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No Love For The Blu-Ray
macnificent7 writes "Market analysis firm Cymfony has combed through blogs and discussion boards, and finds online consumers aren't thrilled about Sony's Blu-ray DVD technology. Many users are still bitter about the limited availability of the PS3 because of the Blu-Ray. Also many are skeptical of the Blu-Ray because of Sony's past formats that did not succeed."
Remind people Microsoft support HD-DVD!
Yep, just made a search on Omgili about Blu ray DVD technology - and the first result was "Screw Blu-Ray"+ technology
Many other interesting discussions as well:
http://www.omgili.com/omgili.search?q=Blu+ray+DVD
I don't think many will argue that Betamax was better technology than VHS. For mass consumer products, best marketing strategy, not best technology wins, simple as that. Just ask M$.
BluRay is dead. We hate it. So Sony's marketing division must do something. ;)
My idea: Sony must change the technology's name to something funny like "BROD: Blu-Ray Of Death"
-- Rastignac was here.
HDVD is also a competing format and that family of companies is just as intransigent as the Blueray in refusing to compromise in the creation of a single format. So intransigence is on both sides here. Secondly I don't understand why people oppose this format because of prior format problems. Judge this one on its merits. Thirdly I try to look at what are the technological advantages of one format over another. Of course cost and availability of DVDs matter a lot too. But I never heard that mentioned as a negative yet for blue ray. Its not like there are such a plethora of movies on one format and not in the other yet. As far as betamax goes, it was the better technology. We would have been better off had it won. Bottom line: This one is way to early to call.
How many ways are there to say it? Sony is stupid.
You would think it would learn from its mistakes. It tried to push out its proprietary format with Betamax, and it failed miserably. (I know, I know, "superior format" and all that, but it doesn't change the fact that VHS won the battle of the formats in consumers' living rooms.) It tried to push out its proprietary format with the MiniDisc, and it failed miserably. It tried to push out its proprietary format with UMD, and it failed miserably. Now, it is trying to push out its proprietary format with Blu-ray.
How many miserable failures is it going to take for Sony to realize something that, at least to me, is pretty freakin' obvious and stupidly simple: people do not want to get locked into proprietary formats controlled by one company. The thing that's so maddening is that when Sony does embrace non-proprietary formats, they have wild success. Their Walkman products sold like there was no tomorrow. Their CD and DVD consumer electronics have always been well-respected.
It's more than a little ironic, I think, that while Sony is trying desperately to convince people that they should be buying a PS3 for the Blu-ray drive, in fact, people are avoiding the PS3 specifically because of the Blu-ray drive! I mean, I don't know many people who actively don't want a Blu-ray drive, but it is definitely, at least indirectly, responsible for their woes:
I could go on listing items, but you get my point. Everyone that said and signed on with, "I have an idea, let's use the PS3 as a launching platform for Blu-ray!" should be fired, because they just don't get it. People will buy a game console that happens to also play movies, but they're not going to be force-fed a whole new movie format just to own it. And I may end up eating crow for saying it if history proves me wrong, but I think that when all is said and done, people are really going to resent Sony imposing such a high premium on their gaming for something that has nothing to do with gaming. I really think that five or ten years from now, people are going to look at Sony's die-hard pushing of Blu-ray at the expense of its consoles as the thing that killed its dominance in the gaming console market.
It's too bad, too. Nintendo, while clever, just isn't set up to own the hardcore gamer market. And while I'm not big fan of Sony, I'm certainly not a big fan of Microsoft, either. Still, it looks like Sony is bound and determined to hand Microsoft the console victory crown on a silver platter with this foolishness.
wii hatessss it!
Ignore this signature. By order.
If Sony doesn't get their act together and bring HD-DVD down to a reasonable price (in all respects), then they're going to run massive risk to standards like China's EVD. Now only will they lose the licensing in the Chinese market but EVD has no copyright protection scheme--which means it's buy and burn. I think that in China, a different strategy on HD-DVD is in order although with the way Sony runs its business, I wonder if China is even a viable market at all to Sony.
My work here is dung.
INDEED! That's all.
Most people are wondering how long their VHS tape player will last and if they can transfer all their tapes to DVD or hard disk.
Asking them to buy a DVD replacement when they've only just bought a boxed set of Friends DVDs is asking a bit too much of the marketplace.
Right. So (most) bloggers have a strong dislike for Sony and everything they do. How is this news? This is akin to having an analysis of Slashdot postings concluding that most Slashdotters dislike Microsoft. As it turns out, neither bloggers nor Slashdotters give an accurate picture of the demographics of regular consumers. And given that people with a grudge against some idea or company -- in this case Sony -- are always the ones who cry out the loudest, I'm actually surprised that the "analysis" didn't come out even more slanted in HD-DVDs favour.
And what's the deal about 21 percent of the online consumers disliking Blu-ray because Sony included it in the PlayStation 3? I can see several reasons why poeple might resent Blu-ray, but this is definitely not one of them. The only conceivable explanation I can see behind such reasoning is peoples aversion against anything that is Sony.
Betamax may have been the "superior format", but not in all ways. You could record six hours on a VHS tape long before you could do anything similar with beta. A 2 hour tape meant you could get most (but not all) movies, and very few sporting events. 6-hour tape meant you could leave that sucker in there. You could also tape a daily show for a whole week and watch it on the weekend.
Those little technical differences gave VHS an edge in the home market. Plus, Sony's excluding Porn from Betamax really screwed them.
Yeah, no love for Sony on this one. Everyone wants to bring up the M$ is teh evil argument, but come on: Sony's trying use their dominant market position as leverage into another sector. That's one of the reasons why people hate M$. Hate the game, not the players.
The Word proprietary format is a lot different.
For one thing, people didn't have a choice between the Word proprietary format and another format that was agreed upon by the rest of the word processing industry. People only had a choice between the proprietary Word format and the proprietary WordPerfect format. Picking one over the other didn't really make much difference.
Second of all, early versions of Word were rather handily compatible with opening WordPerfect documents, so if one chose the proprietary Word format, they weren't locking themselves out of other formats as well.
Third of all, it's not like there aren't other formats out there that people use. For document publication, I think that HTML and Adobe's PDF formats are way more popular. People chose the Word proprietary format mostly for using their own proprietary software.
Fourth of all, after all these years, we're finally seeing an effort to create a new non-proprietary format for documents to be saved and loaded in. It's just going to take a little while for it to catch on and get popular since other formats have had a couple of decades of head start.
Even if the Sony-Bony Pixelation Station 3 were being given away rather than being sold at such a high price I wouldn't take it. Hell, even if they were to pay me $600 I still wouldn't take their shit. With the dangerous rootkit they developed as a result of them thinking we are all theives, I want absolutely nothing to do with Sony-Fucking-Bony. They should be fucking banned from doing business anywhere in the world.
... and for one simple reason: the name. As one hip youngster pointed out to me, the name "HD-DVD" definitely lacks a cool factor. And it's such an ungainly mouthful: "Aich Dee Dee Vee Dee", yech. Nopes, "Blu-ray" rolls off the tongue much nicer.
Seriously, if there is no huge gap between the two systems in terms of available titles or choice of equipment, then Sony might just win on simething as silly as the name alone.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe because it's not true?
Some of the early players didn't recognize or support region coding. That doesn't mean that the format is incapable of it. And trust me on this, it is unfortunately going to be with us for a long time to come.
HD-DVD? Blue Ray? EVD? (last option chinese format)
Last time I checked, we were living in the digital age.
This means that at least I won't be buying *anything* where the bits are locked to the media, and non movable - and I'll enlighten, family, relatives .. ok, in fact anyone who wants to know - that if they do, they will be buying their media collection all over again when new formats arrive.
It will be the "Video is dead - buy movies you already own again on DVD, chuck your LP's and get the same stuff, again, e.t.c." situation again.
Better quality as an argument to upgrade? Nahh, think about it.... People will watch almost anything in bad choppy webcamquality, just think about YouTube!
"If it can be thought up, there exists at least one person trying to make it happen for real" - Phil
It's pretty lame a market analysis firm claims to have "research" based on such fanboy territory as game consoles, and such flamebait territory as forum posts. How more biased can you get?
Isn't the decreasing cost of increased broadband bandwidth and increased hard disk space will eventually make HD disc formats obsolete?
Nobody in the non-geek world knows what they are, so nobody cares.
I'm smack dab in the middle of the target market for this, a movie freak with a good job and a penchant for the latest gadgets.
But I have no desire to replace my hundreds of DVD's just to get 1080p. My 60" (insert Darth Vader's Theme here) Sony (gasp!) tv and upconverting DVD player do a bang-up job of recreating the movie theatre experience in my home. Anything more isn't missed, I'll be hanged if Sony and the rest of the studios are going to force me to switch when I don't want to. I'll move to BitTorrent before I do that.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Sony insisted on using a proprietary format for flash memory modules: the "Memory Stick." My Vaio has a port for them. Those memory sticks are the reason I bought a Canon SLR camera instead of anything made by Sony.
Having experienced the agony of a failed flash memory module while far from home, I would gladly pay more for a module with a better track record, but the lack of interoperability is fatal, especially for flash modules. My USB memory card reader will accept half a dozen formats, but not Sony's. I do not understand why they insist on proprietary formats when they clearly affect primary hardware sales.
"Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!" -- Ivanhoe
There's always the possibility the Chinese will come in and eat everybody's lunch, and given their much greater tendency (compared to the US government and others) to tell the various IP oligopolies to go fuck themselves, I'm all for it. I'd be perfectly happy to have a Chinese EVD player/recorder for my HD material, to go along with a Chinese Dragon Dream MIPS box running linux.
Then remove all the DRM garbage, copying restrictions and whatever else is present that limits what the consumer can achieve with these products. If I were able to buy a blu-ray movie disc and make a copy for my mom or brother, you can bet they'd have one ASAP, I'd probably even buy my parents one. It needs to be as flexible as VHS when recording television programs. Is the consumer really anxious for blu-ray/hddvd recorders making the decision as to when commercials can be fast-forwarded though? what programs can be recorded, how many times it can be played, whether or not it can be lent out to a friend.. All of the above is just nonsense that nobody really wants, not even the executives at these big media companies.
Looking at the current crop of "next generation" dvd standards makes me wonder why they would expect any kind of success with such crippled junk. Sony and Toshiba need to relax and accept piracy for the fact that it is.
They only asked Steve Irwin fans, And they got it confused with the sting-ray.
(c'mon, It can't *still* be 'too soon')
God Be Gone
Kinda off topic but interesting (/me waves hand in air, mod this +5 interesting) is that Sony has now made it so that you can not share/trade psp game saves as of 2.8 firmware.
I think some people forget Sony is a big format giant. They have made a whole bunch of formats that I actually like (mini disk, Blu-ray). What I think people are forgetting is that Sony had made the compact disk. So I really must say that Sony isn't stupid, they only made the most popular form of disk known to man. I really hate to see people forgetting or even being ignorant of that when they start lashing out and call Sony stupid. Maybe now Blu-ray isn't the hot hit, but I would much rather be working with Blu-ray on my computer rather than HD-DVD. Blu-ray has other advantages BEYOND movies and games (who'd thunk it?!). When I decide to back up media I have saved to my PC (3D models, Z-Brush files, textures, movies, games) I would save them on a Blu-ray disk. Faster reading/writing and with some Blu-ray PC disk trays they have support for CD, DVD, and Blu-ray. When it comes down to it I would pick Blu-ray. As much as I support Microsoft (Zune, X-Box 360, X-Box, windows, vista, DOOM ect.) Blu-ray works on their OS so I might as well use it, if only for superior storage space.
oh, wait...
A Blu-ray writer that can also write to all other optical disks (apart from HD-DVD of course) is coming in cheaper than the first gen cd *players* did. Give them a year or so and they will be affordable enough to be included in all OEM pcs.
I could only get one search result for an available HD-DVD writer (stand alone device), and it turned out to be Blu-ray !I could go on listing items, but you get my point. Everyone that said and signed on with, "I have an idea, let's use the PS3 as a launching platform for Blu-ray!" should be fired, because they just don't get it. People will buy a game console that happens to also play movies, but they're not going to be force-fed a whole new movie format just to own it.
To be honest, I disagree with what you say based on my own experience. I did the whole home theater setup in my house, and when deciding between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, I find the choice pretty easy. I'm not really THAT into video games, but they're nice at times and I figure I'll buy a console that also plays one of the HD formats. I see the hodge-podge XBox 360 + HD-DVD add-on available now, or I can wait for the slightly more future-proofed PS3 with Blu-Ray. I can honestly say I probably would have gone with the Nintendo Wii already if not for the PS3's Blu-Ray.Open Document format is supported by OpenOffice.org's Writer very well. They moved to it from their native format as the default a while back. KOffice and others support it too. Softie stil refuses to do so! Even a plugin for it made by someone else was made to not work from what I remember. Microsoft and Sony have a dream to lock out competition through proprietary formats. To me, learning the Open Source way follows steps like:
0) Belief in Communism (as practiced), MNC's, and Wealthy Over-lords. Here is Sony. Clearly Sony's rootkit showed they believe they operate above the law. Similar for monopolistic practices elsewhere.
1) Blind belief Sony and Microsoft are the leading creators of technology (the norm). For examples simply look at the recent discussion on Microsoft research team where many praised them despite Google's clear leadership and Microsoft's clear copy-ovation and buyout-ovation rather than innovation.
2) Thinking softie and sphoney are needed to keep the world running. This is evident in wanting to dual boot, running a doze Lose32 API layer SW, or emulate.
3) Realise the overlords are not the innovators. Once you realize this then you turn off your Windows box for good. No good can come of worshiping at the feet of the ultra-wealthy. Their interests are not those of yourself or any other commoner.
Sony is no different than the Plantation Owners of the Old South. Many slaves escaped to freedom. Softie and Sony slaves have a underground railroad to freedom as well. The greed of the English Kings allowed many indentured servants from the old world to become bona fide citizens by owning land because the King of England said serfs could become tree farmers after years of indntured servantdom as he wanted more longleaf yellow pine as needed to build his Navy. Once the serfs became citizens (voting and legal protection) then they never were to return to serfdom and, thus, won the freedom we all apprecate in the Revolutionary War. Likewise, Open Source pushed technology from the grips of the ovelords. Proprietary formats are one simple way the overlords hope to stop innovation. I personally believe they will fail. We can only hope our country will lead the innovation rather than see it happen elsewhere. The ability to look up land ownership in a ruling class stifled Europe for millenia and the ability to lock up innovation has stifled technology for a decade.
The strong legal system in the USA is a relic. The lack of international respect for copyright and patent law leave the USA at an unsurmoutable disadvantage on the world market. Either the Chinese come clean and pay up or the USA will have to eliminate such practices. Sony and others cannot both hope to run their business on illegal grounds (china et al) yet use legal grounds as foundations for their business in law abiding areas (usa etc).
Open Source is one innovation which removes the problem. Open Source is a return to before the Legalism Era when innovation was made for the sake of innovation rather than the sake of making competition impossible. The patent system of the USA is designed to disallow innovation in the USA; thus the antithesis of what it is supposed to be. Sony is so far from what is happening in the ground swell of Open Source that one can easily foresee Sony being cut down to size within a decade. Microsoft as well. The monkey business with Novell should be a nail in the coffin for the belief they had any redeeming contribution to make to innovation and technology. Seriously, does it take Billions in profits to write a Word Processor or come up with a 50G burnable disk? No. Look at OpenOffice, KOffice, GO (GnomeOffice), PlataSoft, and more. I suspect any of 1000 or so engineers and physicists in this country could come up with a 100G burnable disk within a year for under $500k. Sony's activity in the market is simply a reflection that the men who run Sony believe they are a class above those who buy their products. They are paid to innovate, not stifle innovation. Like the VHS, the cheapest and most u
Expect Freedom.
Microsoft is just warming up their blog-o-sphere marketing engine again. I guess that's where Vista's marketing budget went. = )
And why wouldn't they? They've done it with other products previously. The threat is that as soon as Sony (finally) sorts out their production issues, Microsoft will have to eat hd-dvd's development costs. Sure they'll sell a few Xbox 360 HD-DVD attachments, but with no hdcp, I doubt the studios will cozy up to the format w/o a kickback. Sony will eventually, slowly, sell a lot of PS3s. Every single one a good quality blue ray player.
IMO, I don't like either format. While I expect the price of the players for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray to come down in the next few years, I don't want to pay a $10 to $15 premium (in CAD $) for the movie just becuase its in a higher definition content. A movie is still only as good as its actors, script, etc - the sum of its parts. Its still the same content I'm paying to watch, and I don't believe it ever will deserve premium money.
A premium, I think, should only be earned if the content is truly spectacular and a new experience - like virtual reality type stuff.
I refuse to support any format where the playback device ever has to tell me "Operation not possible". Skipping an ad or just getting to the bloody movie, for example.
I don't copy DVDs because I'm a cheap bastard. I copy them because I can strip out all the crap that way, and just have the movie on the disc. I don't even have to recompress them anymore with dual layer burners available now.
That is all.
How many miserable failures is it going to take for Sony to realize something that, at least to me, is pretty freakin' obvious and stupidly simple: people do not want to get locked into proprietary formats controlled by one company. The thing that's so maddening is that when Sony does embrace non-proprietary formats, they have wild success. Their Walkman products sold like there was no tomorrow. Their CD and DVD consumer electronics have always been well-respected.
Tell that to Apple Computer which is doing pretty well with it's proprietary format and proprietary hardware. The PS3 is too expensive. Can you even buy a BluRay DVD player stand-alone? It may or may not fail for any number of combined reasons, I don't think you can pin it on any one thing at this point.
The underlying issue here with all of this next-gen DVD format stuff is that the old system of
competion between formats has supplanted cooperation on formats. The DVD format was a
cooperation, and IBM was called in to decide who's submitted format would be best. They
determined that a combination of the features of the two formats would be best, and that's
what we got (Divx aside). I'm not saying the DVD format doesn't have it's limitations, but the
end result of competition in the design phase and cooperation during the production phase
beats the hell out of what we're seeing now.
Oh yeah, and it's too soon for a next-gen DVD anyway. I don't own a HDTV. Most of the world
doesn't either. They keep forgetting that in many ways, the extra features of DVDs, not just the
higher quality were a big selling point.
DVDs came too late, HD-DVDs are coming too early, IMO.
Maxim
Yay, Microsoft supports HD-DVD. How does this help me at home with everything running GNU/Linux?
On a related note, I don't care about HD-DVD, SACD, or even Blu-Ray. They can all take their overly priced DRM-infected machines, and just sit on 'em. Why do I need Blu-Ray? I can't think of a single reason. In fact, after my experiences with the Playstation2 (We bought it as a DVD player -- it does not play most DVDs), I am very unlikely to buy any Sony product ever again. Hay, and where the hell are all the space games?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Parent is spot on with regard to judging Blu-ray based on its technical merits. At least it has *one* merit, and that is capacity; HD-DVD has none. As has been evidenced by the cost of dual-layered (writable) DVDs, per-layer capacity should not be dismissed.
HD-DVD is just as crippled by DRM, and for video, I sincerely hope that they both fail. I will be patiently waiting for the HVD. In the mean time, HD-DVD is far too small of an improvement for the cost (in terms of storage) to even bother.
The talking points in this story so exactly mirror those I've seen in the last couple of days elsewhere (especially the "angry about other formats" one and the overuse of "negative buzz" just like on digg yesterday) that coincidence seems an unlikely explanation. Somebody's trying very hard to "get the word out" on blogs and forums, and probably being paid to do it. It's not clear whether Cymfony merely failed to notice the astroturf or are complicit in it but, since they call themselves a "market influence" (PR) vendor, active involvement seems a whole lot more likely than naivete. Either way, Slashdot shouldn't be posting disguised press releases. Full disclosure: none to make. I don't own Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, or even an HDTV. I don't intend to own any of those things soon, either, and I have no other financial connection (that I'm aware of) to any of the organizations that do have a horse in this race. I just really hate astroturf.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
Sony can't seem to win for losing. They were doing ok, at least in my mind, until the DRM root kit, and it went downhill from there. Blu-ray is just another straw on the camels back. I have to wonder, how much more can the market take?
As was the DVD player in its day. So what? Prices for players will fall through the floor in the next few years. Doubtless the PS3 will sink in price too over time.
The Blu-ray drive is hard to manufacture
As I'm sure the DVD player was hard to manufacture in its day. Doesn't mean that it is hard now. The component that was (and probably no longer) makes the Blu-Ray hard to manufacture is the blue laser diode. This is a component shared with HD-DVD. So Blu-Ray's teething troubles are also HD-DVD's teething troubles.
There wouldn't be a so-called "format war" which has turned into, basically, Sony vs. the rest of the world.
Except it isn't Sony vs the rest of the world. Blu-Ray has more backers than HD-DVD. Blu-Ray also has many more players in the hands of consumers thanks to the PS3. The reality is that unless MS stick an HD-DVD into their XBox 360 or the PS3 tanks it is hard to see how HD-DVD can possibly win.
People will buy a game console that happens to also play movies, but they're not going to be force-fed a whole new movie format just to own it. And I may end up eating crow for saying it if history proves me wrong, but I think that when all is said and done, people are really going to resent Sony imposing such a high premium on their gaming for something that has nothing to do with gaming.
The lower PS3 is only only $100 more that the premium XBox 360. For that $100 you get free online access, a blu-ray movie player, more content for your games, bluetooth, HDMI, web browsing, video playback (from disk), region free games, Linux support and a bunch of other bits and pieces. $100 is not much more for all that. Personally I don't think what the 60Gb version offers justifies another $100 expense unless you need wi-fi.
Now even if you think it is too expensive, consider Blu-Ray for what it offers games. The 360 & PS3 output in HD and need 4 times as many polygons, textures and other graphical content to cover the screen. Which means 4 times the disk storage. Then you have HD FMV at 10x NTSC, localization, sound effects and so on. Microsoft chose to constrain their device to DVD-9 discs. That means they get 2 times the disk storage capacity of the last gen for content that needs at least 4 times the space.
Obviously many games won't fill DVD-9 so it makes no difference but those that do will have to span multiple disks. Or they'll slash the content. Or they'll put episodic content up for download (for $$$). Already Blue Dragon needs THREE DVDs and it's likely that other games will need it too. What will it be like in 3 years on from now? Will "please insert disc 2" become a familiar sight half way through 360 games? Even if MS chose to put an HD-DVD into their XBox 360, they can't abandon DVD-9 for games because of the 8 million non-HD-DVD consoles out there.
Sony put themselves in a world of hurt by forcing Blu-Ray into the PS3, but that is because it has a massive potential payoff. Not only is it good for games, but every PS3 is a Blu-Ray player to boot. So Sony scores sales of BD movies, as well as sales of HDTVs to watch them on. The downside as you say is production issues and increased cost. Assuming the Sony can overcome the obstacles it will make a lot of money, most of which wouldn't have materialised if they had stuck with DVD.
Random points that have been said before:
-Downloads and on-demend viewing are the wave of the future. Both Sony and Microsoft recognize they're moving toward content download, and both companies wonder if their next game console will need discs at all. Don't forget that both satellite and cable services already provide on-demand viewing. See also: Downloadable movies and TV on Xbox Live a model for the future?
-High definition doesn't matter to most consumers. Most people don't even know what the heck "HD" really means anyway. Think Wal-Mart customers, here. Heck, even rabbit ears for those still afraid of cable continue to sell pretty well.
-HDTV penetration is still terribly low. Even after this Christmas, the industry would probably be amazed if 20% of homes were HD-ready (players/providers and TVs).
-Combine this with people CLEARLY valuing content over quality. Look at the amazing success of YouTube, and any attempts to argue that customers are hungry for quality over mass content availability is ridiculous. People want content on demand, which satellite (and cable and downloads) can provide.
-Combine with all of the above, DVD is really in the prime of its life. VHS has only just been declared officially dead to most outlets, and even elderly consumers are really getting into DVD. Specifically, DVD-R/VHS combo players that allow archiving VHS to DVD are a supreme luxury purchase for many elderly consumers. You have to see the glow in an elderly person's face when they hear they can archive their tapes forever without quality loss to truly appreciate how far DVD has come.
-Which leads to the conclusion that now is NOT the time for a next-gen format war. DVD is going to own the market for years to come, and when it's finally failing us, content download will have enough experience to pick up and move us into the future. Next-gen DVD is just a temporary patch to get us over the hump. And even if people were ready for next-gen DVD (which they're not), they're going to be confused as hell as to what a "BluRay" or an "HD-DVD" is, or why the hell 1080 matters more than 720.
-And let us not forget, the next-gen war might already be over! Hybrid discs and hybrid players are already preparing to make the format war a moot point. Not to mention holographic storage that makes both of these formats look ridiculously underpowered. Low supply of PS3 and BluRay over the holiday season has led many consumers to pick up HD-DVD, potentially meaning HD-DVD already has the install base to win over the war. And even Microsoft admit that they're not really worried about the format war- before the launch of their the HD-DVD add-on, Gates himself was quoted as saying that if BluRay took off, they'd just make a Bluray accessory for the 360 as well. And even if BluRay truly picks up, if BluRay wants to be installed in computers, it's going to have to be sold in Microsoft-powered PCs if it wants to take the market. Oh, the humanity!
Personally, I think this format war will go down as nothing but senseless. Both sides already hope to move beyond optical storage. More promising formats (holographic, download) are going to reach practicality soon. Format-busters are hitting the market soon (hybrid players and discs).
What was the point of even engaging in this war, anyway?
Oh, right, because a few videophiles are terribly worried that they can't get optimal movie delivery for their 60", $5,000+ plasma from only one DVD per movie. Bu bu bu. The other 90% of us... really don't care. And even if we did, we still only own SDTVs.
And to quash a counter-point:
If you have the money for an HDTV, you probably also have the money and/or resources for broadband, or satellite, or on-demand HD cable, or (etc). Why do you need discs anyway? Most consumers don't have access to those things... but they also don't have HDTVs, and they also don't care.
---Vote None of the Above---
Video2000 was even better anyway. 8 hours, 4 hours per side (yes, it had two sides) in standard recording quality. Woot. Later Philips even made a 16 hour tape.
r _DATA
Video2000: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_2000 . Check out some of the reasons it lost out - only one was technical, slightly lower resolution.
Betamax, by the way, may have lost in the war for the consumer as well, but step into any broadcast facility and Betacam - derived from Betmax - will be all over the place. Those moving on to other formats are predominantly moving on to HDDs, not Blu-Ray OR HDDVD.
Though those not ready to move over to HDD may move over to another SONY product, the PDD, which is very closely related to Blu-Ray;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Disc_fo
And lastly (completing my SONY-fanboy image, I'm sure), MiniDisc was a complete failure? If that's an absolute truth, how come they're still selling brand new products all over the place, between music and data storage (1GB)? Sure, it's dying.. but complete failure? puh-lease.
All that said, it's a shame that the industry is so willing to milk the consumer. Given half a reasonable choice, I think most Slashdot users would rather skip the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war and wait for the war between discs that store nearer to 200-500GB per disc to be decided instead.
"How many ways are there to say it? Sony is stupid. You would think it would learn from its mistakes. It tried to push out its proprietary format with Betamax, and it failed miserably. (I know, I know, "superior format" and all that, but it doesn't change the fact that VHS won the battle of the formats in consumers' living rooms.) It tried to push out its proprietary format with the MiniDisc, and it failed miserably. It tried to push out its proprietary format with UMD, and it failed miserably. Now, it is trying to push out its proprietary format with Blu-ray."
No stupider than a forum full of geeks forgetting that Blu-ray is more than just a Sony "proprietary" format.
I think a lot of this is coming out of XBox 360 users. They too put their heads in the sand because all they have to do is turn on the requirement for HDMI and the XBox users won't be able to play their HD-DVDs. Many refuse to believe it because that requirement has not yet been enabled. If and when it is, they'll be left without a player.
Also, Blu-ray is not a Sony only format. There are a number of 3rd parties who are supporting it, both with media and players. It's taking a little longer, but it is far from dead. There are also players coming out that will handle both HD and Blu-ray. Once those players come out, the argument will go away. Like HD-DVD, Blu-Ray is a consortium. Most of the work was done by Sony, who was also involved in such horrible formats as the audio CD and DVD.
It's like DVD-R and DVD+R. Remember when recorders could only handle one format or the other? Early adopters will be stuck with only one format, but I expect the dual format players will take off, probably in the next year or so.
For movies, the only significant differences between the two formats are the extra storage of Blu-ray and the fact that Blu-ray includes native timing for 1080p 24fps whereas HD-DVD uses 30fps timing which may result in stuttering (according to the Wikipedia article on Blu-ray). Better HD-DVD players should be able to convert back to the original timing, however, by detecting and removing the repeated frames in the MPEG stream. Also, Blu-ray allows for higher audio bandwidth than HD-DVD.
-Aaron
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Except it's not a proprietary format being pushed by only one manufacturer. JVC, Samsung, Panasonic. Hitachi, Philips, you name 'em, they're all signed up to Blu-Ray. Meanwhile, who's backing HD-DVD? Er, Toshiba and Microsoft, and that's about it.
"Then remove all the DRM garbage, copying restrictions and whatever else is present that limits what the consumer can achieve with these products."
I'll make a deal with you. We'll remove all the DRM if you remove all the illegal content off of piratebay (and likeminded sites) and make certain it stays clean. Deal?
Sony arrogance has lost me as a customer for life, and all the friends and family who rely on me for tech support as well. Not that they give a crap about some random guy in Minnesota who maybe goes shopping with five or six people per year, but I can list off perhaps $10,000 in sales in the last two years that specifically did not go to Sony due simply to my opinion of them. At least four cameras, three big screen TVs and a handful of cell phones adds up to a few dollars.
Maybe that's what the web needs: a list of "lost sales". Imagine an honest (ha!) tabulation of the purchases of everyone who specifically rejected Sony products because of the company. It might surprise me to see how small the list is, or it might surprise Sony to see how badly they've judged us.
John
First of all, I realize that Sony dropping Blu-ray and going in with the HD-DVD camp is pretty much out of the question, but let's play the "what if" game anyway ...
I can't help but think that if Sony had gone with HD-DVD, so there was only one high-def DVD format, things might be a lot different. Yeah, the PS3 would probably still be quite overpriced compared to the other consoles, but there's no longer the stigma that you MAY be spending $100-200 extra dollars on a format that may go no where. It's a much simpler proposition selling people something that's essentially X (game console) + A (high-def DVD), when they're convinced that A is going to be worth something in the future.
-- jchenx
Where the HD-DVD people simply smarter and figured out early to order ahead, and so they are getting most of the current production, or what?
A year ago, I would have agreed completely with your assessment that Bloggers != Consumers.
Nowadays, I'm not so sure.
When you have a random 13-year-old kid blogging how much he loves the Wii on a site like 1UP.com, you know that blogging isn't just something done by educated adults with Internet connections anymore. If we were to go to a random classroom of middle-school students, and asked how many of them read or posted in blogs/forums/etc. on the Internet, I have a feeling the percentage would be rather shocking.
That said, whether or not this study has any merit is still hard to say. What sites were they looking at? What kind of demographics are on those sites? I'd associate bloggers/posters on 1UP.com and GameFAQs to be a lot closer to the average consumer than, say, the posters here on Slashdot.
-- jchenx
I'll make a deal with you. We'll remove all the DRM if you remove all the illegal content off of piratebay (and likeminded sites) and make certain it stays clean. Deal?
Sales of DVD's make the movie & music industry billions every year, but blame piratebay for them not making billions more? For how many years have consumers been pirating DVD's? and still most movies make their money on that format instead of at the threatres.
What I find the most interesting part of your comment is the title, "Making monorities happy." Is building a next generation movie disc that's as flexible as VHS catering to the minority? What kind of bizarro land do you live in
Not much correct there. The shortage of PlayStation because of Blu-Ray is far from the truth, Cell supply has been a much bigger problem. Sony is hardly the only one that stands behind Blu-Ray. Samsung and Panasonic will be pushing it just as much if not more, and if they (Samsung and Panasonic being very large companies) succeed then Blu-Ray will win. Add to that that most movie companies support Blu-Ray.
Whatever are they talking about? My Betamax VCR, Digital Audio Tape deck, and Minidisc player were widely adopted and it's easy to find media for them.
Sent from my iPhone
Many users are still bitter about the limited availability of the PS3 because of the Blu-Ray. Also many are skeptical of the Blu-Ray because of Sony's past formats that did not succeed.
And many think that Sony is run by a bunch of arrogant asshats that treat their customers like idiots and theives. Let's not forget that one.
We are all just people.
Porn.
I don't mean to imply that it doesn't happen, just that it's unusual that being able to watch movies is still a very, very minor concern when people buy a console system. I honestly think that in a year or so, the people who will be watching high definition discs will be watching them on dedicated high definition disc players, not on their game consoles. (Again, there will be exceptions.) At that point, the PS3 won't really be relevant in people's decisions, it will boil down to two questions: 1) What are there more movies for, and 2) which one is cheaper?
I think that HD-DVD will have an edge in both, and as time goes on, the gap will open wider and wider to the point that it will lead the market.
shrugs... I could be wrong, only time will tell.
I think that the "hodge-podge" of the Xbox 360 is precisely why people will buy it instead. It's a lot easier for people to go invest $400 in a game console now and $300 in a high-def disc player later than it is for people to invest $600 up front in both.
Plus, here's something people don't talk about very much, but it's certainly a consideration with me. If my Microsoft HD-DVD player for the Xbox 360 screws up after my warranty is expired, I'm out $300 and I can't watch movies. If my Sony PS3 Blu-ray player screws up after my warranty is expired, I'm out $600 and I can't watch movies or play games. Personally, I find the possibility of the latter situation much more distressing.
No, Sony is the only one on that list that is purposely damaging themselves (and gamers) with Blu-Ray by tacking it to the PS3. The other companies are letting the tech stand on its own and letting the market decide. Sony is bundling it in a vain attempt to get it into living rooms by playing off the popularity of the PlayStation brand. They either believe that Blu-Ray technology or the PlayStation brand is SO GOOD, that consumers won't mind its terrible effect on the price of the PS3, as well as its lateness to market. I think Sony grossly overestimated. It's NOT a value-add, but more like a tax on buyers of the PS3. If I want a console, I'd like to buy just a console please. If I wanted Blu-Ray, I'd buy it. I think (hope) they just priced themselves out of the market.
Any discussion about liking one format more than the other because of managed copy, or region coding, or pretty much anything is silly because both formats:
1) Support the same codecs
2) Use the same copy protection system (AACS).
The ONLY difference between the formats is physical, as in space availiable or in the electronics neeed to play the disc.
Well that's not quite true, there is one software difference - HD-DVD uses a menu system specificaiton sponsored by Microsoft (and thus requires paying Microsoft a per-player fee) vs. a different format for Blu-Ray. If you enjoy giving Microsoft money for every player you buy, then HD-DVD's your format of choice.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
of hearing people say they can't see the diff on slashdot. Most of you who say you don't care/don't want it would probably die(or just bitch alot) if you had to play your favorite games at 640 x 480, so come off of it. The difference between, say 640 x 480 and 1600 x 1200 is roughly the same as the difference between SD and HD(720x480 with rectangular pixels vs 1920 x 1080 with square pixels). Heres the kicker, natural video looks many orders of magnitude better than a mishmash of clipping polygons, which is why video looks DECENT at 720 x 480 in SD. I have always been bothered by sharp edges and MPEG 1-4 quantization noise(Not really SD's fault), and HD helps with the first issue, hopefully the use of H.264 or VC-1 will help with the second. Also the increase in fine details is very nice. If you ever get a bigscreen, you will definately appreciate HD.
If you were planning on getting a PS3 anyway, regardless or price, then Blu-Ray is free to try. I would have wanted Blu-Ray in the PS3 regardless of movie support just for the greater storage for games.
With HD-DVD there is no choice you can make that does not rest ONLY on your desire to watch one of 120 or so HD-DVD movies out now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There's no point in 1080p60 for most content - all movies and most TV shows are shot at 24p, and that won't change for a long time, if ever.
The key thing is resolution. 1920x1080 is 6x the pixels of DVD's 720x480. 6x is a massive improvement (more than VCD to DVD), and it's a huge visual upgrade. For most folks, once they get used to good HD, DVD seems distractingly soft and undetailed.
My video compression blog
How many ways are there to say it? Sony is stupid.
Somebody may be stupid, but it's sure not Sony. Your proclimation looks somewhat famillar, like those proclaiming the death of the "overpriced" iPod.
You would think it would learn from its mistakes. It tried to push out its proprietary format with Betamax, and it failed miserably.
They did learn from that, as you will see.
people do not want to get locked into proprietary formats controlled by one company.
Blu-Ray consortium - Apple, Dell, Disney, many other companies - all members. Look into it.
The Blu-ray drive is heinously expensive. People don't want to pay over $500 for a gaming console,
No - they'd rather pay $800. That's what consoles are going for on eBay. It seems a little odd that you speak of no-one wanting them when plainly, they do.
The Blu-ray drive is hard to manufacture, which is causing Sony's dismal supply. If they had sold it without the Blu-ray drive, they could have made a lot more of them, and average little Timmys all over the world could have one under their Christmas tree instead of only the little Johnnys who happen to have parents that are very, very rich.
You are thinking just like any other stupid American only of the short term. Yes they have a shortage TODAY. But using them in every player means that long term, Blu-Ray drives (and discs!) are cheap because of volume. So over the course of a year or two Blu-Ray drives should drop in cost a great deal. The Japanese are capible of thinking beyond a single quarter.
There wouldn't be a so-called "format war" which has turned into, basically, Sony vs. the rest of the world.
Well, Sony + Disney + Apple + Dell + Many other studios , against... Universal and Microsoft. Who are you cheering for here? Seems to me you've picked the side with fewer players and more grinchy players at that!
I could go on listing items, but you get my point.
That you know nothing abot the media industry, or HD format backing? yes, we got that loud and clear thanks.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD did try to come together on a compromise at one point - but the sticking point is that Microsoft demanded the standard include the Microsoft menuing language - every HD-DVD player has to may Microsoft a fee for it's use. Most of the companies on the Blu-Ray side did not want to have to do that.
After all, consider that apaprt from the menuing system all the other software is identical - same copy protection (AACS), same codec support (including the Microsoft codec).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I dislike Sony as a company, so that would be enough to put me off Blu-Ray. Personally though, I don't want to buy physical films anymore. I know fans/enthusiasts love all the little extra booklets and extra cases, but to me it's just clutter. Why have a shelf full of just a dozen films, then you can have an external hard drive on your desk with ten times that many films? Before too long, home entertainment hardware and home computing are going to be much more integrated. You can already buy DVR's with ethernet ports or USB ports. I think if HD-DVD or Blu-Ray come in useful in anyway function, it will be as high-capacity re-writable DVD's on your computer - say as a large removable back-up drive. At least in this mode of operation you don't have to concern yourself with idiotic DRM and Region systems. As the EFF predicted, DRM is going to eventually kill off sales of digital media. Both formats are big on DRM, but all DRM does is make it harder for people doing things legitimately and will never stop "illegal" acivies from carrying on.
No, Sony is the only one on that list that is purposely damaging themselves (and gamers) with Blu-Ray by tacking it to the PS3.
As a gamer, I WANT the extra storage the PS3 offers. After all, these are next-gen gaming systems right? Intro PS3 games already use more space than a signle DVD, and I want the kind of large non-linear game worlds more space makes possible.
What Sony is doing is actually backing Blu-Ray with action. Unlike Microsofts waffling comittment to HD-DVD (motto "we can make blu-ray players if we need to later!"), Sony has helped out the whole consortium by saying "we are serious eough about Blu-Ray to put players in every console and drive down costs faster for everyone". Sony adding Blu-Ray drives to the PS3 means Apple can add Blu-Ray burners to the Mac line earlier, because costs will drop quicker. Yes there are shortages now but also there is volume, and that drives down costs over time.
Sony's backing is what has saved Blu-Ray and also make the format war a lot shorter than it would have been if no-one had really comitted as strongly to either format. If you feel you've been personally wounded by the higher price of the PS3, just wait a year,
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As one of the lucky few to get a PS3 at the MSRP I must say it is a really nice machine. I watched my first Blu-Ray movie last night and it looked great, maybe I imagined it but it seemed really, really crisp. Now I need to upgrade from 480 to 1080.
I bought it is because I am studying compilers and wanted to run linux on it. However, in my opinion the PlayStation 3 is one of the finest piece of home electronics I have seen. I am not sure who will win the format war, but this machine is certainly a smart play for the Blu-ray high-def camp.
Most importantly it runs linux. Two big penguins and six small ones.
Not so simple if you think that "zero stopping them" doesn't include Sony's unlikelihood of licensing blue laser technology to Microsoft its main competition in the console market. I think people will be disturbed by this expensive frankenstein approach and will galvanize on a brand.
I think Betamax was worth trying and not a stupid idea, but I will agree that everything since has been. Although format wars have been going on for decades, going all the way back to 78's (did you also know there used to be 16 RPM records? The record player I had as a kid had that speed as well as 78 and the more familiar 33-1/3 and 45. My grandmother told me she remembers seeing 16RPM records when she was young), but the pace and expense of these new formats is increasing.
I absolutely refuse to commit to any new format. As far as I'm concerned, the DVD's have finally hit the "sweet spot" in the past couple years where prices are lower and practically anything I could ever want is available. It took CD's at least 10 years to reach that point. DVD's look just fine on my almost 20-year-old RCA, and from everything I hear, HD and related technologies are overly complex from the consumer point of view and even if I had the desire and the money I want nothing to do with that kind of hassle, and I'm a software developer, I eat and breathe "overly complex" and "hard to use".
The problem is that the DVD was successful, and no one is making a killing on them they way they were 10 years ago because the players can be had for almost pocket change, and everything and it's making-of documentaries are already available. What's the solution? Find a new way to gouge early adopters and people with too much disposable income. It's kind of ironic that as an incurable computer nerd, Linux enthusiast and general geek at large, I'm pretty much behind the curve on consumer electronics, not because I lack the money, but because I lack the interest. I have the tools to do what I need and want and despite being an incurable gadget freak, most of this new stuff just doesn't interest me.
But just like Hollywood, who thinks the only way to succeed is to try to make every release a bloated hyper-budget blockbuster, no technology company seems to think it can survive and succeed without forcing a never-ending series of increasingly premature technologies and try to drive demand for things that few people actually want. While that thought may be true, it certainly doesn't make for a market where the consumer is king. Really, the consumer is the guinea pig used by competing megacorporations to battle out which technologies will succeed (or even work). While this is wholly within the capitalist spirit, which I fully support, I still have a hard time feeling like any of this is being done for my benefit as a consumer. The thing is, captialism works when you sell something to me that I want, but more and more, it seems like companies are competing to force or fool people into buying what they often either don't need or don't want, and Sony is quite possibly the king of that country.
Of course, I simply choose not to play that game, as can anyone.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
You're being silly. Blu-ray Disc on the Playstation 3 is more than just an attempt to get the movie format into consumers homes. In case you didn't know, games on the PS3 are released on Blu-ray Disc media, meaning games have access to 25/50 GB of storage, allowing for loads more content/data, higher quality textures, etc. Keep in mind, the XBox 360 uses regular old DVDs (with a max capacity of 4.7/8.5 GB), and it's very unlikely any games will (or even can) be released on their HD DVD add-on.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Every player and every title you can buy today, or has been announced, and foreseeable future players and titles do NOT have region coding. The format as specified is NOT capable of region coding.
:).
There's a working group working on a spec, which then would need to be ratified, which would then need to be implemented with a sunset period for players in the market, etcetera.
And if you're worried about it, buy a region-free HD DVD player today
My video compression blog
Bear in mind that's not a list of exclusive Blu-ray supporters. To take two prominant examples, HP is shipping HD DVD dirves in PCs today, and Apple has been shipping HD DVD authoring and (limited) playback for a year and a half.
My video compression blog
I'll grant that Sony is fairly stupid in the American PR game, I couldn't finger an exact reason why or what for but they seem to be getting brutalized for BD and PS3. It's ironic to me because MS is their competitor and that's a company that is horrible to deal with. MS is arrogant, they over promise, under deliver (Cairo? Longhorn? just about every product they ever ship?) they attack their business partners and ultimately go out of their way to starve their competition if they can, they've spread FUD. I cannot fathom why game publishers would want anything other than Sony to be successful just to avoid an MS only world in games. MS has gone out an done shake downs on companies to sell site licenses, they're playing games feeling the water with their "genuine" shit; everything is pointing to pay per play in the not terribly distant MS gaming future. At least Sony and generate somewhat neat and compelling technologies, they just suck at putting it in to user's hands in a compelling way. It also appears that Sony, for some reason, is hated. I can understand the CD spyware thing, but that's not that different than Genuine Advantage turning your shit off after it was working for a long while. At the end of the day, I wouldn't be surprised if Sir Stringer was unwilling to take the gloves off where Mr. Balmer was bashing Sony to analysts in each and every private conversation that ever happened. Neither of the two are angels but some how Sony has turned a huge chuck of the world against them, or at least is seems that way.
I see a vote for HD-DVD as a vote for changing technology again in 5 years whereas a vote for BD is a vote for a technology that will hold your movies for at least 10 to 15 years or perhaps even a lot longer. Players for both are rare and expensive, the media for both are expensive, both have DRM. Technologically they are incredibly similar, oher than initial storage ability.
Anyway, I was setting the record straight - Sony is playing nice with others, in contradiction to what the OP said, in the sense that others are also involved in Blu-Ray.
Sony is selling a Blu-ray player on its own. $999. No joke. The game console+Blu-ray is cheaper than Blu-ray. It's ridiculous!
Some guys typed a keyword into a search engine and got "results" and that warrents posting? Jesus.
Good point. Not only have I eschewed Sony products lately, but I've recommended others do also. It's gotta hurt their bottom line.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
I can see your point. Markets that are monopolized usually cripples technological growth.
:)), and it could insure a continued fast technological growth - which is leading us to a very convenient society.
And growth of GDP/capita (the phenomena that made the US more comfortable to live in than Somalia) is solely dependent on technological progress in the long run.
The Chinese have lax patent laws because it makes their economy better off. One of the main reasons Asia has begun to rise out of poverty at a blazing speed is because there is already higher technology invented. They just have to adapt it. Now they do so at minimum costs. Is this bad?
It might be bad for America - but I think the increase in welfare in Asia is worth the decrease in the *growth* of welfare (because there has been no decrease of welfare in the US) in America.
However, an All Open Source model doesn't encourage technological growth.
Why? Because it is free.
Technological research costs a lot of money. Not anyone can come up with something like Bluray or whatever. You need educated people, factories, etc etc.
It's the same with software. If all software would suddenly become open source there would be no incentive to create new things, because nobody could be guaranteed to get their investment back and compensation for the risk they took when investing.
As you say, there would be a few die-hard fans who'll create software just for the heck of it. But most of us would like to work with something that keeps food on our table and also keeps our life as happy and luxurious as possible.
Technology is about money. Without the promise of rewards in the future, firms will not invest in research.
If firms will stop investing in research, our GDP growth will get crippled and finally stop growing. This means that we are no longer climbing up towards something better.
This especially applies to stuff in the IT-section, since many believe that it is the growth of technology in this business that is currently lifting growth rates higher - up to the levels that existed in the 1960:s.
I think open source software will always be a second-hand alternative, pushing commercial companies into innovating more. Which is good.
But I do not think the open source model is the solution for all software.
It will always be the free vinegar that is sweeter than expensive sugar, simply because there is no economic power funding more advanced technological breakthroughs in the open source model.
And as for Sony's Bluray technique.. If people won't buy it, Sony will think twice about researching again. So will Microsoft. So will Apple. So will Plextor. So will everyone else.
If it stops becoming profitable to create new things, firms will stop, and technological progress (along with GDP/capita growth) will cripple.
So what's the next step - to insure that technological investment continues to pay off?
Well, it is of course TRUSTED COMPUTING! It's ingenious! A firm will invent a new technology and be absolutely sure that a new technology invented by another firm will not snatch its profits. (eg. buying a DRM Vista-PC will not work with a Bluray player, only with a - perhaps worse/older player - W32ray.)
Trusted computing is probably not so good for consumers (who are stinking wealthy anyways
These are my, somewhat off-topic, thoughts.
Whoops! That one is doing quite well.
Blu-ray is really no more proprietary than HD-DVD (or Memory Stick for that matter).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
it is hard to see how HD-DVD can possibly win.
Easier upgrade path.
1) Nobody's shipped a DVD/Blu-Ray combo disc yet. DVD/HD-DVD titles are already available.
Accordingly, you can buy HD-DVDs that will play on the DVD players you already have and on your new HD player in high def. If you buy a Blu-Ray disc, it can only play on your Blu-Ray player; you need another copy to watch the same movie in a different room.
2) You can write a HD-DVD format filesystem to DVD.
For the consumer buying a write-capable drive, an HD-DVD writer lets you get more use out of DVD media than a Blu-Ray drive would. With Blu-Ray, you'd have to either buy Blu-Ray writeables or get no more use out of the write capability than if you had a normal DVD writer.
These are advantages that remain even if HD-DVD loses the war. Your combo disk will at worst be an ordinary DVD in a BluRay world; your BluRay disc will be a coaster in an HD-DVD world. And your HD-DVD-R drive will still have the advantage of being able to write extra capacity to DVD-R media if HD-DVD-R media is driven from the market; your BD-R will have no advantage over a DVD-R. So, buying HD combo discs or writers during the format wear is relatively safe; whichever format wins, some of the value is retained. Buying Blu-Ray discs or writers is all-or-nothing; if HD wins, you lose much more value. Assuming normal economic models, the result is that the HD-DVD combo discs and HD-DVD-Rs will sell better than Blu-Ray counterparts, which will create an installed base. Which will push the format war that direction.
Will that be strong enough to counter the PS3 installed base? Really depends if Sony ships enough Blu-Ray PS3s fast enough, doesn't it? They aren't off to a great start so far.
Huh? A DVD-R has a finite capacity. You can't just magically increase it by using a different filesystem.
that was the sound of a reality check for Slasdhot and that their opinions are way off from the general consumer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc/ So, let's stop insulting every other company who has contributed major technical research and dollars to support a format they thing will stand the test of time. By the way, IF Sony is forcing Blu-ray on us, then wouldn't that means that Toshiba is forcing HD DVD on us, too? Or, is it OK if Toshiba does it? It's more than a little ironic, I think, that while Sony is trying desperately to convince people that they should be buying a PS3 for the Blu-ray drive, in fact, people are avoiding the PS3 specifically because of the Blu-ray drive! The PS3 is sold out. I don't recall anyone who bought a PS2 complaining that they had to have a DVD drive with their console. Maybe some people did, but I didn't hear it. The Blu-ray drive is heinously expensive. People don't want to pay over $500 for a gaming console, even if they can also watch a few movies on it. If they had sold it without the Blu-ray drive, it would be much more competitive with the Xbox 360 and the Wii. I thought the same thing about paying $300 for a PS2. I was wrong. Darn it! Oh yeah, the PS3 is sold out. The Blu-ray drive is hard to manufacture, which is causing Sony's dismal supply. If they had sold it without the Blu-ray drive, they could have made a lot more of them, and average little Timmys all over the world could have one under their Christmas tree instead of only the little Johnnys who happen to have parents that are very, very rich. The Timmys also had to count on the pocketbooks of their parents to buy them the $400 XBox 360 last year, because none of the Timmy's really wanted one without the harddrive (that was my PERSONAL
VHS was annoying and restrictive as hell, in addition to being old and crummy looking. Depending on the VHS device you purchased image quality could be near DVD quality, but the idea of recieving rental VHS tapes in the mail is a little far fetched. Netflix was the primary reason I bought my first DVD player, that and the desire to build a CD-like DVD collection of disks that looked much cooler than a mess of VHS tapes and their hideous packages. Blu-Ray or HDDVD aren't going to have the same rapid impact. Instead, component prices will plummet late next year bringing the standard set top box down to $200. Likewise, the cost of the media will fall and burners will hit the market giving a greater incentive for people to create their own content. There won't be an HD revolution or anything, but there is enough value in these players that, during my families next upgrade cycle, they will certainly pick one up along with a new HD TV. My guess is, as much as I hate to admit it, Blu-Ray. Compare the ads in Wired for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Blu-Ray is cool and fashionable with sweet looking movies. HD-DVD looks like a terrible b-action movie. In the end, though, it depends on the guy selling these boxes. I had a guy tell me yesterday that he thought Zune was better than the iPod because you could put music from any store on the Zune. Misconceptions are the greatest sales device. Storing every media file in chip implanted in my thumb is the wave of the future, but in the meantime I think there's just enough ease of use to maintain the disc format as the dominant form of media. There will be interesting developments with the iTV and 360 and PS3 next year in this field, but I still think the netflix/blockbuster model wins for the time being. No matter how simple they make these devices, the learning curve for everybody in my family except myself is far too much for them to even hook up a self configuring wireless internet connection. I'm sure apple will do it well with the iTV, but bandwidth is will remain the deal breaker for the foreseable future. If some small company created a player that was as versatile as VLC, accepted every burnable media format, and had the ability to stream from a computer, that would be interesting. My cousin gave up on the video iPod because he couldn't get a file from bittorrent to play, and reencoding to ipod brought his old imac to its knees. If the ipod simply played the video, not only would he be using it everyday, but, being a dentist, every patient he had would be watching movies on some video goggles and the ipod video. It's not that Apple requires this to continue to sell ipods, but it is the most glaring weekness of the iPod product. I forgot what we were talking about. Sorry for the meandering, I'm gonna go bark at a tree.
Er, sorry, yes, of course.
I misunderstood a claim I'd read, and of course missed this basic sanity check, and have now embarrassed myself. Video in standard definition in HD-DVD format can take less space than in DVD format because of the difference between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. But this isn't an advantage over a Blu-Ray player, or even over the MPEG-4-on-DVD spec.
My apologies.
Sooo... Sony is foisting a roughly $200 price increase on me as a consumer of their next gen console because they're interested in saving me money?
A) How do you know it's $200 more? Remember the base PS3, that comes with everything the premium 360 does, is only $100 more. Is Sony magically getting all the parts cheaper or perhaps, is the Blu-Ray drive really not as much for Sony to make as you seem to think?
B) As the other responder said, and as I said originally, Blu-Ray is useful for games because of the extra storage, and why I did not get a 360 and waited for the PS3. Personally I think it was a huge strategic mistake for Microsoft not to include next-gen storage with a next gen console. It's like making a football team eat all thier meals through a straw.
They have an idealogical agenda to push which includes Blu-Ray winning over HD-DVD.
Of course they are! They are huge backers of the format themselves and have the most skin in the game by far.
But Microsoft has an agenda to push as well. And this we see astroturf like that, because that's how they fight (as we have seen in the past) - and I have no respect for Microsoft's wishy-washy support of HD-DVD with just an add-on to the console.
Your argument boils down to the fact that because the drives are expensive, those who do want them should be subsidized by those who don't until the drives are reasonably affordable.
No. My argument is that the drives are expensive, and cheaper drives of the future ARE subsidized by those buying them now, and the ones buying them now are receiving some benefit from them - they get a newer console and get to be early adoptors of HD video.
This will help out everyone, whereby "everyone" means "those who are willing to pay a premium for a larger capacity data storage format."
No. Cheaper drives in the future helsps "everyone", where everyone is consumers, movie studios backing Blu-Ray, and computer makers like Apple and Dell backing Blu-Ray as well. All you have eyes for is what sony gets, but everyone else is getting something as well, that you are totally blind to. And I doubt you'll see it after this post; your rage blinds you to beenfits obtained even as I spell them out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Its a open format and does not have any licensing fees associated with it.
Can you find a link that says that?
The only hint on the fee or not issue I've been able to find is this Ars Technica article, which states:
iHD is an XML-based interactivity specification currently used by HD DVD. It is not "Microsoft's iHD," but rather a specification developed jointly by Microsoft, Disney, and the DVD Forum. For the moment, Blu-ray uses an alternative specification, the Java-based BD-J. The exact issues of debate between the camps supporting each specification isn't entirely clear. For instance, iHD supporters argue that iHD integration into Windows means that iHD will be cheaper to license than BD-J...
I may have been wrong about Microsoft being the only beneficiary of licence fees (being jointly developed), but that paragraph makes it sound as though iHD incurs some licence fees which are greater than BD-J.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Instead of using the increased bandwidth available on the media, the blu-ray discs I've bought and viewed are the same transfers as broadcast in HD on Showtime and HBO and exhibit exactly the same "color banding" in exactly the same scenes. Even "Superman Returns" has occasional color banding even though it's supposed to be the first 50GB blu-ray disc! And on a 55" screen, it's pretty distracting/obnoxious when you see it.
IMO, this parallels the same fucked up compression debacle during DVD's first years. Eventually the video compression companies will have better compression algorithms and we'll get the blu-ray equivalent of "superbit." However, I'm not so sure that I'll continue to buy blu-ray discs until that day arrives because I don't want to encourage or reward the laziness of the industry.
3 of the 5 bullet points on the Pioneer manual say "Home Media Gallery", "DLNA", "Plays for sure". They realized you weren't going to have $900 a month to buy a new BD every day so instead of sitting idle 6 days every week, this box is playing all your H.264, MPEG-4, Windows Media downloads.
Networking should be the frosting that keeps BD from being completely destroyed by the Toshiba machine, unless Toshiba can beat the Pioneer slave at implementing networking. And it is one guy whose implenting it.
Sony should have distanced itself more from BD technology because it isn't a Sony product. It's a consortium of 10 companies.
Not that i could if i tried. I work in a photo center and the only time i sell a Sony camera is when someone comes in and asks for it specifically, and thats only if i cant talk them out of it. Most people will ask general questions about the brands and simply on technical merits i cant reccomend Sonys. Between their CCD issues and LCD issues in the past and then the fact that their cameras arent even competitively priced with what i consider the lower spectrum of cameras. Regarding the price range they are in, i feel that you pay a bit of a premium for the Canon brand name (as well as nikon, but both are quality) i'll reccomend them over sony if someone wants something a bit more powerful than a Kodak. It also doesnt help when people ask about what kind of memory cards they'd need for the cameras they're considering and i tell them that every camera we have except for the 3 Sony models (we dont cary fuji or olympus, but i still hate them too, XD cards are pefect at getting stuck in the SD card slots on the kiosks by idiot customers) take one type of card. Then i point over to the memory card display and we have 1GB SD cards for $20 and the cheapest (non sony brand) 1GB memory stick is $45. Then the sony brand memory sticks cost $.10 less for half the space of the lexar and san-disk ones... God we spend all day at work bitching about sony and now im at home bitching about them. Sony can DIAF, im gonna go play with my Wii.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Me:"Blu-Ray? It uh, new high definition video discs." Customer:"Oh, Hi-Def DeeVeeDees?" Me:"*shaking head and staring daggers at the sony disply* No..."
