than double, kinda like the dual layer dvd price point now. but the real spooky thing was you just had to punch a hole in the floppy on the other sire of the write protect button, and presto you doubled the capacity for free.
      this is the same with dvd,s but greedy corporate learned their lesson with floppies, and now ther is no real easy way to do this. it will be harder with gettin blu ray to be double sided. otherwise it begs the question: when making a new format why bother with the crappy half capacity cripple ware in the first palce? They arent fooling anyone by calling the regular version double.
      and as far as no paragraphs...i tried but it bunched them. up. never use caps unless i have to... ahh no html format and preview...happy now?

Good

[i_should_be_working]

I like competition. Maybe one of them won't be DRM'd up the ass.

Wishfull thinking, I know...

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

unfortunately, both of them are.

Re:Good

[dohboy]

I like competition. Maybe one of them won't be DRM'd up the ass.

Wishfull thinking, I know...

WTF makes this (Score:5, Insightful)?

Whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet that within two years we'll have drives that can read/write both HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

Re:Whatever

[Tackhead]

> I bet that within two years we'll have drives that can read/write both HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

And what are you going to display them on?

You'll have one dual-format HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player. It'll have two outputs. One will pipe HDMI video to your Toshiba HDTV. The other will pipe HDMI video to your Sony HDTV.

Why the second HDTV? Well, how else did you think you were going to watch any movies made by Sony Pictures? :)

And why does Sony Pictures have the right to make sure that Sony's movies are only released on Sony-formatted DVDs that will decode correctly only on Sony HDMI screens? Well, they asked for the Betamax precedent to be overtu~`~~~
Petard-hoisting error -- industry dumped

Re:Whatever

[MtViewGuy]

I bet that within two years we'll have drives that can read/write both HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

I say earlier than that! Given how fast optical drive technology has advanced in the last few years a combo HD-DVD/Blu-Ray reader drive that uses either ATA-100 or Serial ATA interfaces could be out as early as late 2006, with recorder drives coming out soon afterwards.

Why so early? Mostly because both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs can use the same drive tray system used by CD recorders and DVD+R/DVD-R recorders. It's only a matter of incorporating the right electronics and proper laser unit for the whole scheme to work.

Bad news for us

[Quickdart]

Great now we get a second formar war on out hands. The first with DVD +/- R was bad enough, but it only appllied to people with burners. Having to entirely seperate formats to the next generations of DVD's is going to piss people off to no end.

Re:Bad news for us

[slavemowgli]

It happened before, though, with VHS vs. Beta, for example; and also, with the introduction of any new standard, there always is a period where content is available in both formats.

So... content *will* be available in both formats, and it will make little difference what kind of device customers buy. However, the format war will slow the overall adoption of *both* formats. DVDs and CDs will still be around for a long while to come, and I wouldn't be surprised if, eventually, there'll be devices that simply handle both formats and thus avoid the incompatibility issues altogether (just like there's combined CD/DVD±R/W/RW readers/writers now, for example).

That's all assuming that there'll be no major DRM goof-ups, of course. If either format makes it too difficult for people to access their legitimately-bought content, then it'll lose out big time, and the manufacturers know this. Considering that there's also pressure from the other side (the "content industry") to include as much DRM as possible, though, it's gonna be interesting to see how things turn out.

Re:Bad news for us

[VFVTHUNTER]

Actually, this is a good thing. Now we can sit back and wait for all of the DVD-Jon's of the world to get their hands on them, and then simply adopt the format whose DRM is broken first. The format with the better DRM will be the loser here.

Re:Bad news for us

[Nik13]

Bad for us overall.

2 competing and non compatible formats (unlike DVD + and - R which work in *most* stuff regardless). Perhaps some studios will release exclusively on one format, which means less titles to watch overall, no matter which you buy.

Heavy DRM (since CSS has been broken on DVDs they've became extremely popular, well, that and cheap burners). That won't exactly lure people into buying either systems either. Even if it's not for pirating, the DRM will ensure you have basically no way of making use of your "fair use" rights (can't make backups or anything).

New connections. Everybody who bought previous generations of HDTVs (pioneers in a way) get to buy a new one to watch contents. They can't exactly be happy about it. Some won't bother. Hopefully the same doesn't happen again if DisplayPort becomes mainstream (replacing HDMI).

Plus, unless you live in the USA and get OTA feeds, there is very little to watch. Every city I lived at on the canada-usa border had no OTA feeds available (blocked by mountains or what not). This makes HDTV a even less attractive proposal for other countries. There's very little for us to watch (a handful of channels over cable or satellite - lots of it is just upscaled too). Not exactly a motivation to fork over $$$ for a HDTV. The only hopes we had to have something to watch were these new formats, and this format war will slow slow down adoption even further...

None of the channels we watch at home are even planned to broadcast HD anytime soon. Just because some channels are in HD won't make them more interesting. I've had a lot of interest into HDTV (and HTPCs) for a number of years, but the closer we get there, the less appealing it gets. I'm slowly starting not to care anymore, I'm not even sure I want a HDTV anymore. I can walk into a store, look at them and feel mostly indifferent whereas I used to be somewhat excited about it... That can't be good.

Plus, if it's like the old casettes -> AudioCD and VHS -> DVD, HDTV movies will cost even more (I think it's safe to assume they will), even if they cost less to produce somehow. As if 30$+ DVDs aren't expensive enough. At those prices, I'm renting online (ala netflix) and nearly buying no movies. They must expect to sell re-releases of previous movies in the new formats too. Even tough you bought the VHS version, and the DVD version - both at full price - you'll still pay full retail price for the new format (even though you've technically speaking paid to watch it - just that the new copy has slightly higher quality). I wish the **AA models weren't based on selling us the same stuff over and over again like that.

Re:Bad news for us

[Xaria]

I don't know what it's like in the US, but in Australia movies are now cheaper than ever. Getting a VHS under $30 was almost impossible, but people are buying a lot more movies now that DVD is the standard, and many people say "if it's not under $20 I'm not interested" for mainstream media (anime is of course an exception - harder to find). Net result: I haven't paid over $15 for a movie for the last year or two. They all come down within 6 months on sale.

As for HDTV, we've got a mandate that it must be broadcast over here by the main free-to-air channels. Not everything is in HD yet, but damn it's the best way to watch the footy! (I have a friend with a home cinema ... now THAT was awesome).

Re:Bad news for us

[Txiasaeia]

The difference between the VHS & Beta "war" and the upcoming Blu/HD war is the fact that, for the most part, there wasn't anything *like* a VCR before the two competing formats came out. Customers wanted a product that worked and weren't willing to wait until a single product had dominated the market place. This shortened the "war" significantly.

On the other hand, as a self-professed media junkie, I could care less at this point whether or not there's a next-generation-DVD war. A DVD played on a progressive-scan DVD player with component-out is pretty damn good, and I can record all I want on my VCR. I don't need to buy next generation DVD hardware to watch a movie at home.

There were two significant reasons to jump from VHS to DVD - quality and convenience. The quality difference between a $50 VCR and a $50 DVD player is astounding. I also don't have to rewind my DVDs, and they won't wear out after I play one fifteen times. Several Baby Einstein DVDs can attest to this fact, having been played hundreds of times each.

And I *like* buying the next and greatest shiny thing. Folks like my parents, who still watch VHS tapes along with their formidable DVD collection, see no reason why they should upgrade to a better format. If it so happens that they stop making DVDs and switch over to HD or Blu, well, there's a reason for you, but otherwise, they simply don't care, and I suspect that there's more folks out there like my parents than there are like me.

ps3

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares, the ps3 all but makes it a moot argument. The adoption rate of that particular player makes HD-DVD a foregone conclusion.

Re:ps3

[Hellasboy]

and what makes you think that sony isn't lying about including bluray on the ps3? how much did they over exaggerate on the ps2? how many people actually use the ps2 as their primary dvd player? or even as a dvd player?

also, the cost of the bluray player. Wasn't it reported that they would be around 500$ when they come out? well, how is sony going to cram a bluray player, ps3 multi core cell processor, a video card similar to a geforce 7800, usb, ieee, hard drive, etc for it's purported 5-600$ or so price tag. I think they'll be doing the same thing as MS and release a dvd version at first.

Re:ps3

[Eric Smith]

how is sony going to cram a bluray player, ps3 multi core cell processor, a video card similar to a geforce 7800, usb, ieee, hard drive, etc for it's purported 5-600$ or so price tag.

Of the items you list, only the hard drive is expensive. Are you sure there's going to he a hard drive in the standard unit (as opposed to an option)?

In any case, even with a hard drive, the BOM cost should easily be under $500. If they are trying to compete aggressively with Microsoft, they'll set the wholesale price near or even below the manufacturing cost, and plan to make their money on game sales and licensing.

That business model is nothing new to the game console industry; in fact, it's one of the big reasons that they try to lock up the console to prevent unauthorized (i.e., unlicensed) games from being developed and sold by other parties.

Re:ps3

[Anonymous Coward]

I use my ps2 as my primary player. Why have a stack of dvd players when the ps2 includes one? Works fine too. And including Blu-Ray, lessie because Sony is making them, and they can take a loss? Just curious - do you even know fuck-all how the video game industry works?

Survey says - "not in the slightest".

Re:ps3

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly right. Sony is going to put a million Blu-Ray compatible devices in living rooms around the world with the PS3. Then they'll sell a ton of Blu-Ray movies to play on them.

On the other hand, who in the heck is going to run out to buy a stand-alone HD-DVD player to replace a DVD player that works just fine? Nobody, that's who.

Re:ps3

[ebuck]

It doesn't really matter if you use the ps3 to play your BluRay DVDs.

That's one million more BluRay DVD readers being produced to the two hundered thousand HD-DVD players being produced for the XBox 360. In manufacturing, those numbers make BluRay decoding chips and other required componentry commodity items, compared to the almost-commodity HD-DVD components.

So I expect that after ps3 sales slow down, fab plants will be able to supply every BluRay drive system with cheaper parts. That could generate a huge market for cheap BluRay players. If HD-DVD doesn't take off before the ps3 sales evens out, it is unlikely that it will ever be able to recover.

Re:ps3

[jericho4.0]

Admitadly, Sony has stretched the truth in the past, but there is no way that they will not put bluray in the ps3. Sony needs bluray to succeed.

Re:ps3

[ElleyKitten]

>> how many people actually use the ps2 as their primary dvd player?

Me!

Seriously, if either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray is going to succeed, do you think it will be the one that will be in millions of gamers' homes, or the one that won't? If you had a PS3, might you not buy or rent a Blu-Ray movie on a a whim or out of curiousity? Even if only every third PS3 owner bought or rented a blu-ray disk that's still a lot of sales that HD-DVD can't even touch. I don't think people are really ready for a new movie format, but plenty are certainly ready for a new game system. You make a good point that Sony might not actually put Blu-Ray in, but if they do, HD-DVD is dead in the water.

Re:ps3

[BalbanesBeoulve]

The PS3 will not ship with a hard drive. That's been confirmed.

Re:ps3

[KillShill]

one a side note, they also prevent the owners of the hardware, i.e. the customers from making full use of their bought and paid for product.

that is immensely illegal... had we any judges who would stand up for the public that is. unauthorized code execution... on a machine that isn't owned by sony/ms/nintendo... tell me how that in any way is legal or moral.

if the ps3 is 5-600, it'll be as popular as the 3do.
expensive consoles have NEVER been commercially popular. the neo geo is another example of the enormous market penetration that expensive consoles achieve.

Re:ps3

[kex]

according to http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/28/news_61282 95.html, it should debut in the US at $399, and cost around $494.

Re:ps3

[igb]

$500 dollars is not going to make a mass market product for film replay. DVD players are about 30 pounds, so I presume about 40 dollars, for perfectly usable quality. That drives volume for the disks, not high-end exotica.

That a PS3 will play them doesn't help, because families (you know, involving adults that have had sex, in case /. readers need that spelt out) might want to watch a film when little Jimmy isn't blowing things up. Not to mention that the user interface on games-boxes-acting-as-DVD-players isn't exactly slick.

ian

Re:ps3

[Eric Smith]

the user interface on games-boxes-acting-as-DVD-players isn't exactly slick

It's hardly any worse than the typical three-million-button remote control that standalone DVD players come with. "Where's the damn pause key?" Disgust with that is one of the main reasons I bought a Pronto.

Re:ps3

[Eric Smith]

one a side note, they also prevent the owners of the hardware, i.e. the customers from making full use of their bought and paid for product.

I fully agree. I wasn't endorsing the business model, just telling it like it is.

that is immensely illegal...

Maybe some places. AFAIK, it's legal in the US. Unfortunately.

In fact, not only is it legal for them to do that, but they've made it illegal for us to do anything about it (DMCA anti-circumvention provisions). And unfortunately there have been court rulings in multiple countries that "mod chips" are illegal, even if they can be used for legal purposes. :-(

Re:ps3

[Eric Smith]

Since it won't have a hard drive, I think Merrill Lynch has grossly overestimated the manufacturing cost. The Cell chip and BD-ROM transports won't cost Sony anywhere near $100 each; more likely it's around $30 for the Cell and $40 for the BD-ROM transport.

