Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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 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.
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