Next DVD Format War Still Wide Open

An anonymous reader writes "Despite the wishes of partisan players like Sony and Toshiba, many consumer electronics manufacturers are opting to support both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs in upcoming media players." From the article: "Consumer electronics maker LG Electronics and PC maker Fujitsu-Siemens both said on Thursday they would keep their options open after computer giant Hewlett-Packard said last month it would back HD DVD as well as Blu-ray. Bjorn Sehrm, senior director Digital Home of Fujitsu-Siemens, told Reuters: 'We are planning to put both in. We don't take a stand in that fight, and actually we're very sorry that fight is happening.'

Comments

Who wins?

[Agent00Wang]

Who does this format war even benefit? I'm glad that some vendors will support both formats, but I for one will be waiting for things to die down before I invest in either format.

Re:Who wins?

[Serapth]

Actually this upcoming generation of media benefits the consumer very little. Thanks to draconian measures in HDCP obsoleting a good chunk of consumer electronics out there, it infact pretty much screws the consumer.

Im not one to boycott products, but there is always a first. I will as long as possible, refuse to buy any product built around HDCP. Sadly, that means HD-DVD, BluRay, the PS3, etc... I sure as hell am not going to buy a new monitor and video card to support Vista. This doesnt mean no Vista, but from the sounds of it, it does mean no Media Center.

This is one time where consumers should unite and say a collective "Fuck you!".

Re:Who wins?

[SeeMyNuts!]

Another concern is that newer media formats might not have the life cycle of CD and DVD. CDs are still useful and have been around a couple of decades, CDs are scratch tolerant, etc. DVDs still work, but are more fragile. How well do Blu-Ray and HD-DVD stand up?

Re:Who wins?

[ajs318]

The format war benefits the Hollywood studios.

If we're expecting a straightforward repeat of VHS vs. Beta, then it will go something like this: The first round of Early Adopters will buy both systems in quantities roughly proportional to manufacturers' established market shares {Sony and Sanyo made Beta kit; JVC supplied cheap VHS machines, built under licence in sewing-machine factories, to rental companies for badge-engineering}. One system will eventually come to dominate, for a reason ultimately determined by neither the consumers nor the manufacturers {VHS recorders, which were mainly supplied on a rental basis, were more easily field-maintained than the technically-superior Beta system}.

However, this time around there will be a crucial difference. When Beta died out, and customers renting Beta machines had to be supplied with VHS replacements, the rental companies took it upon themselves to copy users' accumulated tape libraries onto the new format {Macrovision had not been invented then}. This time, owners of the "failed" format will simply be expected to purchase their favourite films again, to the benefit of the movie studios.

So you bought a film once on VHS, again on VHS because the first one wore out, then on DVD, then once {if you picked the winner of the new format wars from day one} or twice {if you didn't} on the new, high-definition discs.

The crucial deciding factor with cassettes turned out to be field-maintenance. I'm guessing that this time, with new high-definition discs, the crucial deciding factor will be how easily any intended consumer-shafting measures {under the colour of copy-prevention} can be defeated. The important company to watch here is Sony, because they make the discs and the players; so they are unlikely to make copying easy on their players, since they would be shooting themselves in the foot. Player manufacturers who are not involved in the content industry have less to worry about {and the people working in their labs, who are ideally-placed to introduce backdoors, enjoy a movie as much as the next person .....}

Re:Who wins?

[CastrTroy]

This is probably mostly due to data density. If your scratch is the same size on a CD/DVD/HD DVD/Blu Ray, then on a CD it would damage x bits. Since a dual layer DVD holds about 14 CDs, i'm guessing the same scratch would take out 14x bits. Now if the new stuff holds 50 Gigs, lets call that 5X a DVD, it would take out 70x bits. Although I heard blu ray is supposed to have some heavy polymer that prevents scratching, how much will your fingerprint or speck of dust stop the player from reading properly. There's a reason that they put hard drives in sealed containers. I would think that a device such a bluray or hd dvd would require that there be very little dust in order for it to read properly. Either that, or a lot of ecc data.

Re:Who wins?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who does this format war even benefit?

The people who have patents on the winning format.

Re:Who wins?

[littlem]

Who does this format war even benefit? I'm glad that some vendors will support both formats, but I for one will be waiting for things to die down before I invest in either format.

Certainly not DVD Jon - with two different formats to crack he might need to spend two afternoons working on it instead of one.

Re:Who wins?

[Anonymous Coward]

"consumers should unite"

Wtf dude? Just dont buy it. There is no solidarity in buying movies.

Re:Who wins?

[PFI_Optix]

If the new generation of disks really are yet more fragile, that spells bad news given the increased efforts to prevent legitimate backups. They'd love to see us buying the same movie three or four times because of damaged disks. No, thanks. I'll stick with DVDs until I can buy HD movies online.

Re:Who wins?

[brix_zx2]

I'm still waiting for the TV thing to die down, HD or not HD, Plasma or LCD (plus now there is a new one to the flat TV line-up isn't there?).

Re:Who wins?

[dusik]

>> "Although I heard blu ray is supposed to have some heavy polymer that prevents scratching, how much will your fingerprint or speck of dust stop the player from reading properly."

They actually came out with a new polymer covering for the Blu-Ray that's highly scratch-resistant. They did a demo a while back trying to jam a screwdriver into the disk and it was still fine. It's really quite an improvement.

>> "how much will your fingerprint or speck of dust stop the player from reading properly."

Possibly, but on the other hand that's not permanent damage :)

Re:Who wins?

[dusik]

>> "So you bought a film once on VHS, again on VHS because the first one wore out, then on DVD, then once {if you picked the winner of the new format wars from day one} or twice {if you didn't} on the new, high-definition discs."

And now, due to HDCP, you can't even watch it until you buy a new monitor! ;)

Re:Who wins?

[dusik]

>> "I'm still waiting for the TV thing to die down, HD or not HD, Plasma or LCD (plus now there is a new one to the flat TV line-up isn't there?)."

Yeah, there's SED (Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display) coming out fairly soon (probably 2007). That's basically flat CRT, with each pixel being an individual mini electron emitter (a la LCD).

Re:Who wins?

[KDan]

No, but given the omnipresence of dust, it's as good as permanent even if it keeps shifting from one part of the disk to another...

Daniel

Re:Who wins?

[Threni]

> but I for one will be waiting

Error in line 2 of input - inaccurate assumption ("I, for one") that most people speak for others, not themselves.

Re:Who wins?

[mgabrys_sf]

Bozo screams that he won't buy another platform for watching movies - blows smoke about Vista - and says "fuck you".

Instant +5 Insightful baby!

He should knock-em dead on Wikipeidia. Zounds! I'm astounded by the blinding insight.

- oh yes, almost forgot - fuck you. There now I'm fucking Einstein too.
When did this place devolve to digg? Someone tell me - please.

Re:Who wins?

[zpeterz63]

This is a very good point and one that I have wondered myself. With the increase in data density, a scratch is really going to be very bad for your media.

What I was wondering is if perhaps vendors could use the high capacity of this new generation of optical media to put a redundancy on the disk. I know that this would cut down on the maximum capacity of the disk, but, as far as I'm concerned, the current data capacity works just fine in 90% of all cases. Adding a data redundancy (perhaps at a reduced quality) would be a good way to help protect media from crippling scratches and the like.

The first question that would pop into my mind about making a redundancy such as this is "how is it going to be accessed on the fly?". My solution would be if hardware manufactures supporting a caching feature for the redundancy so that it can be accessed from the memory if a disk read fails to keep up.

I know that this will probably not happen, but I still think that this would be an extremely good use of the extra data capacity of these disks. I would feel a lot more comfortable knowing that not only was my media protected my a new extra scratch resistant polymer, but also a redundancy in case I'm actually able to scratch the thing. I consider myself an expert in the field of scratching CD/DVDs.

Re:Who wins?

[twehrle]

I agree. I will be boycotting this as well. I am a big home theater person as well, with a considerable investment in it. I would really like to have a high definition DVD, and I have the equipment to display it properly. But the way they architected this with all the copy protection, I will not be investing in this as well. No high-def over component video is stupid. That just cuts off the whole benefit of the technology for the majority that it is targeted for.

Re:Who wins?

[marcello_dl]

I would look at the recent dvd + and - format war: it ended with producers needing to support both formats and consumers needing to upgrade to read some media or pay a lil more for new devices supporting the two variants.

IMHO producers are not interested in a clear winner for a format war. If there is no clear winner the first drives supporting hd or blu ray only will be obsolete when the hybrid drives begin popping up at reasonable price.

Re:Who wins?

[Jaysyn]

No Media Center? No Problem!

Jaysyn

Re:Who wins?

[CheeseTroll]

Is there anything about the new polymer (skews the optics, reduces reflectivity...) that would prevent it from being used on CD or DVD media? I assume that this isn't an option for blank media, but heck, I'd pay a little extra for a commercial DVD that could better withstand a 3-year-old.

Re:Who wins?

[Vinnie_333]

They actually came out with a new polymer covering for the Blu-Ray that's highly scratch-resistant. They did a demo a while back trying to jam a screwdriver into the disk and it was still fine. It's really quite an improvement.

Great, finally my Netflix discs will play properly!

Re:Who wins?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be a fool. DVD CSS wasn't cracked so much as it was leaked (by accident), and then only after years. These systems are no longer designed by security half-wits. If you rely on someone to crack it, rather than stopping it from becoming the standard... then you deserve everything you get.

Re:Who wins?

[kylepike]

Pike's Law Of Digital Media:

Whichever format Sony supports will eventually lose.

All your Memory Stick are belong to us.

Re:Who wins?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I keep all my entertainment media distributed over many peers.
The high level of redundancy means my data survives torrential catastrophies.

Re:Who wins?

[wanorris]

This time, owners of the "failed" format will simply be expected to purchase their favourite films again, to the benefit of the movie studios.

Not if companies like LG make good on their promises to make dual-standard devices.

With a dual-standard device, both standards can win, where "win" is defined as not being orphaned. Buy a player that supports both, and you don't need to care which format ends up being the dominant one, because you'll be able to play both types of media.

Q: Who won, DVD+R or DVD-R?
A: Who cares? Any decent DVD recorder drive can use both.

Sure, it's confusing to consumers to have to choose amongst two different DVD recording media standards when the differences are minor, but it's not the end of the world. For prerecorded media, having two supported standards is even less important -- just buy whichever one a movie is released on.

Re:Who wins?

[ArikTheRed]

Great. Now we're back to the old days of Nintendo. Doesn't work? Just blow on the disk and try again...

Re:Who wins?

[bmwm3nut]

on a CD it would damage x bits. Since a dual layer DVD holds about 14 CDs, i'm guessing the same scratch would take out 14x bits.

it may even be worse that that. i know a CD (at least in audio format) has error correcting bits, thats why you can still play a scratched cd with no issues (until the scratch is big enough to screw the error correcting bits too). i don't know about dvd, but i've never heard of any error correcting bits there. maybe an expert can fill us in.

Re:Who wins?

[Isotopian]

I've seen CDRs like that. I think they were called 'Bulletbroof' or something. Quick google search doesn't turn anything up, but it did exist at one point.

Re:Who wins?

[jsrjsr]

"This time, owners of the "failed" format will simply be expected to purchase their favourite films again, to the benefit of the movie studios." I think not -- remember DVD-R vs. DVD+R? I'm betting that the result of the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray format war will be devices that play both formats. A player that supported both formats would have a clear competitive advantage over players that only supported a single format as long as prices are similar (and, in the long run, the cost of the two formats should end up being about the same).

Re:Who wins?

[InsaneProcessor]

Nobody. Look how long HDTV took to adopt. The industry and FCC said that by 1996 it would be in every houshold. I don't have one and neither do my neighbors in 2006, ten years later. The public does not want what works to be forced out of their hands. Obsolecence only benifits the manufacturers, not the consumers.
Go ahead and make your HD-DVD and Bull-ray but don't ram it down our throats.

Re:Who wins?

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

I found a solution to the 3 year old problem:
I recommend the Sony 400 disc dvd changer. I know... everybody hates Sony, but it does upconvert well, has HDMI, and has protected discs in a house with 2, 4, 5, 7, and 9 year olds. Average lifespan of a computer in that environment is approximately 6 months, if they are lucky. Wooden Chair - 2 weeks.

Re:Who wins?

[ozbird]

Who does this format war even benefit?

The MPAA.

Re:Who wins?

[dusik]

About your sig...

>> "I'm not a pessimist. The glass IS .00051mL more empty than it is full."

No, that's certainly is a pessimistic way of looking at only a 0.000255 mL deviation from half-and-half full/empty equilibrium. :)

Re:Who wins?

[benwaggoner]

I posted a longer thing about this below, but you've got your facts wrong.

There is HD over component. It's just slightly softened (scaled down to 960x540 and scaled up again).

And it's only on titles where the studio has decoded to use it. A number of studios have announced they won't be using it, including Disney. There's a requirement to mark the package if this is used, so you can just boycott those titles instead of boycotting the whole technology.

HD DVD is going to look incredibly awesome. 6.5x the pixels as DVD! Much, much better quality than HD broadcasts today. If you're really a big home theater nut, you're not going to want to be without it.

Re:Who wins?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

With the increase in data density, a scratch is really going to be very bad for your media.

No problem, just back up your media when you buy it, and work from the back-up instead of the originals. That's been the standard, common-sense advice for years.

Oh...

Re:Who wins?

[GWBasic]

... The major difference here is that both disks have the same physical shape, and thus one can manufacture a combo player. This happened with SACD vs DVD-Audio and 33 vs 45 RPM records; combo players became the norm.

Personally, I think one of three things will happen:

• If HTPC (home theater PCs) are quickly adopted, HD-DVD will win because of Blue-Ray's poor PC support. Early adopters of HTPC have little risk in either format because it will be easy and cheap to support the other format via an external USB drive. (This year's $1200 HTPC with HD-DVD can become a combo player next year with a $200 USB drive.)
• If HTPC is adopted slower then standalone HD-DVD and Blue-ray players, we'll see combo players arrive quickly on the market. The consumer will be uneffected.
• Video over the internet will become so popular that HD-DVD and Blue-ray are relegated to nitche markets.

PS3

[cosmotron]

Looking at how much each component of the PlayStation 3 will cost, $350 for it's Blu-Ray player... Sheesh, I hope that HD-DVD players will be cheaper, though I remember how much DVD player were when they just came out. Oh well, looks like I will have to keep my DVD's even longer. =]

Toshiba pushing HARD

[dsginter]

I was just driving around in the metro Detroit area only to notice that Toshiba is going promos for HD DVD at most of the electronics joints. They are spewing this stuff over the local radio stations so I stopped in.

Most consumers seem to be blown away. I think that being first to market ("later this month") will be a big win for HD DVD.

Re:Toshiba pushing HARD

[smackenzie]

I used to think Sony had a sure win. I'm definitely not sure anymore. Look at:

HD DVD on Vista

Toshiba releasing a laptop reasonably soon with HD DVD

cheaper MSRP ($499 vs $999 and $799 vs $1799)

Sony is releasing first round of writable blu-ray disks that are slow (2x) and smaller than first release HD DVD (25 GB vs 30 GB)

Studios and electronic manufacturers increasingly hedging their bets.

Delay of PS3

I'm really beginning to believe that, once again, Sony competition (HD DVD) will become the "normal" standard with Blu-ray being the standard for those with a Sony PS3 or Sony-compatible hardware. Statistically speaking, that's exactly what has happened in the past with various degrees of success (Beta, Memory Sticks, Mini-discs, UMD, etc.)

Re:Toshiba pushing HARD

[Kjella]

Sony is releasing first round of writable blu-ray disks that are slow (2x) and smaller than first release HD DVD (25 GB vs 30 GB)

Umm pardon me if I've missed something, but is the first generation of HD DVD burners dual layer? Or are you comparing the 30GB pressed platters to 25GB writable? And given how dual-layer DVDs have turned out, I'm not so sure if that's a big issue...

Re:Toshiba pushing HARD

[mcmaddog]

I'm really beginning to believe that, once again, Sony competition (HD DVD) will become the "normal" standard with Blu-ray being the standard for those with a Sony PS3 or Sony-compatible hardware. Statistically speaking, that's exactly what has happened in the past with various degrees of success (Beta, Memory Sticks, Mini-discs, UMD, etc.)

Unless of course you're talking about the Compact Disc format... I understand why everyone has a problem with Sony, but Blu-Ray != Sony, it was designed by committee by a group of companies.

From the Blu-Ray.com website Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), is the name of a next-generation optical disc format jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a group of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers (including Apple, Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson).

People seem to be opposed to Blu-Ray for emotional reasons rather then any inherent superiority of HD DVD (with the exception of maybe the price.) Both formats are anti-consumer. The problem for both formats is that people will need a new TV in addition to the player to get any "benefit", whereas any standard TV saw a vast improvement when playing DVDs.

Re:Toshiba pushing HARD

[bilbravo]

I agree with a lot of your points, but I still think there is one thing that will help Sony...

PS3... delayed or not... is a BluRay player. And obviously, there will be millions of them out there. And regardless of HD DVD hitting first, anyone waiting for a PS3 will most likely not buy an HD DVD player before the PS3 (most likely they are saving for the PS3). Also, take into account the millions of other consumers who will want to wait it out... or just don't want to buy the first round of players, and wait for a price drop.

While all of your points are valid, I think that Sony still has a big hold with the PS3/BluRay player combo.

Re:Toshiba pushing HARD

[stanmann]

And delayed from late 3rd/early 4th to Just before Christmas Shopping season isn't really a Delay in the US, It may affect the foreign(Japanese) Market, but it won't impact the US adopters.

Re:Toshiba pushing HARD

[m50d]

Statistically speaking, that's exactly what has happened in the past with various degrees of success (Beta, Memory Sticks, Mini-discs, UMD, etc.)

Didn't with CDs though. And that was pretty much the only time they tried as part of a consortium (joint thing with Phillips) rather than on their own - and that's what's happening this time.

DVD still King!

[ivan kk]

It don't really matter what format is gonna win, everyone will still purchase dvds for years to come.

Re:DVD still King!

[Rob T Firefly]

Supported by the fact that there is still a tidy trade in prerecorded VHS movies. Many of my local grocery stores, drug stores, and gas stations still have them for about $5.

Re:DVD still King!

[SeeMyNuts!]

VHS tapes are also under $1 on close-out sales, but I've had a couple problems with new tapes that are simply defective (locked spindles, bad audio, etc.). I suppose it's hard to have much profit at $0.75 for a whole tape cartridge plus, coincidentally, having a movie on it.

Re:DVD still King!

[MikeBabcock]

I wish people would start producing HD-output capable DVD players that could do HD-WMV and HD-DivX or HD-Xvid.

Then I could watch recorded HD shows on my DVD player.

Re:DVD still King!

[OnlineAlias]

This idea suprises me, as I am very tired of having to HD record something off of HBO in order to see it properly. I rarely watch DVD's anymore because they look like crap.

Re:DVD still King!

[Anonymous Coward]

>I wish people would start producing HD-output capable DVD players that could do HD-WMV and HD-DivX or HD-Xvid.

Screw WMV, Microsoft zealot...

DivX and Xvid also can't hold a candle to H.264

So yes, I'm proposing DVD players which support H.264 on regular DVDs.

And if you think I'm an Apple zealot for proposing H.264, check again. It's a real industry-standard, unlike WMV, DivX or Xvid.

Re:DVD still King!

[Anonymous Coward]

I rarely watch DVD's anymore because they look like crap.

Wow, you live like, in an parallel universe! DVDs "look like crap"? What kind of superhuman vision do you have?

Re:DVD still King!

[fossa]

Both DivX and XviD comply to the MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP). H.264 is also known as MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding. There are many parts to MPEG-4, and each part has different profiles; I'm a little unclear on all the boundaries. However, all three DivX, XviD, and Apple's implementation of H.264 are standards based.

Re:DVD still King!

[dsgitl]

You mean with HDMI hookup? I'm not that advanced so keep that in mind. My Samsung HTiB System - HTP38 plays Xvid and DivX via component cables, so that might work for you. While I don't have HDTV, I can tell you that watching the Office from DivX is much, much better than watching it over the air.

Re:DVD still King!

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

The guy must just have an old dvd player. When I bought my TV. (Samsung 46" DLP 720p) dvd,s looked like crap on it because it didn't have component out and couldn't upconvert. I bought a new DVD player with HDMI and it fixed that problem.

The only way to sell your product

[Opportunist]

If you're only going to support one, people will not buy 'til they know which format is going to win and wait it out before buying a $1000+ piece of electronics that is obsolete in a year when the war is over.

By supporting both, you can convince people to buy, because no matter which format it's going to be, you will be able to play it. If they cannot see where the balance is going, they will not buy at all. Not having something is still better than having something that has no support anymore in a year.

Thus the strongest pushers in one or the other direction, insisting on supporting only one format, are not going to sell many of their players.

And, in turn, of their consoles. Sony will most likely only support BluRay in their PS3. If BluRay loses the format war, this would be a serious blow to their sales.

Re:The only way to sell your product

[Rob T Firefly]

That applies to the people who actually know there is a format war going on, but I don't think that includes as many of average Joe Consumers out there as one might think. There are still many people out there who will simply buy whichever format hits the streets first, because it's what they'll immediately see as "the new DVD." These are the folks who will end up royally screwed and angry if another format turns up and buries their one.

GOOD!

[Randolpho]

I hated the DVD +/- wars. They were stupid and quite frankly boring to me as a consumer of DVD video.

The whole war died when everybody started supporting both formats. Here's hoping the HD/Blue war will die without a shot fired.

Re:GOOD!

[Kjella]

I hated the DVD +/- wars. They were stupid and quite frankly boring to me as a consumer of DVD video.

And how exactly you needed a burner to use DVD video, particularly considering that there is no download service that let you burn to DVDs, is left as an exercise to the reader... Oh wait. your home vids burned on your DVD+R burner didn't work on your DVD-R player, right?

Re:GOOD!

[Tim Browse]

Absolutely. In fact, I think we should ban all products like this. Clearly no-one uses them.

Re:GOOD!

[mgblst]

Really? I found the +/- wars as very exciting : At first it looked like - was going to win, with its slightly larger format, then + seemed to be winning the race with more support.. then it all ended rather suddenly with everybody support dual readers/writers. That was a shame.

I convinced myself that + was good, and - was evil, so supporting + was a good thing. Now with the dual drives, they sort of cancel each other out. It is sort of like google's motto "do no evil" - sure that is ok, but not as good as "we do good" - just neutral.

And we all know that you can't trust those neutrals.

Re:GOOD!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate these filthy neutrals! With enemies you know where they stand but with neutrals? Who knows! It sickens me.

Re:GOOD!

[Anonymous Coward]

BOTH formats? It's people like you that don't care that are part of the problem, no offense ;) dvd-ram is the THIRD, and IMO, the BEST format. Yes, many living-room dvd players support the format. The media costs more mainly because the format never took off - think of the cost of dual layer media right now - we all know it will come down. It also cost more because a cartridge was standard, something I think was a good idea but I could do without it and indeed, you can buy it both ways.

dvd-ram allows using the disk like a floppy or a hard drive, no need for a burning application. So, you can erase just one file, etc. Further, the media is supposed to last 30 years or some ridiculously long time span. It uses the same basic tech too - it's not a phase-change deal like the old PD drives that never went anywhere during the cd format battles. Ever work with dvd+-rw? What a croc of shit. It's 2006, and I still have to erase the entire disk? And what about multi-session, incremental writing? Forget it! It seems many dvd-rom drives don't like to see past the first session. Utterly silly.

If any new gen-writable format sticks to this oudated and useless "lets drive the dvd like a tape" bullshit I'll be really pissed ;)

With dvd-ram, I can download directly to the disk, which, btw, are good for 100,000 rewrites vs 10,000 for dvd+-rw. If there is something clearly better designed and more technologically advanced, leave it to lemmings like you to help choose the lesser formats for us all. Remember, BetaMax was also a better format *sigh*

DVD -- schmevedee

[iogan]

I know, it would be cool with a billion pixels, and 15.1 sound systems and all that, but honestly, when is someone going to start making movies worth while watching again? I mean seriously, my biggest problem is finding stuff worth the time watching -- not that my TV is too small, or the resolution too low. I mean, my eyes are only this good, I honestly don't think I can tell that much of a difference.

Anyway, that's todays rant about the state of modern culture all done with. I feel better already.

Re:DVD -- schmevedee

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. I gave up reading books because the resolution and clarity just wasn't there, not to mention the lack of sound. When they start printing books on super high-resolution, make-lots-of-noise-when-I-turn-the-page paper, then I'll consider reading again...

Re:DVD -- schmevedee

[HoosierPeschke]

I agree, I personally don't need anything better than DVD quality if that. I have better things to spend my money on.. like, oh say, my kid's college fund!

Re:DVD -- schmevedee

[gEvil (beta)]

Oh c'mon. Which is really more important? Your kids college fund? Or Batman Begins Again?

Re:DVD -- schmevedee

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell is modding the parent as insightful?! If I had any points right now, I'd be modding it offtopic. It's got absolutely nothing to do with the discussion. /. mods at their finest, sheesh.

Re:DVD -- schmevedee

[fossa]

You do know the resolution of a printed book is an order of magnitude greater than any screen, yes?

Re:DVD -- schmevedee

[Tibor the Hun]

You're right about the Hollywood movies sucking, but think about going on a vacation and recording beautiful sunsets, scenery and architecture in HD. Then you can stick it in your PC and edit it and have a nice little DVD with slideshow photos all in high-res to remember it by.

I agree with you, I could care less for commercial movies, but it would be nice to make home movies in HD.

Re:DVD -- schmevedee

[dan the person]

when is someone going to start making movies worth while watching again?

In My Father's Den One of thousands of recent movies worth watching.

Just because something isn't advertised on T.V. doesn't mean it's illegal.

Re:DVD -- schmevedee

[interiot]

On the other hand, it's usually just ASCII, so it easily compresses pretty well, especially if you pick the right compression format.

Oh wait, weren't we supposed to be talking about something else? I recall something about blue disks...?

Re:DVD -- schmevedee

[iminplaya]

I gave up reading books because the resolution and clarity just wasn't there, not to mention the lack of sound.

Maybe this might be what you need. And audio cassettes are available to play on your home theater system.

Re:DVD -- schmevedee

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, a DVD has better resolution than a standard TV. I don't understand why you think this is so important.

Try watching a DVD on your computer. It's so much better than your TV. You might be happy with your tiny low-res TV (480x440 max), but most people prefer clearer images.

Re:DVD -- schmevedee

[kryliss]

Not to mention the fact that, the movie is only gonna take up so much space. Do we really need more space to add 5 hours worth of previews and commercials and 80 hours of commentary and deleted scenes for an hour and a half movie that was in theaters just one month prior?

How many?

[ScottCooperDotNet]

How many people will buy either of these new formats and still plug 'em in via legacy jacks?

I imagine most /.ers will avoid both formats until there is a clear winner, and the prices drop.

Re:How many?

[mgblst]

That won't work though, will it? Because of copy protection.

Maybe this would be a good thing, if a lot of people buy them, and then return them when they don't work. Might get some people thinking.

Re:How many?

[sckeener]

I don't think that is going to be possible per HDCP

You'll be require to hook them into digital jacks just to make it work....

on a side note...I so totally agree about people with fancy equipment hooking into legacy jacks. I have a Cisco buddy that has his Xbox and dvd player connected via composite cables. He then wonders why my xbox on the same 65" tv looks so much better....component video wonderful stuff.

Re:How many?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a gigabit fiber switch in my basement, but I have my collection of old VAX servers hooked into it via a bunch of media converters.
When my network friends come over, I show them my fancy switch, but not the VAXes. When my VAXen friends come over, well...visa versa

The new DVD formats suck

[chrisguy13]

I was looking forward to these until that whole HDCP mess. My nice HDTV uses the "analogue hole" to get its signal, something those dicks in the MPAA don't like. If anything, I'm rooting for Blu-ray. As much as I hate Sony lately, more storage is always better, and I'd almost be able to fit my mp3 collection on one disc.

Re:The new DVD formats suck

[Anonymous Coward]

My nice HDTV uses the "analogue hole" to get its signal, something those dicks in the MPAA don't like.

So let me get this straight: The MPAA wants to get their dicks into the analog hole?

Re:The new DVD formats suck

[Anonymous Coward]

>So let me get this straight: The MPAA wants to get their dicks into the analog hole?

Remove "og" and you've got it.

Thank you, I'll be here all day.

Re:The new DVD formats suck

[benwaggoner]

Again, analog works just fine out of the players. The only problem would be if you played a disc that uses ICT. However

Several studios have announced they won't be using it. The ones that are can decide on a title by title basis

The discs that use it will be clearly labeled, so you can avoid them.

Even if you have a disc with ICT, it just scales the video down to 960x540 and up again before outputting. If you have an analog-only HDTV, you likely won't really notice that big of a difference quality wise (it's probably either a CRT, or a 720p display).

Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[babbling]

Xvid files can be put on any storage device/media! Furthermore, they have a greater reaching compatibility: you can play them on Linux, Mac, Windows, and many DVD players. If a device doesn't support your Xvid file, there are free tools (mencoder) available that let you re-encode it into almost any other format and codec.

The unfortunate part is that you can't buy these superior Xvid files, because none of the companies that sell TV shows are willing to sell such a great product. Luckily, "torrent sites" have filled the gap in the market. They're against the law (assuming copyrighted content, that is...), but superior.

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[elrous0]

you can't buy these superior Xvid files, because none of the companies that sell TV shows are willing to sell such a great product.

No, you can't buy them because you studios can't put any kind of DRM on Xvid files. That makes it a no-brainner for them.

No DRM = No studio support. End of story

-Eric

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[MaestroSartori]

Ok, you've sold me.

Now, do I put these Xvid files on HDDVD or Bluray disks? Instruct me! :D

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[MikeBabcock]

That's completely stupid.

You can put a DRM wrapper on any type of file you want.

End of story.

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[elrous0]

You can put a DRM wrapper on any type of file you want.

No you can't, smartass, because Xvid is open-source under a GNU GPL license. That means you couldn't wrap the format in any DRM format which restricts its open-source nature. In other words: Use Xvid, can't use DRM.

End of story.

-Eric

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[Anonymous Coward]

No you can't, smartass, because Xvid is open-source under a GNU GPL license. That means you couldn't wrap the format in any DRM format which restricts its open-source nature. In other words: Use Xvid, can't use DRM.

So you're saying there's no way to legally encrypt an xvid avi without violating the GPL? Even if the MPAA decided on something as lame as zipping it with a password, that's illegal? Furthermore, you can't store an xvid avi on an encrypted drive?!

These are rhetorical questions, you CAN in fact wrap ANY format in a DRM.

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The unfortunate part is that you can't buy these superior Xvid files, because none of the companies that sell TV shows are willing to sell such a great product. Luckily, "torrent sites" have filled the gap in the market.

And the market hath spoken, and it was good.

Amen.

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[aaronl]

You need to go learn how the GPL works. First, it protects the code, not the content. Second, someone certainly could hack code into Xvid that would do DRM against a TCPM chip or whatnot for a key. They would have to make that code available, but that won't really help you to get around it, because they wouldn't have to make the keys available.

More important, as the other poster said, you could always simply use a different container, that included DRM, and drop Xvid and AC3 into it. You can embed Xvid into a Matroska container, or an MPEG4 container, etc... why not something proprietary? Now you have DRM, you've used Xvid, and you don't have to release anything to anyone.

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[jandrese]

They could do what most companies do: Just use it anyway and then laugh at the puny legal efforts from the open source community.

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[elrous0]

CAN in fact wrap ANY format in a DRM.

You CAN do it, sure. But it would be a violation of the license. Whether you had the $$ to fight it out in court or not is the practical issue (I seriously doubt any open source project could put up much of a legal challenge). But why bother with all this when you could just use a proprietary format?

-Eric

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[babbling]

I was arguing that xvid was "better" because of the lack of DRM, and that the companies selling TV shows should drop the entire DRM thing.

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see how encryption is a violation of how it is done provided they tell you exactly how it is done (but don't bother with providing you with the encryption keys). That's exactly what the GPL3 is supposed to address. Xvid is released under GPL2.

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[stanmann]

Step 1 Get a Blueray/HD DVD writer attached to your computer
Step 2 Use Nero to copy the files from your computer to your writeable media

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[Zerbs]

The good thing about Xvid or Divx encoded files, is that their Mpeg-4 compression is good enough so that you'd easily be able to fit multiple hours high definition video on a plain old one sided DVD media. Mpeg-4 based codecs have become popular because you can easily get 90 to 120 minutes of video at DVD resolution with miniscule or no noticable loss in quality on a 700mb CD. While there is some high quality stuff out there in these formats, there's some pretty ugly dreck too though from people who didn't want to take the time to encode it properly.

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but 1920x960 MPEG4 AVC at 54mbps is vastly superior to 960x540 XVid at under 2mbps.

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[NoMaster]

Yes you can, dumbass, because XviD is a compression format, not a file format. Leaving aside the dubious legality of XviD with respect to the MPEG-4 patents, it still needs a file format to transport it - .avi, .mov, .mkv, .mp4, etc.

There's no reason - GPL compatability or otherwise - that the file format holding XviD itself can't be encrypted/DRM'd. In fact, to give a totally non-free example, this is exactly how DVDs work - there's no encryption/DRM in the MPEG-2 stream, but there is in the .vob files...

Now, if you were talking GPLv3, you'd have an arguement. This is exactly the kind of thing that GPLv3 is meant to address. But, afaik, XviD isn't GPLv3'd (yet).

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[evilviper]

Xvid files can be put on any storage device/media!

So can H.264 files.

Furthermore, they have a greater reaching compatibility: you can play them on Linux, Mac, Windows,

You can do that with H.264 as well.

and many DVD players.

Okay, the (tiny number of) MPEG-4 DVD players are a tiny advantage Xvid has, but that's only for very strictly encoded MPEG-4 files, and certainly doesn't support any videos at HD resolutions.

If a device doesn't support your Xvid file, there are free tools (mencoder) available that let you re-encode it into almost any other format and codec.

Also true for H.264.

The unfortunate part is that you can't buy these superior Xvid files, because none of the companies that sell TV shows are willing to sell such a great product.

There's nothing "superior" about Xvid files over standard DVDs. MPEG-4 has it's advantages over MPEG-2 video, and they have a few nasty disadvantages, too.

Luckily, "torrent sites" have filled the gap in the market.

P2P files are encoded in whatever format the individual happened to like. They might be in Xvid, or WMV9, or H.264, or MPEG-2, etc.

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[NoMaster]

(Sorry, I got a bit carried away there, and forgot to make my original point...)

Just because the XviD codec is released under the GPL doesn't mean the the result produced by it is. If it did, it would mean that you could effectively put a movie under GPL by encoding it in XviD. I don't think even RMS is crazy enough to argue that is the case, even if the source movie was non-copyrighted.

But, as I said before, that's a moot point. You don't have to change XviD and/or break the GPL to effectively DRM XviD-encoded content, and it's not against the GPL to do so. Just put it in a DRM'd container, like DVDs do.

And if you're arguing that an .xvid extension makes it pure XviD - stream, container, and all - you're wrong. IIRC, the .xvid filetype/extension is just a renamed .avi...

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[evilviper]

No you can't, smartass, because Xvid is open-source under a GNU GPL license. That means you couldn't wrap the format in any DRM format which restricts its open-source nature.

Congratulations, that's the stupidest thing I've heard today.

DRM doesn't need to be included with the Xvid codec, so the GPL doesn't have anything to do with it at all. Even if that weren't the case, Xvid files can be played back with any MPEG-4 codec, and they certainly aren't all GPL'd.

Re:Upgrade to the more constant Xvid format!

[MikeBabcock]

Thank-you, AC, for the very obvious thought-problem solution.

Does it have any bearing on the GPL to use WinZIP to compress your GPL'd program? No.

Does it have any bearing on the GPL to use WinZIP to compress the output from your GPL'd program? Even less so.

Does it have any bearing on the GPL to use GPG on that ZIPped file so only one person can read it? No.

So why can't you take the XVid AVI output from the XVid codec and split it into nice chunks, then use a streaming keyed encryption system to "protect" it with DRM? No reason whatsoever.

Whichever format has 1st cheap enough burner wins

[OzPhIsH]

I'm not buying either "next generation" format for their DRM crippled HD video content. I'll be supporting whichever format has the first cheap burner with reasonable priced blank discs. If DRM is a big hurdle in te way of that, kiss my support goodbye.

Sony might have blown it with PS3 delay

[elrous0]

Blu-ray looked like the easy winner for a while there. But they're coming out later and at double the price of HD-DVD. Add in the delay of the PS3 (supposedly the "poor man's blu-ray player") and it doesn't exactly make blu-ray look like the champ it once was.

-Eric

Re:Sony might have blown it with PS3 delay

[dsginter]

But they're [Blu-Ray] coming out later and at double the price of HD-DVD.

One thing that I noticed at the Toshiba demos was the recognition that the term "HD DVD" was getting. Consumers know both HD and DVD separately so this is a huge advantage over "Blu Ray".

The demo was a split screen comparison of SDTV compared to HD DVD. On a big TV, that made HD DVD look real impressive and most onlookers were eating it up. When I suggested that the rep compare DVD with HD DVD, he just shrugged and said that they didn't have such a demo.

How convenient. It looks like the bad guys will win again.

Re:Sony might have blown it with PS3 delay

[elrous0]

It looks like the bad guys will win again.

Since when is Sony "the good guys"? With all the DRM on both formats, I'd say they're BOTH the bad guys. But, given choice of the lesser of two evils, I'd definitely go with almost ANYONE over Sony. With the recent rootkit debacle and their inexplicably fanatical obsession with preventing any hacking of the PSP, I wouldn't trust them to take out my trash much less design a new media format.

-Eric

Re:Sony might have blown it with PS3 delay

[Tibor the Hun]

For a while, Blu-Ray was in a good company: Apple, porn, PS3, while HD-DVD was associated with Microsoft. This had tipped the scales, at least for me in favor of Blu-Ray. But lately with Sony's rootkit fiasco, late and overpriced PS3s, the scale is tipping the other way.
But their heavy DRM schemes really constrict both standards.

I'll probably only be interested in them once the burners are available at reasonable prices so that I can make nice HD home movies on my Mac. As of now, with the current limitation of DVDs iMovieHD is kinda pointless...

Re:Sony might have blown it with PS3 delay

[Anonymous Coward]

"go with almost ANYONE over Sony"

Let's see... Home consumer video format war... Concerns over Sony's licensing plan... You may be right, beta tapes may not be the way it goes...

This message(c)1980

Re:Sony might have blown it with PS3 delay

[sdhankin]

How can a product (PS3) that hasn't even been released yet be overpriced?

Re:Sony might have blown it with PS3 delay

[Tibor the Hun]

Well, you're right, I don't have a crystal ball, but since we're just speculating here I thought it'd be OK to assume analysts' predictions.

But even if you disregard the price, since Sony won't be the only manufacturer of Blu-Ray, the format is looking less and less shiny.
From the past experience (betamax, minidisc, memory stick, atrac) maybe consumers should automatically pick their competition as the winning standard...

Re:Sony might have blown it with PS3 delay

[LarsWestergren]

But, given choice of the lesser of two evils, I'd definitely go with almost ANYONE over Sony.

Yeah, same here. The only exception? Microsoft... who just happen to support HD DVD.

If HD DVD wins, Microsoft are going to control your living room just like they control most PCs today. With Bluray, we have a chance to get some good open source tools for hacking the Java based software and menues.

Re:Sony might have blown it with PS3 delay

[GFLPraxis]

Microsoft SUPPORTS HD-DVD, they don't control it in any shape or form. Microsoft could just as easily turn around and support Blu-ray tomorrow, would that mean they would control your living room of Blu-ray wins? No. Supporting a format does not mean you control it.

Re:Sony might have blown it with PS3 delay

[GFLPraxis]

Actually quite a few people agree that the PS3's price estimate from Merril Lynch is absolutely retarded. Even Merril Lynch Japan thinks its going to cost $500 to manufacture. The $900 price estimate is completely wrong- if you add up the numbers in the article, it only totals to $800, for one (they corrected this later and said, oops, we meant $800). Secondly, the $250 estimate on the Cell processor is based on the assumption that IBM will have low yields, and they've recently said they're having very high yields and it won't cost that much. And remember that the PS3 will NOT contain a Blu-ray player, just a Blu-ray drive, because it already has the Cell and RSX to decode DVD's, so the Blu-ray drive will be a lot less than $350 (probably the $100 estimated by others).

Re:Sony might have blown it with PS3 delay

[elrous0]

With Bluray, we have a chance to get some good open source tools for hacking the Java based software and menues.

Do you really believe Sony is going to allow any substantial "hacking" on their format, after they efforts they've made to fight even the slighest mod of the PSP (even when it went against their own financial interests and hurt PSP sales)? And isn't the Java just for glorified eye-candy?

-Eric

Re:Sony might have blown it with PS3 delay

[elrous0]

The cost will precisely come from the Blu-Ray drive and laser components.

Doesn't Blu-ray also require a special chip for decrypting and decoding content (not just a generic CPU)? I thought that was part of the DRM measures.

-Eric

This must mean an 8.5 GB Dual Layer price drop!

[digitaldc]

The 8.5GB dual layer discs will now be MUCH cheaper, right? Anyone?

both tecnologies?

[Alworx]

Maybe I'm over-simplifying things, but in this day and age is it that hard to implement a device that reads both technologies?

From what I understand, the issue is on the lasers being red or blue... well... put two lasers? Vary the voltage?

Or am I missing something (like mutually exclusive rights/royalties)?

Alex.

Re:both tecnologies?

[Anonymous Coward]

They both use blue lasers you moron.
Try learning something before posting on /. and showing everyone that you are a n00b!

Re:both tecnologies?

[Alworx]

mmmm... guess there are different ways of expressing one-self, however I can't see what your addition is to the discussion.

Alex.

Re:both tecnologies?

[Isotopian]

Actually, both HD DVD and Blu Ray use blue lasers. There's really no difference other than the proprietary technology involved (AFAIK, don't quote me on it).

Re:both tecnologies?

[Starcub]

I'm sure many manufacturers will develop dual format drives. However, if there were only one standard, that would reduce the price of the hardware. Ultimately, the consumer ends up paying for multiple standards. Wether that's a good thing or not I suppose is debatable.

Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[limabone]

I have a DVD player (OPPO Digital OPDV971H) that does a really good job of upsampling a dvd to HDTV quality (up to 1080p I believe, although my tv doesn't support it). It all depends on the quality of the DVD itself, but the better the DVD transfer, the better it looks. I have a 60" Sony LCD and upsampled movies look fantastic. Good transfers like Sin City, or Finding Nemo for example look gorgeous.
You can buy an upsampling DVD player at your local electronics store for a tenth of the price of a blu-ray or hd dvd player, and then you can sit on the sidelines and watch the current format war wage, and save yourself some money.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[ajs318]

DVD frames still only contain 576 lines of 720 pixels each. All you are doing by "upsampling" is making the pixels bigger.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[Tim Browse]

but the better the DVD transfer, the better it looks.

Thanks, Professor! :-)

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[Eccles]

My computer and PowerDVD seems to do a pretty good job of upscaling too. (Granted, I'm playing through a projector with RGB input, but you can get videocards with component output, or DVI->HDMI, depending on your display's inputs.)

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[kmankmankman2001]

It does NOT transform a DVD into HD quality. Upconverting from 480i to anything doesn't make it HD anymore than does slapping a snazzy body kit on a Yugo make it suddenly drive like an Aston-Martin. You are still saddled with the limitations of the original, 480i, source material. The promise of HD DVD formats is that the source is actually high quality from the start.

That said I won't be buying one for quite a while as I think it's going to be a long, stupid, battle until one format finally emerges as a 'standard'. Until then I'll keep outputting 480i over HDMI from my Pio 79avi into my Pio 1130 and let the PDP do the heavy lifting for upscaling. It's pretty good but no comparison to REAL HD.

In the meantime I don't expect M$ and others to sit idly by. With the continuing drop in HDD prices and the advent of near plug & play connectivity it's quite conceivable that HTPC's could move into the current DVD space and pre-recorded hard-drives and/or download-on-demand for true HD content could make the whole format debate irrelevant. I'd certainly prefer not to cede M$ yet another potential monopoly position but the idiot$ letting this format war continue don't seem to understand that the clock is ticking.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[tgd]

You know the scaler in your Sony TV is better than the one in that DVD player. Its placebo that you think it looks better, or you don't have the settings between the two inputs you used matched up. If you used a 480i component signal (if you have a DVD player that supports it) or even 480p, you'd get a better picture. You just have to tell the TV that the source material on that input is cinematic (I don't remember what they call it, I set it up ages ago in my Sony set) and let it do the rest. It'll do the 3:2 pulldown and scaling itself.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[limabone]

The TV is definitely not better at upsampling. Believe me I didn't just rush out and purchase an upsampling DVD player. For sure the dvd player does a much better job at upsampling than the TV. I wrestled long and hard on whether to actually pull the trigger, and I have no regrets. The quality difference is noticeable. I did a random test with friends and family; I would randomly select which image I would show them first, and have them say which one they thought was better. A couple of people said they didn't notice a difference, but nobody said the TV upsampling looked better. Anyone who had an opinion after seeing both images said the DVD was better.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[Anonymous Coward]

No not really.

Playing a HD Xvid from my DSM-520 into my HDTV kicks the crap out of the upsampled DVD's.

Although HD content on the boradcast channels and Cable TV have been severely degraded lately. The Last superbowl for example. if you compare it side by side to the previous year it looks worse.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[engagebot]

Nope, sorry, the Sony tv scaler is not better. I've got a Sony 50 lcd, and i was first running my regular old player in via component cables. After i picked up the upconvert player from Toshiba, it makes a noticable difference. As a side-note, if you hook up the upconvert player via component cables, you get a regular 480p signal to your tv. You only get 720p and 1080i when using the HDMI connection.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[Maxo-Texas]

Depends on the algorithm.

My old set created extra horizontal and vertical lines that were halfway between the surrounding real lines. So if you had

blk|wht|blu
blk|wht|blu
red|wht|blu

it would upsample to

blk|gry|wht|ltb|blu
blk|gry|wht|ltb|blu
blk|gry|wht|ltb|blu
dkr|rgr|wht|ltb|blu
red|pnk|wht|ltb|blu

The result was seamless video that looked excellent.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[fossa]

True, but there are better ways to go about upscaling (various interpolation algorithms) than simply making the pixels bigger (nearest neighbor). See Gleicher, Michael. A Brief Tutorial On Interpolation for Image Scaling. 1999.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[Happy Lemming]

I expect it's different for every dvd/tv combination. I have the same Oppo player hooked to a Panasonic HDTV; for me, the best picture is with the Oppo set to 1080i through its dvi output. The Oppo is a real gem. It's not true HDTV, but it makes Gilligan's Island look good.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[birder]

Wrong, the OPPO will give a definative picture improvement compared to letting the TV upconvert to its native res. 3:2 or progressive scan is not the same thing as the upconverting technology in some of these DVD players. The Oppo is a great player but I have an LG model that, thanks to a firmware hack, upconverts over the component output and toggling between 480p and 720p/1080i is very noticable. 720p compared to 1080i I can't really see any change but my set is only 42".

Oppo 971 features:

OPPO OPDV971H Overview:

DVI (Digital Video Interface) output to eliminate flickers and to produce more clear pictures

        * High resolutions include 480p, 540P, 576p, 720p, 1080i
        * Up Convert from 480i to 720p/1080i
        * DCDi by Faroudja. Video is analyzed on a single pixel granularity to detect presence or absence of
            angled lines and edges, which are then processed to produce a smooth natural looking image without
            visible artifacts (jaggies)
        * Plays DivX® 5, DivX® 4, DivX® 3, and DivX® VOD video content (in compliance with DivX Certified(TM)
            technical requirements)
        * Plays XviD and .SRT, .SMI, .IDX and .SUB formats
        * Per-pixel Motion Adaptive De-interlacing
        * Patented FilmMode Processing C Used for proper de-interlacing of 3:2 and 2:2 pull down material

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[birder]

Pick up an LG-531 DVD player although they are hard to find these days. It can upconvert over component cables after you change the firmware. I have one hooked to my A10 and it's very sweet.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[dalmiroy2k]

LG LDA-511 supports upscaling 720p/1080i via component cable.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[krakelohm]

I hate you and all your money.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[bill_mcgonigle]

The result was seamless video that looked excellent.

Isn't that just the digital equivalent of an analog zoom? The sharpness should be the same as SD.

Re:Upsampling DVD trumps all...

[Magnus Reftel]

The TV might have been expensive, but the DVD player isn't really. I got my 971H for about 190 euro last summer.

That is to say...

[CleverNickedName]

"Next DVD Format War Still Wide Open"
I other words "Still No News on the DVD Format War".

I'll just pick up a Playstation3 and hope Blu-Ray wins out.

Re:That is to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'll just pick up a Playstation3 and hope Blu-Ray wins out."

Hope?

PS3 and BluRay have already won.

Console and storage format wars are won long before products hit retail shelves.

Which makes it pretty sad to watch the diehard Xbox crowd root for their stillborn console - just like it was sad to watch mostly the same people root for their Dreamcasts.

Re:That is to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which makes it pretty sad to watch the diehard Xbox crowd root for their stillborn console - just like it was sad to watch mostly the same people root for their Dreamcasts.

Except that I actually felt bad when it happened to the Dreamcast...

Re:That is to say...

[elrous0]

PS3 and BluRay have already won.

Won, Hell?!?! Neither one of these has even been RELEASED yet.

Hell, no one has even *SEEN* a PS3. It will probably be another year before it is even released in the U.S.

Blu-ray was once the clear leader in the format race. But in the last few months, it's been one misstep after another for them. HD-DVD is looking better and better.

-Eric

The purchasing public is pretty smart...

[ursabear]

Danger: what follows is strictly opinion. Thank you.

I think the new generation of what becomes the evolution of the digital versatile disk will have to pass the BetaMax test. Most folks who have the money to purchase "the next big technology" of video interaction have either experienced or heard about the VHS vs. BetaMax battle. Without exception, the people to whom I have spoken (about next-generation "DVD") have said, "I'm waiting until the dust settles, and then I'll start thinking about buying one of the new-technology devices." The second thing they have said (again, without exception) is, "I hope the players will play my stack of old-format DVDs."

I have the strong feeling that the manufacturers and implementers will fight it out, and the consumer will watch and wait. Whomever wins out will get the lion's share of the "going forward" business.

Something that is very important to me: I hope that the "battle" will be short-lived. Here's to hoping that once things settle, the economies of scale and availability will make the next generation DVD-type disks (and players) quickly affordable.

Re:The purchasing public is pretty smart...

[jandrese]

I'm reasonably certain that players for either format will support regular DVD discs as well. Nobody is that dumb.

In the end, this looks like it might turn out like the DVD-R/DVD+R battle. General consumer confusion and annoyance until everybody just goes out and builds dual format hardware.

Re:The purchasing public is pretty smart...

[*weasel]

This isn't VHS vs Beta.
It's S-VHS vs ED-Beta.

Cost difference?

[Bombula]

Does anyone have any idea how format support will affect price? I mean, today the difference in cost between a CD-ROM drive and a DVD/CD-ROM drive is pretty small, but 5 years ago the difference was significant.

So if manufacturers make devices that will support both HD formats, how much more expensive will those be than devices which support only one format? (Obviously most if not all the devices will support legacy formats from CDs to DVDs).

Re:Cost difference?

[LehiNephi]

It's a very interesting question, with some telling answers. HD-DVD has the same physical structure as current DVDs--the data film layer is sandwiched between two .6mm layers of transparent plastic. Blu-Ray has the film closer to the bottom of the disc, with a very thin layer of scratch-resistant plastic covering it

This is the reason why manufacturers were much happier about HD-DVD than Blu-Ray--they can produce HD-DVD on the same lines with much the same equipment as normal DVDs. Blu-Ray requires much more re-tooling.

This also means that HD-DVD players don't have to do much to handle DVDs--the laser head moves slightly differently, but no focus problems. Of course, this may all be moot, since DVD players can also play CDs, which contain the data film on top of the plastic, right under the label (making it easier to scratch).

So -

[Dark Paladin]

Am I the typical person who isn't going to buy either one because the standard is full of shit and "downgraded signals if you don't have the right interfaces" and "I don't want to buy two players", or am I the anomaly?

After all, these competing standards only matter if you have a HDTV (which I don't plan to have until around, oh, 2009 or so - about when the current one dies and I need something else to play "Final Fantasy XVI" on - or hopefully "Zelda: Twilight Princess" by then.

So I plan on just sitting back, letting both sides make asses out of themselves, and maybe this will wind up like the original Divx - a technology that nobody really wanted to buy.

Of course, this is just my opinion - I could be wrong.

Re:So -

[Maxo-Texas]

When you consider that the disks are locked to the player in one of the formats, your Divx comments are pretty relevant.

Say you buy 20 Blu Ray disks and your player goes belly up-- or you decide to get a new better player.

Re:So -

[euthman]

You can count me among those who will not buy any discs that employ a standard that keeps me from getting HD signals into the analogue component video inputs on my switching receiver. Although my TV has an HDMI interface as well as component inputs, my $3000 Denon A/V receiver has component only. Being able to switch both audio and video inputs simultaneously was a major feature that led me to buy such a high-end receiver.

Re:So -

[TheGatekeeper]

>something else to play "Final Fantasy XVI" on - or
>hopefully "Zelda: Twilight Princess" by then

Or hell maybe even Duke Nukem Forever. Wait, am I being too optimistic?

Re:So -

[apoc.famine]

As much as it makes me an oddball, I really don't care either. Since I was in college 6 years ago, I have watched about 1 movie a year in the theaters. I have watched about 3 movies a year rented. I've watched about 5 movies a year on satellite. And I generally picked the "best movies" and was still fairly unimpressed.

The last game I bought was $10 more for the DVD version, so I got the 5 cds. It was a pain in the ass, but I think I've installed it all of 3 times, so it's not that much of a big deal. And if a game requires a new media drive to play it, I'm not likely to buy it.

Really, why do I care? If I need to back up data, hard drives are far better and don't cost much more than write-once media. I'm fairly self entertaining, and if the media industry makes it a pain in the ass to watch movies, I'll watch even less. As will a lot of people. The easier and cheeper you make it for me to entertain myself, the more likely I am to use your form of entertainment. That's why I browse /. -easy, cheep entertainment.

I watch TV because it's easy - I gave Dish Network some info and a credit card number, and bought a $170 TV from Wallmart. (on the backs of poor enslaved children in the 3rd world) That's easy. If you make it much more difficult for me, I'm not about to spend my time and money on it. It's called "entertainment", not "budget for it, and need to think really hard about whether or not it will work".

And since I've got a great store of apathy, I don't fucking care if I get passed over by the newest form of whiz-bang ultra-uber graphics disks of entertainment magic. I'll just let all the other stupid, non-creative motherfuckers spend their money on it, and go on my merry way. Worst-case scenario is that I offer to bring the beer, and let them spend the time, money, and effort on getting it to work.

Uhh, wait a minute

[PrvtBurrito]

All of the stories I've seen is that LG and HP are no longer exclusively going to support Blu-ray (Don't know about Fujitsu-Siemens). Lets review. HD-DVD is coming out in two weeks, and Blu-ray isn't. HD-DVD players are as much as $500 cheaper than Blu-ray. HD-DVD is (not necessarily exclusively) backed by HP, Microsoft, Toshiba, Intel, NEC, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Bros and other industry giants. The PS3 is ridiculously delayed and its success must be considered in doubt, given its cost and the 360's early release.

Why is Blu-ray even interesting? Because sony supports it? I realize it is a superior format in terms of technology (not price), however, with companies jumping off the exclusivity bandwagon, HD-DVD may have already won. Sony must realize this.

Re:Uhh, wait a minute

[Benzido]

I think Sony's Playstation team is deliberately holding up the PS3 launch because they aren't at all sure Blu-ray will win. PS3 will certainly die if it has a completely unwanted component that makes up for a third of its cost.

Re:Uhh, wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

HD DVD players and BD players cost just as much in mass production. They use the same decoder (mpeg2, mpeg4 and vc1), the same DRM (AACS) with the only difference beeing the fact that BD uses a more precise laser / optical unit - but that maxes out to a $10 difference not $500.

Early adopters will have to pay premium price anyway, DVD players used to cost $500+ in the beginning - today cou can buy them for less than 1/10th that price.

When you say $500 more expensive, you are comparing the price of the "Elite" BD player from Pioneer with the cheapest HD DVD player announced. The Pioneer is a complete HAVI compliant network device that can be used as a media center, playing HD media of your PC or other HAVI or UPNP compliant devices. The current "Elite" series DVD player from Pioneer allready cost well above $1000, so that the BD player is in the same region as the DVD player should not come as a shock.

The PS3 has always been a 2006 product, following the 6 year cycle of past PlayStation. Sony has never given any official release date, but presentations and slides shown to game developers and investors two years ago idicated a 2006 spring release. Most people in the business expect a spring/summer Japan release followed by US for the holiday season and EU next year. So if you think PS3 is "ridiculously delayed" you have been had by anti-ps fanbois or crazy media hype ...

Re:Uhh, wait a minute

[jandrese]

It's probably too late to change the type of drive though. In fact "wait and see" seems really self destructive for a product that is supposed to be the big shoehorn for the technology.

Besides, being proprietary and overpriced has never stopped Sony before. Does anybody still have a Memory Stick or two somewhere?

Re:Uhh, wait a minute

[shorgs]

I have a prediction.

If blu-ray wins the format war there will be both games and movie available for the ps3 in the blu-ray format.

If blu-ray loses the format war there will be both games and sony movies available for the ps3 in the blu-ray format.

It's a game system, I don't believe the ps3 will sink or swim based on its ability to play movies any more so than the X-Box 360 did. I didn't hear anyone say, "That DVD player pushes more polys than any one I've ever seen before...I must have it!" No, they're buying it because it plays GAMES.

Its great if you want a "cheap" blu-ray player when the damn thing is released, but in a year or two you aren't going to be playing movies off your ps3. And not necessarily because they aren't available. I own an X-Box, PS2, and Gamecube...and you know why I bought them? Gaming.

Re:Uhh, wait a minute

[evilviper]

I think Sony's Playstation team is deliberately holding up the PS3 launch because they aren't at all sure Blu-ray will win.

Nonsense. They can just up and change major components like this on a whim.

PS3 will certainly die if it has a completely unwanted component that makes up for a third of its cost.

Nonsense. The PS3 isn't a home multimedia center. Even if nobody buys a single Blu-ray movie, you'll still see tons of blu-ray PS3 games.

Look at the PS1, Saturn, Sega CD, etc., which had standard CD-ROM, but couldn't even be used to play VCDs, SVCDs, etc. Look at something like the Dreamcast which used Yamaha's weird 1GB CDs. Hell, look at any of the consoles made before discs. Your videogame system doesn't have to play all your movies to be successful. It's a possible additional source of sales, but that's all.

Re:Uhh, wait a minute

[bill_mcgonigle]

Why is Blu-ray even interesting?

Because the recordable version will hold 2-5X the amount of data as HD-DVD?

I'll have a Blu-Ray burner at some point and I'd rather have one type of disc kicking around than two.

Besides that the size allows for more convenient packaging. 24 Season 1 on a single disc, etc. That works well for mass merchandizing.

Re:Uhh, wait a minute

[Benzido]

> Nonsense. They can just up and change major components like this on a whim. Well, they will struggle to change them after the PS3 is released. By which I mean, it would be commercially impossible for compatibility reasons. If blu-ray fails, it is not too late to change the spec to HD-DVD before the system launch, just because the standards are so similar. It wouldn't affect developers much, if at all. > Nonsense. The PS3 isn't a home multimedia center. Even if nobody buys a single Blu-ray movie, you'll still see tons of blu-ray PS3 games. I think Sony's pricing strategy entirely depends on the movie player being worth something to customers. The success of PS3 is more crucial than the success of Blu-Ray to sony. If Blu-ray fails, they can still sell HD-DVD players and movies. If PS3 fails, they'll have sunk a lot more money in it. You mention the Dreamcast, which failed enormously compared to the PS2, which did wedge in the DVD standard, but was also wedged in itself by its DVD support. If you think you can just as easily sell a PS3 for as much as US$700 without it supporting video playback, I think history shows you are wrong.

Let the fight go on!

[Captain Zep]

The longer this format war lasts, the better.

Benefits of new format:

1. Higher resolution (which hardly anyone will even notice - certainly not the majority of people who don't have huge displays).
2. Erm, that's it really.

Disadvantages of new format:

1. Another new player to have to buy.
2. Excessive DRM which means that just because a disk used to play is no guarantee that it will next time you try it (due to inevitable bugs in mandatory firmware upgrades, if nothing else).
3. Risk of irreversibly trashing your player if source disk has broken new firmware (mandatory install, remember).

If people start buying these things in droves, then the studios will be able to stop DVD production, and force the rest of us to use them too if we want any new content.

But, a combination of lack of clear benefits, together with excessive DRMing, and lack of a clear format winner, will hopefully mean that these players will be ignored and flop. In which case the studios aren't going to stop making DVDs even though they'd like to.

If they do take off, I can't wait for the first mandatory firmware upgrade that breaks a whole bunch of players. I'd love to see the studios explain what they are going to do about that.

Unless the DRM is removed (which isn't likely), then the only interest I have in this technology is watching it fail as a film format, then become available as a cheap data storage format for computers. Shame really, cos I like films.

Z.

Re:Let the fight go on!

[Pyrowolf]

I think the "industry" would be shooting themselves in the foot if they stopped producing DVD's in an effort to force people to buy $800 HD-DVD equipment. Really, only in the last few years of sub-$100 DVD players being manufactured has DVD really taken off since most anyone can buy the equipment, and bargain-basement DVDs have been hitting the bins at Wal-mart and the like.

Even though Wal-mart denies that it's "getting out of the VHS market", seen many VHS tapes at any store lately?

Re:Let the fight go on!

[Deliveranc3]

Well pirated movies will probably get higher possible resolution out of this.

And maybe they'll start being consistently encoded to fit 1 on a 4.7 Gig DVD or 2 in 4.7 or somehting like this and motivate them to stop encoding for the 700 mb traditional pirate format.

Re:Let the fight go on!

[jandrese]

VHS has been dead for several years now. People are just politely ignoring the stench of decay from the VHS section of the store, indeed if it even exists anymore.

Re:Let the fight go on!

[alexgieg]

Not really. Or, at least, not outside USA/EU/Japan. I myself don't have a standalone DVD player, I watch them in my low budget computer, if at all. My PAL-M TV set (I'm in Brazil), for instance, still has a 4-head VCR player connected to it and that's pretty enough for all the (lack of) interest I have in movies, given that even the Blockbuster stores still get VHS tapes with the newest releases. Granted, the DVD section is by now the biggest and greatest, but it's clear that VHS tapes still make a lot of success around here, and will keep making for some time.

Re:Let the fight go on!

[evilviper]

1. Higher resolution (which hardly anyone will even notice - certainly not the majority of people who don't have huge displays).

Even with the smallest 27" HDTVs, you'll easily notice the difference between 480i (DVDs) and 1080 (HDTV). It's 6X the resolution!

2. Erm, that's it really.

Congratulations. You've managed to prove you have no idea what you're talking about. You didn't bother to list scratch-proof Blu-ray discs, higher capacity meaning more "extra" features, more audio tracks, higher quality (lossless) audio, far, far more advanced menu system, interactive features, etc.

Unless the DRM is removed (which isn't likely), then the only interest I have in this technology is watching it fail as a film format,

Yes, I'm sure you're boycotting DVDs as well, since they contain DRM...

Re:Let the fight go on!

[Captain Zep]

Even with the smallest 27" HDTVs, you'll easily notice the difference between 480i (DVDs) and 1080 (HDTV). It's 6X the resolution!

Well first you're assuming that you've got an 'approved' display that doesn't cause the player to choose to immediately downsample the resolution before it even outputs a signal. But let's assume that most people are happy to go out and but a new TV as well as a new DVD player. If you make a point of looking for the detail, and doing direct comparisons then yes you probably will notice the difference. But by the time you are five minutes into watching a film (rather than just measuring specs) you are unlikely to notice any more, unless you've got a big display, or the film is so dull you're not really watching it but are counting pixels instead. There's a big difference between there being a measureable difference (e.g. 6x resolution) and a noticeable difference (e.g. 'my picture looks blurred'). If the picture looks fine already, 6x resolution will not look much better. DVD is already at the point of diminishing returns for small to medium sized screens. I agree that if you've got a huge display then 6x res is well worth having - but that's not most people.

Congratulations. You've managed to prove you have no idea what you're talking about. You didn't bother to list scratch-proof Blu-ray discs, higher capacity meaning more "extra" features, more audio tracks, higher quality (lossless) audio, far, far more advanced menu system, interactive features, etc.

Not really. I didn't bother to list them because none of them are significant improvements over DVD.

Let's look at them:

1. Scratch proof disks. Scratch proof coatings can be used on normal DVDs just as easily as Blu-ray disks. I've never had a problem with scratched DVDs anyway, but this is not a differentiator.
2. More extra features. How many more extra features do you really want? How many do you actually bother watching? More to the point, do you think studios will fill up that extra space with high quality extras, or just any old stuff they've got lying around?
3. More audio tracks. Again, how many do you want? You typically already get the film in multiple languages, plus several commentaries.
4. Higher quality audio. Technically true, but who's going to notice? CDs are technically better than MP3s, but that hasn't caused MP3s to flop, because it's very hard for most people to tell the difference.
5. More advanced menu system. Which makes the film more enjoyable how? I thought the point of watching a film was to watch the film - not to play with the menu system.
6. Interactive features. I thought you wanted to watch a film, not play a game?

There _are_ improvements in Blu-Ray/HD-DVD, but they are only incremental ones. There's nothing fundamentally new and exciting on offer from Blu-Ray/HD-DVD, it's all just more of the same - but hindered by heavy handed DRM.

Yes, I'm sure you're boycotting DVDs as well, since they contain DRM...

No, of course I'm not - because it's a completely different degree of DRM.

1. DVDs contain region coding, which you can ignore by buying a multi-region player.
2. DVDs contain CSS, but because it always works in the same way you can trust your player to always be able to play a legitimate disk. Unless you're into piracy then (for a stand-alone player) you can completely ignore CSS because it doesn't affect you.

In contrast, Blue-Ray/HD-DVDs offer:

1. Ever-changing, self-installing, security software, resulting in ever changing compatability bugs, so you never know if your disks will keep working.
2. Self-destruct option.

In case you get the wrong idea, I'm not against DRM because I want to be able to pirate disks - I don't. I'm against _excessive_ DRM that I don't trust to leave my system in a useable state. As such I have no problem with the current DVD system, but serious problems with the proposed new

Re:Let the fight go on!

[evilviper]

But let's assume that most people are happy to go out and but a new TV as well as a new DVD player.

No, let's not assume that. You're jumping to the conclusion that EVERYONE has a very old HDTV, before HDCP came around, which I'm sure isn't true. The "early adopters" are getting screwed in the deal, I must admit, but it's not everybody. My (first and only) HDTV has HDMI input, and will work just fine. No need to "go out and buy a new TV" for the large majority of people. Besides, HDTV isn't exactly widely adopted as-is. The people that have yet to buy an HDTV, when they do, will certainly find that they all have HDMI inputs.

If you make a point of looking for the detail, and doing direct comparisons then yes you probably will notice the difference. But by the time you are five minutes into watching a film (rather than just measuring specs) you are unlikely to notice any more, unless you've got a big display,

That's absolutely moronic. You're clearly showing your ignorance, and that you've never even SEEN an HDTV picture. A 6X improvent is not small at all. It's not something you have to look for. The jump from VHS to DVD was only a 2-3X improvement, while the jump from DVD to HDTV is a 6X improvement.

DVD is already at the point of diminishing returns for small to medium sized screens.

No, it's certainly not. You clearly just made that up on the spot (or you heard it from some other idiot posting to a forum somewhere). Of course, feel free to point me to whatever research papers you can find that talk about diminishing returns in video resolution, such that a 6X improvement on, say, a 27" screen wouldn't be noticable. (Hint: You won't find any)

Scratch proof disks. Scratch proof coatings can be used on normal DVDs just as easily as Blu-ray disks. I've never had a problem with scratched DVDs anyway, but this is not a differentiator.

CAN BE used on DVDs, but WILL BE used on Blu-ray discs. That's a world of difference there.

This is a huge difference to a large number of people. Anyone with children, anyone who rents DVDs, Netflix/Blockbuster, etc.

More audio tracks. Again, how many do you want? You typically already get the film in multiple languages, plus several commentaries.

Usually English is the only audio track with 5.1 sound, the rest (1 or 2) are typically stereo or even mono. Besides that, this would make it far more practical to print a single disc for distribution throughout the world. Include every available language track on each disc, and you're set.

Personally, I think it's pretty difficult to find a DVD in your native language, unless you speak english. Some discs may include English and Spanish, while others include English and French, etc. The pairings seem rather arbitrary, and greatly reduce the usefulness of the feature, all around.

Higher quality audio. Technically true, but who's going to notice? CDs are technically better than MP3s, but that hasn't caused MP3s to flop, because it's very hard for most people to tell the difference.

No, it's hard for anybody to tell, while they're listening through ear-buds, on the subway... In a nice quiet home-theatre room, anybody can tell the difference between low-bitrate MP3s and CDs. With very expensive surround-sound recievers and speaker systems, you can bet many people will be able to tell the difference.

5. More advanced menu system. Which makes the film more enjoyable how? I thought the point of watching a film was to watch the film - not to play with the menu system.
6. Interactive features. I thought you wanted to watch a film, not play a game?

No, we aren't talking about FILM here, we are talking about Blu-ray/HD-DVD. If you wanted to specifically talk about only the advantages specific to watching FILMS, y

both win, and maybe consumers too

[r00t]

Neither wants to license patents from the other or otherwise be excluded. That would be a big loss.

So they fight. To encourage adoption, they have to keep down the licensing fees. That means other electronics vendors get a "good" deal (pay an arm only, not the leg too).

In the end the royalties are split between the two groups and everything supports both formats.

Of course, the whole royalties thing is sick, but currently a given.

Re:both win, and maybe consumers too

[dusik]

With DVDs we got stuck with "both formats", + and -, and it's confusing as hell. How does that benefit anybody?

Re:both win, and maybe consumers too

[r00t]

I think it keeps licensing costs down, despite the need to pay for two formats. The licensing must be kept cheap to avoid losing the format war.

+/- RW all over again -- but there's a cost

[FlyByPC]

We have the technology to build drives that support both, but this will result in more expensive devices, especially given that both formats require different physical lasers. I for one won't be buying one until it's clear that it will support any new media -- and it will probably take a lot longer for drives to drop to the magic price point where Joe Sixpack will buy one, if they have to include support for two physical formats.

The whole DVD+-RW thing was a mess, but at least they're relatively similar formats, and a drive supporting both can be made reasonably cheaply.

The format war will fizzle -- but wouldn't it be better for everyone, including device manufacturers, if we skipped the nonsense this time?

Re:+/- RW all over again -- but there's a cost

[evilviper]

We have the technology to build drives that support both, but this will result in more expensive devices, especially given that both formats require different physical lasers.

What have you been smoking? Blu-ray units are already going to have two lasers to support Blu-ray discs and still be backwards compatible with DVDs/CDs. Since people aren't going to give up backwards compatibility easily, I wouldn't call that "more expensive". You can expect all single-format blu-ray drives will already have them.

and it will probably take a lot longer for drives to drop to the magic price point where Joe Sixpack will buy one, if they have to include support for two physical formats.

No, actually it will take LESS TIME, since the two formats will be forced to compete. Having a single format, lacking all competition, would result in higher prices for much longer periods of time.

The format war will fizzle -- but wouldn't it be better for everyone, including device manufacturers, if we skipped the nonsense this time?

It's better that we have two competitors on a level playing field. They are actually forced to compete on features and price, rather than fiat... Maybe one company will make their DRM more easily bypassed to spur consumer adoption.

Dual format will be better for the studios, as then they can chose which disc format has better features and lower costs, and can do so on a movie by movie basis if they like.

Device manufacturers, that's harder to say. This could be better for them, or it could be worse for them. Two HD formats is certainly better than none, though, and stalling the process until a signal standard is available would be very bad. Also, device manufacturers could benefit from the competition between the two, lowering license fees, adding features, etc.

Still, it might slow adoption, or it might not. Nobody can really be entirely sure.

Who cares?

[DogDude]

Who cares? And I mean from a consumer level, why should anybody care? Ultimately, you're going to put a shiny, round disc in your drive, and it'll play. It's that simple. I mean just a few years ago, there was much geek hand-wringing over DVD+R, and DVD-R, etc, etc. And the outcome was the same as it is with every piece of consumer electronics: the manufacturers just put the software for all of the popular formats in their products. It's not a huge deal for them either, since it's just another chip. It's not like we have 2" DVD's and 4" DVD's to worry about. If you go buy a new DVD player right now, the thing plays so many formats, I can't even keep track... DVD-R, DVD+R, 7.whatever gig DVD's, audio CD's, MP3's, CD-RW, etc.

Please note, this post wasn't meant to discourage early adopters from buying now. Those of us without so much disposable income would very much like to see you early adopters keep buying so that we can buy when it's cheap. So remember, early adopters: if you don't have HD-DVD or whatever it's called TODAY, then you're not cool.

Re:Who cares?

[Captain Zep]

Ultimately, you're going to put a shiny, round disc in your drive, and it'll play

But that's just it. It's a pretty safe assumption for DVD if you've got a multi-region player.

But with these new fangled waffle-irons, your equipment has to pass a whole raft of continually changing security checks. Stating that "it'll play" is a huge oversimplification.

So hopefully people will avoid it and stick with DVD, where it really does play.

Z.

Re:Who cares?

[Tridus]

The difference is that the +/- situation was still using most of the same hardware, the formats aren't all that different.

HDDVD and Blu Ray require more different hardware (most obviously being the lasers), making supporting both more expensive. I'd much rather they settle it and I only have to pay for support for the format that ends up mattering in the end.

Re:Who cares?

[DogDude]

Stating that "it'll play" is a huge oversimplification.

Are you saying that you can walk into Wal-Mart and buy a DVD or a CD that doesn't play on any of your DVD players? I find that hard to believe.

Re:Who cares?

[Captain Zep]

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the opposite. This is why I'm saying that DVDs are better.

Z.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since one of my DVD players was bought in England, Yes that is what I am saying. I bought my content from stores, yes the only ones that work in the player (legally) are the ones with a tiny region 2 & 4 written in the box. I have to buy another complete DVD player to legally play any of the content I buy in North America.

Yes I can "mod" the player, but that is technically illegal. I guess for the majority of consumers, it doesn't matter. But for people who have lived in more then 1 region, it is an extreme pain in the ass.

Re:Who cares?

[tomcio.s]

But you can walk into any ethnic store and get a newspaper with DVD movie (very popular in europe right now) and it won't play on your region 0 DVD player.

Try explaining this to my parents who just plain don't care that the disc is region coded. They expect to see a movie. Afterall it is a DVD, right? They have a DVD player, right? So why can't they play their content.

Given this, the whole Blu/HD battle is silly since most consumers won't care for either if they can't just go to the store and buy any movie. Now they have to know the format they want, which disc type. Don't even get me started about 'gift' movies... That's a whole new ballgame. Think 8track vs. cassette.

Re:Who cares?

[stanmann]

How do you rig a disk to not play in an uncoded player? I know there were rumors last year that they were working on that.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

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HD on Regular DVD!

[acomj]

I got "step into liquid" because i like watching surfing. It came with a second disk, that was the movie in hi-def. Cool I thought, then after poking around the disk realized it was some windows media format that I can't play on my mac. But isn't the h268 codec good enough for hi-def movie on regular dvd?

Otherwise the larger format should win! (1 season = 1 disk sounds good to me)

Re:HD on Regular DVD!

[hotani]

That was the original plan of HD-DVD, to be a better compression format of HD quality movies to fit on a normal (AKA: red laser) DVD. Actually, a format called EVD already exists in China which does just that, but we'll never see it over here. Apparently the disks would be playable in current computer DVD drives as long as you had the software. Good going HD-DVD and Blu Ray for not jumping on THAT, sheesh - that would be so bad for business if people could get higher quality movies without having to also buy another $600 player!

There are HD files floating around out there, lots of really good Discovery channel and BBC shows in 1280x720 XviD format that look great and *surprise!* they are 700MB files (for a roughly 40 minute show) that will fit on a standard CD.

Re:HD on Regular DVD!

[evilviper]

Actually, a format called EVD already exists in China which does just that, but we'll never see it over here.

EVD was originally going to be VP5 video, which would have made it competitive with the WMVHD DVDs we currently see. Instead, lawsuits happened, and that article states their using MPEG-2 video. Well, encoding MPEG-2 to 1080 on a DVD-9, is going to take massive filtering, and result in a really muddy and detail-less picture. So, you can basically consider it the VCD of HD movies...

Good going HD-DVD and Blu Ray for not jumping on THAT, sheesh - that would be so bad for business if people could get higher quality movies without having to also buy another $600 player!

That's absolutely moronic. Your $40 DVD player couldn't output 1080 material to save it's life. No matter what disc format you use, you're simply going to need to buy a new $500 player that can decode 6X larger video, decode more advanced video/audio codecs, output to 1080, etc. The cost of the players would only be very slightly less if you left out the blue laser, and for that little bit of money, you lose a lot of potential space on newer movies. Remember, both HD-DVD and Blu-ray can play HD movies on DVD-9s, they just aren't limited to only playing that.

Re:HD on Regular DVD!

[evilviper]

Cool I thought, then after poking around the disk realized it was some windows media format that I can't play on my mac. But isn't the h268 codec good enough for hi-def movie on regular dvd?

You couldn't play them even if you had an x86 box with the WMV3 (aka WMV9/VC-1) codecs. The only way to strip the DRM is by using a Windows system which can authorize playback.

If you actually want to watch it, I suggest installing the qemu emulator, and Windows 98. It will be slow, but you can authorize playing the videos, then strip the DRM to get standard WMV3 files (you'll have to fix the aspect yourself), and then use a program such as MPlayer/Mencoder for Windows to use the binary DLLs in the emulator to re-encode the WMV3 to something standard, such as MPEG-2. It will take a very long time, of course, but you can just let it run overnight, and watch your video the next day.

Even if it was H.264, you can bet it would have DRM that would stop you from using it, anyhow... And, of course, it's always possible to fit high-res video on a tiny medium, it will just look like crap. So, even though you can fit 1080 on a DVD, you'll get much better video quality on a medium with more storage space.

Re:HD on Regular DVD!

[hotani]

That's absolutely moronic. Your $40 DVD player couldn't output 1080 material to save it's life.
I said computer dvd players.

I actually use my computer to view DVDs thankyouverymuch. With an HD solution that fit on a DVD I'd be quite happy. Shame about the lawsuits, seems like the EVD could have been a useful format.

Re:HD on Regular DVD!

[evilviper]

I said computer dvd players.

Yes you did say "computer" once, but you repeatedly imply stand-alone DVD players. You don't acctually believe a Blu-ray-ROM for your PC will cost $600 do you?

I actually use my computer to view DVDs thankyouverymuch.

So do I. I've had a DVR system set up for around 4 years now, playing DVDs, recorded TV programs, and anything else I download. Copying, re-encoding, and burning all of the above to various formats. Doing this all from a remote, and displaying on a TV screen.

With an HD solution that fit on a DVD I'd be quite happy.

I'd have to say that the majority of computers that are in-use are utterly incapable of decoding 1080 VP5 video, and displaying it in realtime.

You'd really want at LEAST a 3GHz P4 (or 3000 Athlon) with NOTHING ELSE running at the same time. Windows, in particular, is a real dog on video, and I doubt even that hardware would be sufficient.

Shame about the lawsuits, seems like the EVD could have been a useful format.

Umm, no. The lawsuit was long after EVD had failed miserably, it had nothing to do with it. If EVD had sprung-up 5 years ago, when it was first announced, it could have been very useful, and gained some market. Since it's been vaporware for so long, even with the best design, it's got about 0 chance of going anywhere.

enrichment

[Anonymous Coward]

I love this quote -

Asked if consumers would have to buy their favorite movies again, Blu-ray spokesman Simonis said: "Of course! But it will enrich your life."

try, instead -
"Of course! But it will enrich [my corporation]."

Physical Media? What's That?

[blueZhift]

Hmmm, if the format war drags out too long it will be a moot point. Networked DVRs with broadband internet connections and large hard drives are going to make physical media a thing of the past for many people. When I can easily rent a movie and download it to my TiVo in just a few minutes, I won't care about DVD formats at all. And over time, I won't really care to own the movie either as long as I can see it any time I want at some reasonable cost. I think the current iTunes model would work pretty well for what I have in mind. So the Sony and Toshiba camps would be smart to settle their differences quickly before the consumer moves on.

Re:Physical Media? What's That?

[evilviper]

Hmmm, if the format war drags out too long it will be a moot point.

Yes, but in this case, too long==20 years, so it's a pretty ridiculous claim.

When I can easily rent a movie and download it to my TiVo in just a few minutes, I won't care about DVD formats at all.

Yes, well, at the current speeds, you're looking at a couple days of maxing-out a high-speed connection to get a single 1080 movie. Besides, what are you going to store that movie on once you get it? Are you going to keep deleting movies, are you going to spend $30 (per movie) on hard drives to store each movie, or are you going to be buying a Blu-ray burner and (much cheaper) discs?

So the Sony and Toshiba camps would be smart to settle their differences quickly before the consumer moves on.

Quickly==20 years

I think they'll work something out by then...

Enrich my life? LOL

[kmankmankman2001]

I'm all for true HD content on DVD's. I'm also disgusted by the inability of the two competing groups to work out a standard so that the public (yeah, us suckers that pay real $$ for their products) don't have to make guesses (wagers, really) as to which format is going to be in it for the long haul. There are real benefits to having a true HD content on a portable media source like a DVD. But, the one quoted at the end of the fine article is surely not one of them: Asked if consumers would have to buy their favorite movies again, Blu-ray spokesman Simonis said: "Of course! But it will enrich your life." Snort!! Yeah, I'm all just pins and needles waiting for the HD-DVD version of "Dude, where's my car?" because my life just has this incredible void right now. I at least hope he was laughing when Simonis said that.

porn..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup.. whatever format the porn industry picks up.. will be the standard.. it's too early to tell however.. as both players are still pretty much vaporware..

Most of the people i've talked to, have no plan on upgrading from DVD as copy protection and down-rezzed video just don't appeal to them..

if you bought a 1080p capable disc, who is the f'ckin MPAA to tell you *YOU CANT WATCH IT AT 1080p IF YOUR DEVICE IS CAPABLE!*

so..

my dvd collection will grow.. mostly from other peoples used DVD's who jump on the new HD bandwagon.. only to find out they've locked themselves into a deal with the devil..

None of the HD formats are going to replace DVD any time soon.. regardless of what the MPAA thinks..

put it this way.. joe 6pack just risked his marriage to buy an HDTV to watch nascar and pretty much destoryed his kids college fund, and nearly got divorced for it.. now the MPAA is tellin him to buy a new HD player to play HD movies that won't work properly on his HDTV because it isn't equipped with HDMI/HDCP support..

me thinks joe 6pack will stick with his $29.97 walmart DVD player with component upconversion..

Re:porn..

[mfrank]

Ron Jeremy in hi-def. Thanks. You've just ruined my weekend.

You could make money out of this in the future

[Mr. Funky]

Buy a pile of PC's having DVD-RW drives on board of all flavors with all kind of OS-flavors, buy DVD-RW stand-alone drives of all flavors and keep them in good shape, ie. don't use them, keep them packed.

Why ? Because there will be a day people cannot play that particular DVD-format because it has become obsolete. And if the content is very valuable (eg. family pics, movies, data) people will be willing to pay large sums of green to you if you are able convert it.

360 in Japan

[Anonymous Coward]

The Xbox 360 is doing really poorly here in Japan... Nintendo might steal the show but it's much more likely to be Sony - if they can keep Final Fantasy exclusive to Sony they basically win in this market. So I don't think the 360 is a threat to the PS3's success, they're very likely to dominate at least 1 of the 3 markets and they'll be backwards compatible with the previous most-popular console everywhere.

sales figures

As for the cost - they're not stupid, they wouldn't have designed it if it couldn't be mass produced cheaply. I would bet all my savings that it launches for under $500. However, that doesn't mean that HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray players won't be $200 by the time it comes out.

p.s. I strongly dislike Sony, but them's the breaks...

reality

[wwmedia]

While they are fighting it out between themselves

i (average consumer) am downloading latest episode of 24 in HD with 5.1 sound thru my 3mbit connection to play on my HDTV DLP projector

they (the industry have to realise) the future is netwoked not tied up in some heavily DRM'd disks

Re:Sony's culture is a disaster for this

[ianscot]

Statistically speaking, that's exactly what has happened in the past with various degrees of success (Beta, Memory Sticks, Mini-discs, UMD, etc.)

Without speaking to the "statistics," it sure does seem like whenever you go with Sony you have to swallow hard about the more expensive format of whatever it turns out to be. Just about the only exception in my life is my cheaper, kids' camcorder -- which happens to be the one case I've considered where they went with the same digital tape, and compression, everyone else uses, for the model I would up choosing anyway. (There was another I preferred, but it would have been locked into a different compression method that screwed me.)

Not getting burned again

[gerwen]

I was an early adopter of the HDTV format. First person I knew to have an hdtv AND hdtv content to view.

Fast forward 4 (or 5) years. This format war is meaningless to me because neither player will work on my TV. I don't have any DRM enabled inputs because my TV was built before they existed.
I have an upconverting DVD player that only works with my tv because of some almost-hacks that disable HDCP and macrovision to allow the upconvert over component. Unless i can find a similar player that will allow me to bypass DRM, (I know, dream on) I won't be going HD DVD or Blu-Ray.

I'm the customer they want, but they can't have me since they stabbed me in the back last time.

Re:Not getting burned again

[RoboRay]

A lot of us are in your position. Any new technology is critically dependent on the early-adopters rushing out to buy it. Yet, the early adopters of HDTV are the very same people that have no reason to buy either new format, due to the Hollywood-influenced decision to not offer HD-resolution video over component outputs. I'm a true home-theater enthusiast and have been eagerly anticipating HD players and discs for years, but I'm sadly not a potential customer. As much as I want HD playback at home, I sincerely hope both formats fail miserably and are eventually replaced by something that's not deliberately crippled for no reason at all. Forbidding HD playback over analog outputs does nothing at all to stop piracy. Anyone wanting to copy a disc will do it bit by bit on a computer or duplicator for a perfect copy, not hook up a recorder to an analog output. The content producers are stuck in the 1980's when they need to be going Back to the Future.

Re:Not getting burned again

[rjstanford]

Out of curiosity, which player did you get? I'd like to get an upconverting one to replace my fantastic, yet outdated, Toshiba SD-9200 (state of the art back in the day), but my 65" HDTV only has component inputs as well and, since it still works, I'm really not wanting to completely replace the damn thing.

Re:Not getting burned again

[birder]

I have an LG-531 which can upconvert over component.

Re:Not getting burned again

[benwaggoner]

I seem to keep posting this message :).

Reach around. You'll find it's a paperclip in your back, not a knife.

If you have a 4-5 year old set, it's probalby a 720p display, or a 1080i CRT.

If you have a disc that uses analog downrez (ICT), your image will get scaled down to 960x540 before being scaled up for output. Still more image data than DVD (720x480), with every pixel perfect (since each is nicely scaled down from 4 soure pixels). For a set of your vintage, you probably won't miss much with ICT.

Also, ICT is optional on a per title basis. Several studios have said they aren't going to use it at all. And there is a labeling requirement - you can just avoid buying discs that use it.

So, if you want to boycott, boycott ICT discs. Tell the studios you won't buy any discs that use it. But if you love HD, don't deprive yourself of the first good HD format for consumers! HD DVD stuff looks great, completely devoid of the ugly MPEG-2 blocking artifacts seen in off-air or cable HDTV.

Not even a matter of boycotting

[bradleyland]

IMO, it's not even a matter of boycotting. If my now 5 month old DLP television won't be able to display hi-def content provided by these new media, then what reason do I have to upgrade? I predict a couple of things will happen:

* Consumers who are aware of the limitations won't purchase the equipment until they have displays capable of using them
* Consumers who are unaware of the limitations (arguably, the majority) will purchase the equipment, discover that it does not work and then return it
* Other consumers will purchase the equipment, it will not work, but they will be too oblivious to notice

On the last comment, I overheard this scenario at Best Buy the other day.

*Customer is getting ready to purchase a 50" Mitsu 1080p DLP TV*
Salesman: Does your DVD player have component out?
Customer: Uh, what?
Salesman: Component, or even better, DVI, gives you a better quality picture.
Customer: Probably, I just bought it. What do I need to use it?
Salesman: You need this component cable.
Customer: How much is it?
Salesman: Fifty-five dollars.
Customer: Nah, I'll just stick with my RCA cables. They work fine.

Ugh. So the guy just spent $2500 on a high-def television to feed it a lousy composite signal. WTF? We're doomed.

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[jandrese]

I'm more worried about $55 component cables. Was he pushing "Monster" cables or something?

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[rjstanford]

Er, what's with your WFT? You can get some really great picture quality with $2 RCA cables going between the component outputs of your DVD player and the inputs of your TV. I'm not averse to spending on AV gear, and I tried some "fancy" cables at one point, then swapped them out for some el cheapo ones - no visual difference on my 65" HDTV from 480p/720p/1080i signals. So if you're spending $55 on some cables automatically, you're probably throwing money away.

The ones that really make me laugh are the high-end digital audio coax ones. Its not like even high-rate digital audio is a lot of data, and it has that whole it-either-works-or-it-doesn't thing going for it. In fact, if you've used generic stereo RCAs to run your video signal, you've got half of one free. Use it for your audio signal, and there you go.

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[WaterBreath]

You've obviously never bought video equipment from Best Buy before. The way they push that stuff you'd think it could cure poverty and bring about world peace all at the same time, if only enough people would buy it....

The truth of the matter is, Best Buy hauls serious cash based on the brand image of Monster cables. (If they're anything like the computer department, where I worked, the profit margins on cabling are absolutely exorbitant.) At the stores near me, the cables are divided into two sections: Monster and non-Monster. I don't know how big of a real visual/audio difference there is between the two. If there is one, I don't care enough to notice. It's surely not as big as the difference between composite and component.

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[rikkards]

Difference?
Probably little if none with DVI/HDMI. Digital is ones and zeroes. Analog may have needed quality cables to ensure the signal is clean but the bit is either on or off.

Personally, I prefer going to Radio Shack for cables.

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[badasscat]

IMO, it's not even a matter of boycotting. If my now 5 month old DLP television won't be able to display hi-def content provided by these new media, then what reason do I have to upgrade?

Well, you didn't have much of a reason to buy a DLP set that doesn't include HDMI or DVI inputs either, but you did that anyway.

I don't frankly believe this scenario, and think you're probably purposely being a curmudgeon. I don't know of anybody that sells a DLP TV without at least one HDCP-enabled digital input, and that's been true for more than a year.

But let's say you are telling the truth. I don't have much sympathy for you, anymore than I have sympathy for someone who bought a standard-def set in 2001 without s-video inputs and then said "why would I bother buying a DVD player?" It's not the DVD Consortium's (as they were known then) fault that you bought an obsolete TV. You could have probably paid $20 more for a TV that had the right inputs. Are you telling me you looked at all the DLP sets on the floor, all of which had HDMI or DVI inputs, and you picked the one that didn't because you wanted to save a little money? Well hey, that's your loss. You've demonstrated what your priorities are.

That doesn't mean you need to buy a high-def disc player anyway, but you should quit whining about the fact that you made the decision you did.

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[bradleyland]

Yes, you can, but the implication was that he was prepared to stay with his current setup, yet he has no idea what component signal is. In all likelihood, he was going to use a composite signal.

Believe me, if I had the opportunity, I would have pulled the guy aside and explained to him that he doesn't need the overpriced monster cable component cable, but he should use the component hookups.

For the record, I bought my component cables online for $12. Eff Monster Cable and their BS marketing.

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[Akoma The Immortal]

Errrr. Dont be so....so you.

I bought a Hitachi 42" plasma TV lately, like 6 months ago, and It has a compoment/DVI input, no HDCP. Plus, it is HDTV ready. How do I know? I have Direct-TV HD and the difference is mind boggling. Even somebody that does not know anything about TV resolution sees the difference.

When the new DVD format will hit the streets, I am utterly fucked, sorta. Because all the HD will be encoded to respect HDCP and my television will not qualify. Or I could stick to current DVD, which of course look great at 480p resolution. Why can they get 7xxp? Even that looks better than the "normal" resolution.

And I can tell you that the guy that sold me this setup had not heard about HDCP coming out. And no, he is not some lame salesman. He just did not botter reading the full specs. And I can tell you that there is alot, i mean alot, of people like me, who will shun HDCP HD/Bueray-DVD.

How can you Invalidate $10K worth of electronics in one single release?

Those guy are nuts!!

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[jandrese]

Even on Analog on a high quality display it's pretty much impossible to tell the difference from your normal no-name cable and a Monster cable that is 8x as expensive. Monster cables are a rip off.

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[xeoron]

This will create a market where some small companies will sell special black boxes to sit between your tv and player, asuming of course that the powers that control the blue-ray or DHTV standards will not sue them out of business for helping consumers use their invalidated tech.

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[Akoma The Immortal]

More. They will use the hardware revocation list in all DVD to test if the little blackbox is in it and stop the playback, or even stop the device from working all together.

Nice huh?

its so 1984..

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[rikkards]

I was going to mention that. I saw somewhere a comparison between Component and HDMI and what they found was a pretty trivial difference. In other words you need to get about an inch from the screen and look at the specific pixels.

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[rtb61]

It most likely will be the best decision that consumer made. I recently watched a DVD on a quality display, the lead actress had a bad case of trout pout, was clearly older than the male leads who she was trying to play as being younger than and as a result just look like a sad old woman trying to be younger.

I had to swap to regular video inputs to make it watchable. High definition would have been even worse. They are trying to dump a new copy protection method, force replacememnt of existing DVD where sales are slowing and the price is dropping, the big catch is they just don't have sufficient high quality media to make it worth while.

As for scratch "resistant" coatings even chalk is scratch "resistant" if you try to scratch it with something soft enough. Here's betting that most of the media will not end up making use of the most scratch resistant coatings, they will just hide behind the marketing. How long has VHS survived, I bet DVD will last far longer.

Re:Not even a matter of boycotting

[WaterBreath]

Digital is ones and zeroes.

Ah, true, true. I was thinking of analog, not digital. I suppose there's little possibility that a "high quality" cable is going to make much difference to a digital signal, except in how far it will go. So unless you're trying to run your digital signal a long distance (in which case, digital image decay should not be slow and graceful, but sudden and dramatic) cheap cable should do it, eh?

sorry to burtst your bubble

[cybrthng]

but first gen blue ray is 5gb smaller than first gen hd-dvd and double the cost.

Re:sorry to burtst your bubble

[rjstanford]

But Blu-Ray already has proposed support for 50gb relatively shortly after their initial release. HD-DVD... doesn't.

Re:GOOD! Oblig.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I hate these filthy neutrals Kif! With enemies you know where they stand but with neutrals? Who knows! It sickens me."

DVD != Computers

[Opportunist]

You have a much larger clued consumer base in this sector. Don't ask me why, but even my father already realized that there are 2 conflicting standards coming our way (and he's asking me constantly which one it is going to be *sigh*).

It is very true that the first to come will be the first to be bought. Especially HD-DVD has a huge advantage, having the well known "DVD" in its name. The connection "HD-DVD == new DVD" will be made more easily than "BluRay == ...wtf?"

Still it isn't as bad as it is in the computer corner of the market. Looking around amongst my peers (outside our very geeky company), there are by far more people who know that there is HD-DVD and BluRay (they might not even know the names, but the know there are 2), where you might have a hard time finding similarly many people knowing there are different kinds of Windows, even though they work daily with it.

Re:DVD != Computers

[Rob T Firefly]

You have a much larger clued consumer base in this sector. Don't ask me why

Good point, possibly because most people today remember something of the VHS vs Beta fiasco.. then again, someone had to buy those last few Betamax machines off the line.

If they really don't want to affect the outcome...

[Phat_Tony]

"We are planning to put both in. We don't take a stand in that fight"

While including both isn't supporting one over the other, if they really don't want to influence the outcome, they should offer PC's with neither, either, and both, and let consumers decide.

By standardizing on both, they can affect the format war by pushing us towards a permanent lock-in on both standards. If people's PC's have both players anyway (without an option to save money and only get one), they might as well buy disks of either type, right? They can play them. Then they're never going to want to upgrade to new equipment that won't play all the disks they already own...

Supporting both is not an entirely neutral position. There are a lot of comments here about people waiting for someone to win the format wars before they buy. No one's ever going to win if consumers end up forced to support both formats if they want to support either.

Why aren't we boycotting HD-DVD and Blu-Ray?

[Anonymous Coward]

Must read articles discuss the real threat (also here) that *IS* going to be included in every disc. Why is there so very little coverage of the boycott?

None.

[C10H14N2]

...because the players won't have them.

Why no open-source format to answer these?

[sailracer6]

I'm dead serious -- I'm not implying that it will get used, but there's certainly enough talent out there that an open-source video disc specification could be authored. Just as some DVD player manufacturers began to support Divx video playback in their machines, it might get included and gain some mindshare.

Really, why not? There's already an open video codec (Theora) and people around here seem to have a pretty good idea of what they want (no DRM, as high-definition as possible).

Re:Why no open-source format to answer these?

[evilviper]

There's already an open video codec (Theora)

VP3 was a pretty advanced codec in 2001 when On2 relinquished their patents on it... Now, after 5 years of Xiph.org nonsense, the quality hasn't improved one bit, the performance hasn't improved any, etc.

VP3 (aka Theora) has several advantages over MPEG-4, and several disadvantages as well. If some of the very intelligent people in the open source world started hacking on it right now, it could become competitive with H.264 in a few months, but don't hold your breath. Xiph has a talent for being painfully slow, and they've managed to entirely waste away the great potential it had. Theora has become the new "HURD"; all hype, no reality.

Xiph should really drop Theora all-together (hoping somebody else picks it up, or that Dirac/Snow take it's place), and perhaps focus on all the unrealized promises of Vorbis, like bitrate peeling, joint encoding with more than 2 channels, improving the acoustic model to fix some common distortions, etc. It's like they get lots of fantasy projects started, and finish nothing... It's a miracle Vorbis got out the door, even though several years too late to actually compete with MP3, AAC, AC3, DTS, etc.

and people around here seem to have a pretty good idea of what they want (no DRM, as high-definition as possible).

Knowing what you want is very, very easy. Balancing what you want, with what is practical in hardware is the difficult part. Take a look at DVD players...

It would have been a big advantage if DVD video could be encoded with any arbitrary aspect, but they decided the scaler would be too expensive, and stuck with only 16:9 and 4:3 instead, hence the black bars on just about every movie. Difficult decisions like that are what make a standard practical or impractical, make the hardware incredibly expensive, or keep costs down...

tough having Microsoft on one side and Sony on oth

[Locutus]

I wonder how much backroom and personal phone call types of pressure Microsoft is putting on the players in this battle? If Sony was a bit less of a competitor in the market, it would probably take more pressure from MSFT but since Sony competes with many of those deciding which new DVD format to support, this is going to be a long and expensive battle. And, IMO, it's going to come down to the PS3. Microsoft may get the press all worked up about the xbox 180 but in the market for game consoles, Sony/PSx rules. And to tell you the truth, I'd be game to purchase a PS3 to pay HD DVDs if they are compelling enough.

hmmm, do they make HDMI switcher boxes? My HDTV only has one HDMI input and that's connected to MythTV/pcHDTV. Maybe some kind of pass-thru would do the trick. It's more likely the PS3 will have component HD output so that'll work too.

It'll be an interesting battle. I was REALLY surprised when HP and Dell went public last year with support for Blu-ray right after Microsoft released a public statement opposing it and backing HD-DVD. There's definately some backroom discussions going on over this stuff. But, we'll have to wait for the next DOJ vs MSFT court case to find out how much Microsoft dumps into this fight. IMO.

LoB

Nah, I'm right with you...

[maillemaker]

I feel exactly the same way. Our current TV, the only one in the house, is an RCA 27" CRT that I was given back in 1998. As long as it works, and my DVD player works, I won't be buying anything else.

I'd love to have one of those big LCD TV/monitor things, but I can't afford $2000+ for a TV.

I also agree with you that all the DRM stuff and downgraded signals if you don't have all the right equipment is a huge turn-off for me.

But I suspect that your average Joe doesn't know about these problems and won't even be able to notice if they have a downgraded signal. They'll see "HDTV" on the box and assume that is what they are watching.

Steve

Re:tough having Microsoft on one side and Sony on

[Vinnie_333]

do they make HDMI switcher boxes?

Yes

CeBit launch for low cost HD standard

[Anonymous Coward]

And here you thought it was only a two way race! This technology was demo-ed at CeBit by a 'Beijing E-World Technologies', sports a red laser with low cost players in the $150 range...! and plans to give the blue ray players a run for their money, talk is 20-40 gigs on a disk. Press release quote "We now believe that we have all the necessary support from the Chinese DVD player manufacturers to launch the HD solution at the CeBIT show in March 2006," said Mahesh Jayanarayan, CEO of NME." Seeing is believing and it was so.. follow the companies link and you get to see some of their future, which bates the question... If this company did it with a red laser... why blue? http://www.nmeinc.com/press_main.aspx excerpt from the press release: The Company has developed the Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD), a technologically advanced red laser optical storage disc that has capacities ranging from 20 to 40GB. The technology has the capability of up to 100GB of data storage, which is 20 fold the capacity of existing DVD discs. For additional information about NME, please consult the Company's website at: www.nmeinc.com

Redundancy on DVDs and CDs

[RandyOo]

That's a really good idea! I guess that's probably why they did something like that when they designed the CD and DVD formats. Do a little bit of reading, and I think you'll be impressed. Actually, without the error correction technology, the tiniest speck of dust would completely freeze your video or music.
After re-reading your post, it sounds like you're suggesting an additional layer of redundancy, but with the way the discs are encoded with error correction right now, an unrecoverable scratch would probably take out the backup, too.

Paging STEVE JOBS...

[CODiNE]

Paging STEVE JOBS please come to the information desk.

They actually came out with a new polymer covering for the Blu-Ray that's highly scratch-resistant. They did a demo a while back trying to jam a screwdriver into the disk and it was still fine. It's really quite an improvement.

Sorry sir, your iPod screen coating was lost and we found it looking for you.

iPod coating: "I'm sorry daddy, I won't get lost again."
Steve: "I hate it when you embarass me in public like this!"
iPod coating: "I love you daddy!"
Steve: "Errrr... ummm.. yeah, me too."

Multiple Options?

[alexgieg]

Other than DRM and the like, I believe Blue-Ray is better than HD-DVD simply because it has more storeage space. A BR-RW disc will be a much more interesting aquisition than a HD-RW disc once both become available.

But that brings some questions on what the future will hold. Maybe this?

a) Blue Ray & HD-DVD Writer Drive

b) Blue Ray Writer & HD-DVD Reader Combo Drive

c) HD-DVD Writer & Blue Ray Reader Combo Drive

d) Blue Ray & HD-DVD Reader, DVD Writer Combo Drive

e) Blue Ray Reader & DVD Writer Combo Drive

f) HD-DVD Reader & DVD Writer Combo Drive

g) Blue Ray, HD-DVD & DVD Reader, CD Writer Combo Driver

h) Others?

Confusing, isn't it?

I will not buy either FOR YEARS...if ever

[Anonymous Coward]

I was really looking forward to this technology...and would have bought in the first month if not for the format wars...and now they have made it even worse with HDCP.

Excuse me, but I dropped 3 Grand on an HDTV 3 years ago and do not feel like tossing it (or running it at a ridiculously low resolution) because of another draconian move on the part of the MPAA. Forget it. I'm out. The cash will go to Fidelity instead of Sony.

If theora were more mature

[Anonymous Coward]

Theora is still in alpha. If it had a couple of years of maturity it would probably be a valid option but at this point, while it may work fine for you at home, no manufacturer is going to even look at it cross-eyed.

No it doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

I got a DVD+R from a friend of his footage, and it plays fine on my PC but on my Panasonic DVD player it locked it up totally with message "U99" (which is japanese for "can't be arsed writing a specific error message/number"). Turning it off and on again didn't help (because on self-check bootup it reads the disc and crashes with "U80", instead of ejecting it). Pressing many buttons at once in wierd combinations finally got it working again.

At least the panasonic can rewind DVDs - my other DVD player can't on certain titles.

Saying that DVD players work is an oversimplification. HD-DVD/Bluray will be even worse. "Computer says no..."

not so sure

[tacokill]

and angry

I'm not so sure about that. Certainly they have cause to be angry but if past history is any indication -- they'll just take it. And then go buy another Sony product.

Heard this tagline before?

[babbling]

No matter who wins...

We lose.

Can only wait so long

[Gorimek]

The waiting strategy is easy to proclaim when threre isn't anything out there to buy.

But if you're the kind of person who likes to buy movies, and you've gotten used to HDTV quality, think about what options you have.

1. Hard core waiting. You buy no movies until a format winner has emerged. But that can take several years, during which you don't get to experience the joy of movie buying.

2. Buy old format DVDs while you're waiting. Fine in a sense, but they will be clearly inferior to your everyday TV viewing. And if you're gonna rebuy them in HD later, are you really saving any money?

3. Take a chance on one of the HD formats. Even if it turns out to "lose", you can always play them on your player, so how big a risk is it really?

I vote Blu-Ray Here's why.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.hdbeat.com/2006/03/10/sony-pictures-blu -ray-titles-wont-down-res/

Sony says they aren't going to downsample any movies they have the rights to.

Upgrading

[PenguinGuy]

I haven't upgraded to an HDTV (nothing worth watching in it) and I will probably wait until the DVD player I has dies completely before I upgrade to any Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player...and if the players are not backward compatible, then forget it.

ICT - what it is, and it's optional!

[benwaggoner]

Lots of folks are talking boycott here, which isn't needed.

The analog downrez technology is called ICT - Image Constraint Token. The basic idea is if a disc uses it, the analog output gets scaled down to 960x540 and scaled back up again. A few important things to note:

Even with ICT, the image will still be better than DVD, since it's more pixels (960x540 v. 720x480), and since the pixels are scaled down from 1920x1080, they'll be pretty much perfect. Many of the 720p displays that don't support HDMI won't look much different with or without ICT.

It's optional! Content publishers can choose to use it or not on a given title. And several studios, including Disney and Fox, have stated they won't be using it on any discs.

And there is a labeling requirement - any disc that uses it will need to be so marked.

So, don't boycott HD. If you have a display that doesn't support HDMI, you might decline to buy discs that use ICT. But HD rocks, and we shouldn't through the baby out with the bathwater.

Hybrid HD-DVD/DVD

[benwaggoner]

Of course, the HD DVD standard supports hybrid discs, where it'll play in SD in a DVD player and in HD on a HD DVD player. So consumers can buy a future-proof title.

Bicubic doesn't beat real data

[benwaggoner]

A good scaling algorithm can keep from introducing obvious artifacts, like blocks, when increasing resolution. But it can't make up data that wasn't there in the first place. I've been looking at what HD DVD can do, and the palpable detail is far, far beyond what the best upsampling DVD players can pull off.

My favored format.

[Kaenneth]

I just want one drive that'll play HD-DVD, Blu-Ray and Laserdisc.