I'm somewhat surprised that they expect the unit to have a BD-ROM drive rather than a BD-RW drive, though the latter would probably add $10-15 to the manufacturing cost.

Of course, the manufacturing cost doesn't factor in the R&D cost. Merrill Lynch claims that Sony has spent over $1.8 billion for the development and production of the Cell chip. That seems rather high, but maybe the "production" part includes the cost of a new semiconductor fab, or part of the cost.

Re:ps3

[Hellasboy]

interesting article. this will probably be modded as "Troll" also since some ps3 fanboy mod takes my questioning the status quo as Trolling... but I think it's a valid question and statement. To hell with it, mod me down again if need be but I think I raise valid points.

I just find it odd that an 8 core ppc chip with 2.5 megs of cpu memory will cost ... cost 100$ (ibm isn't doing this for free you know) i mean, compare this with the cost of a single core ppc chip. The BD-Rom... about 100$, seems about right. Then there's the cost of RAM. etc etc etc etc... i'm just repeating myself now.

But let's say they sell 18 million PS3s (this year, remember that 60 million ps2 were sold world wide up to this date), 1.8 billion in research translates to 100$ in research per PS3. Then there is the hardware, i still don't believe the hardware costs roughly 500$ (Obviously i think more) but let's use that. So they sell it for 400$. Right now it would be at a net loss of 200$ per unit. Then factor in the cost for packaging, transportation, stores cut, cabling costs, controller, and advertising and we're not looking at "only" a 200$ loss per unit.

Yes, they will make some of that back up with accessories and games. But how much will they make back considering that not everyone that owns a PS2 will buy a PS3 and there will be those who buy the XBox 360 and not bother spending that much money on buying a PS3? The overall number of video game systems sold per generation has dropped each and every generation.

I think that this is a valid question and discussion... not flamebait-ish or trollish.

Just flip a coin!

[ThatGeek]

I often feel that it's better to have a mediocre standard than no standard at all. No one is going to buy until one format is dominant...

If they had just done some kind of binding arbitration or even picked one format randomly, they'd be rolling in dough. Consumers would be "forced" to upgrade (yet again) to a new standard format.

Instead, no one upgrades, and the companies miss out on potential profit.

Re:Just flip a coin!

[Anonymous Coward]

I often feel that it's better to have a mediocre standard than no standard at all.

Windows user, right?

Re:Just flip a coin!

[ciroknight]

You feel the need for a mediocre standard, when a good standard could be created through just a bit of comprimise? Ignorance.

You see, even in this case, when it comes to not taking the standard (like in the DVD case), us consumers will have to pay for drives which reads both kinds of disks. Which means we have to fork out more money for those drives, and those companies manufacturing those drives lose profits, which make them raise prices even more.

Competition is great, but in the media world, standarization is a nessicary evil to insure data durability. Who wants to buy a drive they can't even use in two years? You might be quick to raise your hand, but as I recall, they still sell music on CDs, and I'm pretty sure personally movies will continue to sell on DVDs long after the HD generation drops. People like me who can't afford to jump to HD TVs, 40 dollar movies and oppressive DRM.

Getting back on point though, I think it's better to have a Good standard than no standard at all, as mediocre just doesn't do the job. Imagine if your car or your house had to follow mediocre standards...

Re:Just flip a coin!

[noidentity]

"I often feel that it's better to have a mediocre standard than no standard at all."

Exactly. The value of a format is not in its technical excellence alone; data formats provide a foundation for development by all parties. Two foundations divides work between them and thus progress.

Re:Just flip a coin!

[evilviper]

I often feel that it's better to have a mediocre standard than no standard at all.

Absolutely not. No way. Never.

A standard is something you have to live with for a long time. You want it to be as good as humanly possible.

I would rather have the strong and weak battle it out, leaving the stronger format as the defacto standard, rather than some mediocre monopoly.

Of course, that's the point of view from a consumer, not a stock-holder...

Re:Just flip a coin!

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is going to buy until one format is dominant...

Want to bet? If the competing "standards" continue for any length of time, people will just start buying one to keep up. And when one format finally wins the war, there'll be a whole bunch of pissed off people in the other camp who now have to buy new hardware. Already happened in the VHS vs. Beta war.

Re:Just flip a coin!

[fluch]

"Instead, no one upgrades, and the companies miss out on potential profit."

And I bet they will then blame the movie pirates, p2p networks and all those evil technologies for the loss of profit...

Re:Just flip a coin!

[brunes69]

You see, even in this case, when it comes to not taking the standard (like in the DVD case), us consumers will have to pay for drives which reads both kinds of disks. Which means we have to fork out more money for those drives, and those companies manufacturing those drives lose profits, which make them raise prices even more.

Yeah, because I know my DVD burner I just bought that can burn DVD+-RW/DVD+-R/DVD-RAM/CD-RW (that's 6 formats BTW, not just two) was way over priced.

I mean 40 dollars??? HELL it cost at least as much as an evenings dinner. How can anyone expect to pay that???

</sarcasm>

Re:Just flip a coin!

[Lagged2Death]

A standard is something you have to live with for a long time. You want it to be as good as humanly possible.

Can you think of any widely successful standard that met this level of excellence? I'm not sure I can.

Consider the spam problems SMTP makes inevitable. Consider the basic clumsiness of FTP. Consider the apalling top-surface scratch-vulnerability of audio CDs. Consider the atrocious, seldom-used, half-baked "in-player pan-and-scan conversion" of DVD-Video, or the anamorphic scheme that throws large amounts of picture resolution away when watching a widescreen movie on a standard 4:3 TV. Or the downright bizarre telecine encoding and de-encoding necessary to watch film-based DVDs on a progressive-scan TV. Consider the silmultaneously Draconian and doomed-to-fail DRM efforts on next-gen formats.

The drafters of the standards for these successful systems and formats were willing to sacrifice a measure of absolute engineering perfection in favor of expedient social/political acceptance. Because like it or not, politics matter. Getting consensus from large groups of people is both crucial and difficult. But in the digital era more than ever, the clumsy, quick-and-dirty engineering that makes consensus more likely can be worked around, smoothed over, or otherwise patched up later.

Re:Just flip a coin!

[evilviper]

Consider the spam problems SMTP makes inevitable.

None of these "standards" you mention were formed through competition. SMTP had no direct competition, nor did anything you've listed. They suck mainly because they did not have competition.

Consider some products that DID have competition.

Because like it or not, politics matter.

I don't like it, and I don't agree.

But in the digital era more than ever, the clumsy, quick-and-dirty engineering that makes consensus more likely can be worked around, smoothed over, or otherwise patched up later.

Not true. Look at anything like DVDs and see how crappy the results are. Huge ammounts of artifacts, due to poor design.

More on-topic, consider the failed effort that lead to this story. If they had agreed, that would mean BluRay discs would be gone, and we'd be forced to accept significantly lower-capacity HD-DVD discs instead. I'd rather have it fought-out in the market, rather than accept mediocre crap as the only option. They will get critical mass, it will just take longer because of competition.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Well that certainly makes the decision easier.

[Mindwarp]

I pick..... neither!

Re:Well that certainly makes the decision easier.

[Mindwarp]

I pick..... neither!

I should probably clarify that statement before I get branded as a troll: I will pick whichever format will not automatically assume that I'm a criminal and therefore prevent me from watching a true HD picture on my 3 year old $3500 HD television set which, of course, does not have an HDMI interface.

Hence the original comment.

Re:Well that certainly makes the decision easier.

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Sorry, I think you are screwed.

Re:Well that certainly makes the decision easier.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have no fear, bro, technology is here

Re:Well that certainly makes the decision easier.

[DigiShaman]

A lot of people are that have bough HDTV sets. It's bad enough that people have to worry about Coax, S-Video, Composite, Component, DVI, and HDMI, 16:9, 4:3, LCD, Plasma, Projection, CRT, HDTV Ready, HDTV Compatible, Cable card, Cable box, Dish box.....and a lot I'm sure I left out.

Momentum is just now starting to that people are dropping down the cash to purchase a new HDTV that will run a fortune ($800 to 15k). But to *then* tell these customers their new set wont be compatible with the format will not only piss off early adopters, but reaffirm the publics natural reason to hold of on new technology because of the obsolescence issue. End the end, you just rebuff the catch 22. People wont purchase HDTV untill there is a standard. The stations won't spend the money on HDTV broadcasting equipment untill there is a large enough home install base.

Re:Well that certainly makes the decision easier.

[AbRASiON]

Here Here, goddamnit we need to do more than just post comments here - we need to make some kind of troll-like page which really catches the attention of these idiots designing this spec.

My TV is a 3200$ AUD (2600$ US?) SIX MONTH old HD-CRT, I'll be damned if I'm selling it due to no HDMI ports.

Re:Well that certainly makes the decision easier.

[6th time lucky]

My older-than-me 1976 built TV with a *turning* channel changer (!) finally gave up the other month, and i was thinking that it was now time to go HD.

But given that i knew about all this DRM shite i went with a $250 singer TV (they made sewing machines as far as i knew, right next to the sorny and panaphonics...). I've got nothing against spending $3000 dollars for a premium TV, but not every bloody year!

I also dissuaded my parents from going DVD/Hard disk recorder as most still use analogue tuners, and would have to be thrown out in a few years due to the digital broadast deadline (in Australia). And i wont get one myself as i of course still have a crappy analogue TV...

So several major purchases have been put off because of stupid built in obsolescence and/or format wars.

I dont even have a DVD player that will take burnt disks because i want a DVD recorder (but of course they arnt digital...)

I'm not sure if I'll ever buy anything again at this rate... Not unless i get a big increase in my disposable income, a decrease in my care factor, and a TV unit that can hold the 3 TV's and 12 players required for compatabilty.

Re:Well that certainly makes the decision easier.

[pe1chl]

I think you should count yourself lucky when you are in a country where HDTV is even considered.

Over here, aside from the state broadcasters who have their budget cut further every year, we have a bunch of commercial broadcasters who really don't give a d*mn about picture quality. Even programme quality is of no concern to them.

Their business is to take a night's worth of airtime, put as many commercials on it as possible, and then fill the remaining time with material to avoid the viewer zapping away too quickly. Thus their only metric is viewer count.

As the "average viewer" does not own high-end equipment, they are not interested in providing good picture quality as that would not significantly increase the number of viewers.
Just like they are not interested in providing subtitling for the deaf, because the average viewer is not deaf.

The fact that those channels still air movies in 16:9 or even 2.35:1 format as letterboxed 4:3 is a very clear proof of that situation. When a letterboxed picture is considered acceptable, don't hold your breath for HDTV...

Dual format?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I'm hoping someone will have the bright idea of making a "dual format" player, much like the DVD-R/DVD+R burners. Of course, we never had a dual format VCR (beta/vhs)...but then, at least the Blu-ray and HD DVD's will be the same physical size.

Re:Dual format?

[NekoXP]

Same laser wavelength too.

I wonder actually what is so different between the two formats.. the way it's
encoded on the disk, right? Isn't this a SOFTWARE issue (drive firmware) more
than anything, or is there really some strangeness involved that I am missing.

Maybe the dual-layer (and triple-layer) technologies use incompatible ways of
focussing the laser; but isn't that also down to software and the use of another
lens (like CDRW/DVD drives have already..)

I dunno, really.. I don't have access to the specs. Who does? Who can make a
really informed statement that dual-format drives will be possible?

The trouble then is which format will the industry pick?

I would say HD-DVD - because it's inherent cheapness (same disc layout as DVD,
same manufacturing facilities and little changes to machinery will make it as cheap
if not cheaper than DVD). Blu-Ray requires people to retool.

Blu-Ray may end up being the custom format that runs the Playstation 3, like UMD
is the custom format that runs the PSP, Matsushita's discs were the custom format that ran the Gamecube, and GD-ROM was the custom format that ran the Dreamcast.

Besides Sony releasing their own movies in Blu-Ray format for the PS3 and a clutch of Sony & Samsung players, why would any cheap-ass (and we're all cheapasses at heart) bother with it? Remember in the VHS/Betamax war, Sony lost at the end of the day. They are not infallible and we shouldn't just think that because they have the Playstation that they will not lose again.

Neko

Re:Dual format?

[skreeech]

Lots of people would prefer a PS3 over a next gen DVDplayer. The cheapass's not wanting to buy another dvd player don't matter. The cheapasses won't buy any dvd player because they'll be using their ps3.

Re:Dual format?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Remember in the VHS/Betamax war, Sony lost at the >end of the day.

I will point out, for the millionth time, that Sony didn't really "lose" the Beta/VHS war. Beta is, and has been since it's release, *the* standard for professional video production. It is quite a nice format, and a very good business - while VHS is pretty much dead.

Re:Dual format?

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides Sony releasing their own movies in Blu-Ray format for the PS3 and a clutch of Sony & Samsung players, why would any cheap-ass (and we're all cheapasses at heart) bother with it?

