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No Ceasefire in DVD Format Battle
haja writes "The BBC reports that the high definition DVD format war will continue until a winner is declared. There is no sign of the two camps working on a unified format. Some believe the industry at large is being damaged by the war due to consumer confusion. From the article: 'Backers of Blu-ray are bullish and are predicting victory. Blu-ray has more backing from film studios and more makers of the players, but HD-DVD has sold equally well in the first year of release. But the Blu-ray camp believes a library of exclusive titles and the power of PlayStation 3 - which has an in-built Blu-ray player - will see the format pull ahead in the next 12 months. Mike Dunn, president of worldwide home entertainment for 20th Century Fox, said: "I really believe the format war is in its final phase."'"
Consumers really don't care at this point.
Seagate announces Hard Drives will be at 300TB in a few years, what do we even need these formats for? DRM? yaaaaay!
MABASPLOOM!
All i want is them to release them in numbers so it'll be possible to buy any HD player, in the UK at least.
Blu-Ray is my format of choice, It holds ALOT more, and it works with the PS3, thats all i need
WulframII - Free Online Mutiplayer 3D Tank Shooting Game
No matter what geeks think, the PS3 cannot lose. Therefore BlueRay cannot lose. Can you say "network externalities"?
Global warming is a cube.
the high definition DVD format war will continue until a winner is declared
Couldn't get more Irish than that could you? Here's another pearl of wisdom:
Ah, to be sure it'll rain tomorrow unless it doesn't.
Summation 2
If only he'd said it was in the "final throes": then we'd have known he was worth taking seriously...
There, corrected that for you.
Bill Gates yesterday on live CNN at CES voiced his backing of HD-DVD. I am pretty sure that Microsoft makes sony look like a joke right now.
BETAMAX
I'm still not planning on buying either one of those formats. And I'm normally an early adopter. Even if I bought a PS3 (which I'm not planning on) I still can't see myself buying any Blu-Ray discs until this whole format debacle gets settled.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/l...ss-conferen ce/
Blu-ray has 96% of the HD player market in Japan. In terms of Japan the game is already over there.
Only 4 of the top 20 DVD last year are from HD DVD camp. Almost all the top 20 movies are only available on Blu-ray.
Understanding and solutions believe Blu-ray will sell more discs.
Quote:
BDA has seen a 700% increase in software sales since mind-Nov. with the launch of PS3 and additional Blu-ray devices.
Top 5 Selling titles to Date in order: Underworld Evolution, Talladega Nights, Fifth Element, Click , Ultraviolet.
Quote:
Survey from 10k respondents plan to purchase Blu-ray moves to view on their PS3.
75% of the respondents plan to use their PS3 as a primary device for watching movies.
80% of 1 million = an installed base of 800,000.
Same source estimates that PS3 will far outsell the X-Box Drive.
Largest variety of movies.
Largest variety of hardware.
Only gaming console with built-in HD movie playback.
Quote:
Half of the Sony titles will be BD50GB, despite what HD DVD said.
They will release 18 titles by the end of Feb.
The Decent was 50GB and is the first with PIP, and has BDJ.
They announce more titles than we can type, look forward for the press releases, when they are available
Bob Chapek President of Disney.
Quote:
Over 20 Blu-ray titles in the first half of 2007, many world wide.
Mic makes loud noise, everyone jumps! Bob says "I didn't realize the other side wanted to win that bad" Everyone laughs.
He goes on to cover the previously announced Blu-ray titles.
From the fox film exec himself:
Quote:
On Dec 20th BD outpaced HD DVD.
Fox will continue to be aggressive with BDJ.
7-10 titles per month, most will be 50GB.
Will continue with day and date releases.
.
Quote:
Sony will target 90-100 titles for 2007.
Once again there were many movies including Casino Royal which will be AVC encoded. All the big releases from the middle of the year will be AVC.
Half of the Sony titles will be BD50, despite what HD DVD said.
Quote:
When will the format war end?
If we had a crystal ball we wouldn't need to do press conferences like this. It is a matter of time before the fact that BDA is the winner is evident to everyone.
I love the fact that a bunch of diehard Microsoft/Xbox fanatics went out and wasted 200 dollars on a giant ugly peripheral for a dead format.
No matter how much you can't stand that BluRay has won the format war, everyone here on Slashdot has to enjoy the fact that the bitter little fuck Zonk is crying his eyes out over the death of HD-DVD.
Blu-Ray, from what I see, has a few problems (or HD-DVD several advantages).
1. Lots of people already have an Xbox 360, so the cost of the HD-DVD addon really doesn't seem so bad, compared to the $600 or $1000+ Blu-Ray players.
2. I can't think of many Blu-ray movies that I just can't live without. There are loads of HD-DVD movies I would love to own.
3. The Xbox 360 is a more capable media center device. Since the HD-DVD box is part of the 360, that creates a nice little package.
4. The name. "What the hell is a 'blue...ray'?" When you say HD-DVD they at the very least have a good idea that it's some type of movie disc.
I just can't see how Blu-ray hopes to make significant inroads into the HD movie market. Maybe this won't even matter. Maybe we'll all have fiber to the curb in 3 years and will stream HD content from Netflix or something.
-William Brendel
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
An HD TV set, with a PVR, and digital cable is serving me just fine. On Demand movies in HD 5.1 gets it done for me.
