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Microsoft, Intel back HD DVD over Blu-ray
raitchison writes "Reuters is reporting that after months of sitting on the fence in the battle over what will replace the venerable DVD that Microsoft and Intel have thrown their weight behind Toshiba's
HD DVD over the Sony's Blu-ray.
Better compatibility with existing DVD technology as well as lower cost were cited as reasons to back HD DVD.
While this is undoubtedly a significant blow for Sony in their efforts to establish Blu-ray as the next standard it's not likely to be the end of Blu-ray."
Better compatibility with existing DVD technology as well as lower cost were cited as reasons to back HD DVD.
Or to help their XBox sales against the PS3.
I'm too young to remember that format war, but I'm not young enough to learn the lesson:
Wait until a de-facto standard has emerged. Otherwise, its a crapshoot at best.
"We wanted to choose the format that has the highest probability of this market taking off," said Stephen Balogh, director of optical media standards and technologies at Intel.
When did probability amount to anything in marketing computer components. Either Microsoft and Intel supported them or they didn't. Those that weren't supported didn't do as well intitially.
Marketing has always won out over technical merit - period.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
That's why I don't buy Sony, but we'll see how this one plays out.
This is such a tough choice for companies. It's more of a practical vs cutting edge thing. HD-DVD "technically" isn't as "good" of a format as B-R. The problem is that with production prices so high in comparison, people would rather buy something cheaper. I think the major issue at hand here is that you have half the industries supporting one and half supporting the other.
If it all goes to market, we're going to have to either have players that play both or two separate players. And you can imagine how confused non-techie people are going to get when their B-R disc doesnt work in their HD-DVD player.
Would anyone have guessed differently? Since MS and Sony are pitted against each other the consol wars their choice was made up for them.
Hello, in the PC market we all know how wonderfully horrible catridges work. Early CD drives with cartridges were slow and bad. DVD-RAM died a painful death, probably in some part thanks to DVD burners getting out quickly there after. While HD-DVD has less storage, I think the industry will find that users want backwards compatibility (something Blu-Ray lacks if I recall). And history isn't on Sony's side, afterall there were the losers in the Betamax-VHS battle, and some people would say that Beta was the better format.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
People aren't going to jump on either the HD-DVD or Blue-ray wagon for at least a year or so. The first buyers will be the geeks and peeps with enough money. On top of that, most consumers don't have plasma displays or projectors (although a growing number do have HD-TVs and they're a common item at Wal-Mart. In a few years they'll probably phase out regular TVs just like 900Mhz phones phased out older cordless models).
The quality of existing DVDs is quite amazing and I think most people will be happy with it for a while. The question comes with compatibility. Consumers want to only have to buy one version of something. Will the HD-DVD/Blue-ray they purchase work at their friend's house?
Personally I like the Blue-ray standard. It's a massive amount of data crammed onto a single disc. It's interesting that the article states that "...said the HD DVD format would make it easier for consumers to copy high-definition movies to computer hard drives...". So will HD-DVD have a less restrictive DRM than Blue-ray or are we talking about media size again?
I doubt both standards will stick around like DVD-R/DVD+R, because as I said earlier, people only want one universal format for content they purchase. One will be here five years from now and another, like laser discs, will end up at your local used book store in huge bins selling for $5 a pop.
Microsoft has always been in the HD-DVD camp for obvious reasons (Xbox360), so the only real news here is that Intel has jumped on with HD-DVD. Who cares? Intel is a large company, sure, but does anybody really care which optical storage format a SEMICONDUCTOR company supports? This sounds to me like Microsoft begging anyone it can to support their format of choice.
Surely the powers that be can see that a unified front is better for everyone. One reason the take up of DVD was so fast was that it was a single format. Any disc would work on any player, whether it was a budget model or a high end one. People remeber the VHS-BetaMax fiasco, who is going to upgrade their kit and more importantly their DVD library until the winner of the war stands alone? I can see the appeal of upgrading if the tech is better, but i am not going to get stuck with the losing format so i will not be upgrading until then, and i suspect i am not alone.