Don't forget that Apple picked it, too, so every cheap-ass who wants to make a movie will be turning out DVDs or Blu-Ray discs.

And cheap-asses with movie cameras includes a lot of pr0n. I've heard a lot of people say that pr0n drives the adoption of new technologies.

If I was in business, I wouldn't write off Blu-Ray so fast. I wouldn't write off anything that's backed by so many powerful companies as this -- including Sony, Fox, Disney, EA, Apple, HP, Sun, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Sharp, and Samsung. It may get beaten, eventually, but I can't imagine that these companies wouldn't put up quite a fight.

Re:Dual format?

[NekoXP]

I think there is a lot to be said about the backing on both sides. Blu-Ray seems to
have some cute advantages but mostly it's hype about storage density. I wonder if
that extra space really makes up for the extra cost of manufacture, just so it
plays on Sony Playstation boxes.

There are a buttload more DVD players in the world than there are PS2's. And a
buttload of them are made very cheaply in China, Taiwan, Indonesia etc. - you
think they will rally around the more expensive technology for drives and media,
in order to gain 10GB of space?

Neko

Re:Dual format?

[NekoXP]

Count the number of $40 DVD players Walmart sells each year.

And Target. And Best Buy. Pick stores and see the cheap DVD player models. See
how many are sold over and over and over.

I am gonna tell you now they vastly outsell Sony Playstation 2 consoles.

Lots of people don't want a $499 games console but they sure wanna rent movies from
Blockbuster, with the cheapest hardware they can get.

The VHS/Betamax hardware war was won because JVC licensed the format out to every
manufacturer who wanted to make a machine. Not because "everyone will want a Sony
box to play Betamax! Because it's Sony!", but because consumers could pick any
damn thing and play any damn thing.

You think too much like a geek; and not a consumer.

Neko

Re:Dual format?

[KillShill]

and why would anyone use their expensive ps3's to play movies, wearing down the motor and reducing the life span of the unit?

lots of people have had to replace their ps2's for similar reasons... i know i wouldn't use it more than necessary, if i were to buy one which i won't.

Redundent

[SteveXE]

How many times are we gonna hear they gave up?

Re:Redundent

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll hear it until you learn how to spell, apparently.

Unsurprising?

[DianeOfTheMoon]

I know people keep wondering if we are going to have another format war, but from the look of things, Microsoft may be the only company that is putting any weight behind HD-DVD...and since they are delaying the inclusion of HD-DVD drives in the XBox 360, I'd almost say it's dead before it gets out the door.

Re:Unsurprising?

[WebGangsta]

Especially with Sony pimping Blu-Ray in the PS3. Presto! Instant marketshare.

C'mon -- how many folks bought the PS2 because it was a game machine AND a DVD player?

Same as SACD/DVD-Audio

[hashts]

This issue is strinkingly similar to the Hi-Def Audio industry where you have two competing standards which are incompatible with each other.

Everyone loses, esp. the consumers who backed either format. For everyone else, CD's are still good enough and market penetration for either of the new audio standards is VERY low. Same exact thing will happen here, DVD will be good enough for just about everyone, and only the Videophiles will be jumping on HD-DVD or Blu-ray.

How sad when companies fail to understand history will repeat itself with the HD video market.

Re:Same as SACD/DVD-Audio

[Monkelectric]

Wrongzz!! SACD Suckz0rs and DVD-A R00l3s j0u!!!!

Actually, I am very gratified to see this development ... Now we have draconian DRM *AND* a format war. Nobody is going to buy these things.

I was also thinking yesterday ... all the early adopter HDTV owners got BURNED, now they're supposed to early addopt an HDTV *AND* a expensive blueray player?

Re:Same as SACD/DVD-Audio

[Jeff DeMaagd]

While it is a tad more complex than this, I hope another option is that players will read both standards like DVD writers do now. I mean, the difference between plus and dash weren't that huge, with benefits tilting slightly toward plus. This time, I think the benefits tilt a bit more strongly toward Blu-Ray, though as a recording format, it seems the HD-DVD group is fine with hobbling capacity to save a few cents per disc in replication costs.

Anyway, on the similarity, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD both use the same laser wavelength, and I think with a little jiggering, the same optical heads could read both. The both more or less use the same set of audio standards, both support three different video codecs, and both use the same basic encryption standards. I'm not sure about HD-DVD, but Blu-Ray supports overlaying video streams onto the main video, which could be nifty.

Re:Same as SACD/DVD-Audio

[hattig]

You know what irks me?

The fact that even $50 DVD players have digital 5.1 audio out, yet can't play a bloody DVD Audio disc. It's only a matter of piping the bloody digital data from the disc to the outputs.

Why? I bet it is licensing. DVD Audio would have been the outright winner by now if it had been included in standard DVD players. But no, I'm sure the audio market got all scared and said 'No' to that, so they could continue to sell their expensive dedicated players. Sadly, because of the format war, like someone else pointed out above, 90% of the market disappeared, so they made less money in the end. I also expect there is some DRM reason, if the audio was available in DRM-removed format on a 5.1 digital output, then it can easily be stolen!

Maybe Sony or Toshiba should look at that and think how bad this is for their business. But no, they won't, it doesn't apply to them, they're too big for that, they're too proud to admit it. I'm hoping that because it happened once already, it will happen again. DVDs are good enough, except for the minor percentage of people that have 60"+ HDTVs that will notice the encoding blockiness.

In the meantime, my local superstore is selling new DVDs from 97p each. Sure, the 97p DVDs aren't blockbuster films, but you can't go wrong with over an hour of classic cartoons and so on for that price.

George Lucas announcement

[Fastball]

Sales of his Star Wars saga will be put on sale in both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats. Han will shoot first on one format while Greedo is quicker to the draw on the other. No word on which format will have it right, i.e. Han shooting first.

Re:George Lucas announcement

[Anonymous Coward]

sweet! jokes about han shooting first. you so rock.

Re:George Lucas announcement

[Misagon]

The hardcore Star Wars collectors will still buy both formats, to make their collection "complete" and then bitch a lot on message boards about which version is the best from a technical standpoint, followed by a petition to George Lucas to release the version where Han shoots first in the other format, whilst there are multiple independent attempts at transcoding that version to the other format and to the new holographic HVD disc which has 10 × more space and which is what most of the rest of the world is using instead.

Re:George Lucas announcement

[KillShill]

anyone else visualize that greedo represents the copyright cartel industry?

in that way, i applaud han for shooting first. i couldn't have done it better myself.

Re:It's Like a Presidential Election...

[MBCook]

Ah. But unlike a Presidential election (where you must choose a new president), we DO have a 3rd choice: DVD.

Consumers can simply keep buying DVDs and ignore the new formats, thus sending a no-confidence vote. Now we have some time, because most people can't watch HD-DVDs or Blu-Ray discs because of their analog TVs. The picture looks exactly like that of a DVD (or maybe a Superbit DVD). So most people have no reason to buy one of those formats yet. This is the time to get the message out there about how crippled they are (remind people about the no fast-forwarding on DVDs as an example, no one likes that and EVERYONE has seen it).

One the formats start to get real sales from normal people, the battle will be lost (except through the courts, which will probably be a no starter thanks to congress's "Lifetime + 30,000 years" copyright policy).

For all the geek interest we have in the new formats, as a DVD replacement they are as significant as DVDs were in 1997/8: none.

Other technology

[zymano]

Whats going on with holographic storage ?

Seems like there's news but no product to ship .
http://news.google.com/news?q=holographic+storage& hl=en&hs=t42&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla: en-US:official&sa=N&tab=wn

Re:Other technology

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been superceded by isolinear chips.

Though personally I'm holding out for the duotronic processors.

Re:Other technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Markup works

Re:Other technology

[transami]

http://www.inphase-technologies.com/news/terabyte_ benchmark.html

Makes the choice really easy...

[oldenuf2knowbetter]

Don't buy anything and simply wait until they finally come up with a unified standard. The fact that they couldn't negotiate a deal because they both had products in the pipe rather suggests that neither of them was there to compromise.

Re:It's Like a Presidential Election...

[sik0fewl]

I think I'm going to vote for a third party!

Superiority Complex.

[keilinw]

I don't understand why we're having a format war. We, as consumers, hold the ultimate power. Do we or do we NOT purchase whatever product the comanies are selling. As a self professed GEEK it appears obvious that the product with the best feature list wins my vote. It appears to me that the media companies have WAY MORE POWER THAN THEY DESERVE. Do they really think that because we're all going to buy next summers blockbuster hit that we'll willing purchase it on an inferiour product? I for one, wont. We should excercise our rights as consumers and take back some of the power. In the end we are paying for it afterall!

Re:Superiority Complex.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

As a self professed GEEK it appears obvious that the product with the best feature list wins my vote.

And if it had worked that way with videotape, Beta would have won.

Beta had the better tech. VHS had the big prerecorded film library - and also reved sooner to add speeds with even lower quality in a tradeoff for longer play time.

Beta lost.

Do they really think that because we're all going to buy next summers blockbuster hit that we'll willing purchase it on an inferiour product?

Why not? That's how it worked before.

Re:Superiority Complex.

[keilinw]

Yes, it appears that we do live in a society of FOLLOWERS. But, as educated people I believe that we have the responsibility to TRY and make a difference. I certainly hope to stand for a product that is vastly superiour regardless of brand, celebrity, etc, sponsorship. Since we're on the subject of corporate abuse of power.. why do I have to pay for my cable TV so that I can watch even more commercials? I though commercials were so supposed to subsidize TV.. Shouldn't cable TV be free then? Hmmm interesting. Well, lets just say I am a consumer advocate. We need to do something about abusive companies jerking consumers around.

Japan, Inc. = LIE

[Anonymous Coward]

The disintegration of negotiations to create a unified DVD format proves, once and for all, that a unified Japan, Inc. simply does not exist. Japanese multinational corporations like Toshiba and Sony are fierce competitors. Each competitor wants to slay any other competitor and to drink its blood.

The exception would be non-exporting companies, like construction companies, which have ties to the Japanese mafia. Non-exporting companies often engage in cartel-like behavior, locking out competitors.

Unlike the Beta-tape battle, Sony will win this struggle. The main reason is that Matsushita (a.k.a. Panasonic) is supporting Sony's DVD standard. Whereas Sony is the Mercedes of Japanese electronics, Matsushita is the Volkswagon -- cheap and enjoyed by the masses.

The Panasonic samurai will de-capitate Toshiba with his sword. So, let it be written. So, let it be done.

Re:Japan, Inc. = LIE

[Anonymous Coward]

"The disintegration of negotiations to create a unified DVD format proves, once and for all, that a unified Japan, Inc. simply does not exist."

This is correct.

"Whereas Sony is the Mercedes of Japanese electronics, Matsushita is the Volkswagon -- cheap and enjoyed by the masses."

This is incorrect.

"The Panasonic samurai will de-capitate Toshiba with his sword. So, let it be written. So, let it be done."

This is proof that you are an imbecile.

Re:Japan, Inc. = LIE

[PCeye]

Using your analogy, both Sony and Matsushita are like Volkswagons.

Both make good products but neither produces a product that excels in performance or function in any way. Once any are off warranty...ugh!

DRM will kill them

[ad0gg]

I'm an so called early adopter, had dvd player before they became common, had hdtv before the stations even started broadcasting. There's no way, i'm throwing out a $3000 tv to be able to watch hi def video disks. Thats absurb. Right now I can watch all my hdtv movies either on HD HBO or HD OnDemand all going threw component outs on my cable reciever. Thats good enough for me. I higly doubt my cable company is going to require HDMI or HDCP DVI anytime soon.

Re:DRM will kill them

[droopycom]

They dont really care about analog, but you wont but able to do much with a non DHCP DVI/HDMI.

But I've just been told that there is box for sale in germany that take encrypted HDMI in input and output clear HDMI... I guess such a box is illegal in the US though...

Re:DRM will kill them

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an so called early adopter

i.e., when masturbating becomes boring.

Re:DRM will kill them

[Nik13]

You'd be surprised to see how many very well paid guys I work with that would fail basic grammar tests. English isn't my mother tongue but it doesn't prevent them from turning to me for help spelling simple words...

The common they're/their/there, its/it's, should have/should of spring to mind...

Yet it doesn't prevent them from having a job that pays nicely. I find it looks highly unprofessional, most of them don't seem to know about spell checkers either.

Plus, I've people that weren't rich that had expensive things like this. They just overspend then eat a lot of kraft dinner... Sad but it happens.

Re:DRM will kill them

[ad0gg]

Specs say they are disabling anything above 480p unless it flows through secured HDMI or HDCP DVI.

Re:DRM will kill them

[farble1670]

spell checkers won't catch their/they're/there or its/it's. that'd be a grammar checker. you'd be surprised how many well paid guys don't know the difference between a grammar and spell checker.

Re:DRM will kill them

[Vorondil28]

Chances are the parent poster did, in fact, pass "3rd fucking grade grammar"...

...in a different language.

Insensitive clod...