The only counter argument that nags in the back of my mind is that I borrowed the LOST first and second season DVDs from a friend, and truly enjoyed watching the series on DVD. No Commercials, and three episodes a night really move the plot along. I find it very difficult to stay interested in the show now that I am watching it on a weekly basis, when they happen to bless us with an episode. Too long between important events, and the hook is gone... So the DVDs of Complete seasons may be a better way to enjoy quality TV shows.
But, I suspect that it won't be long before the LOST series shows up on the On Demand service, just like the fine HBO content... and I can again enjoy three episodes in a sitting.
www.jmagar.com
-
the power of PlayStation 3
I keep hearing of this power, but the only powers I have seen so far include:
The power to make you broke during purchase.
The power to fill up store shelves due to lack of demand.
How are either of those going to help Blu-Ray win the war?
...that will still probably be enough to give Bluray the winning edge.
I don't think Microsoft's lack of digital video out and an add-on only solution is going to make much of a difference in the format war.
Can't have your cake and eat it too.
For the vast majority standard DVD's are good enough. I dont know a single person who has gone out to buy either of the new formats. I have one friend with a ps3 and even he hasnt bothered to actually buy a blu-ray disk, he just doesnt care. I know one person who is planning to get one but he is the same idiot that talks about how all his muisc has to be obtained in shorten format and how all home media currently sucks. I think the believes he is impressing someone but most of us that know him just think he's an idiot.
One argument I hear is that more will adopt when the formats get cheaper, but even if players were $50 like cheap standard DVD's you still have to replace your library to take advantage of it. Maybe im in the minority but the difference isnt great enough to justify replacing a collection of around 700 movies.
With the consistently plumetting costs of storage I'm leaning towards the idea that both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray both flop as movie standards in favor of video on demand and other downloadable content.
One thing Blu-Ray might not be counting on is name recognition.
Right now, if the average Joe walks into an electronics store looking for high definition movie players he/she will see a wall of "Blu-Ray" and "HD-DVD". Most people will see the "HD" and think "yeah, that is what I want, Blu-Ray, what is that? No.. No.. I want high-definition".
Based on name alone HD has an advantage. Blu-Ray needs some serious marketing because if they rely on the sales person in the electronic store for supplying information they will be hosed!
it is a current format war, in a couple or three years we'll have to go thru all this again (well, not me, there is no media player on my motorcycle)
I sat down to write a new sig tonight and all I did was make the chair warm.
Mike Dunn, president of worldwide home entertainment for 20th Century Fox, said: "I really believe the format war is in its final phase."'"
The insurgency in Iraq is "in the last throes," Vice President Dick Cheney says. (June 20, 2005)
Some people clearly can't see the forest through the trees.
I wonder what effect dual format players like this LG player will have? Seems to make the whole war less significant from the consumer's standpoint. I have a DVD +/- RW drive in my PC now, so it doesn't much matter to me which burnable media I buy.
Penny - plain text accounting
In about six months I'm going to visit a local porn shop to see which format they have the most titles in.
There's your winner!
At this point, I'm not going to buy HD-DVD or Blu-Ray until it's clear there's a winner. The player is the easy part; I just don't want to invest a lot of money in content that I'll end up selling for $50 on eBay in 2 years.
But it gets worse.
Now that I know there's a "new" format, I'm less willing to buy releases on DVD because of the expectation that a new format will be prominent in 18 months, and I'd rather have the high def version.
So my response at this point is to slow way down on DVD purchases.
As a consumer, that's the only sensible thing to do.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I'm too afraid of root kits to use anything from Sony
As I won't be getting any HD equipment of any kind any time soon.
Not because I'm a Luddite, but for two very critical reasons:
1) It's too damned expensive and I don't have the money to blow on HD toys. Maybe the rest of the world makes over 100K a year and lives in an inexpensive area, but I don't. I have bills to pay, damnit, why the hell would I waste my money on an HD setup?
2) I have kids. Autisitc kids with a penchant for running up to the T.V. and giving the screen an open-palm slap just because they like the sound. How long do you think a $3000.00 LCD or Plasma is going to last under that kind of punishment? And if I can't expect the T.V. to last, why the heck would I shell out for the player if I can't view all that "HD goodness" on my old 480P NTSC tube T.V.?
The problem is that the hardware and media guys, in all thier excitement to re-energize the home entertainment market by forcing upgrades, have forgotten that a large percentage of the population either a) just doesn't give a damn, or b) are like me, and can't get an HD setup even if they want to. So really, WHO GIVES A SHIT about HD other than the videophiles with more money than brains? Let THEM buy into all the HD hype, and the rest of us will just wait until the dust settles and we can guy a 27" HD T.V. for the same price that we can buy a 27" regular T.V. today.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Lock the promoters of each side in a single steel cage for a death match, ending only when LG develops their dual format player. Thats what the people really want to see.
I thought about one of these players. Ultimately for me I'm sticking with DVD, mostly because I can rip to watch on my computer when I travel (although they are making that more diffictult, sigh...). I can't watch those high def disks on my computer.
Now if blu-ray put a "portable" version on the disc I could take with me, like steve jobs suggested....
As long as the individual movie prices are high, people wont switch. Yes the picture is better, but not so much so as to justify buying a more expensive disk. VHS vs. Laser Disc. Which one lasted longer in the US (where the disc prices were artifically kept very high).
I'm wondering if a movie can be compressed into Divx in full HD and fit on a standard DVD? If this could be done couldn't HD players be made much more cheaply? I just had to purchase a new dvd player. I almost bought a Phillips which supports Divx playback via USB hard drive. I do not know if an HD Divx file will be displayed in full HD though.
Instead I bought a Sony player which upconverts the signal first. It also conditions the signal so that virtually no pixelization can be seen on the TV. The picture on a 46" 720P set is astounding. Really, it looks close to an HD signal and I'm starting to think there isn't very much added value in the hi-def discs.
The main advantage of Blu-ray is its cooler name. I honestly believe the name is an important factor.
If you have an even number of normal DVD players being sold for both formats, but the PS3 does end up selling pretty well, you will end up with the Blu-Ray camp having a much larger installed base than HD-DVD. Personally, I'd be inclined to go for the $200 HD-DVD player for the XBox 360, but I could see the PS3 being the tipping point. In fact, that will probably be the only thing that really pushes Blu-Ray ahead.
DRM is a major factor in my disinterest in buying HD-related products, from sets to players to disks. And it's not that I'm generally a scofflaw: I willing pay licensing fees for my music and movies. The reason I avoid DRM-infected products and content is that they don't let me fully exercise my fair-use freedoms (backup, time-shifting, etc.)
So I'm thrilled that the studios and hardware people are having a rough time of this. I doubt that they'll ever say, "DRM is preventing an resolution to the format wars", but at this point I pretty much just want DRM pushers to suffer.
Multiple formats = fewer economies of scale = higher prices
Higher prices + confusion = potential buyers deferring purchase
Deferred purchase = slow market growth + deferred profit
They must believe that being on the winning side will mean future profits that offset the losses they're making now by not having a single format.
The reason DVD was huge was not because it was so inherently great as a format. (in fact, it has a number of glaring flaws) It's because it was a huge leap forward over VHS in practically every area. Better picture, better sound, more compact on the shelf, longer run times between disc\tape changes, easy chapter seek, and all those glorious extras for people to play with. There were so many benefits that it was worth it to people to upgrade their libraries.
But what does HD/BR offer? Better picture, to roughly 10% or 15% of the public. And better sound to an even smaller percentage than that. And that's about it.
Why in the hell would people pay to re-buy their libraries AGAIN? Especially as it was just in the last couple years that the DVD collection became "complete"? There's just no reason at all. And that's leaving out how, in the grand scheme, increasingly few movies really benefit from high-def. There was little real improvement in your average romantic comedy from VHS to DVD. The shift from DVD to HD produces even less of use. Do you really want to get distracted counting the pores on Meg Ryan's nose?
Both formats were doomed, from the very outset, to be a specialty niche product, pretty much like Laserdisc. It amazes me that both camps were (apparently) totally blind to this and sunk millions and millions into them anyway. The BEST outcome would have been if the PS3 or 360 became big and people picked up a handful of compatable discs to play in it. (big name titles, like King Kong or such) They're not going to re-buy the library. Ever. Not until a new format offers as much of an improvement over DVD as DVD offered over VHS.
About the only way the studios might be able to force a format shift would be if they decided to just drop support for basic DVD and swallow the profit losses that would incur. (since it would destroy home video sales for a couple years) But even that might not do the trick. At that point, piracy would start looking like the viable alternative to all but the most steadfast consumer.
The studios have really painted themselves into a corner, and I'm curious how they're going to get out of it.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
It would be nice if it came down to which format was more technically excellent. Yeah, I know, it doesn't work like that. It's sad.
dinner: it's what's for beer
The word 'really' is a subconscious codeword, meaning 'not really'. Likewise the word 'great'.
It's similar to what's going on when someone uses your first name in a sentence when speaking to you, such as "This amplifier will give you much better performance, Dave."
So yeah, thanks to Mike Dunn for telegraphing his conviction that the format war is indeed still raging.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
I have an HD-DVD player and I love it, but why does everyone assume you have to replace your whole library with the new format? The HD-DVD player upconverts regular DVDs to look MUCH better than a regular DVD player, so all of the old disks work fine. Buy your new movies as HD-DVDs (with an occasional upgrade if you want -- for example, I rebought Serenity in HD) and you're fine.
No need to rebuy your whole collection again.
I for one would like to be able to take an HDTV recording in its native transport stream format, drop it into a DVD authoring program, and write it to disc for archival. Since 1080p HDTV comes out to something like 7 GB/hr, a 4.7 GB DVD just ain't gonna cut it. Even dual layer is too small.
dinner: it's what's for beer
But looking at it another way, if you can get an ADSL connection, then you probably have somewhere between 2-8 MB/s bandwidth at the moment. (Sure, some people can get more than this from cable providers but they're still in a minority.) This means that it probably takes around an hour to download a movie in, say, DivX or Xvid format. In other words, you probably get 720x480 resolution in a file about 1GB size. (Yes, the sums are a very rough estimate.) A DVD will take 4-8 hours, a 30GB HD-DVD over a day. It's therefore safe to assume that, as things stand currently, Internet delivery will be in a compressed format, albeit a DRMed one. Therefore, is the assumption being made by the movie studios that everyone will be buying everything at least *twice*? That is, on disc for the big LCD at home and also downloaded for a PC or handheld player?
Sure, most of us replaced our vinyl LPs with CDs and our VHS tapes with DVDs - so, yes, we've already bought a lot of the stuff we have at least twice. But getting people to part with their money twice for the same thing at the same time is surely something completely new.
The point I'm trying to make is that it seems this is as much a battle between disk formats and Internet delivery (in the same way as CDs and MP3/AAC/etc are) as much as it is about Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD.
I'm actually beginning to wonder if the movie/media/hardware/OS companies are now involved in so many different battles on so many different fronts that they have all completely lost any sort of direction anyway.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
"But the Blu-ray camp believes a library of exclusive titles and the power of PlayStation 3 - which has an in-built Blu-ray player - will see the format pull ahead in the next 12 months."
I keep saying that there are no Free markets when it comes to "goods" protected by copyrights and / or patents.
This is a good example of people with monopolies in one area trying to leverage that to win in another market.
"exclusive titles" = copyright monopolies.
other market = media format / players.
Yes? No?
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
I'm trying to think of something I care about less than the "HD Wars". ...I'll have to get back to you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Television shows are OK to watch in Hi-Def. I watch Smallville and (god, I hate to admit it) Enterprise on HD-Net every Monday night but I wouldn't buy either series in DVD format. That means you can forget about me spending extra money for it in either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, or Total Movie.
As for movies; movies STINK lately. This is where they could grab me, but they have failed miserably!
I have a Hi-Def, surround sound set up at home and I like nothing better than to sit on my comfortable couch with a two-liter Dr. Pepper and a bag of microwave popcorn and watch a good movie. I can pause the show when my wife and I want to argue about some plot point, or even return to a previous point in the show to show her just how wrong she is. :)
Just give me SOMETHING to watch!
Last year I wanted to see Mission: Impossible and Superman Returns, but having been burned in years past I procrastinated and missed them in the theaters. I rented then on DVD. Boy was I happy I had not wasted time and money trying to see these shows in an expensive theatre setting. And I'll clue you in on something that came to mind while I have been watching movies lately: Hi-Definition does NOT make the shows any better.
In summary, it doesn't matter which format "wins" if there is nothing to watch.
There was a good article in the December 10, 2006 New York Times by Richard Siklos entitled "The Hat Trick That Didn't Happen" in which it suggests that interest in Hi-Definition formats is actually declining among the population.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Blu-ray is in-built in you.
It took 5 years to reach a point where everyone had a DVD player in their house. The lifespan of VHS was ~20 years. So DVD gets itself fully established in every home and just 1 year on there's 2 new formats both trying to beat each other down for marketshare. Most consumers are expecting to get another 14 years of life from DVD (and most were told by the sales guys that it would be "The format that's gonna last a lifetime").
The only way they will get people to stop buying regular DVD's now is to stop making them, and I can see great things happening then. Consumers having become enlightened with the ways of Centralized Media Storage and Network Media Clients, coupled with faster and fatser internet and larger storage capabilities will just move directly to 100% illegal downloading. This will of course cause the colapse of hollywood and see all major movie stars pan-handling in the streets of downtown LA.
If I had to pick a format, I would make it HDDVD. Remember Sony's history with proprietary audio and video formats? Betamax, Minidisc, Hi-MD, ATRAC3, UMD. You can almost taste the failure.
I only buy pepper spray that's been tested on anti-vivisectionists.
...will be in the throes of nuclear fire, brought on when a Skynet analog comprised of networked PS3s, takes control and launches blue-painted nukes at Redmond. Microsoft retaliates. Millions die.
"I've spent my whole life figuring out crazy ways to do things. It'll work." -- Montgomery Scott, "Relics"
While the average consumer is holding off buying either a Blue Ray or HD DVD, sony delivers a Blue Ray player with each and every PS3 it sells.
Although the average gamer might not be interested in buying Blue Ray movies, someone else in his family might (parents ?)
Also:
Single layer Blue Ray disk: 25 GB (up to 30 GB in the labs)
Single Layer HD DVD disk: 15 GB
the Blue Day disk has 66% more capacity, at dual layer that translates to extra 20 GB per blue ray disk. Now if you were to choose between the standard 4.7 GB DVD or a lesser 3.1 GB drive, which would you buy ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
I won't believe this format war's over until Howard Stringer makes the announcement from the deck of his yacht, with a big "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!" sign behind him
I just read a bunch of replies telling me how dumb BR and HD-DVD are, or that they're too expensive, DRM sucks, or how its not a big enough leap, yadda yadda yadda. I was about to write a lengthy reply, then I realized that behind me, I have an HDTV playing an HD-DVD of Casablanca and it looks stunning. I'm happy. Thats all that really matters.
D
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
The newest players take full advantage of MPEG-4 compression. Way back in the day, when the DVD standard was made, all that existed was MPEG-2. Which really really sucks. If your player will play any movie without first downsampling it to the standard TV rate, then you would get HD content, but it would be more compressed than HD-DVD or Blu Ray. Whether or not the difference is noticable is another question.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
for 4-600 bucks you can get an LCD TV of 30+ inches that will play HD content, work on your PC and wow your senses.
More people give a hoot about hd because it is better, its multi-purpose and frankly its long over due.
I know lots of people with kids (myself included) who make decent salaries but manage to have a nice tv and appreciate it yet - didn't blow 3k as you suggest.
Check out this writeup praising the PS3 (by a non-gamer at that.) As I recall, he preferred the [HDMI Blu-ray] video quality/playback features of the PS3 over [more expensive] standalone units. He also praises the multimedia (card reader features) and multi-audio format playback options. http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hd-dvd-bluray/192 7/shootout-3-blu-ray-disc-players-page2.html
BlueRayMan
it doesnt matter, most people dont have a Big Screen TV, and the 480p of a standard DVD on a HDTV is so much of an improvement over 480i on a SDTV that the difference wont matter to Joe 6-pack
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Are you really that eager to see asses with all the hair and pimples on it in high definition? It surely does take perversion to the next level, doesn't it? :-P
Considering it takes so long for anything to exit SONY and not be DOA, well I wonder if it means:
Selling Only Not Yet.
Sucks, Only Now Yours.
Stops On New Years(or 's)
Slow Ornery Nitwit, Yup.
True a lot of things took off (minidisk) in some markets, but were so constrained to geographic
regions it was almost a Pyrric (SP?) victory.
There's never really been a "Walkman" since the walkman that (coff) walked away from the competition.
Rootkits and exploding batteries aside, friends with Sony stuff are finding hidden gotchas with alarming
frequency. Home movies and burned disks that won't play and ask me if I know why.
My response so far is "It's a Sony, sorry".
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Brilliant post. Only one thing you failed to mention: HD-DVD has no superhero on their side. (Just please don't visit my blog. ;)
--
Back to my PS3 cave (after taking in the Apple announcements: http://www.macrumorslive.com/ )
BlueRayMan
Hard drive longivity simply sucks right now to the point that I dont trust them to hold data safely for more than 3 months. A little off topic, but if you are killing that many Drives it's not the drive, its either dirty power to the drive, or, far more likely, inadequate heat management (or maybe both).
I run a small production studio, and have been running several 1TB 4 drive arrays using several different vendors drives for over 3 years. The system is up 24/7, with occasional software upgrade reboots and the like, no issues with any of the drives. However, extraordinary care was taken with heat and power management. My experience is that the new, fast, large format drives run hotter and are subject to heat related failure when extra measures are not taken to deal with the extra heat.
Repeat after me:
"Heat is the Enemy, Heat is Evil and must be destroyed"
(you might want to check on getting those moths out of there too
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
A war is only in its final phase when both sides build their monuments to the dead, and acknowledge the loss incurred upon the survivors.
[
Your analyses of Apple and Sun are extremely short-sighted and dare I say uninformed. Re: Sony. You didn't mention a certain optical audio connection (prevalent in homes today) which bears the Sony + Philips name. Anyway, it seems inherent in your weak analysis that MERELY a few days into the launch of Blu-ray / PS3 technologies, there are already some "obvious" conclusions to be drawn. If you really could predict the future, you would be wealthier than Microsoft. Perhaps THEN you'd have what it takes to muscle PS3/Blu-ray out of the future. Only time will tell my friend. The market (not you, nor any of these blind, one-sided statements) will decide. For the record, standard def DVDs look great in pseudo HD on the big screen (DVDs are not obsolete--get a nice upconverting, HDMI connected DVD player.) You are correct--it's about what people want. It takes time. Not pundits.
BlueRayMan
No shit. Read this: http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2005/12/30/gates
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
I'm not a total Sony fanboi. But give Blu-ray another look, son. I will shut up after saying this. (It's time to listen to Mr. Jobs.) Blu-ray does matter, Fred. Some day you will buy a Blu-ray disc. Heck, you may even _burn_ one some day. I know it's all too much to think about right now but it's gonna happen some day and (until 50 GB downloads are not an issue for you and "crystal-holo-cubes" become more affordable) there is no point in fighting against Blu-ray. Unless you prefer HD-DVD. But why would you go and do a stupid thing like that??
BlueRayMan
Why does there need to be a battle ?
I don't see any digital camera memory card battle. There are lots of memory cards, and no "winner" and who cares?
Good for all the knobs who believe Sony is going to win pushing the PS3...
V pwzemjZKk.php). I would be surprised if there where not an XBOX 360 w/ an HD-DVD drive in it retailing for the same price as the PS3 by the time the year is done.
I think the console thing is moot, MS is preparing to update the XBOX 360 with HDMI and other goodies (http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EEylpyZk
BTW, I hate both Sony and MS but ATM I think I hate Sony's arrogance more.
Hence, if I ever make the switch, I will use HD-DVD. I don't like the sounds of Blu-Ray. Sounds like some weapon a super villain would use - in thise case, Sony.
blu-ray is already the becoming the standard for digital cable in the US and digital over the air and IPTV in Europe (i.e., being made part of OCAP in US and MHP in Europe). So I think in the end, blu-ray will edge out over HD-DVD. This is not the first time there have been standards battles between M$ (and a few blind followers) and the rest of the industry. Of course independent of the companies involved is the technology and which is better, but in these battles that's usually irrelevant, as it will probably be here as well. The Java technology wired into blu-ray is important for OCAP and MHP, but if HD-DVD were to win out I'm sure they could adapt. It will be interesting to watch nonetheless.
The Current Score is HD-DVD 211 to Blu Ray's 210. Source: Amazon
It has been shown time and time again (Amiga, Mac, Beta, V2000, etc.) that having the technologically superior product has absolutely nothing to do with how well it does on the market.
I'll just use whichever disc format survives after the current mess. Or the best format if they coexist, or a third one if they both die. Whatever. I don't really care.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
I'm sure MS has some DRM to prevent you from downloading your shows again on a new XBOX 360.
I am applying these points to movies on the two formats....
1) People say that Sony is responsible for how popular dvd's are and how they made it a successful standard. Their reasoning is that Sony made it affordable to the masses with the PS2. If this was the case then how does that apply to the PS3? $600 or $1000 for the stand alone BR player. I fail to see the correlation.
2) BR has more storage capability than HD-DVD....BUT, this is a discussion about movies not data storage so it's kind of irrelevant. That being said, yes you can store more "extras" on a BR Disk but this is normally "filler" crap that is watched once, maybe twice. It just reminds me of the quote from Fight Club..."We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need. The quote is applicable here because people, here, work these boards to push their views and ideologies on this subject but it's all bullshit, for the most part, and it doesn't matter.
3) I haven't read anything in this thread about BR disks being more fragile. Is this still the case? I know I read numerous stories about this subject. It had something to do with the data layer being so close to the surface of the disk. There were stories like this when DVD's came out so maybe it's akin to that type of propaganda.
4) Compare the two formats quality and you'd be hard pressed to see any discernible difference. Actually if you told me you could then I'd have to slap you because there's really no way to honestly say that. I think it'd be more dependent upon the hardware setup, i.e., tv, resolution, cables, etc. 1080i vs 1080p quality is so over-rated and I would equivocate it to the difference between cpus running a few hundred mhz, apart. It's less than trivial and more epeen speak than anything else.
5) People are people, they will pick sides, and they will make biased arguments from now until the cows(Oprah/Rosie) come home. We all have our personal preferences and no corporate entity will decide for us. It will be the consumers who pick a winner here. I think it will stay split, myself, and that's fine with me. The companies involved need to stop being such pricks and unify the standard or put out a dual format player.
6) How can anyone say that this fight is in it's final stages? That's just some corporate bullshit meant to convince the uninformed masses. No one has any idea and if they say they do then they are full of shit.
To sum it up...quality over one another is a non-starter, BR has the edge on storage (big fucking deal, unless I want to watch something like Uwe Bol's boxing matches added on as extra content...fuck that), with MS on the HD-DVD side it really doesn't matter who's on the other side, money wise, most people aren't buying either due to not having the money for an HDTV, 360w/HD-DVD addon, PS3 w/BR, or standalone players-HD-DVD $499/ BR $999. It a niche market and it will stay that way for some time.
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
If you are going with the 'In theory we got it to work in a lab' scenario where a bluray disk can hold 4 layers then you have to enter in a 4 layer HD-DVD at 60 Gigs. The truth is though at 4 layers of data, there isn't room for ample protection of the disk and they become very easy to damage. Until they come up with a better protective layer, you will see both top out at 2 layers.
Truth be told, you don't need even 50 gigs, unless you are content to use out-of-date codecs that waste space (like MPEG2) then the more space the better.
Yet another format choice that only iPod fanatics could get excited about. I'm sure Circuit City thought enough people would feel comfortable with server based purchases when it spent millions on the now defunct DIVX DVD. As history showed, though, consumers want to "own" a physical copy of their purchase. The idea that you would have to reverify that you are the legitimate purchaser of content every time you played your disc was not the only thing that turned consumers off. How about portability? Want to play that disc at your friends or relatives house? Not unless you pay again. And then there's the new player required to play the thing. IMHO if MPAA wants to kill sales, then by all means, they should shift distribution to downloadable formats complete with DRM and eliminate those pesky DVDs altogether.
I remember the VHS-Beta format war and the confusion it created. From a technical standpoint, Beta was better but consumers cared as much about the technical specs in video then as they do digital audio now (mp3's anyone?). Why did VHS win? Simply, they made a bigger cassette. 6 hours vs 4.5 hours max recording time. It all came down to capacity. If DVD had had a rival at its inception, it would not have withstood the battle due to lack of recording capability and we would still be watching our movies on tape. Ditto for CDs.
Here, we have a repeat of that scenario complete with all the claims of superiority that go along with it, but without any recording capability. The average consumer could give two shits about DRM or the differences in specs or any claims of superiority in formats. We just want the damn thing to work on any device we choose to play it in. And we want to "own" it in physical form. The day I have to download a movie before I can play it or be reliant on a company staying in business and maintaining purchase records to watch a damn movie is the day I sell all of my video gear.
There is an old addage in the retail world: The confused consumer buys nothing. Most people I know (except one or two hard core videophiles) either don't see or don't care about the increased resolution these formats will bring. DVD looks good enough to them. They already have a DVD player that works and can go to Wal-Mart and buy their movies or rent them from their favorite movie house and be assured that when they get home, they can put it in any DVD player they own and it will play. So let's see. I'm Joe Consumer. I'm presented with a choice. Do I, a)buy a movie in a format unknown to me that may not be available in my chosen format b)download the movie from a video service that is most likely only playable on one device in my home and hope that when my HD crashes the company will still be in business and able to find my purchase records so I can download again (servers do crash, records do get lost) or c)buy a tried and true known physical disc in a format I have been enjoying for years and I know will play? As Mr. Joe, I'll most likely stick with "c" for now.
"If your parents never had children, chances are you wonât either." -Dick Cavett
Although that gem seems like stating the obvious, look at DVD+R/W and DVD-R/W... we still have them both and the war's over. Everyone just started supporting them both.
You download the video and you can view it on your console with any profile. In addition, you can download and view any video on another console as long as you're signed in to Xbox Live®with the profile you originally downloaded it with.
This is from xbox.com. So as long as your family member had a 360 you would be able to download the movies you purchased on their 360.
Can I bum a sig?
Unified format? It's too late for that. The formats have been in the wild for way too long now. A "unified format" would be a third format, which, if you'll pardon the pun, won't play.
Heard any good sigs lately?
And this bypasses the need to verify with a subscription service and download content how?
"If your parents never had children, chances are you wonât either." -Dick Cavett
I don't see a problem in telling the 360 which account the movie is associated with. If I go to a friends house and I want to show a TV show that I bought how else is the 360 going to know which account to download it from?
Can I bum a sig?
You walk into a shop and buy the new movie Splatter, Blood and Gore XIV. You come home and open the package that contains the official Splatter, Blood and Gore XIV t-shirt, the official Splatter, Blood and Gore XIV puking-bag, a poster, a mini-magazine and something horrible to put on your car. There might be some sort of disk or something in the box, but you give that to the kids.
But inside the box there is a code that you either type directly into Google or in your device connected to your TV. That will download and install the movie on your harddisk. But if you want to see the movie on the train, you simply download it to the USB-stick and watch it on your 14" pocket-size screen. Who would carry around a huge disk?
For Splatter, Blood and Gore XV, they are planing to sell the Official Splatter, Blood and Gore XV drink in bars and you will get your favorite gore scene played on the glass while drinking it. Like 99% of the music bands today, selling disks is just not something the movie-company gets any big money from.
At first I was thrilled to hear about the high-capacity DVD-like media formats. Imagine being able to backup 50gb of data onto one disc! Awesome!
Oh, I knew they would try to fill it with movies & stuff, but really, DVD is pretty damn good. I just couldn't see them replacing DVDs.
Then I heard about all the mandatory, built-in DRM included with formats. Yay. I saw the HD vs DVD display at Best Buy last year. It had the split-screen, with old-fashioned DVD on the left and HD on the right. And for some reason I just didn't trust that the would really create a HD DVD with an accurate portrayal of DVD quality vs HD, on a disc made to advertise the quality of HD.
I have a very nice TV; it could display HD formated stuff, but its a few years old now; it may very well be too old to support those restrictions placed by the media companies. Not because it couldn't show the video, or play the pretty sounds, but because the stupid media companies are worried I'm a pirate.
Well, I've never ripped a DVD or downloaded a movie ISO. But being treated like a pirate makes me think the pirates might not have such a bad idea....
Save the Music; Save the World at http://www.TuneTriever.com (Our latest Android game)
It's really just another VHS vs. Betamax story. Unfortunately the lesser of those 2 won.. (Betamax was the better quality) In regards to Blu-Ray/HD-DVD... the Blu-Ray Association was stating that there are more Blu-Ray players in consumers hands that HD-DVD. Why? Just because 1 million PS3's have been sold. Nice speculation there. Blu-Ray is only winning because Sony is pushing it so hard. Both are equally good formats. Personally I will not buy nor back either format until this stupid war is over. And do we really need HD?! I see nothing wrong with the sound or quality of the existing DVD format. It's funny how people argue and battle over the silliest things.
At the Kansas City Sony store (Country Club Plaza) on Dec. 26th (yes, day after Christmas). One PS3 sitting on the counter, regular list price. Store full of people looking at TVs and cameras, etc, nobody so much as looked at the box while I was there.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
I thought PS3 games were NOT on blue ray tech. Unless things changed I thought thats what they said.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Seriously!
I'm a "technodork!" with a fairly decent amount of disposable income and frankly, I couldn't give a hoot about these 2 formats.
We all got burnt on DVD's for the PC, yes they might be cheap now but the fact of the matter is the DVD format had +R / -R AND RAM!
It's a disaster, sure it's fixed now and yes prices are finally good but they took longer than they should have, (Dual layer blanks are still overpriced - quite likely due to that screwup)
We might have had low cost DVD players, burners and blanks faster than we got them - and while it's good now I'm sure some of us have been either burnt, confused or stuck due to that format war, let alone this one where the stakes seem much higher, last round it was only the writable discs which were a mess, at least the ROMs themselves seemed to follow a consistent standard!
Standards are meant to be there to make things easier for EVERYONE! The consumer, the supplier, etc - if HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can't get their shit together, I'll be damned if I'm joining a camp only to possibly be burnt, plus ultimately it's a damned waste of resources.
Here's 2 small pieces of information which may or may not be correct which are even FURTHER dilating things and screwing @#%t up for us. (note: I'm not 100% on these but I have heard them 'around' on the web)
Blu-Ray are having problems getting the second damn layer working properly.
HD-DVD is looking at getting 17gb on the discs per layer and moving to 3 layer (51gb)
Now these two, if true are just mind bogglingly retarded! Not only do we have enough trouble with the fact there's not one single standard, they now may be changing / modifying their own standards to fix or add those features,.. can you say WTF?
I can rant all day, I've done it before on these formats - I'm a bitter little man and ranting is my thing but let me get to something productive for a change.
DON'T BUY THIS SHIT - don't buy a dual format drive, don't buy a dual format disc, don't buy a single format drive or disc!
DON'T DO IT.
FUCK them! - DVD was a perfectly good picture for ALL of us only 18 months ago, on a damn nice TV with a nice player and good cabling, there's nothing wrong with it and there's substantially less copy protection screwing us.
I for one am going to sit back and wait - until they can offer me a cheap, simple solution which isn't going to burn my wallet,..... and frankly considering how much of a ballsup it is so far, I have serious suspicions that we're not going to see a single, cheap simple solution for many years to come.
I dread to imagine trying to purchase blanks of these in 12 months "Yeah I need a HD-DVD 1.0 spec 15gb per layer but dual layer blank please" - what the heck!"
Save yourselves the hassle and the cost and let this stuff fizzle out and heck while you're at it - stop submitting stories about it too, it's just frustrating to read about, let them both wave their dopey flags at each other all day long while I'm sitting at home enjoying regular DVD's, high def is simply not ready yet.
Well, finding blu-rays worth paying for (beyond the 2 the bundling forced me to buy) is the challenge, but it played XXX perfectly well. The quality of the source certainly matters - some scenes were great, and others looked less so.
The high power consumption is the primary knock. I suspect the next gen blu-ray and hddvd players are no longer pentium4 in a case type designs and should be more more efficient.
if you think blu-ray disks are $10 more than HD-DVD, you're not really looking.
Big problem is that the offerings on either are pretty poor, and the new releases lately look much more attractive at $14-16 on DVD.
In the the console wars, it seems that Sony and Microsoft are pushing just "bigger, faster, more" poligons/shades/textures/whatever, without any real "value-added" in terms of gameplay. Nintendo is (wisely, I think) playing the "gameplay" card, with some inovations that might make the Wii the real winner of this generation.
In the media-format wars, it seems that both groups of makers are pushing some "bigger, louder" format, without any real aditional value to the consumer. Like someone mentioned, the DVDs were a huge leap from the VHS, but the new formats aren't just that diferent from the DVDs.
So all this coupled with the (slowing) CD sales, might triger some serious thinking by the several industries big names... I just hope they don't blame it all on piracy :P
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
I want HD-DVD to win because Blu-ray has region coding, and HD-DVD doesn't.
Show me some region free Blu-ray players and I might upgrade from my region free DVD player. Until then, forget about trying to get me to buy Blu-ray.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
People like having a physical object to hold, to use, to show off in display cases - whatever.
When people buy a DVD they aren't buying a movie--they are putting down $20 or whatever to buy a cheap, over-packaged plastic disc worth a few cents plus a license granting them permission to private, non-commercial exhibition. The only true reason for physical distribution media under such a business model, in the media industry, is that it is the best, most established practical technology right now for distribution. The technological requirement for physical media has unfortunately given the impression to consumers that they "own a movie" (or even a "copy of a movie") when no regular individual has EVER really "owned" a movie (or music, or whatever)--the best you can hope for is a "perpetual rental agreement".
I think that electronic distribution not only has the potential to make things much more convenient for the consumer, it is also a more true representation of what you are REALLY getting when you purchase media content--the essential product is not (and never has been) a physical thing but rather the right to enjoy (loot at, listen to, etc) multimedia content. The fact that there is no discrete physical item involved in distribution is merely further optimisation (from film to magnetic tape to optical disc to on-line electronic).
and for the foreseeable future, people will continue to prefer to purchase things which have some physical component, rather than one that is entirely computer based.
I think most people would LOVE to free up all that shelf space in ther display cases for other, more attractive keepsakes (I know very few examples of videos being "shown off", unless it is, say, the star wars geek who has a rare original Betamax release of the "Star Wars" trilogy still in shrink-wrap or something like that). People, aside from those rare exceptions like the aforementioned one, actually buy DVDs to *watch the movie*. Furthermore, people buy non-tangible things all the time, especially in the form of services and utilities: I buy electricity to light my house, I buy internet connectivity, I purchase securities with my online broker and so on, and in none of those cases am I expecting some fixed, physical object in return (though as the case with media, there is generally some transitory physical manifestation associated with the use of these non-tangible items). Consumers aren't so unsophisticated that they cannot at least recognise that not everything you have to pay for is tangible in nature.
It looks to me like the lifespan of physical media formats is undergoing geometric decay: 8mm and 16mm Film were the chief consumer distribution formats (mostly in schools but in a few homes too) for, lets say, four decades (1940s to 1970s). Videotape (U-Matic, then Beta and VHS) became widespread in the 1970s and started giving way to DVD in the 1990s--four decades. Standard-definition digital optical media (DVDs) arrived en-force in the late 1990s and are poised to fade in the late 2000s--one decade. It stands to reason that high-definition digital optical media (BD and HD-DVD) could have a five-year lifespan. Beyond that the whole idea of physical media could be obsolete.
Yes, I know my time frames are perhaps too approximate (small-gauge film existed many years before the 1940s, videotape existed earlier and is still sold today, and so on) but I'm talking about the era of a technology's rise and prominence in the consumer market. Movies will be sold on little plastic discs for a long time to come, but I can't see it being the contemporary distribution method in the 2020s.
My chief concern is that as technology advances distribution becomes more efficient and less costly, however the big, old media distributors are still big and old and inefficient, and are fighting tooth and nail to maintain and even inflate the prices they make consumers pay for their content, using a combination of legislation (DMCA) and what I call "false innovation"
I agree with the first post.
I think plastic disks will go the way of the Dodo soon.
Optical disks are laughable when 750GB hard drives are in home PCs.
Also, many people don't care about collecting movies.
Once I've seen a movie, I'm "done with it", time to delete it.
There's no point taking up either shelf space or harddrive space with it any more.
It's just data, so storing it on a non-reusable plastic media is just unnecessary waste/garbage.
Unfortunately RPC is coming to HD-DVD
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http://www.emedialive.com/Articles/ReadArticle.as
If you want an HD-DVD player, then be sure to get one now while it doesn't support RPC. (And don't get one that you plan to firmware update like an Xbox360.)
That said, at least the US and Japan are in the same region now.
PS3 games absolutely are on Blu-Ray. At least that's what my Resistance, Ridge Racer and Project 8 discs all say on them ;)
No Comment.
I don't know how long it had been sitting on the counter, but I was in there at 8:30 pm, and the place closed at either 9 or 10, not sure. So I'm guessing there's a fair chance that it didn't sell.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.