Sony is a media distributer. I can't think of any reason to believe they would pander to anyone looking for DRM-free media. If anything, they're notorious for pushing their own proprietary formats.
Playstation 3 will have Blu-Ray built in. MS didn't put HD-DVD into Xbox 360, it uses standard DVD. It's basically "game over" once the PS3 is released. HD-DVD doesn't stand a chance.
They won't be able to squash the BluRay Consortum... look at their board of directors...
Apple Computer, Inc.
Dell Inc.
Hewlett Packard Company
Hitachi, Ltd.
LG Electronics Inc.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Pioneer Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
TDK Corporation
Thomson Multimedia
Twentieth Century Fox
Walt Disney Pictures
FanFictionRecs.net
I can buy a Sony DVD-ROM drive right now, I cannot find an Intel or Microsoft DVD-ROM drive.
Exactly how does Microsoft and Intel "backing" a format affect my choice in buying a new-generation DVD drive?
They said the HD DVD format would make it easier for consumers to copy high-definition movies to computer hard drives.
Two things:
1) Copying content from media to a file is purely software. Neither DVD format should be much harder than the other. This is not a valid point.
2) Since when is copying movies to hard disks OK with large corporations? Again, this is not a valid point.
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own!"
I for one, do not welcome either format. OK, get more data on the discs for console gamers and such, but as far as movies and films go, plain old DVD has more than enough quality for me. I am just wanting to know if there is going to be a point in my lifetime that I will convert to something other than DVD unless I am forced. Is Blu-Ray or HD DVD going to be a step up in actual quality on my current TV and home theater? I doubt it. The conversion from VHS to DVD was needed and gave us more quality and features. Neither of these formats will give us the same kind of bump that DVD gave us, so why convert to a new format so soon after DVD? All I can figure is that all the money makers want some hardcore DRM.
Cost: how is this going to really make a difference to the consumer? Pulling numbers out of my ass, let's say an hd-dvd costs 5 cents to make, and a blue-ray disk costs 10 cents to make. Twice as much, sure, but in the long run, is it going to change the cost of your $19.95 disk to $39.95? Don't think so. $20.95? Maybe, but I doubt it. I don't think cost will really be a noticable difference to anyone except Sony, who will make only $9.95 per disk instead of $10.
Again, numbers pulled from my ass. But this is Slashdot, after all.
"Sony has to learn that single party closed standards won't exist for long. We won't see an open standard, but at least a consortium of different markets offers multiple profit-oriented groups some debate."
How exactly do you consider Blu-Ray to not be an open standard? The audio is AAC, which is Dolby's technology. Anyone can license it. The only reason why people call it a closed codec is because of its association with the Apple iTunes Music Store which wraps AAC files with Apple's own DRM system known as Fairplay. Sure, AAC is not open source like Ogg Vorbis, but again, anyone can license it and it is easily arguable that it is superior to (tin can sounding) WMA by Microsoft...especially AAC+. As for the video codec, the main codec supported by Blu-Ray is the H.264 (mainly developed by Apple) implementation of MPEG4. Blu-Ray also (at this time) supports the under-performing AV-1 (Windows Media 9) codec as well.
So again, how is Blu-Ray exactly Sony proprietary? Apple backs it. So does Sony's long time nemesis Matsushita (Panasonic) who usually does the exact opposite of Sony deliberately (purchasing MCA/Universal right after Sony purchase Columbia/Tri-Star Pictures, and jumping into videogames by fronting money to 3D0 back in the early 90s). The only reason why Warner Home Video and Toshiba push HD-DVD is to preserve their intellectual property licensing revenue they currently receive from the original DVD format technology. It certainly is not for altruistic reasons or even trying to be the best format available.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
"Who cares? Intel is a large company, sure, but does anybody really care which optical storage format a SEMICONDUCTOR company supports?"
The average consumer cares. You could say that 4 out of 5 Dentists reccomend HD-DVD to their family's and the consumer's would buy it. Perception is what matters, not truth.
As long as the drives exist, both Microsoft Windows and Intel based PCs will support both of these formats.
