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Will Hybrid Players End the Format War?
flyhalf writes "A new report says that hybrid players will force an early end to the HD DVD/Blu-ray format wars. Some of the projections seem optimistic: $200 hybrid players by 2009 and several manufacturers cranking them out. But reality will likely be different: 'standalone units of any format aren't selling terribly well. Recent research determined that 695,000 consumers owned either a Blu-ray or HD DVD player, but most of those are tied to a console — 400,000 of the 425,000 Blu-ray players sold by the end of 2007 were PlayStation 3s and 150,000 of the 270,000 HD DVD players were Xbox 360 add-ons.' Most importantly, consumers aren't early adopters: 'DVD players needed over a decade to supersede the VCR in the living rooms of the United States and there is little reason to believe that HD DVD and Blu-ray player adoption will outpace that of the DVD.'"
Yeah, Sony has 400k+ blue-ray players available in the US in the form of PS3's at this point, all right; but first, not all of those have been sold...
And second, Sony totally blew it when they built the PS3 Blue-Ray capabilities; it can't play 720p, only 480p or 1080p, which means that a very large proportion of in-place US HDTV sets couldn't use anything but 480p, which is pretty much the same as a progressive scan standard DVD in terms of resolution. Oddly, the PS3 will do 720p for games. Just not for DVDs.
The reason that 720p is important is because for the LCD market, 1080p sets were rare until very recently. 720p was the top 'P' resolution available (it's actually the "middle" resolution in standard HDTV, 1080, 720, 480) though there are some uncommon ones and some variants, like 24 FPS stuff for 1:1 movie compatibility, and some TVs could scale 1080i down to 720p, or even display 1080i, just not 1080p.
Third, Sony's balking at allowing prawn into the format (like they did for betamax), which is (IMHO) likely to deal them another severe blow. It seems like they have developed an unmatchable expertise at shooting themselves in the foot.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The vast majority of people (in North America at least) are completely indifferent to this format war.
People with HDTV represent a fairly smallish chunk of the population. The most of the rest of us neither have, nor are we looking to buy, HDTV. It's an expensive migration path with little perceived benefit for many people and very little in actual programming to use it -- most of what I watch isn't available in HD, and I wouldn't watch "Everybody Loves Raymond" in any definition.
The ones who know how fraught with peril the technology is, are staying away -- that whole HDMI DRM debacle, not working with older sets, and whatnot conspire to make this stuff a bit of a joke at the moment. Most people I know own a plain old TV, in about the 20" range. And, most of them are very unlikely to care about HD unless it becomes exceedingly cheap and compelling to do so. For most people, a full HD set is just way too expensive to considedr.
I'm sure the format war will sort itsself out, and it will be a good thing for the small amount of people with the displays to use this stuff. But, in the mean time, I bet a lot of people really could care less about this particular format war.
Don't forget, DVD was a huge improvement over VHS, and it was compatible with existing displays. The next gen of DVD isn't.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
But hybrid players will reduce the carbon emissions of traditional players.
In fact, I predict we will look back on the age of gasoline-powered DVD players and laugh.
From the article:
Recent research determined that 695,000 consumers owned either a Blu-ray or HD DVD player, but most of those are tied to a console--400,000 of the 425,000 Blu-ray players sold by the end of 2007 were PlayStation 3s and 150,000 of the 270,000 HD DVD players were Xbox 360 add-ons.
25,000 people bought standalone BluRay players.
120,000 people bought standalone HD-DVD players.
I think the peeps have spoken and shown that if Sony wasn't bundling BluRay in with PS3s that almost nobody would be getting one.
Keep in mind too that all 150,000 people who bought add on HD-DVD players made an optional decision to buy that drive. 400,000 people who bought PS3s got a BluRay drive because you can't get a PS3 without one.
HD-DVD is winning the "format war" and it's only the PS3 that is so far making BluRay appear to even be in the race. I'd love to see disc sale comparisons because that will give a truer indication of who is in the lead than player numbers. It's a reasonable assumption that everyone who has an HD-DVD player is buying discs for it because the decision to buy that player was 100% optional and it's also a reasonable assumption that many people own the PS3 and don't have a single BluRay disc.
I'm not certain why this is hard for a lot of tech sites, as well as the companies that pushed these technologies, to figure out. The reason the DVD is widely accepted now is because it offered a multitude of benefits over VHS:
1) Larger storage capacity
2) Instant skipping
3) Smaller
4) More durable
5) Cheaper to produce
6) Higher quality
7) Longer lasting
The only thing that HD/BR have over DVD is an even larger storage capacity and higher quality, the latter of which most consumers can't even make use of right now. They keep all the problems that DVD had, such as possibility of scratching and moving parts. The only reason they were pushed out was to sell more HDTVs, as well as to give movie companies better DRM.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: HD/BR are just bumps in the road. The next turning point in terms of mass media storage will be flash memory.
Something the size of a mini-DVD (think Gamecube games), but likely squarish (like a floppy). It will have the internal flash memory inside a thin-but-durable plastic shell. Small pins slightly inset on one side are what transfers the data.
A storage system like this will be cheap, modular (only need a certain capacity? Save money and just buy that capacity), and durable. From there, it's just a matter of choosing a compression format for films to make standard. The lack of moving parts (aside from what is used to eject it/hold it in place) will make for less failures.
All that's needed for this to happen is for the companies to toss BR/HD to the wayside, come up with a good format standard across ALL studios, and then wait for the price of flash memory to drop more.