Re:DRM will kill them

[Nik13]

I didn't say it would specifically catch those, but rather that they don't know that such things exist (or don't think about using them at least). The examples and the checker were unrelated (they were in different paragraphs, too).

I'm sure most people understood my point, no need to nitpick.

Re:DRM will kill them

[Thing 1]

Apologies for nit-picking in advance, but I've never seen any appropriate use of "should of".

And, I completely agree with you that grammar (or, even, English) is not tested for nearly as much as coding ability. After all, the company isn't selling documents to their clients!

Re:DRM will kill them

[Nik13]

I don't think there is an appropriate use of it indeed. I can't make a sentence with it at least. But lots of co-workers write that instead of "should have"... No need to apologize, that's just a minor misunderstanding.

As you say, it's not checked nearly enough. Especially nowadays where most people don't have their own secretary to look after things like typing, spelling and grammar. So we end up receiving documents from managers that are sometimes hard to read. It reflects upon us all - not just the individual who wrote it. I've never seen things like that in a job interview, but it wouldn't be a bad idea.

Don't get me wrong - I don't expect everyone to type super fast, have no accent, or be perfect in any way, but some of the stuff out there is just hard to parse. Not in a sentence structure way (I can be blamed for that one), but people using anything that sounds close enough to how they pronounce it.

Re:DRM will kill them

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never seen any appropriate use of "should of"

You must be new here; you should of been reading slashdot last week.

Re:DRM will kill them

[Col Bat Guano]

... about spell checkers either.

Pity those same people you complained about called them "spell" (rather than "spelling") checkers.

Most people's knowledge of grammar is going down the toilet. I just accept that most people don't know what's wrong with...

I did that real quick.

and similar.

Re:DRM will kill them

[Txiasaeia]

I wish I had a link for you, but when I looked at it a few days ago I noted that the price was 400. Ouch. Anybody know what it's called to help the OP out?

Re:DRM will kill them

[msergeant]

Well der, it'd be "I done that real quick".

Re:DRM will kill them

[DickBreath]

Apologies for nit-picking in advance, but I've never seen any appropriate use of "should of".

Here you go...

I should of shot dem ignert gubmit foaks when day came into my propertee.

I sincerely hope that you find that example to be helpful.

Re:DRM will kill them

[Anonymous Coward]

"He ate many more than he should of the tasty candies."

Heh

[Trip Ericson]

Meanwhile, holographic storage, with its 200GB+, will move right in and take over.

Re:Heh

[superpulpsicle]

I wonder what the status of that is. So much talk way back about Holographic cubes that write on light flashes. No needle grinds or physical motor. Can be chucked across a living room no problem. Where is this stuff now?

Obligatory Simpsons quote

[vjzuylen]

Kang: "Go ahead, throw your vote away! Muahahahahah!"

Re:Obligatory Simpsons quote

[I'm Troy McClure]

"You have to vote for one of us. It's a two party system. Hahahahaha." Crowd murmuring: He's right, it's a two-party system.

Lemmings...

[Anonymous Coward]

And I predict that, much like all technology nowadays, the market leader will be the one that is not technologically superior (*cough* Mac v. Windows, Betamax v. VHS, etc. *cough*) but the one that one's neighbor has.

Re:Lemmings...

[Max_Abernethy]

With formats, one's neighbor having it makes it better. The more people I can exchange data with on some platform, the more useful that platform is to me.

Re:Lemmings...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. While it does make it handier and there's some utility in that, it doesn't automatically make it better. There was a time when my neighbors were more likely to have had horses and buggies than cars...but that doesn't make the horse-and-buggy better than a car....more popular maybe, but not better.

And I'm sure that by "more people I can exchange data with" you mean of non-copyrighted stuff. ;-)

Re:Lemmings...

[Anonymous Coward]

If this was like Betamax v. VHS there would be no porn movies available on Blue-ray and Blue-ray would only be able to record 60 minutes of video i.e. not enough video to record 98% of the movies in existence.

P.S. Betamax sucked.

Re:Lemmings...

[KillShill]

macos only runs on apple hardware, so in that sense, windows is far superior. it can bsod on any chip architecture or emulation that the owner can dream of and not be deterred by a "EULA" telling them they can't.

beta wasn't all that much better than vhs in most areas. better quality with shorter runtime obviously didn't appeal to the end users of the time.

Re:It's Like a Presidential Election...

[Raul654]

As the parent poster so eloquently points out, format wars are inherently bad. One technology analyst on NPR said he estimates that format wars can reduce a potential market by "as much as 90%" - that is, the two formats combined sell up to 9 times fewer DVDs than if you only had one format.

Setback for DRM. Good indeed !

[Anonymous Coward]

If there were a unified format, there would be nothing to stop the new DRM from taking a foothold. Remember the "self-destruct" feature to be implemented on all new players ? Strangely enough, this format war is good for consumers.

Then we as consumers need to band together

[GuyverDH]

When these mega-corps decide to release multiple formats, we as consumers must unite to inform them that they have erred, and that they must go back, throw out all their in-compatible CRAP, and come up with a SINGLE unified format, period.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I for one am tired of the mess these companies have made of the entire media industry.

DLT, SDLT, LTO, SLTO, 3480, 3490, 3590, QIC (and it's miriad of formats), VHS, VHS-C, 4mm, 8mm, DVC, CD-R, CD+R, CD-RW, CD+RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, dual layer, single layer, half inch, on and on, ad nauseum.

Let's see them come up with a single multi-purpose format, sans DRM and then get it into production.

Re:Then we as consumers need to band together

[Just Some Guy]

they must go back, throw out all their in-compatible CRAP, and come up with a SINGLE unified format, period.

You say that is if any of all of those media have anything in common besides the fact that they hold data.

VHS is an analog format that sucks for anything digital.

Digital tape is great for many things, but has horrible latency.

Optical disks are great for random access, but have terrible capacities.

CD-Rs were popularized before DVD players were even considered and before the technology that made them possible was affordable to mortals.

By your ideals, the automotive industry is negligent because they didn't all standardize on a 2005 model car for all uses, including agricultural and industrial, in 1980. That would make as much sense as what you propose.

Re:Then we as consumers need to band together

[Anonymous Coward]

And cars!
I don't know about the rest of you, but I for one am tired of the mess these companies have made of the entire automobile industry.

    Austin Mini, Ford F150, Porsche 911, on and on, ad nauseum. Why are there so many incompatible formats????

When these mega-corps decide to release multiple formats, we as consumers must unite to inform them that they have erred, and that they must go back, throw out all their in-compatible CRAP, and come up with a SINGLE unified format, period.

Re:Then we as consumers need to band together

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is CD+RW and CD+R???
There's different media for different jobs.
However, DVD+ and DVD- formats seem a bit pointless, thats for sure. One (preferably -r/-rw) would have been enough.

Re:Then we as consumers need to band together

[GuyverDH]

Nice attempt at trolling.

What I was getting at, which I think you are smart enough to realize, was the fact that we have habitually been presented with multiple formats that do the same thing, but with different methods, which are inherently incompatible with one another due to the companies desire to make more profit over the convenience of the users of their products.

The different companies are all attempting to come up with the NEXT format for digital media distribution and storage. Why wouldn't we want the manufacturers to come up with a unified format, instead of fractioning the market with multiple incompatible formats. Do you want to have to buy multiple devices to play your movies?

IE - Here's my Sony Pictures player. here's my Disney movie player. here's my Universal movie player. You get the idea. If each company develops their own standards, then produces movies to those differing standards, and due to patent laws, require that companies cannot make players capable of playing all formats, then we as the consumer are faced with the challenge of chosing which format (or formats) we wish to purchase players for.

Where, if we as consumers stand up for ourselves, and raise our voices (via our spending habits), to inform the manufacturers that we are sick of the lack of unity in the industry.

Let them excel via features, reliability, price, performance, etc... Not on what media we have to purchase or what devices we have to have in order to use said media.

Re:Then we as consumers need to band together

[GuyverDH]

WoW - your ability to become confused amazes me.

None of the car *formats* are incompatible. They all use the same *media*.

They can all drive on blacktop, gravel, even dirt roads.

Some vehicles have the ability to traverse areas not covered in roads, but still maintain the *compatibility* to travel along the standard media shared by all road based vehicles.

So while I can sort of see where you were headed with your pathetic attempt at a witty retort, I also can see that you utterly failed to reach your destination.

Re:It's Like a Presidential Election...

[DrIdiot]

I haven't even started using DVDs yet. I do everything with this computer, but it does not have a DVD-ROM drive. I have no need for it.

I honestly can't see myself using one of these disks for at least a decade. The only appeal they have to me is backing up my data, and I shudder to think how much a Blu-ray R or HD-DVD R drive would cost and how long it would take for one of them to burn 50 GB onto a disk.

Giant Screwup

[the eric conspiracy]

With sales of HDTV's skyrocketing ( > 25% of all new TVs) the opportunity for HD fromat DVD is knocking.

But what did we get? A mess. Many consumers will take one look at this and throw up their hands. The smarter consumers will even take it a step further and back off from buying regular format DVDs because they would rather wait for that new title in the higher definition format.

This is a total foot-shot.

Re:GOOD!

[acidrain]

Self destruct will only be implemented on the PS3. Think about it. Do you want to take support calls for products that "accidentialy" self distruct? Only people trying to protect something like the expensive right to run on a console would do somehting like that.

My guess

[aliens]

To pile on with all the rest, neither will dominant or do particularly well without decently priced home units.

However, if I had to choose, blu-ray will slowly pick up steam as people who get the PS3 decide to toy with it.

Put your money on Sony.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, the Betamax was a failure, but in every other way their proprietary formats have triumphed over all. Now pardon me while I download some new Atracs for my Digital Walkman (the only device I'd give up my Minidisc player for!) and shoot some family videos with my Digital8 camera.

Re:Put your money on Sony.

[Anonymous Coward]

The comparison with Digital8 isn't quite correct. The DV datastream of Digital8 is identical to MiniDV...only the physical format of the tape is different.

BFD ... Move along now

[wirehead_rick]

The HD-DVD subject has been over-covered here at slashdot.

Both formats are stillborn.

Between DRM and competing formats, who is going to notice?

Re:BFD ... Move along now

[9Nails]

I agree. IIRC posted not long ago on /. was news that Blu-Ray was going to adopt a protection scheme that required internet access to obtain rights. And if you violated those rights, it would disable your hardware. A repair facility would have to clear the disabled flag. Sorry, but all my hardware are not belong to Blu-Ray! When I heard the idea of DRM and copy protection like that, my spending dollars were frozen for the more consumer friendly solution. And I can hold out a lot longer than Sony can.

Re:BFD ... Move along now

[Anonymous Coward]

The blue ray scheme DOES NOT require internet access; the latest updates are included on every disc you buy and loaded into the player the first time it's played. So if rights to play some disc are revoked for whatever reason, you can continue to use it so long as you do not play any new discs on that specific player.

HD is doomed

[sjhwilkes]

For a couple of years at least.

Very few consumers are clamoring for it - there's low demand. Early adopters are already gonna be shafted because both new formats will require HDMI - and the HD sets sold before this summer didn't have that - and A/V receivers still don't have that. (yes except for 3 $3K and up models I'm aware of)

HDCP and it's variants (and competitors) still aren't final, there's no guarantee anything HD purchased this year will interoperate, or play media from next year.

The great American consumer is going to have major issues with their very expensive new toys not working - even if us geeks are OK with a couple of firmware upgrades on our consumer electronics per year, there's gonna be a lot of helpdesk calls...

I've finally decided on a format.

[AbRASiON]

I hate wars like this blu-ray vs HD-DVD, I hate them a LOT.

While both have their pros and cons, ultimately we the consumer are going to be the ones shafted until they get their shit together. (I don't even need to go into why we'll be shafted if there's 2 formats, readers of this comment will know already)

Problem is, even when they DO get their shit together and decide on a single format, we will STILL get shafted!

If it's not DRM for the files on the disc itself, it's these new rumours of no component HD support, since it can't effectively enforce DRM.
In other words go and replace your "old" HDTV which is missing those plugs. (sorry guys buy my Toshiba 36" is 6 months old and I'm not upgrading)
While you're at it, go replace that component receiver too, it doesn't have HDMI or DVI inputs....

The manufactuers also seem to be thinking the uptake on blu-ray and HD-DVD is going to be quick, they are very very wrong.
DVD took off well because it did SO MANY things better than VHS - on a huge huge level.
The disc is (theoretically) stronger.
You can fast fwd through 60 minutes instantly - no need to re-wind.
They put cute little menu's and extra's on the disc.
You can drop a second audio or third or fourth audio channel - giving you commentary or language options (easier for manufacturers convienience then too)
Quality improvements in audio and video.

Overall DVD, besides the convienience of easy recording is better than VHS in many many ways.

The new HD formats however, they are not so simple, these suckers might have a better picture but the disc size / shape convienience is the same, the fast forward / rewind is the same, menu's will likely be similar or the same.
Ultimately all they will do is either offer MORE content or better quality, which isn't a bad thing but it's no gargantuan leap like DVD to VHS

So I've thought a lot about this and I've come to the decision of being a bit of a neathanderal and sticking with the "old" format so I'm sticking with DVD.

DVD still offers a picture we've all been completely happy with for the past what 5? 8 years and a high definition, fine pitch set isn't going to do bad things for your DVD's.

DVD still offers DDigital audio and DTS audio, both of which are quite damn good with decent quality speakers and HT gear.

DVD is easily backed up, my neighbours have kids and trust me those disney dvd's DO get used a heck of a lot, sure you should teach your kids to look after stuff but saving your ass 20 or 30$ on a disney DVD from scratches = smart (and fair use as far as I'm concerned)

DVD is fairly easy to author your own discs.

DVD is small enough to backup a couple of movies on the laptop for that holiday, so you don't lose the discs AND save battery power only having the HDD working while playing them

Infact the list goes on and on, but ultimately - I'm pretty darn happy with the quality of my movies on my TV from DVD's - and the majority of the ones I watch are DVD-shrunk'd so to speak, let alone originals making use of the full 8.5gb for better quality.
Finally, although it might be just a placebo effect but running my DVD's through my modified Xbox in 1280x720 it kind of upsamples them and makes the old content look even better.

Why on earth would I buy in to this DRM rubbish - I look forward to it sinking, I hope Sony, MS, Toshiba and the whole damn industry end up learning an expensive lesson.

Re:I've finally decided on a format.

[NanoGator]

"Why on earth would I buy in to this DRM rubbish - I look forward to it sinking, I hope Sony, MS, Toshiba and the whole damn industry end up learning an expensive lesson."

DRM isn't going to sink this format. The vast majority of people buying DVDs have no clue how to author or copy them.

Re:I've finally decided on a format.

[AbRASiON]

DRM might not sink it, but the movie houses releasing over-priced titles with few distinctly better features than DVD might sink it.

Then add the frustration of DRM, lack of component output etc,....

Re:I've finally decided on a format.

[NanoGator]

"DRM might not sink it, but the movie houses releasing over-priced titles with few distinctly better features than DVD might sink it."

Mixed feelings on that. They *are* going to be overpriced to start. That always happens this is nothing new. However, early adopters will eat it up. Consider how affordable it's becoming to have a 'theater' at home. Extra pixels means better movie!

"Then add the frustration of DRM, lack of component output etc,...."

You're right, that sucks. However, HDTVs are still in their infancy in terms of market share. New customers are going to buy new units and not have this problem.

I appreciate your sentiment, I just don't agree with your diagnosis.

Re:I've finally decided on a format.

[anOminousCow]

What's this DVD thing you speak of?

Re:I've finally decided on a format.

[maxwell demon]

Well, if they use the possibility to revoke model keys for cracked models, then it will affect normal users as well: Their player will not play any newer disks, despite the fact that they themselves did not do anything wrong. They just happened to have the bad luck to own a model which was cracked by someone completely unrelated.

I cannot imagine that anyone will be happy if their (legally acquired) player suddenly doesn't play their newer (legally acquired) disks.

Why Blu-Ray?

[Stu L Tissimus]

People are saying that this is going to be a format war. Personally, I think it is going to be nothing more than a slaughter. While it is true that Blu-ray can fit more data on to a disc, my question is this: Do we really need it? Do high-definition videos really take up more than 15GB space?

Also, another question: Does anybody know how different they are, price-wise? I know that BR is more expensive than HDDVD, but how much so? I don't mean simply the discs, I also mean the manufacturing equipment. As has already been said, I believe HD-DVD is made the same way as DVD...

Re:Why Blu-Ray?

[dynamo]

While it is true that a modern processor can fit more than 3 billion operations into a second, my question is this: Do we really need it?

Do modern programs really take up more than 3000 operations in a second?

Re:Why Blu-Ray?

[Rod Beauvex]

Insert generic Bill Gates-ism here for +5 funny karma whoring.

Re:Why Blu-Ray?

[gravix]

By that reasoning, we only need cars with 50 HP, televisions with 5 channels, sex in one position, and exactly one brand of beer. Comon, dude, think a little bit.

Re:Why Blu-Ray?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realise funny moderations earn you no karma, right?

How can I profit from Toshiba's insolence?

[dynamo]

Ok. We all know that both Toshiba and Sony will be going ahead with their competing formats. We also all know that BluRay will win. I won't go into the reasons.

If you don't already know that BluRay will win, go on not knowing it, please. I will need some suckers out there.

However.

For those of us who DO already know, such as myself, what can I do to make money off the coming media-format apocalypse? I'd think it's less simple than investing in Sony, as Sony is already worth quite a bit due to other reasons - maybe some smaller vendors or something are around that Sony must contract with to get BluRay off the ground, or will happen to do a lot better for one reason or another if BR wins. Who are these hidden opportunities?

Thanks in advance.

- P

Not too sure about that....

[thrill12]

Blu-ray or other high density standards are not "a new format" perse, in the sense that they force people to get the same thing on a new medium. It will actually enhance the experience of the viewer through extra content, and in the future could add a promising new backup-solution for the home-user. Sure, the video quality won't get any better. But there are plenty of multiple-DVD packages out there that could use a nice 1-disc solution.

Re:Not too sure about that....

[Anonymous Coward]

So we can LOTR super extra long deluxe edition fit on one disc? Most people don't watch the director's interview. As far as backups go, hard drives are hard to beat. Faster, smaller, more reliable, don't need any specialized equipment to read.

A multi-format player would sure help

[Phong]

If someone came out with a reasonably priced player that played both HD-DVD and BluRay, that would let people choose their favorite format (if there was a choice from the studios) or play content no matter what format the studio decided to go with. I wonder how likely that will be to happen? (Especially the "reasonably priced" part.)

This article will probably enlighten you

[rbarreira]

Read this fine article. It has six sections, I enjoyed it a lot. Well written, unbiased, and to the point.

Re:It's Like a Presidential Election...

[Nasarius]

I shudder to think how much a Blu-ray R or HD-DVD R drive would cost and how long it would take for one of them to burn 50 GB onto a disk.

DVD-Rs were pretty damn expensive when they first came out. Now they're almost as cheap as CD-Rs; you can get a pack of 100 4.7GB DVD-Rs for $25. You can get a do-everything burner (CD-R/RW, DVD+-R/RW) for $50. The new high-capacity media will probably follow a similar path.

Two is better than one

[frovingslosh]

Better to have two standards technically uncompromised by a need to play with the other side and let the market decide which they want, than one designed by committee. No one gets hurt except the early adopters, and they have far too much money anyway.

Stalled on purpose

[zIRtrON]

You can't tell me that "they" haven't worked out how to put tera-upon-tera bytes of audio/visual information onto a type of media. There's been optical media for decades , holographic media research for some time (used to always read about it in the IT section of newspapers when the boom was on), and a fk_load of patents owned by big corporations that fund research - in private and public institutions.
Much like the petrol engine development, this whole stalling towards a standard has probably happened because both companies must go through with it because they've put too much work into it whilst at the same time they've got 3d holograph actors performing in your lounge room. But before they give you this, you'll need to buy 10 years worth of HD stuff so that the menu driven sequences can look really bright in your condo overlooking the bright day whilst the real work is done by some sweat shop in a developing country.

We're all born kings and queens so just give us everything so that we don't have to be the sweat shop workers whilst we're still young and mobile and agile.

Re:Stalled on purpose

[2008]

"how to put tera-upon-tera bytes of audio/visual information onto a type of media"

Easy, just increase the diameter of your DVD. Back of imaginary envelope calculations suggest a 1 metre radius dual-layer DVD would hold about 10 terabytes. Spinning it fast enough to get a decent read speed could be tricky though.

What I will buy... not that it matters

[NotQuiteReal]

I will buy discs that have DVD on one side and some sort of non-DRM'ed HD on the other side.

Someday, when I have stuff that will let my non-tech wife play HD, and see HD on whatever random Costco TV I have at the time, that is what I'll buy.

If the packaging is honest, and if it says you need equipment, then I'll say, you know what? I don't need to own that, besides, Fred, down the street, seems to have LOTS of media, of questionable origin, that plays just fine on my regular equipmment (PC, TV, etc.)

There are always gonna be crooks who steal stuff, but if you don't make it easy for me, I won't be a customer... I may not be a crook, but I won't be a customer.

Re:What I will buy... not that it matters

[maxwell demon]

I will buy discs that have DVD on one side and some sort of non-DRM'ed HD on the other side.

Sorry, you won't find non-DRMed HD. But otherwise, combined media are indeed possible. For BRD both can even be on the same side! Of course there's the question if this possibility will be used much. On one hand, it may be a selling argument ("future-proof", well, at least if they bet on the right format), OTOH it may be more lucrative to first sell a DVD, and later sell the same stuff again in HD format.

Re:What I will buy... not that it matters

[jonfr]

DRM is the source of evil, that is why DVD will win. According to the news, Blue-Ray or HD-DVD is ment to have uncrackable copyright protection and that means it won't work in Linux and that means that i won't buy it.

Yay for consumers!

[msimm]

...wait

Seriously though, blue-ray wins all the way unless the price it wrong (er..high), it just sounds cooler. We've had these other ray hunks of stuff for way to long already.

How many frappichino's is too many?

Re:Yay for consumers!

[maxwell demon]

Well, at least initially, the BRD price will probably be higher, because it needs separate production lines, while HD-DVD can be produced on adapted DVD production lines (which in addition still can produce standard DVDs).

Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to congratulate the mod who modded the parent post as Troll. May the metamods fall on you repeteadly :)

Re:It's Like a Presidential Election...

[xigxag]

we DO have a 3rd choice: DVD

Not only that, we have a 3-1/2th choice: DVD+divx/mp4

Next gen mp4 players will certainly be able to render in pseudo hi-def, which will be "good enough" for the large percentage of people who don't have HD sets compatible with the latest DRM. And since they'll be mass-produced in China for a fraction of the cost of Blu-Ray/HD-DVD, there's a chance those latter two formats will go the way of SACD/DVDA.

Is this so?

[Sithgunner]

I'm just saying from my head's information but isn't it like Blu-ray is rather getting more attraction than HD-DVD lately? As I read news who takes which format, it looks Blu-ray is taking more gain, but I don't have the exact number so I could be wrong.

And I just think the losing side is sticking and won't give the hell up... Doesn't sound like things are moving for the citizens.

right...HD-whatever

[E8086]

As an earlier post mentioned there are no movies that need more than 480. There are very few movies filmed with digital cameras and not many theaters with difital projectors, except Star Wars and maybe another one I don't know about. I'm very happy with my high quality CRT and standard dvd player with component video. The only upgrade I'm considering is a DivX capable dvd player or a 15' s-video cable so I can tv-out with something better than composite video. For some reason I don't think the everyday tv show is going to look that much better in HD-TV. I have no problems waiting until this great new format "war" is over or there are quad-format(HD-DVD +/-R, BlueRay +/-R) quad-layer hd-dvd recorders and enough movies that use the additional 200GB-190GB per disk. As for use as data disks, I'm going to go with the one that holds more. And hope that some how DRM gets killed off.

Re:right...HD-whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, doesn't analog 35mm film (what movies tend to be shot on) have an effective resolution of something absurdly high like 4000*2250? So any film from the past few decades can be trivially digitised and benefit from HD. And CG movies like Toy Story are rendered at HD resolutions, Toy Story itself was 1536*922 and I guess the state of the art has moved on from there. Technically there's no question that SD or 480p utterly sucks compared to the movies.

IMHO, you're right that the content of a lot of films and TV doesn't really justify HD resolutions. But any good sci-fi or fantasy epic unquestionably does (there are a couple of dozen), as does anything pornographic (have you seen HD porn? Like, wow, man...). Even the tedious crap is improved by being able to read people's emotions better because you can see facial detail more clearly, although I still wouldn't watch it.

Re:right...HD-whatever

[Eunuchswear]

as does anything pornographic (have you seen HD porn? Like, wow, man...).

Are you sure? Just how clearly do you want to see those zits? Bad boob job scars? Other, even more unmentionable things....

Re:right...HD-whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

" As an earlier post mentioned there are no movies that need more than 480. There are very few movies filmed with digital cameras and not many theaters with difital projectors,"

right, because 35mm film used for most movies has significantly higher resolution than any existing digital format. I'd say ALL movies need more than 480p which is pathetically low resolution.

Re:right...HD-whatever

[Zed2K]

I assume by your statements that you've never actually seen a movie in HD or a tv show in HD? How about a normal dvd on a good upconverting dvd player in 1080i on a hdtv? Cause if you actually had seen any of those you would realize how wrong your opinions are.

I mean really, you are only using a composite video connection!

Re:right...HD-whatever

[E8086]

Yes, I've seen HD tv shows and DVDs on an HD tv, it was on a friend's cheap projection HD-ready tv which looked bad if viewed at the wrong angle and probably an equally cheap dvd player. The composite video, I'll use s-video again when I get a longer cable, connection is for tv-out-ing Mythbusters encoded for minimal file size, I don't think it's even broadcast in HD. The dvd player with year old Toshiba CRT, the best 27" I could find uses component, it looks very good. If HD is as good as you say, I'm guessing it's from personal use, I'll consider it when the prices drop and there are more HD channels available around here.

the solution is obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

8666100149 64539

F'em and wait for HoloDisks

[transami]

Nuff said.

Re:It's Like a Presidential Election...

[noidentity]

"Which candidate will we choose? The one with restrictive DRM or the other one with restrictive DRM?"

What do you expect from a Digital Restrictions Management system?

if your working tv...

[E8086]

"if your working television sits on top of your non-working television you might be a redneck" -Jeff Foxworthy

Now picture this: "if your working HD-DVD player sits on top of your other working, but less used, Blue-Ray DVD player which sits on top of your other working standard DVD player you might be a pissed off consumer."

Having too many formats is just going to result in unhappy consumers and I'm going to get calls from the people who know I make things work because they bought a HD-DVD player but a movie on a BlueRay disk and BestBuy won't take it back because it's opened and since it's a DVD it can only be exchanged to exactly the same thing, not a different disk format.

True nature of this fight. . .

[doctor_no]

Out of all the coverage that has gone on about the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray battle something that has been seriously overlooked is the what this fight is really about. Toshiba and Time Warner makes an incredible amount of money from DVD 6C and other Toshiba/Sanyo/Warner ownened patents, they get a kick back from every DVD and DVD player that hits the market becaue they are the main beneficiaries of the 6C patents. And they are trying to keep these patents in place for the next-generation of high-definition media.

Blu-ray is an effort to get around the 6C patents and Toshiba owned patents. When Sony and co. approached Toshiba/NEC/Warner in forming a unified format, one of the conditions that was put in place was to keep the 6C patents in place, and merely keep the software aspect of Blu-ray. This of course is why an agreement cannot be reached. Neither side has any reverance for the consumer.

Re:True nature of this fight. . .

[aXis100]

Yeah, and Sony dont try and make (gouge) money out of their format patents.

cough ***minidisk*** cough.

Re:True nature of this fight. . .

[adam31]

It's always struck me as very odd how the teams line up in this format war. Matsushita, Toshiba and IBM are all in 6C, yet Matsushita swapped teams and lined up with Sony on Blu-Ray. IBM jumped on with Sony for the PS3. Toshiba, of course, backs HD-DVD but they are also partnered with Sony to do production for the Cell processors going into the PS3-- whose support of BluRay is arguably HD-DVD's greatest threat!

Really, I just don't get it. Is everyone (except Sony) playing both sides of the fence?

No way

[DogDude]

It looked like the DVD+R/-R thing was going to be a big deal. But it't already not an issue. Every cheap-o drive on the market now reads and writes both kinds of media without a hitch. And as competiton continues, and old machines get junked, it'll be 100% real soon. It's just software. Every new device has both little algorithims in it. Same thing with that wireless (junk in my opinion, but...) stuff. every cheap-o Staples wireless device handles 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, etc. No biggie. I only wish I could still get decent ISA cards cheap. :|

Even worse...

[moviepig.com]

Moreover, it was reported elsewhere that the rival technologies have forced movie studios to take sides, as it would be prohibitively expensive to produce films for both formats.

What in the world could that mean? Does the 35mm master-print lose its soul during an HD transfer?

Re:Even worse...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's mainly an inventory problem. Let's say you predict 50% of the public will buy Blu-Ray, and 50% will buy HD-DVD, then you stamp 50 million of each. Now let's say the market goes Blu-Ray, and the split is more like 90/10. Great, now you're short 40 million Blu-Ray discs and just lost those sales until you can stamp more, while you've got 40 million HD-DVD discs nobody wants to buy. Even with the tiny cost to stamp each disc, the cost isn't trivial. And while the videos will be encoded using the same codecs for each format (thank goodness, or it could be even worse), the on disc structures aren't identical, require separate authoring processes.

Re:Even worse...

[moviepig.com]

(mod parent 'informative')

When the movie's ready for stamping, there'll be an estimate of the two competing formats' markets... instead of like now, where's there's an estimate of only the one (...if we call VHS defunct). And, sure, there'll be occasional mis-estimates... just as there are now. (Note the recent turmoil over unsold copies of SHREK 2.)

Granted, the problem is made slightly more complex, but certainly not new. I'd expect (and hope) the moguls will be worrying instead about, say, script quality...

Simple rule of thumb...

[ericpi]

We also all know that BluRay will win.

You may be right that BluRay will win. I certainly can't predict the future. However, history seems to have taught us one thing:

When it comes to format wars, always bet against Sony.

Re:Simple rule of thumb...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I'm a simpleton and I say Blu-Ray will win because:

1. It holds much more data per disk, and, perhaps most importantly,

2. It has a cooler name. Which format is more apt to take hold in the mind of the consumer?

Re:Simple rule of thumb...

[maxwell demon]

"VHS" was the cooler video standard name?!?

xbox 360

[superspaz]

Blah, blah, blah... xbox 360 ... moot argument. ... makes Blue Ray a foregone conclusion. Give me a break!

Re:xbox 360

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad MS hasn't even announced if Xbox2 will even have an HD-DVD drive eventually.. The first run is set to use DVDs stll.

Re:xbox 360

[cybrthng]

Thats a good thing..

Microsoft can wait out the war and support the winner

Re:xbox 360

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean copy sony?

Re:xbox 360

[superspaz]

Was a joke.

No problem!

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

This just means I need to wait a bit to decide which format I will use to backup my torren^H^H^H^Hbuy my movies on.

\ havn't seen the unix backspace thing in a while
\\ slashies are fun on Fark, doing them here
\\\ this thread is useless without pics

why the FUD?

[blib-hiptop]

No fast-forwarding dvds has *nothing* to do with DRM. It is a completely separate part of the specification
If people are familiar with the real restrictions of the new formats (which won't impact most people, who won't want to rip them or watch them on linux) and still choose to buy it, why spread false FUD about DRM?
Personally I would prefer the new formats didn't have any DRM, but realistically the proposed DRM techniques don't go any further than DVD's CSS was meant to (with the exception of the potential that they will restrict the playback resolution on unsecured devices.) Most people haven't encountered the limitations of dvds (with the possible exception of region coding)

Except we have universal players

[tentimestwenty]

The big difference with the high res audio formats is that you can buy a universal player that plays all current formats for under $100 already. It doesn't really matter what format you choose because the hardware obstacle doesn't exist. As to which format is better, that's a matter of personal opinion and the capability of your sound system... With video, they haven't even gotten over the hardware incompatibility problem.

Re:Except we have universal players

[Anonymous Coward]

You can buy a universal player that plays all the current formats anyone /cares/ about for about $10, because the only format anyone /cares/ about is Red Book audio.

Note that even the vast majority of the ~3000 SACDs will play in that universal player, and sound excellent (especially if you don't make a big deal of the fact that it's just a CD player - audiophiles know a SACD is supposed to sound "better" and that's what they'll hear unless you tell them not to).

The only thing these video formats have on their side is the perception of inevitability. But they're already almost too late to take advantage of that. Why should I care about your incompatible, not-for-use-in-the-computer audio or video format when I can download everything from the Internet?

So there are three phases of adoption that you're going to see with these devices when/if they actually ship in bulk.

1. Real tech-head early adopters will add one to the same pile that has a VCD player, a rather dusty Laserdisc player etc. and they'll rave about the high quality (and never admit to anyone that for the first few months they were raving while only being able to buy 4 different movies). They won't replace their DVDs, or VCDs, or dusty VHS tapes, since they already have all the players hooked up to some immense AV switch.

2. The audiophile/ videophile will be persuaded by the friendly dealer that they "need to get in on the ground floor" or similar nonsense. The buyer thinks they're an "early adopter" because they buy what they're told to. They will go away with a shiny box, and a single example of the medium, and six months later they'll still have that one piece of "software".

THIS is the stage that DVD-Audio and SACD have reached. A few million people own a compatible setup, and on average they own less than two titles each. Production runs for a major label SACD are often just a thousand copies.

3. Manufacturers eliminate most of the players from their catalogs, keeping a few mid-range and a high-end option. They announce that the format has reached the end of its life, but (because they're such great guys, or at least because they fear a backlash from cash cow early adopters) they'll continue to produce players and associated hardware for a few years. The next year all models except the high-end are discontinued.

THIS is the most hilarious stage in which to encounter fans of the format. Because they'll rave about how the manufacturers have got it wrong! They just picked up two movies for $10, what a bargain. It would never occur to them in a million years that the movies were cheap because they're now obsolete...

4. Oh you were expecting a stage where everything works out great? Like Compact Disc? Sorry, that very rarely happens. We remember the CD, the DVD and the cassette tape, but we forget Mini Disc limping along all those years, we forget DAT (oh yeah, a huge success as an unreliable backup medium, woohoo) we forget Laserdiscs, SVCD (yeah your DVD player can show them, but do you own any?) CDi, etc.

Re:It's Like a Presidential Election...

[igny]

Don't blame me. I voted for Kudos.

Race against Divx (Entire Season on old style dvd)

[Maxo-Texas]

What both of these guys are ignoring is that with the latest Divx6 codec, I can fit an entire season of a series on 1 dvd and it looks stunning at 220mb per episode.

They are starting to sell players that can play .avi files just like those CD players can play .mp3 files.

So people are going to reasonably ask... "Why are you charging me $30 dollars for a season when it fits on a single disk?"

Potentially good for those against DRM

[SuperKendall]

With the recent story on Vista having horrible limits on video from new formats, and the possibility of Apple being forced to do so - multiple formats is great news. It gives companies like Apple a lever to use, saying "we'll include your format in our computers but only if we can play hi-def video on existing monitors without HDCP".

It's an additional feature the major companies promoting the formats might want to use to push one format over the other.

Patents are good.... right?

[erroneus]

Okay, they ARE good... to a certain degree and when it doesn't hurt the consumer and technological growth. In this case it's really messing things up. The current rate of development is being slowed so that the existing patents can be milked for every last drop before the next technology is introduced putting us decades behind from where we might be.

I think they should revise the patent system to give their benefit for a much shorter time period. Perhaps the time duration was appropriate when they were first set up, but tech moves way too fast these days to ignore the harm and needless complication it causes.

Waiting for Blu-Ray burners

[SuperKendall]

Although I probably wont buy the very earliest models, I am looking forward to a Blu-Ray burner that may be practical for backing up large HD's.

The extra storage alone will mean most computer buyers would prefer Blu-Ray - I wonder if that will have much effect on the success of either format or if the numbers are meaningless against consumer players. Sure would be handy to burn HD video I could also play in a player though... I wonder if the PS3 will let you play burned HD video from Blu-Ray.

Re:Waiting for Blu-Ray burners

[pe1chl]

While the extra space of a blue-ray disc relative to a normal DVD is always welcome, it does little to solve the backup problem.

Today a large HD is 400GB or so, and it doesn't matter too much if 100 or 25 discs are required to backup, it is impractical anyway.

Who needs discs?

[Jonny_eh]

Better yet, who needs discs? Just as CDs don't need a succesor (DVD Audio? feh!), DVD's successor may be internet distributed content. This is where the xbox 360 or other set-top boxes come in handy, they can stream content from your computer to your TV. The 360 can even do HD content! Droool...

Great article

[jfengel]

Since you're already modded up as far as you're gonna get, I'll just say "Thanks." That's a great article.

Count the errors

[Anonymous Coward]

Having to entirely seperate formats to the next generations of DVD's is going to piss people off to no end

Congratulations! Even by slashdot standards, that sentence is excruciatingly badly written.

Time to upgrade.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I guess it's about time to buy a TV if everyone else is buying high definition. I'll just buy the ones HD have made obsolescent and have more money for weed.

Revoked licenses and Walmart

[jmichaelg]

Good article. I especially appreciated the explanation of how the keys are handled. My sense is that's the biggest single weakness in the encryption scheme.

If any /. reader knows a Walmart eletronics buyer, explain the following problem to him/her.

Once someone hacks a player Walmart sold, that model will lose its ability to play future HD-DVD/Blu Rays that Walmart sells. It's not just the individual player that the hacker owns but the entire model line will lose its ability to decode the HD-DVD/Blu Ray. Problem is, Walmart sells millions of players which means millions of honest customers who had nothing to do with the hack will not be able to play any movie pressed after the license was revoked.

Walmart might be able to avoid returns on the compromised players but they're not going to be able to avoid the DVD returns. If the Walmart buyers understand the problem in advance, they'll either refuse to stock the players and Hi Def DVDs or force the industry to forget about the license revocation scheme altogether.

Re:Revoked licenses and Walmart

[pe1chl]

This sure is a point of concern.
I think the design was made this way to put the designers/manufacturers under pressure. Right now, there are some rights management features in DVD players, but the manufacturers just say "up my *ass". Players are supposed to be region-bound but it is hard to find a player that does not have some publicly known "secret" code to disable the region coding check.

With this new system, manufacturers that design hackable players will be punished. That this punishment is via the retailers, and those retailers could become a secondary victim, is bad.

It could make Walmart decide to only sell A-brand stuff and no obscure chinese players that could turn out to be hackable. This will increase prices for the consumer, but then it might also increase the store's profit.

Re:Revoked licenses and Walmart

[6th time lucky]

IMHO this is the big ticket *around* the DRM. The industry will be forced to forget the license revocation scheme because you just cant do that millions of customers and expect them to bend over again. Maybe once, but not again. Walmart would have to bring a metric ass load of lawyers down on the industry to defend their business, and your wonderful american rights to fair use will return (after some hiatus unfortunately). But i dont like the chance of it happening in advance.

What the revocation of keys will work for is for cracked keys that arnt in real products. But i am guessing as soon as the format is finalised a lot of people will stop running SETI@home and start running HD/BR-DVD cracking.

And remember, keys can only be revoked on new products. so a cracked key will decode all the old products and any future cracked keys will play the newer products. Iterate...

Predict-O-Tron - News Flash from 2008!

[Chordonblue]

I think history will repeat itself.

Sony's Blu-Ray (because of it's high production and media cost, limited compatability, and manufacturer acceptance level) will be relegated to pro video and computer applications (sort of like DAT or Beta). If all you ever want to watch is Sony Pictures movies - you'll be able to round out home versions of your PSP collection.

Meanwhile...

HD-DVD slowly (VERY slowly) has reached the acceptance level of... Laserdisc. That's right... LASERDISC. Remember who bought those discs? Videophiles - a small subset of people compared to Ma and Pa Stoltzfus who just go to Wallmart to buy a $20 DVD player because they, 'vant to vatch a movey nah vanst.' (Info Tip: That was a local PA Dutch referrence.) :)

Ok, back to the present... A better example? How about DVD Audio / SACD. You own ANY of those? YOU ARE IN THE EXTREME MINORITY. Tell me, who's winning that war, really?

As I learned years ago with the C= Amiga (and that was a HARD lesson): Quality isn't what matters most because most people do not recognize quality in anything that does not directly involve their interest level. To most people, computers are a means to an end. Finances, 'net travel, email, etc. The machine means NOTHING to them so long as it does what it's supposed to do without complaint.

What matters is price, availability, word of mouth (general public acceptance - WHAT?! You guys don't have a DVD player yet??!!!), and BASIC feature ability across a wide range of models.

One more quick example. A month ago I went down to OC, Maryland to visit a friend and spend some relaxing times at the beach. My friend has a theatre that just happens to be his house also. BIG rumbly chairs, 120" screen, $10,000 speakers, etc.

We spent (I kid you not) an entire DAY looking for a specific model of DVD Player. Why? Well, it had to be 127 MHz, not like the 'shitty' 45 MHz model he currently had! When I asked him whether it really mattered since the resolution of his projector was easily twice that of a DVD player - he looked at me like I was an idiot.

"Of COURSE it matters! The pixels drift and get rounded out..." and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember.

The end result of my visit there was one Friday night we decided to watch the new Battlestar Galactica episode in the theatre. He hadn't seen it yet, so I let him watch a few episodes I had with me. When we sat down to watch, I told him it was on Sci-Fi, and he just groaned. As it turns out, the Sci-Fi channel was one of a few channels that somehow looked like it was on 'rabbit ears' - horrible reception (and this with digital cable, no less!) But you know, even though it didn't look like Discovery HD, it was a great show anyway and to MOST people, that's all that matters...

Summarize Proust

[Mathinker]

I predict that the average Joe, confused over the options, will choose the format....

...(drum-roll)...

which looks cooler when hung from his rear-view mirror!

(Your average Jane, however, doesn't always choose the better-hung format!)

Re:Summarize Proust

[Anonymous Coward]

PLEASE tell me you're in the UK.. I hope to high Heaven that they don't do that stupid shit in other countries too!?!

It's not the 1980s! CD's aren't "OOH woW CoOoL@~" anymore, dammit!

deciding factor

[pintomp3]

that's ok, the pr0n industry will pick the winner anyway.

That explains why they won't compromise...

[s-gen]

the market leader will be the one that is not technologically superior (*cough* Mac v. Windows, Betamax v. VHS, etc. *cough*)

Each companies is convinced that it has the inferior product.

Sony vs Toshiba

[wolf.sama]

Blu-Ray for the boys & Pink-Ray for the girls ?

Re:Sony vs Toshiba

[pizzaman100]

I don't know...Pink-Ray sounds like a boy in drag.

MPEG-4 AVC Anyone?

[benw1979]

I still do not understand why they do not simply upgrade existing DVD players to decode MPEG-4 AVC content, and continue to use the exact same physical DVD media. With superior compression codecs, HDTV can be offered now with existing hardware and manufacturing processes.

Re:MPEG-4 AVC Anyone?

[zakezuke]

I still do not understand why they do not simply upgrade existing DVD players to decode MPEG-4 AVC content, and continue to use the exact same physical DVD media. With superior compression codecs, HDTV can be offered now with existing hardware and manufacturing processes.

Mpeg-4 is pretty good... but some detail is lost in the high compression.. artifacts are more common, and is not as spiffy as a huge mpeg-2.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/cont ent_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

Microsoft is already offering HDTV titles in WMV format, and you can in theory buy standalone DVD players that handle WMV. I find my amd 2800xp just adquate enough to handel 1080p. They look nice... save some compression noise.

But the bigest reason to offer a new media format on new media discs isn't so much the fact that you can't fit HDTV on normal DVD. It's the fact that for a time the new disks will be very hard to pirate because no bugger has the recorders to duplicate them yet. Not to speak of the fact that a 12gig video is going to take three times as long to download as a 4gig SP DVD.

Re:MPEG-4 AVC Anyone?

[AlastairMurray]

The parent was talking about MPEG-4 AVC (also known as H.264), which in terms of quality-per-bit is far superior to standard MPEG-4 and also a bit better than VC-1 (WMV), but at the expence of being more computationally expensive to decode (i.e. requires a faster and thus more expensive chip).

Also, most H.264 encoders are still fairly young, so we should see quality improve over the next year as these improve.

And of course, many MPEG-4 movies may be beaten by a huge MPEG-2 movie, but a huge MPEG-2 movie is beaten by a huge MPEG-4 movie which is beaten by a huge MPEG-4 AVC movie (hence using higher capacity discs in next-gen players).

Dear Mr. Jobs

[el_womble]

"H.264 will be the winner in the end". That quote stuck my memory and this is why. We both know that your adoption of Blu-ray is lip service. We both know that you don't need an optical drive in your vision of the future. Hell, you probably haven't even got one in quadcore UberBook. The only reason you have signed up to this 'standard' is to keep Sony happy and because for all the speed that this industry moves, people are slow to adopt change, and a computer without an optical drive just isn't going to shift.

This bit of news has got to have made you smile. Two competing standards for a dead medium! Hah! All that's going to do is drive people towards your product: iMVS (iMovie Video Store). Now we both know that people are quite happy with renting movies. Hell, the only reason they buy them is because they're too lazy to get off their ass when they want to watch The Incredibles for the 100th time (good call with Pixar btw). The thing you don't understand is why the cable companies haven't done it first. I mean they've had the technology for years, but they've never done anything about it... or have they. They know a lot about broadcast, but they know jack shit about storage, and user interfaces.

Now as I see it, this store is going to be slightly different to iTMS. For a start your not going to sell movies, your going to rent them. Music is different. You buy a song, you want to know that you can listen to it constantly for the rest of your life if you want to. Movies are like books. You read a good book maybe twice in your life... except for one thing: your eyes don't get an upgrade every 12-24 months. I watched the Matrix on VHS, the big screen and DVD, if it comes out on 1024i I'll watch it on that too... once. A year later, when I've bough a wall filling 20Gpxl plasmatron drive (or whatever happens next) I'm going to want to watch The Matrix again to see what it looks like, but I'm going to want it at 20Gpxls. Now you can offer me that service for $20 a month, all-you-can-eat, movie rental service. Regular 'updates' to the client software will enable you to keep the studios much happier about this medium than any of the optical disk formats and H.264 will mean that you can interogate the client and only send me the data I need for that viewing.

Now I know what your thinking... where is the expensive hardware that I can use to pay for this service? Worry no more. Its not the iVid. Its the AirPort Express QT. Plug it into the wall behind your TV, plug that into RCA adapters at the back of your TV, and voila! Instant expensive hardware. I would happily hand over $150 dollars for this device. If it costs you $20 I'd be suprised. Even better. Sell a TiVo like box with an 80GB harddrive. Hell, buy TiVo! It lets you save 3 movies from the store, and record live TV! Thats gotta be $300 a unit right there.

Don't do it for me. Don't do it for the kids. Do it for the money. You'll make a killing, become the movie magnate you always dreamed of and if you do it like this the people will love you for over charging them! Remember, the reason that iTMS was successful was becuase you never expected to make any money from selling the music. You can do the same here. Honest, you can.

Thank you Mr. Jobs for your time.

Yours sincerly

El Womble

PS - Can I get a pony too?

A generation to miss?

[corneliusagain]

Floppy disk - 1.44Mb or video or audio tape - ??
CD - 720Mb
DVD (common single layer) - 4.7Gb - 7 times more than CD, similar multiple of quality over video tape

HD-DVD (common single layer) - 15Gb - 3 times more
Blu-Ray - 25Gb - 5 times more

Are these not quite small multiples in the latest generation? Is it possible that by the time one of them comes close to winning, we'll be moving to the next generation and leaping this one? Everyone says it's what it enables that matters, but noone has HDTV, so maybe that's not a key thing to enable right now. Plus, neither will help me back up my hard disk.

Re:It's Like a Presidential Election...

[JollyFinn]

As the parent poster so eloquently points out, format wars are inherently bad. One technology analyst on NPR said he estimates that format wars can reduce a potential market by "as much as 90%" - that is, the two formats combined sell up to 9 times fewer DVDs than if you only had one format.

Do your math. reduction of 90% means 10% left which means that it would be upto TEN times difference.

DRM goof-ups

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Considering that there's also pressure from the other side (the "content industry") to include as much DRM as possible, though, it's gonna be interesting to see how things turn out.

It certainly will, but ultimately the market is a lot more powerful than the content industry. If no-one is prepared to buy a particular technology, the technology maker is toast, and so are any content providers who relied on that technology to distribute their content. From the technologist's point of view, the content providers are suppliers, not customers, and they don't provide a revenue stream.

In a sense, I'm the perfect consumer for the media industry, because I buy what I want to watch or listen to legally. However, I've now returned more than one not-quite-CD where the copy protection prevented me from playing my legitimately purchased content in my car and/or on my PC. I'm fast getting to the point where I will return a DVD as not fit for purpose, because I have to sit through several minutes of anti-piracy rants in multiple languages before I can watch my movie. I've heard rumours that certain brands now include can't-skip trailers for other stuff on the start of their DVDs; the first time I encounter one of those, it will be going back to the shop, along with a quick letter to the store manager and to my local trading standards organisation explaining why.

Now, I'm a geek at heart. If I wanted to download music and movies over P2P, or to circumvent the various copy protection schemes, it would take me about two minutes to set it up. I choose not to, because while I dislike the way the media industry are abusing it, I respect the basic principle of copyright. I prefer to object to their abuse by voting legally with my wallet and my word processor.

However, if the industry is losing me, it's probably already lost a lot of people. Some don't understand what DRM is all about and just know their CD/DVD didn't work properly. Some do know what DRM is all about, loathe it with a passion, and have no moral qualms about obtaining the content via alternative sources that don't provide a revenue stream for the media industry.

This is the realisation that that industry is slowing coming to: things like Macrovision worked because they didn't interfere unduly with legitimate uses; anything that does will fail. If the backers of one of these new, competing formats understand this, and the backers of the other do not, then the more enlightened group will be the only one left before long.

Ah, but Confucious he say:

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

"Screw early adopters, and late adopters will not come."

The winner will be...

[jocknerd]

whichever one gets the support of the Porn industry.

Re:The winner will be...

[greed]

That was modded funny, but look at the history of successful media formats, and those which... flopped.

• 8mm and Super 8 film -- plenty of porn
• 16mm film -- not much porn, popular with schools
• uMatic (3/4 inch) videotape -- lots o' porn
• VHS (1/2 inch) videotape -- porn porn porn and more porn
• LaserDisc -- hardly any porn
• 8mm video tape -- DIY porn
• ARPAnet/InterNet -- www.porn.com
• DVD -- Multi-angle porn with 5.1 surround sound
• DivX (that time-limited DVD thing, not the codec) -- no porn

Talks may not have ended

[Anonymous Coward]

Take what you read with a grain of salt. There are other sites reporting that the deadline is late August and there could be a last minute agreement.

Read http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-dvd24aug24,1 ,6984663.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1 &cset=true for an article that actually has a quote from one of the companies rather than Reuters saying "Officials at Toshiba and Sony were not immediately available for comment.".

The Forms of Kanly Have Been Obeyed!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm hoping Blue-ray wins.

Lord knows we've had no end of trouble

[crovira]

with electricity being 50Hz and 60Hz and 110v or 220v (and we're not even talking about 660v, three phase here!)

The problem with talking all these 'incompatible' formats too seriously is that, as long as the hardware layer works underneath, they're all 'soft' standards. They can be adapted to changing needs/situations.

The only thing is to make sure that the media can be recognized and read. If that's done, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WINNER OR A LOSER of a format war.

Competative DRM

[Neil]

Perhaps competing DRM systems are something that the world can make use of: consumer acceptence goes to the format that gets cracked first?

Movie Producers loose

[o2binbuzios]

I am personnaly looking forward to some form of HDVD because I do have HDTV, and on a large screen, DVDs are noticably grainier than HD content. I am sure I will buy some form of HDVD once they are out..if only in a PS3 for my kids. What I won't do is buy movies in a format that will likely become white elephants, or in a "low-quality' DVD. Netflix will be able to meet my content needs for HD I am sure...but I don't think you will see people tossing the latest Harry Potter HD film in their carts when they buy grocieries if there is no confidence in the media format. So - the Hollywood studios who now expect 50%+ of the revenue to come from the DVD release will suffer.

Choose Neither - Pick HD on Today's DVDs

[Xesdeeni]

The Buffalo LinkTheater, IOData LinkPlayer2, and the JVC SRDVD-100U (coming in September) will all play DivX HD or WMV HD from today's DVDs. And all of the above will output HD on component (although HDCP is included in the JVC, which might limit DRM'd content). MSRPs are less than $400, and you can use your current DVD burner to make DVDs, so the media is cheap and already available! Let's just tell both camps to get stuffed.

Xesdeeni

Count me out

[AxemRed]

I'm not buying either one until I either know which one is going to stick around or, in the case of current DVD writables, I know that both are going to stick around.

Seriously, I didn't buy current generation DVD writabiles until the dual-format writers came out, and I saw that nearly every DVD player could play either.

Is it really that good ?

[Futurix]

Once apon a time mandkind recorded voice onto steel tapes. They last as long as the steel
itself. Now the put in onto plastic.

Steel tapes aka Windows 1.0
LP aka Windows 3.0
Platic ferro tapes aka Windows 3.11
Floppy aka Windows 95 (but better gui, but so crashable)
CD aka Windows 98
Super Qaulity CD aka M$$$$$ millenium
DVD aka Windows 2000/XP
Bluray/HD-DVD aka Yms .. Yet another Microsoft Windows.

See the table above. The leap forward in most case meant changing the physical material on
which to store data. Now better DVD is nice, but does'nt yell that big advantages. If the world
would need a new format, why not just kill this format and make a id-card sized 50 GB flash or harddisk
instead of dvd's.

Think about what would happen if went you and bought a new moive, and onces watched,
you'd delete it and use it for general data storage. No more storage exhaustion. That's _recycling_.

Remember video disk formats?

[DickBreath]

I often feel that it's better to have a mediocre standard than no standard at all.

If by standard, you mean DRM...

It is better to have mediocre DRM than no DRM at all. Having mediocre DRM gives the illusion of protection.

If by standard, you mean format...

Since formats tend to be long lived, I disagree.

Rewind back to the late '70's. To be clear, I am referring to the NINTEEN-seventies, in the twentieth century.

There were two competing video disk formats. This was all documented by Popular Science at the time. You can go through your library back issues to find it.

RCA had a mechanical video disk with a needle that actually touched the disk surface during playback. Video disks were expected to wear out and be re-purchased by the consumer. Phillips had developed a laser disk. The two formats were incompatible. Unlike DVD-R vs. DVD+R, there was no simple way to make dual format players. Phillips format was superior in ways that pesky consumers would like. RCA's format was superior in ways that our gracious copyright scum sucking owners liked. (Plus, as an added bonus, niether format was recordable.)

RCA had control of content, Phillips did not. Niether company was in a mood to back down after investing heavily in development. It was coincidence that both companies had products nearly ready for market at the same time.

Guess which format won? Niether, really. Phillips format did find some special purpose applications, such as video kiosks. For example, a rolling video playing in a car dealership.

Re:Remember video disk formats?

[Anonymous Coward]

My dad actually bought one of the RCA players. I think that the format was called CED. We had Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark on disks that had to be turned over half-way through the movie. Some titles had a second disk. These disks were about the size of a vinyl LP album. We actually drag this out from time to time and play the movies.

As I recall, RCA did come out with a recordable CED, however, it was too late since everyone was buying vcr's (either VHS or Beta) by then.

Re:Remember video disk formats?

[DickBreath]

Seriously dude, you should NOT ever play the movies again. Keep the disks in their protective jackoffs. The player and disks you have will become, or may already be a valuable collector's item. Save them until YOU are old, they will most certianly be valuable.

Re:Remember video disk formats?

[mfrank]

Yeah. I have my parent's player and disks. Nice to have a laserdisk where Han shoots first...

Re:Remember video disk formats?

[igb]

Valuable in the same way that 8 track cassettes are valuable, presumably? Or Philips V2000? Or Philips N1500? Or any number of other failed formats. Unless there happens to be fascinating content encoded on the media, they're of almost no interest.

ian

Re:Remember video disk formats?

[DickBreath]

Just as nobody has any interest in a Victrola, or Edison's early recording cylinders, or very old player piano systems and rolls.

2 Reasons not to go with Sony

[Fujisawa Sensei]

I can give you 2 reasone to not go with Sony

Reason 1, Beta. (The superior technology of Beta is BS. The superior technology was the technology that allowed me to watch an entire movie, without having to get up to change tapes.

Reason 2, Mini-Disk. Wonderful idea, murdered my the MP3 player. Making MDs was a pain, putting the digital info like song titles on them. You can rip a CD and have all the CD info already attached. I don't think the MD ever made it that far. The digital connection was supposed to do that, but I never saw it work.

Re:2 Reasons not to go with Sony

[fatalexe]

Hi-MD is a awsome format. 1Gb disks for $10, sonic stage perfectly copies my mp3 collection to the disk with automatic orginization. Even the latestest update adds mp3 ripping support too the software. I can also use the md player as a usb drive with any computer I want. It also records via analogue line in and can transfer uncompressed PCM wav data too the computer. It even can record via toslink fiber input. Don't bash a awsome tech just because they don't sell a unit worth anything in the United States. Take a trip too Japan and head down too Akihabara and you'll see MD is still kick'n.

Re:2 Reasons not to go with Sony

[Fujisawa Sensei]

I have a MD player, and I did see them when I was in Japan last year.

The US release of the MD player, which I have, had the slink cable. I've never used it.

I never said it was a bad technology. I said the MP3 technology was better, (ID3 Tags, CDDB, and ipod, that's a huge stack of MDs.), and pretty much killed it over here.

Four or Five are practical

[SuperKendall]

I consider five or fewer discs to be practical for some uses, like twice yearly backups to be moved offsite. While current blu-ray discs are I think about 50GB which is not quite what I would like (but far from 25 discs for 400GB) Sony is developing a 200GB storage model (8 layers) which I imagine we'll see as drive sizes hit about 800GB to a Terrabyte, good enough for me.

No problem

[QMO]

"Makes one almost wish for the days when regular CD-roms could hold several times the magnitude than the hard drives of the computers they resided in. Or maybe wish to have that ratio back:)"

Trade me your very large hard drive for my 2.5 GB drive, backup on DVD, and there you have it.

(I have to warn you that my drive is 5.25" quarter-height.)

Same planet, different worlds

[QMO]

I've been middle class my entire life, and never felt like $1500 was an affordable price for a television.

(Note: Just because it's bigger doesn't mean it's more affordable.)

Re:Same planet, different worlds

[Descalzo]

No kidding. I once knew a girl, though, whose parents lived in abject poverty. They lived in a trailer. Not a mobile home, but a trailer. They shared 2 small rooms with their children. They got a bonus and were going to spend it on a BIG-SCREEN TV!!! What the crap! I guess it's all about priorities.

Re:Same planet, different worlds

[Monkelectric]

Thats *WHY* they're poor. They are incapable of or unwilling to make good decisions. Theres lots of other reasons to be poor, but that is chief among them. I happened to be in a section 9 housing area a few years ago (the government pays part of your rent). The cars were nicer then the area I live in where the houses were worth, say, 280k before the boom, and probably now, more like 450k.

A good friend of mine has a mental illness which he uses as an excuse to not work :) His mother supports him mostly ... and Simultaneously he came into a small chunk of money and his mothers vehicle broke. What does the wise man do? Buys his mom a bicycle and spends the rest on electronics

Re:Same planet, different worlds

[Eccles]

Standard cable is $40/month. So $1500 for a set is about three years of cable, or about 30 trips to the movies. It's also, in constant dollars, probably the same price a standard 25 inch TV was 20 years ago. It just seems high to you because TVs have dropped so much in price (in constant dollars). But for something that is used so much, $1500 really isn't much.

And, as I said, the prices are still dropping.

"Having a stinger, as a bee or wasp."

[HTH NE1]

spell checkers won't catch their/they're/there or its/it's

"The... download now correctly rotate slots, aculeate and rotate contours and gives a correct dimension to be held for slots and holes."

The above was formed by joining three sentences (subject change from "we" resulting in the non-agreeing verbs), one too many characters getting deleted, an arguably missing comma, and a suggested correction from a spelling checker: the non-word "alculate" apparently was suggested to be replaced with "aculeate" instead of "calculate", which shows that even with a spelling checker, you still need to know what you're doing, or at least pay attention.

But at least "dimention" was caught.

an <ins>so called</ins> early adopter

[HTH NE1]

So he originally wrote "an early adopter", then inserted "so called" and forgot to change "an" to "a" to agree. It's an easy enough mistake to make.

Your money is cheap, give it to us...

[hummassa]

Down here your US$ 40 is the MONTHLY (48h/week) minimum wage. Deal with it.

Re:Your money is cheap, give it to us...

[kenelbow]

I wish there was "-1 Doesn't understand sarcasm" mod.

Are there?

[hummassa]

Every single movie I know fits in a DVD (some fit in a DVD9, but nontheless).
Some things (TV shows seasons) come in a DVD-pack but we don't have to watch 18 hours straight of Smallville season 4, do we?
And do we REALLY want a scratch to make all of your collection unreadable? Do we really want to put a gazillion eggs in the Super Size basket?
I, for one, welcome my old DVD overlords as long as I can.

I was under the impression that...

[hummassa]

the formats are physically incompatible (think 8 track tape versus cassete tape).
But then again, I could be wrong.

MOD PARENT INSIGHTFUL

[macserv]

It's certainly not funny, it's downright true. The ability to cheaply produce and distribute cheaply and discreetly to the masses makes DVD even more attractive to the pornographer than the huge Hollywood movie studio. Many a format has been spurred into the mainstream by this phenomenon.

Haven't we seen this before?

[lucason]

I'm talking MD, Vid8, atrac3... etc... We all know Sony will do what Sony wants, it will try to market their own standard by selling it at a cost twice the competing technology and they will sell it because it looks better. In the end only a handful of you acquaintances will have the Sony brand standards in their home and they will be fairly happy with it until they figure out that no-one else's media plays on their crap. We've all seen it before. I for one am going to ignore it this time

Troll? VHS has indexing

[blorg]

Don't know why you were modded troll, as you say VHS has had index search for a very long time. Don't know if it worked on sold/rented tapes (whether it did would be up to the manufacturer), but it certainly always worked fine on my own recordings.

Having said that, DVD is ten times better, no question. Far more durable than tape if handled well (DVDs might be more sensitive to things like mishandling/dropping, but aren't damaged half as much as tape through normal playing/sitting on a shelf/etc.) And while you might not notice the quality difference so much on a smallish TV, but projected there is no competition (erm, apart from HD of course).

Re:Troll? VHS has indexing

[zakezuke]

Don't know why you were modded troll, as you say VHS has had index search for a very long time.

Because I was pointing out a feature that exists now on DVD was very common on VHS decks. You gotta expect that around here.... it's like saying Windows has a feature that Linux doesn't have, or being critical an aspect of Macintosh.

Having said that, DVD is ten times better, no question. Far more durable than tape if handled well (DVDs might be more sensitive to things like mishandling/dropping, but aren't damaged half as much as tape through normal playing/sitting on a shelf/etc.) And while you might not notice the quality difference so much on a smallish TV, but projected there is no competition (erm, apart from HD of course).

Hey, I'll fully agree DVD is my medium of choice. But many features that are very native to tape are not all that native to DVD. Fast forward / rewind for example. Near as I can tell the disc spins at a constent speed neither becoming faster nor slowing down. Fast seaking tends to be more choppy on DVD. Frame by frame tends to be emulated very very well but its rate of speed is somewhat limited. This can be handeled better by huge buffers but it's not really native to the design.

The biggest edge VHS had over DVD was the fact that it lived in it's own case. This could have been resolved with caddy based discs but that would eliminate the usefulness of carousel style players.

Quality.... well VHS was crap. It was crap when it was new. You could tell the quality difference between laserdisc and beta and VHS on even the more crappy TVS... and VHS was the worst of the bunch then.