When all is said and done, HD-DVD will win. Based off of ONE reason. People will think BLU-RAY is something new and weird, but HD-DVD is just a new version of DVDs. Consumers are stupid, which makes HD-DVD the default winner. It's the one consumers are going to know what it is and buy it.
Consumers would benifit most from a 'dual support' system. From what I understand, Blu-ray uses a very intense holographic type system to allow the higher amount of storage. There won't be any 'blu-ray' consumer burners for a LONG time (if ever). Where as HD-DVD could have consumer burners pretty quickly.
Why not allow for something like toshiba is doing where you could have a BLU-RAY reader and HD-DVD reader/burner?
If that isn't the solution, consumers are going to suffer. One format will win in the end (remember beta vs vhs) and a group (either HDDVD or Blu-ray) will be left with a bunch of worthless media down the road (ie. beta).
if no one is going to go to Blu-ray, then who cares if the PS3 has it?
Ahh, but you know Sony is going to sell millions upon millons of units very quickly just based on past console success alone (even if the initial games are not all that special).
So that means suddenly you have millions of people with Blu-Ray players, vs perhaps a few tens of thousands with (still expensive) HD-DVD players. If any kind of decent percentage of PS3 owners buy Blu-Ray media, sales in that format are going to be much better.
To say no-one is going to buy Blu-Ray is to ignore how many people will buy the PS3 regardless of Blu-Ray support, but then balk at buying HD-DVD because they already have an HD player in the PS3.
There's a very real argument to be made that the PS2 substantially increased the rate of adoption for DVD players. I know a lot of people for who the PS2 was the first DVD player they had - the PS3 looks to simply follow the same pattern. History would indicate it will be a success especially with the XBox not releaseing an HD-DVD model until later (undoubtedly at the same time as the PS3).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The market will never pick one. When there were two competing formats for quadraphonic records, the market became confused, and chose neither. When two digital audio tape formats were offered up, DAT and DCC, the market was confused and chose neither. When there were two competing formats for AM Stereo, the market became confused and chose neither. In DVD-R vs. DVD+R, the market waited until drives did both. It wasn't really the market that decided VHS vs Beta either. Only Sony sold Beta. Everyone under the sun offered a VHS machine. That was what really made VHS the winner.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
As others have pointed out, the fatal problem with (any) DRM is that all keys have to be accessible from the same host. Which means, sooner or later (probably sooner) it will be cracked.
Evolution is a fact. Darwinism is a joke.
Blu-ray will be more cost effective in the long run because it has a lot more capacity than HD-DVD. They could put a ton of content on Blu-ray disks and still have room for future expansion.
HD-DVD just isn't very impressive from a capacity standpoint. It could be obsolete in another five years, after its intro, then we'd be looking at another format soon anyways.
Micro$oft and Intel are the only big backers of HD-DVD. The backer list for Blu-Ray is far more impressive.
I like the DVD format as much as any other geek. But I have to say, I'm not looking forward to this next generation of DVDs at all.
What does the consumer gain from Blu-Ray or HD-DVDs? Improvements in video quality that won't even be noticeable on 90% of TVs?
And what do consumers stand to lose? The next gen of DVDs are sure to have harsh DRM and artificially high prices. They'll be harder to back up or copy, because it'll take 5 DVD-Rs or half your hard drive to copy a single disk. And most annoying of all, if the manufacturers push the format hard enough, we'll all be FORCED to go buy new high-def drives/players to watch new movies, and they'll be pushing re-re-releases of all the older movies we've already paid for twice.
Frankly, I hope these next formats crash and burn harder than Laserdisk and Betamax combined. Let consumer demand drive the market, for once.
And that's when the fun begins. The content providers have made known their intent to cripple players whose keys have been compromised, by revoking their keys on new media. The task for the free information counterculture becomes obvious - compromise and release as many keys for as many best-selling players as possible, to face the content providers with the choice of either abandoning their DRM aspirations or incurring the wrath of the proletariat.
On what axis do you consider Blu-ray to have superior performance?
Bear in mind that, at launch, HD-DVD will have higher capacity, since HD-DVD dual-layer is much farther along. So for at least as year, HD DVD will be at 30 GB while Blu-ray will be at 25 GB.
Also, for the case of movies, both formats are easily big enough for Return of the King: EE in full 1080p with multiple high bitrate audio tracks, etcetera.
Now, there might be reasons to like Blu-ray the physical format for other reasons, but they're both well beyond "good enough" for movies.
My video compression blog
They also have the broadcast market. That's the people that make television programs.They've already made this thing http://pro.sony.com.hk/product_showprod.php?path=f ormat,5,subformat,8,product,125&id=125, wich uses blue-ray, and a number of other products. And those hve sold pretty well.
In other words, they already have a market for blue-ray. It won't be killed by microsoft and intel. It might have less of an impact than it could but it'll still make syne a hefty wad of cash.
The Euclidean path integral over all topologically trivial metrics can be done by time slicing and so is unitary when an
I think those other competing formats failed for other reasons. Mainly because people didn't care, or a better or acceptable existing format was available. People see movies at theatres all the time, and are used to high resolution. As HD TVs become affordable, I think people are going to really want a high resolution DVD format to make use of those sets.
As an inverterate HDTV freak, I disagree. I believe that the hdtv owning joe-sixpack is not going to be hugely interested in high-def DVDs because current DVDs, played on a DVI/HDMI scaling player are surprisingly good. In fact, a good quality DVD scaled up can easily best a poor HDTV transfer.
Based on commentary from sites like avsforum, where there is a lot of BS but insiders are also known to frequent, I believe that hollywood's big focus on HD-BLU-DVD is copy prevention. The promise of high quality video is the carrot, but they don't care if the carrot is half rotten. The major studios have a rotten track record when it comes to image quality on DVD - even big name releases are at risk for a poor job - for example Spiderman's initial DVD release was average to poor, only the 'superbit' re-release made up for it. But even the 'superbit' brand is no promise of high quality - Spiderman 2 on superbit is merely somewhat better than average, Panic Room in superbit was another average to poor transfer and the various musical or non-movie superbits (Tommy, Cirque du Soleil, etc) are quite poor.
Another place to look for terrible quality control is TV releases. TV on DVD is booming, but the studios rarely take any care with the technical details. Way too many TV shows are released in their syndicated (cut) form rather than the original full-length version. Transfer quality is often an after-thought, even on brand new shows (see season 1 of Las Vegas, a show that is primarily about eye-candy with plot a distant second, it looks incredible in broadcast HDTV, but the DVDs feature a soft transfer with dull, muted colors).
I fully expect to see TV on HD-BLU-DVD being over-compressed and just as poorly cared for as current TV on DVD.
There are other factors that will tend to slow adoption - the DVD player market has already peaked, the market is saturated, everybody who might want one already owns one. This will limit the chances for manufacturers to substitute DVD+HD-BLU-DVD players for regular DVD players in a 'stealth' approach to getting the functionality out there (the PS3 being the best counter-example of a 'stealth' deployment that will probably work).
And, while DVD uptake has been the fastest of any consumer eletronics product so far, I think that the HD-BLU-DVD will have a much tougher battle ahead because it only offers (potential) improved picture quality. The move from VHS to DVD brought with it random-access, no-rewind, smaller physical size, physical durability (playing a DVD does not degrade it like VHS does). It also co-incided with a huge reduction in movie pricing - VHS (even to this day in some cases) suffers from 'rental pricing' where initial releases had retail prices of about $100 - making VHS collecting price prohibitive. Since DVDs are already free of rental pricing, HD-BLU-DVD won't be able to leverage that kind of price reduction. It would be great if the studios decided that all HD-BLU-DVDs would retail for $5 instead of $20, but I doubt that will happen.
So, with the market already saturated with DVDs and DVDs being "good enough," for the vast majority of the consumer base (remember HDTV penetration is less than 10% anyway) plus the confusion of BLU vs HD, I think we will see major product stagnation - on the order DVD-A vs SACD vs mp3.
I also think such stagnation will be a good thing. I used to think otherwise, but I feel that such stagnation will be seen, in part, as a market condemnation of over-blown copy prevention. But, as an HDTV freak, such a delay will bum me out too.