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Laser Shortage to Stall High-Def Disc War?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the supply-and-demand dept.

An anonymous reader writes "DigiTimes reports that several major vendors, including Sony and Matsushita, have suspended shipments of the blue laser diodes that drive both high-def disc formats. The rumored laser shortage could result in shipment delays for new models of Blu-ray and HD DVD players and drives past the upcoming holiday season, cooling the next-gen DVD format war until 2007."

17 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Animal Cruelty by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 4, Funny

    Won't ANYBODY think of the sharks!

    They are driving themselves insane out at sea, they were all psyched to go into battle with some kick ass frikkin laser beams on their heads now they have to continue practicing with mop-handles tied on.

    Shame on you Sony.

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
    1. Re:Animal Cruelty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I have had ENOUGH of these motherfucking lasers on these motherfucking sharks!

  2. Illegal collusion to fix the market by topham · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wouldn't happen to be intended to delay the adoption of the new players until next year would it, by which time maybe they will figure out how to actually sell a usable product...

  3. Gee, those marketing people by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just get those green laser pointers over Thinkgeek and rename the product "green ray". Really, blue is cute, but green is okay too...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  4. meanwhile... by legoburner · · Score: 5, Funny

    meanwhile somewhere on the outskirts of Tokyo, the head of Microsoft's XBOX division and the head of Nintendo's Wii division are shaking hands whilst laughing as their lackeys bolt the doors on a warehouse full to the roof with blue laser diodes.

    --
    Warhammer forums
    1. Re:meanwhile... by Amouth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      my thoughts exactly.. MS doesn't have to have the blue lasers.. the 360 doesn't need them.. just the add on hd drive which they havn't released yet.. ps3 needs them and i am sure sony will either not sell to others till they have what they need or run short them selves.

      if they run short they are just putting salt in the wound where they shot them selves in the foot.

      if they are just stopping sale to out side people so that they will have what they need for the ps3 they are going to piss their partners off even more.. because they can't stop selling to hd-dvd people and not blue-ray people... that would be anti competive

      should be intresting to see how the next 6 months role out..

      as for the big N - they have nothing to fear, as always

      --
      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
  5. This just gets better all the time by Nice2Cats · · Score: 5, Insightful
    First they do the two-format-thing all over again. Then they keep all kinds of crap that pissed people off with DVDs such as the Regional Code. After that, they tell us that there will be draconian DRM. The prices are simply sick. And in the end, the added quality just doesn't change my life. Cool, yes, impressive with computer generated films, of course, but worth the price, the loss of control and the hassle? No way.

    This is turning out to be all stuff and nonsense, and I think I'll just skip HD-DVD and Blu-ray one and wait for the next next generation, when maybe somebody with half a brain is involved. DVD is perfectly good enough for me, thank you very much.

    1. Re:This just gets better all the time by JanneM · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is turning out to be all stuff and nonsense, and I think I'll just skip HD-DVD and Blu-ray one and wait for the next next generation, when maybe somebody with half a brain is involved. DVD is perfectly good enough for me, thank you very much.

      Agree with the sentiment.

      It is quite unlikely for there to ever be a next generation, though. The lead time is, oh, ten years or so, and by that time it seems more than likely that using a physical carrier for video is not going to be a mainstream technology anymore. There's going to be physical data carriers, of course, but not aimed at selling video.

      What might happen, though, is that these two formats both end up stillborn - laser discs of the 21st century - and pushes the major manufacturers to quickly (as in within a year or two) replace them with a common format that avoids the most egregious mistakes of these two. But that would be replacement, not a generation shift.

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    2. Re:This just gets better all the time by Night+Goat · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I'll be honest, I forgot what the changeover from VHS to DVD was like. Were people eager to get DVDs?

      Yes, definitely. I was working at Circuit City at the time (1998 or so, I think) and between the obvious picture quality difference, DTS/Dolby Digital sound, and not having to rewind anymore, it was a killer product. The prices on players were still a little too prohibitive for non-enthusiasts so you didn't see grandmas buying DVD, but younger folks were really into it. Another thing that helped the adoption of DVD was that prices of movies on DVD were substantially cheaper than they were on VHS. I remember "The Matrix" pretty much hovered around $9.99 ever since it came out. You used to have to pay $25 or more for a VHS tape, and many VHS titles plain didn't get stocked because they were priced at $99 for video stores. DVDs flattened the price point and made it so video stores bought the same thing regular consumers did. DVDs were definitely a big deal. I don't see anywhere near the same excitement over Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.
    3. Re:This just gets better all the time by Kadin2048 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes.

      There were early adopters who went out and bought the obscenely priced first generation DVD players, but by and large the rest of the world didn't really follow suit until the players dropped below about $200 and Blockbuster started stocking a lot of new releases on DVD. And I wouldn't say that DVDs became ubiquitous until the cheap chinese ($50) "WalMart Special" DVD players came onto the scene.

      Frankly, early on I think the biggest benefit to most people of DVDs versus VHS is that you didn't have to rewind it. I know my parents just thought that was the coolest damn thing; you could talk to them about digital audio until you were blue in the face, but what they liked was the ability to jump instantly to any point in a film, pause it for extended lengths of time without "wearing" the disc, and never having to worry about rewind anything.

      I think whichever HD-disc format wins, it'll end up being like that. Mainstream consumers aren't going to buy it, until there are movies down at Blockbuster that they can rent, and they can buy the player at Walmart for under $200-250. Normal people just don't spend much more than that on what's effectively a fancy videocassette player (even if it's not really a cassette player...in most people's minds, the function is exactly the same, to play movies).

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  6. Those who do not learn from their OWN history.. by PhakeDC · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ..are doomed to repeat it!

    1. Re:Those who do not learn from their OWN history.. by NewToNix · · Score: 4, Funny
      Those who do not learn from their OWN history... are doomed to repeat it!
      And those that DO learn from their own history, are simply doomed to repeat it several more times, hoping for a different outcome...

  7. Re:PS3? by travisco_nabisco · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It will do nothing to the PS3, the article said that Sony has suspended shipments of Blue Laser Diodes to other manufacturers, aka they are keeping them for their own products.

  8. I think "war" might not be the right word.... by ProppaT · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't exactly see anyone chomping at the bit to buy into HD video at this point, especially seeing that the movie selection is low and most DVD afficienado's already have a very large collection of discs at this point. This war is being aimed towards gear heads and gadget collectors. There is no real compelling reason to switch formats, especially if it means paying more for media. I think DVD is good enough for the population now and that people realize that. Especially seeing that the adoption rate for HD is well under where everyone speculated it would be years ago. This "war" is going the same way the surround sound cd war went. No where. No one really felt like investing money rebuying cd's, which sound good enough. On top of that, the music nuts that would normally be into this kinda thing have invested enough money in their "stereo" rig where they don't always want to invest twice again that much money in a surround sound system. It's very rare that you'd get a chance to listen to music in your livingroom (where your surround system is probably set up to begin with) with family around anyway. I guess the point to this rant (and common theme throughout this rant) is the word "enough." I think society as a whole is suffering technology burnout. Things change so quickly that the general population wants to sit on the sideline, see where all these rapid advances eventually take us, and then buy in. Then again, seeing our current political situation, maybe war is the right term for this. A fight that no one wants but big brother insists on.

    --
    Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
  9. just in time by User+956 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The rumored laser shortage could result in shipment delays for new models of Blu-ray and HD DVD players and drives past the upcoming holiday season, cooling the next-gen DVD format war until 2007.

    Great! That's just in time for me to NOT BUY ONE.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  10. Sony's strategy by monopole · · Score: 4, Funny

    1. Increase PS3 and Blu-Ray drive costs.
    2. Declare ultimate hardware DRM system (no lasers) ensuring that drives cannot read or write any discs.
    3. Openly fret that prices are too low.
    4. ???
    5. Profit!

  11. Re:30% yield? by Gemini_25_RB · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think the article is saying that the yield has so far improved to 30% from the x% it was during R&D. But 30% yield does not create enough to meet the expected demand, so the companies aren't willing to release such a small # of HD drives.