Slashdot Mirror
HP No Longer Exclusively Supporting Blue-Ray
linumax wrote to mention an MSNBC article stating that HP is dropping its exclusive support for Blue-Ray. They'll be offering support to the HD-DVD format as well. From the article: "The decision is the latest sign of a looming 'format war' between the competing standards for a new generation of digital video players that can record high-definition films and video games. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD-compatible devices are expected to hit stores worldwide early next year."
This trumped-up format war is going to be dead on arrival -- because 90% of U.S. televisions won't be anywhere near an HDTV signal until 2015. It's going to be DVD right up to the holocubes.
The article headline says that HP has dropped support for Blu-Ray, implying that it has dropped all support. Whereas the article text makes it clear that HP has only dropped exclusive support.
A bit of fact-spinning going on at MSNBC?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
It's not Blue-ray, since it was considered too generic to be trademarked.
Hmm... "Blue-rays" less generic than... Windows?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
DVD burners can now do DVD+R and DVD-R in one, and are finally getting down in price.
And now we have the next turn around, with Blu-ray and HD-DVD.
So place your bets, gentlemen. Will one die, as in Betamax?
Or will they eventually be combined in a single machine? (Is that possible?)
Only the most open solution can win. Consumers will realize if they can't copy (to some other medium) or if either one angles them in DRM, that it just isn't worth it.
AFAIK, both of them drown in DRM features and there's no real buzz for them outside some in the video-phile community, DVDs will prevail - they are good enough and neither new offering offer killer must-have features for the majority of people.
Since either medium doesn't give me a significantly big boost in GBs that I was expecting, it will probably flop on the computer side as a gotta have (as a burner) because Holographic storage will blow it away by the time burners come out.
a looming format war? what have you called the last year? minor consistent back and forth skirmishes?
sorry folks, the format war has been going on.
HP wants to support HD-DVD because Windows Vista will have support for HD-DVD, but add-ons like Java will be required for Blu-ray. Microsoft won't ship Java with Windows Vista.
This only matters for PCs and laptops, not stand-alone Blu-ray players. The makers of stand-alone players are happy to ship Java.
I plan on buying the PS3 as my high-def disc player. It will support Blu-ray and it runs Linux. Plus I can play games on it.
HP is just trying to strong-arm some more concessions out of Sony on Blu-Ray features like managed copy. With 90% support from movie studios and HD-DVD delayed until 2006 the battle is already over. Even Microsoft has quit making noise about a possible HD-DVD X-Box 360. As far as low cost manufacture of discs, Blu-Ray can win there too with mpeg-4 on conventional DVD-9 for low bar entry into HD production -- can you aay porn? I know you could.
Letter To Iran
Who would support Blue-Ray anyway? I mean it isn't even a standard like Blu-Ray is.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
The decision is the latest sign of a looming 'format war' between the competing standards for a new generation
First of all, only those of us who actually want to use this stuff will "lose" this war. As with the DVD +/- "war", we'll just end up seeing every device need to license both formats, boosting prices and causing massive incompatibilities where people argue about which brand of media works best in which brand of drive. And Grandma still won't understand why she can't burn her now-in-HD soaps to a plain ordinary CD ("But it fits in the drive!").
These industry groups REALLY needs to suck up their pride, and just play a hand of poker to decide which format wins. The winner will agree to buy out the loser's R&D costs (perhaps with a bit extra as a deal-sweetener), and the loser will in turn refrain from unnecessarily fragmenting the market. Then we all win. Even the industry groups.
But more importantly, I see the whole Blu-Ray vs HD-HVD issue as all but moot. Regardless of who wins, we'll only see at best a roughly 10x increase in optical storage capacity per disc, and even that only at the tail end of the effective lifetime of the media (ie, look at writeable dual-layer DVDs - Oh wait, I can't, I've never even seen one in person, and they cost a few bucks each).
The "home theater" market does not have the same requirements as the data storage market. For home theater, just switching the existing DVD standard to allow MPEG-4 would allow for HD movies. But for data storage, particularly backups, we now have desktop PCs with 500GB drives - Which will still take 20 first-gen Blu-Ray discs, or 34 HD-DVDs, to completely back up. And many of us who appreciate the need for good backups have home file servers in excess of a terabyte.
What we really need, we won't get out of simple industry greed in pushing incremental upgrades on us - We need everyone to say "screw the sub-100GB optical formats, let's finally get one of these multi-TB holographic techs we keep hearing about, to market".
My personal opinion is that "HDTV" and "HD-DVD" or whatever are totally missing the point. There's no point in buying one of these "flat panel televisions" -- just go buy a computer monitor. There's no point in getting hi-def content on a dead-plastic disc or from your dead mainstream media. It's all just going to be files on a computer.
My 2cents.
But DRM and copyright flags will prohibit us from watching it with our eyes open.
Blu-Ray is clearly the better format. It can hold more, and has faster read times (theoretically, havn't seen stats yet). The only reason HD-DVD has alot of interest is because it's cheaper to produce, and requires only small modifications to current DVD players. More evidance that in the current capitalist buisness world, quality is the least important factor in anything. Money is the bottom line.
google.slashdot
From people building support into their products like these people. Hopefully nobody will have the same attitude in thinking "What's the point, 1080p isn't so common" because I don't want to see another fucking interlaced display in my lifetime ever again! There is no reason we should have to put up with visual garbage such as interlacing. Holy crap, it's horrid. I'd rather watch 480p (or 720p) than 1080i, but I'm sure 1080i would be the most supported option just because it's the biggest number (notice how many don't support 720p and jump straight from 480p to 1080i).
Twinstiq, game news
All the filmmakers use Macs, the screenwriters use Macs, the editors use Macs, and the format that Macs can burn is going to be the standard in Hollywood.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Out of all the players in both the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD camps, I literally cannot think of a more insignificant player.
HP is dropping exclusive support simply because they are acting as a Microsoft shill to try and shoehorn Microsoft's menuing language into the Blu-Ray spec. Undoubtedly it would stick in Microsofts craw to have to develop tools to help people build Java based menus that are going to be a part of Blu-Ray, and simialrily they probably already have tools lined up to support thier own format.
However I don't think HP's slight shift in allegance will have any impact. If Dell had moved it might be a bigger story, although really the players that matter are the consumer electronics manufacturers as whatever player there are the most of are going to be the players computer owners will want burners for to play thier own media.
Currently still the war looks to be over before it began with Sony shipping Blu-Ray players in every PS3. Within a year there are simply going to be an order of magnitude more Blu-Ray players than HD-DVD, and that will be that as much as the monolithc marketing engines behind HD-DVD will try and drag things out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley