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Blu-Ray The Flavour of The Moment
News from all over seems to indicate that Blu-Ray has been accepted by entertainment media groups. wingman358 writes "The technology research group 'Forrester Research' has declared the Sony-led next generation Blu-Ray format the winner over HD-DVD, led by Microsoft. Forrester Research analyst Ted Schadler says, 'After a long and tedious run up to launch, it is now clear to Forrester that the Sony-led Blu-Ray format will win.'" Meanwhile, the format continues to improve. mimio writes "Hewlett-Packard Co. on Wednesday raised the stakes in a battle between high-definition DVD formats by urging a group led by Sony Corp. to include features important to PC makers and users." Finally, Tibor the Hun writes "Apparently Warner has switched from backing HD-DVD to Blu-Ray. What impact might this have on Microsoft's decision to use HD-DVD on the Xbox 360?"
Considering that the 360 uses a standard DVD drive out of the gate it would seem pretty obvious that if Blue-Ray gains traction and the disks and drives are in bulk production at a reasonable rate that Microsoft's "decision" will be about as long term as the decision to not include a next gen drive at all.
I guess it is *possible* that Microsoft has drank the coolaid to such an extent that they would prefer to hobble themselves than use a competitor's product (the Java requirement of Blue-Ray must be killing them). Even if so, it will simply mean they have a drive that is only really useful for gaming. I sometimes wonder if part (and only a small part to be sure) of the Game Cube's lackluster sales was the fact that is played "games only", removing the "but we can play CDs/DVDs on it" excuse. However, that is much less of an issue every day as DVD players are nearly available as toy surprises in cereal boxes.
Blue-Ray drives and disks have been available since the July in Japan as opposed to the HD-DVD which is still vaporware (just this month the first sample drives have shipped). I have to give Blue-Ray some credit for being available, some more for having a pretty important backers (Sony's commitment to it in the PS3 has a lot more credibility than "Xbox will have HD-DVD, maybe, someday"). The movie industry has made it clear they don't plan to *ignore* Blue-Ray (which was the earlier stance of some). HD-DVD looks forward to a more and more uphill battle if they can't pull more important backing than Microsoft out of their hat.
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News from all over seems to indicate that Blue-Ray has been accepted by entertainment media groups.
Read: Pr0n industry.
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I suppose I'd be less hesitant if Forrester wasn't so often financed by the people they report on.
I like the fact that the war is won even before either format is officially in use. Honestly, we're not going to truly know the winner until the PS3/XBox/HD-DVD/Blu-ray players hit the shelves. Unless 90% of all distributors declare going on way or the other (and who's to say they won't change with the tide if they can do so without too steep a manufacturing loss), we really aren't going to know the winning standard until they're in full use. It's the good ole Betamax/VHS battle. Personally, I hope Blu-ray wins...and I hope we get Bur-Ray writable drives. That would be so bad ass!
What impact might this have on Microsoft's decision to use HD-DVD on the Xbox 360?
/. article linked in the summary is erroneous, it was based on a Bill Gates quote that pre-dated it by three months, and all he said was that MS might put a next-gen optical drive in the Xbox 360 after the format war had been settled, if the demand was there.
Microsoft has NOT decided on anything with regards to HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray on Xbox 360. The
..."to include features important to PC makers and users." I'd say the no1 feature of import is that the format isn't battling with some other similar but incompatible format. Stick to one format, guys, that's what will satisfy the consumer most. Do they REALLY want a rerun of VHS v Beta, Cassette v DCC, CD v Minidisc? These chaps are thick in the head.
I think it's interesting to watch and see who is the 800lb gorrila here. Sony doesn't want to repeat losing the format war like they did with betamax and Microsoft want's to lead the charge with "innovation" and being an industry leader.
Who has more to lose in this fight? I've often thought that Sony would be the company that has the muscle to actually give Microsoft a run for their money.
Finally, one of the comments further down says that "Blue-ray" is a cooler name. Don't discount this. I think that "Blue-ray" as a term resonates with both us geeks and the public. Silly as it might be for us, using specifications and capacity, etc., the coolness factor of something simple like a name might sway the buying public.
My money is on Sony in this one.
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The 360 was never going to use HD-DVDs. The initial 360 shipments were always planned to have normal DVD drives, they just admitted they were keeping open the option of including HD-DVD drives in the future. That was a reasonable position as they assumed (correctly) that the format war would not be resolved until after the 360 was released, or so close to the release as to make guessing which horse to back too risky even for Microsoft.
is how much DRM each technology uses.
Blu-ray lost my vote when they decided to build in functionality to allow the movie industry to actually physically disable your player if they chose. To restore your disabled player you would have to send it in for 'repair'.
Think for a second about how managed copy has to work. It HAS TO require a network connection back to some server to allow or deny siad copy. And that means it's like not having the feature at all.
Apple's "Fair Use" rules require no server interaction whatsoever. This is not the same as FairPlay - as far as I'm concerned Blu-Ray has as much fair use from the gate as HD-DVD, which is to say exactly none.
As for retooling, that's a one-time cost so in the long run completely meaningless. If a lot of plants have to re-tool anyway to make PS3 games, then why would they not also spit out movies?
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You are correct. BUT...
The whole Blue-Ray cs HD-DBD think isn't just games, but movies. Everyone's waiting to see who wins so they can start printing Movies on the appropriate discs and start building Disc Players en-masse. Until the winner is decided our High-Def movies are in limbo.
Microsoft want's people to use their X-Boxes as more than just gaming rigs to increase sales. "Buy an X-Box 360 and watch High Def Movies!" But if they lose the format war then that's a major loss to the X-Box, as it goes from Home multimedia system to gaming system that can maybe play mp3s.
The problem is compounded by the fact that Microsoft is large and can throw TONS of money towards advertising and lobbying to make HD-DVD the format. While they may not win it will definately slow the whole process down.
The problem is compounded by the fact that Microsoft is large and can throw TONS of money towards advertising and lobbying to make HD-DVD the format. While they may not win it will definately slow the whole process down.
I do not think this is a problem, especially since Sony can do the same thing. Since this is not going to be lobbys against congress, but against the people - I don't mind if MS throws some money down my way (assuming they will make their product cheaper).
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The 360 does not ship with HD-DVD, and therefore will be providing no mass for HD-DVD whatsoever.
Now you can see whay HD-DVD is really screwed. While the 360 fragments its own market on launch with the HD models, the PS3 comes out next year and you isntanted have millions of Blu-Ray players in the US. At that same point in time Microsoft releases the upgraded 360 with HD-DVD also, and pisses off all the early adoptors that are the ones who would have used HD-DVD anyway but now do not want to buy another 360 just six months later.
I kind of think though Microsoft will be forced by market pressures to go with Blu-Ray for the 360 though.
I thought it kind of interesting that your analysis did not quite make it to pointing out the PS2 had a DVD drive, which was kind of in the same train of thought - some people justifies the purchase of a PS2 because it could also play DVD's. It was my only DVD player for quite some time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This will hurt MS. Unlike Sony who has design engineers, patents, and manufacturing facilities and experience, Microsoft has none of these. They're known mostly in hardware for the MSMouse and the XBox.
Sony can make their own new format (e.g. UMD) including the drives, media, and pressing plants. Microsoft can't. If HD-DVD was to only appear in the XBox with a run of a few ten's of millions over the next 7 years the price would be so high that XBox would really become non-competative.
The only reason Microsoft wants HD-DVD for the XBox is because they clearly need an HD drive of some sort, and HD-DVD is the only game in town that isn't Sony.
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My #1 feature request, for either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD: No non-skippable support. I want to be able to go straight to the menu/movie, enough with the non-skippable ads, logos, FBI warnings, etc.
Blu-Ray definitely sounds better, but don't understimate the fact that HD and DVD are both in the current lexicon. Most of the public knows about DVD by now, and HD is growing by leaps and bounds. Combining the terms to form "HD-DVD" gives your average consumer an immediate understanding of what the product is, whereas they'll have to research (even if it's just asking the salesdroid) to figure out what Blu-Ray is. Your average consumer is not going to care about resolution, DRM, or any of the other technical details about the product. They're just going to want to make sure it works on their new HD television. That ought to give HD-DVD quite the leg-up.
"Warner has not dropped HD-DVD. Like most studios, they are now backing both formats."
That should read... "Like ONE other studio, they are now backing both formats." About half of all studios support HD-DVD and ALL of them except one now Blu-Ray.
My money is on Sony in this one.
Exactly. It would have been different if the 360 was going to START shipping w/HD-DVD but because they are trying to be first out of the gate and are instead equipping their models with standard DVD drives, they aren't going to be able to beat Sony's Blu-Ray PS3.
Microsoft went about this the wrong way, IMHO. It will likely depend on the success of the PS3 vs the 360 (equipped or not).
So the one time cost to produce these is going to be higher? And I should care because?
Unless you own stock in a company that has to invest in new equipment for this, this is a non argument for consumers. And yes, I doubt that at the end the price for consumers is going to be that much different between Blue-Ray and HD-DVD movies.
Yes, as a consumer what I care about is higher capacity, and Blu-Ray has it and it will scale better than HD-DVD. If we're going to go through the pain of moving from the DVD format, the only logical thing is to chose the format that has the most capacity at a reasonable or comparable price.
If you don't care about storage capacity why should we bother to move on from DVD in the first place?
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UMD will be another format that will die and it from sony
I know playing most games with a remote would probably suck.
However, if you could use java and a Blu-Ray burner to make your own Blu-Ray player/PS3 compatible games, that would seriously rock!
If this works, I could easily see Blu-Ray player manufacturers making gamepad style remotes or maybe even gamepad ports for their players for playing java games on them.
This could open up a whole new market for the small developer.
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Ah, but a HD DVD line can switch between HD DVD and normal DVD, so it's already got a huge market already. And you don't need to build a new line - you upgrade your DVD line to HD DVD, and keep on making DVDs. Blu-ray just does Blu-ray. So it's much riskier, as well as being much more expensive.
As for player? There are 0 Blu-ray movie players in the world now, Japan included. They have storage devices using the optical format, but the actual bitstream for the discs hasn't been fully defined yet.
As for "increasing stream of Blu-ray revenue" do you have a citation? For mass-produced media? Nothing plays them yet!
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Blu-ray lost my vote when they decided to build in functionality to allow the movie industry to actually physically disable your player if they chose.
They both support key revocation. Back to square one.
Really both are equal DRM wise. But it's stupid to ignore the format because of that; as long as you can burn your own content use the one that is more technically appealing and simply ignore DRM media. If you feel strongly enough about it download DIVX from torrents and transcode them to next-gen media.
I still support blu-ray almost entirely because of the larger supported storage sizes; I plan to use it as secondary offsite backup.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley