Slashdot Mirror
Blu-Ray/HD-DVD Talks End
Last minute talks to unify the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats have failed. Matsushita, owner of the Panasonic brand, has stated 'the market will decide the winner.' From the article: "The two sides held talks last year in the hopes of avoiding a prolonged format battle similar to the one between Betamax and VHS videotapes in the 1980s, knowing that it could discourage consumers from shifting to the advanced discs and stifle the industry's growth. But the talks soon fizzled out, with each side reluctant to establish a format based on the other's disc structure. At stake is the $24 billion home video market and a slice of the personal computer market as PCs will be equipped with Blu-ray or HD DVD optical drives."
These days everyone knows what HD means. These days most people have DVD players.
Blu-Ray? What's that?
Because people like shiny, tangible things. They call them possessions. It's why e-books have not, and will not replace books.
All jokes aside, Regular DVDs are going to be the reigning king for a while to come. Both formats will have a hard time gaining wide spread acceptance as long as the competitor is out there. Especially since in the movie arena, neither has any current offerings that provide consumers with a large tangible advantage over regular DVDs. Movies @ 1024i are pretty, but they are not hundreds of dollars prettier then Movies @ 480p (err what ever EDTV/DVDs are recorded at).
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
HD-DVD Blu Ray
As you can see the difference is quite a bit.
They have so much in common though... The laser is the same, the lens is the same, the disc size and thus the tray, motors, and mechanicals are the same, the outputs are the same, the processing power requirements are the same... All that's different from the player's perspective is the focus and the software.
All you are going to learn is that players are going to cost $LICENSING_FEE more than they would have, and the players will play both.
With all the DRM and other crippling measures, nothing would please me more than to see both formats die and rot in hell.
What?
Given the choice between two incompatible standards for AM Stereo, the market chose niether.
Ditto ditto quadraphonic records, ditto.
Ditto ditto DAT vs DCC, ditto.
I strongly suspect that HD-DVD and Blu-ray will be another ditto.
How ya like dat?