In Sony's Stumble, the Ghost of Betamax

QuatermassX writes "In a lengthy piece in today's New York Times, Ken Belson equates Sony's troubles in bringing Blu-Ray to market with their classic fumble of Betamax technology in the early 1980's. He also discusses the influence of Microsoft in the recent advances in the adoption of the perceived underdog in this fight, HD-DVD. The article also summarises the various twists and turns in the development of the format along with some scary numbers (that we're familiar with) on the estimated cost of Playstation 3 From TFA: "There are other industry analysts who contend that Microsoft is simply propping up Toshiba to further its own aims, like countering the PlayStation and combating the spread of Sun's Java software. Nonetheless, Toshiba is happy for the backing, given that the format was written off for dead just a few months ago. '"There's no doubt that everyone has various agendas," said Mark Knox, an adviser to the Toshiba promotion group. "But whatever their agenda, Microsoft's support has been a huge boon to HD-DVD.'""

Comments

Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD is stupid

[IntlHarvester]

OK, so originally Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were going to be very different technologies. HD-DVD was supposed to be a quick and cheap evolution of the existing DVD spec -- small capacity red-laser disks that used advanced codecs such as H.264 to store HD video. Blu-Ray on the other hand was super high-tech high-capacity blue laser disks but still depended on MPEG-2.

But since the war of words has started, each format adopted each other's features. Now they *both* have Blue lasers, both have all the same advanced codecs, and even both have the same copy-protection system, all adding engineering and patent license costs. To top it off, HDDVD didn't get to market early, and thy are both likely to be on shelves this holiday consumption season. In short the differences are now pointless from the consumer's standpoint -- it doesn't really matter which one wins.

It's been speculated that Microsoft is trying to up-the-ante by backing HD-DVD heavily. Either to force a merger between the formats (and patent pools), or to stall the market until computer-based VOD can take over.

Re:Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD is stupid

[benwaggoner]

FWIW, I work in Amir's division, as Program Manager for Video Encoding.

Oh, there are still some very substantial differences. Even though both use the same laser diode, Blu-ray uses a much thinner substrate, so the optical head is closer to the actual pits. In theory this means it can have higher data density (15 GB per layer instead of 25 GB per layer). But in practice, this has meant:

HD DVD can do dual-layer very easily for 30 GB, while Blu-ray still hasn't gotten dual-layer out of the lab, meaning that mass market titles will be single layer 25 GB.

Blu-ray discs are harder and more expensive to make, for both manufactured, and writable/rewritable.

Sony has also failed to get a way to actually use any advanced codecs other than MPEG-2 working yet. Which means that for near-future HD titles, we're looking at:

HD DVD @ 30 GB running VC-1 (you can do all of LOTR:ROTK:EE on a single side of a single disc with that).

Blu-ray @ 25 GB running MPEG-2 (where anything much over 2 hours can start having some quality degradation compared to the source).

Also, Java is a relative nightmare for developing movie content versus iHD. It's akin to building a web site completely as an embedded Java applet v. using XHTML. With iHD we can build great stuff, like having picture-in-picture of the director popping up for audio commentary. It's also not clear what the baseline support of Blu-ray players for interactivity is going to be - a number of players look like they might support a small subset of what's possible. With HD DVD, all players will support iHD.

HD DVD v. Blu-ray isn't unlike XBOX 360 v. PS3. Sure, the PS3 sounds great on paper. But Sony's betting the farm on SO many new technologies, the failure or delay of any one of throws the whole thing off. If they could make either PS3 or Blu-ray work perfectly and on time, that'd be one thing. XBOX 360 and HD DVD are shipping and shipping in a month respectively, and rock. Rocking, shipping products beat rocking paper specs with questionable ability to implement any day of the week, and twice on Sundays.

Hooray for format wars

[Raul654]

One analyst on NPR said that a format war ala Beta vs VHS, which causes confusion in the marketplace, can reduce the market by 90%. That is, 9 out of 10 would-be buyers stay away. So, bearing in mind that (1) both formats are copy protected, (2) to the point where the analog signal is being intentionally degraded, and that (3) a Playstation 3 is going to cost in excess of $800, thus giving the ~$250 Nintendo Revolution a huge advantage -- I can see definite positive outcomes of both formats imploding.

Re:Big yawn w/o smaller disks

[transami]

Well, sort of. Many companies were involved in that. Looks like Philps was the primary driver for consumer products, then Sony came in.

1978 Philips releases the video disc player
Sony sells the PCM-1600 and PCM-1 (digital audio processors)
"Digital Audio Disc Convention" Held in Tokyo, Japan with 35 different manufacturers.
Philips proposes that a worldwide standard be set.
Polygram (division of Philips) determined that polycarbonate would be the best material for the CD.
Decision made for data on a CD to start on the inside and spiral towards the outer edge.
Disc diameter originally set at 115mm.
Type of laser selected for CD Players.

1979 Prototype CD System demonstrated in Europe and Japan.
Sony agrees to join in collaboration.
Sony & Philips compromise on the standard sampling rate of a CD -- 44.1 kHz (44,100 samples per second)
Philips accepts Sony's proposal for 16-bit audio.
Reed-Solomon code adopted after Sony's suggestion.
Maximum playing time decided to be slighty more that 74 minutes.
Disc diameter changed to 120mm to allow for 74 minutes of 16-bit stereo sound with a sample rate of 44.1 kHz

Interestingly the first time I ever saw a CD was on Star Trek (Original) and that was a repeat aired in the early 70s.

Sony's REAL problem

[unitron]

Sony used to be a hardware company.

Now Sony is a "content" company with a division that makes hardware.

A division that can't think first about how to make the hardware great but has to think about (and re-think, and think about it some more) "How can we make sure that this new piece of gear can never, ever, under any circumstances, be used to violate copyright in any conceivable way and any that aren't?".

While they were doing that instead of designing cool new hardware Apple came out with the MP3 version of the Walkman.

Because of that the Mini-Disc never became what it could have been.

Because of the content side worrying about copyright instead of cool hardware they screwed up a bunch of people's computers and convinced many of them and many others to avoid any future purchases of Sony hardware.

I suspect a hadware only company that worried about copyright about as much as the creators of Betamax did could have already had a DRM-free Blu-Ray product on the market by now.

Re:Why is Microsoft supporting hd-dvd?

[Smallpond]

Same DRM? Sony plans to include self-destruct of hacked players. I haven't heard that for HD-DVD.