I mean, how the hell do you explain it to people that its a hi-def video disc but its NOT HD-DVD.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
It's a very clever idea but 2 of the layers either have to be DVD or HD-DVD. That means you'll either end up with a shitty DVD transfer or a shitty HD-DVD transfer. There is no magic bullet providing superior performance for both, at least until a quad layer disc appears. Anyway, Blu-Ray has its own virtually identical solution too. http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/english/press/2004/bd- dvd.html
2) You can write a HD-DVD format filesystem to DVD.
Both formats have a largely similar software stack, including what video formats they support. [As an aside this is what makes the "format war" all the more perplexing since they're virtually identical except for the physical aspect]. If you were mastering HD content and it all fit onto a DVD, then there is nothing to stop you writing it to a DVD from a suitably equipped BD/DVD-+RW burner. After all, video formats such as H264 / MPEG-4 AVC are not tied to the disc capacity. I have no idea if such things as BD/DVD writer combos exist yet but sooner or later they will.
All in all I have absolutely no urge to root for either side except pragmatism. Blu-Ray offers more capacity but the reader heads are apparently more finnicky to make. HD-DVD offers simplicity but lower storage capacity. Both use blue laser diodes and are subject to virtually identical production costs. Otherwise they're much of a muchness. What drives me to think Blu-Ray will win is simply because there are something like 500,000 PS3s in the world and the figure is expanding faster per month than the entire HD-DVD user base.
I believe that the only way HD-DVD can win is if Microsoft integrate the HD-DVD into their XBox 360. But I suspect they daren't do that unless they want to end up in the same boat as Sony - production issues, higher costs. If such an upgraded 360 did appear I expect that the current "premium" model will become the "core" and the new premium will sport an internal HD-DVD player + HDMI, Wi-fi, 60Gb hd and the other bits and pieces to bring themselves into line with the PS3. But if they leave it too long, HD-DVD will be dead and buried and it will be a waste of time to even bother. Perhaps that's why they're sitting on the fence at the moment.
The next generation for Sony and Microsoft is largely about better graphics. One argument I keep hearing is... Why Blue-Ray? People don't have the HD-tvs for it. Well, why do you need a Next Generation system if you can't enjoy these better graphics anyway? You're better off anyway with a Wii or a Playstation 2 then. Blueray will give Playstation significant advantages in a next-gen environment. Don't forget that those new fancy high definition games will need lots and lots of disk space. Blue Dragon, needs already needs an awful lot of compression to fit the game on a couple of dvds. Less compression needed (thus less load times in games) and more space is a huge boon. The add-on hd dvd player for the Xbox is a fake feature. Game developers need to create games that work on the most basic version of the console available. It doesn't make sense releasing games on HD DVD if most of the Xbox owners can't use those. It makes total sense to me to wait until all features of next gen are there to launch your system. High definition games on dvds will cost you one way or the other. Sony did a lot of stuff wrong, but they did almost everything right that's final, the hardware side. They have a beautifully designed system, it's silent, they don't have huge power supplies hanging around.
This is great. Everyone is arguing about physical media. That has the least to do with anything. It's what is encoded on it and who gets paid for it
Microsoft watched helplessly from the sideline as the world walked right past Windows Media Player as the next distribution "standard". The format wars are here because of the delays of H.264/MPEG4 tweeking and a little of getting AVCHD to work. They took way too long turd polishing those codecs and opened a window for a competitor.
Using that time, Microsoft had two years to work very hard and FINALLY allowed their proprietary codec to be separated from Windows Media to get published as a SMPTE standard called VC-1. Now that VC-1 was a viable, published standard, manufacturers would consider using it. After testing, everyone who had seen H.264 rejected VC-1 as being measurably worse at the same data rate. However, Microsoft talked the floundering HD-DVD consortium into requiring it on their disks. The Blu-Ray people told them to bugger off - nobody trusted Microsoft on that side of the isle, especially after a very high level meeting between Microsoft and Sony. Microsoft yelled at Sony for ignoring the obvious next standard, Windows Media. Sony [puzzled by the assumption] replied that it wasn't a standard so stop yelling at me, and they walked out. That went back and forth but that's the reason Microsoft supports HD-DVD and the ONLY reason it's even on the radar screen today. Otherwise, HD-DVD would have already slipped away quietly.
Now, Microsoft has a foothold in a future physical media market and can exert control over it to some degree, eventually turning HD-DVD into an anti-consumer profit engine for Microsoft and everyone who supported them. In exchange, HD-DVD, if it succeeds, will migrate toward the most restrictive iron fisted format that Hollywood could hope for - just like Microsoft promised them.
Physical media is all moot anyway with downloadable movies happening now. Pay per play will be the future because the people who profit from it are writing the laws we will be living under without opposition. Proof that consumers are stupid cows.
Most of the stuff on
The USA problem is the MNC's have used the government system to create an impasse for the small-time, would-be inventor. Takes $100k to bring an electronic product to market for instance (from what I was quoted about the FCC, UL, etc certifications). The individual in the USA has no freedom to invent. The mid-to-lower-middle class and lower class have no freedom to do business due to the regulated startup costs. This is by design as you should well know. The folks that pass these laws are not idiots. Compare this to Belize where no business license is even required. Of course this scares Americans because they have been taught to see freedom as risky.
You are correct about slavery. That was an exageration and demeaning to the memory of past slaves. But comparing the US system to serfdom is about right.
Of course, choice be said. Who had a choice about a rootkit being installed on their computer? Sony operates as the Plantation Owners did and that was my point. It believes it has full reach over what people can and cannot do. As for large DVD's, I cannot really say I'd personally have much if any use for them. As it is now I can backup my data to a regular DVD or two and mirror it on other disks.
TimJowers
Expect Freedom.
Blu-Ray also supports VC-1.
It's just that the people making Blu-Ray discs are smart enough not to use it.
So in that respect, Microsoft sort of wins in that everyone has to support that codec to be a fully compliant Blu-Ray player - even Apple, to include a Blu-Ray player with computers will have to pay them a small fee.
You had the last part right which is why it's better to support Blu-Ray, which does not give Microsoft as much leverage over the media industry. Consumers are not as stupid as you think though and so far have rejected media which is overly restrictive.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Asking them to buy a DVD replacement when they've only just bought a boxed set of Friends DVDs is asking a bit too much of the marketplace.
Boxed sets are why BluRay is probably going to win out in the end.
Do you want one disc for each season of Friends (call it BluRay 7 discs for the series, I have no idea) or 35 discs for the series (DVD), or even 20 discs (HDDVD)?
The BluRay capacity advantage is going to be the 'killer-app'.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Think about that again. When a Blu-Ray drive is sold, it makes money for Sony and a markup for whoever re-sold it.
In the same way Dell used to be Intel only, to get cheaper CPUs from Intel - Apple for example is saying it'll only bundle BluRay for now. The only reason these companies have stood up and limited their options is to get cheap Blu-Ray (and the same goes for the backers of HD-DVD).
If demand for one ramps up, or the price isn't cheap enough - these companies will switch overnight.
The winner is usually the better marketeer (pronounced 'liar') with the crudely inferior product (see Betamax vs VHS, Macintosh vs Windows etc etc). They'll buy whatever Wal-Mart sells. Adding Microsoft to the mix, as the best 'marketeers' on the planet, makes it far more treacherous for the future of the winning format
I actually don't think Microsoft is really all that great at marketing - and remember that they are up against some people that know marketing consumer devices really well. Sony, Samsung, Disney - all these companies are going to be pushing Blu-Ray really hard, and the inclusion of Blu-Ray in the PS3 means that al they really have to do is keep reminding PS3 owners they also have a Blu-Ray player, and Blu-Ray wins by default. The HD-DVD camp actually has to convince people to buy a player that's just a player, and until there are a substantial number of movies in that format it's a hard task.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
By using proprietary formats Sony gains in the royalties market... Saves in licenses and gains a lot selling them, hence leading to higher profit margins. Can anyone say that all this "supposed failures" prevented Sony from being the large corporation it is today? Selling less with a higher margin, keeping a good R&D department is probably not that bad in a corporation point of view...
Math is beautiful... e^(pi*i)+1=0
> Tell that to Apple Computer which is doing pretty well with it's proprietary format and proprietary hardware.
... USB (in addition) ... ethernet ... PCI
Proprietary hardware?
G4/G5... Intel
Firewire
Apple Talk
(something else.. NuBus?)
(Some propietary display bus)... DVI / Dsub