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Blu-ray, HD DVD Target of EU Antitrust Probe
rfunches writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that EU antitrust regulators are turning up the heat on the Blu-ray and HD-DVD format consortiums. The European Commission has demanded evidence of Hollywood studios' communications and agreements on the new generation of DVD formats. From the article: 'The European Commission, the European Union's executive body, appears to be particularly interested in the activities of the Blu-ray group because of its dominance in Hollywood, according to people familiar with the situation. The commission is investigating whether improper tactics were used to suppress competition and persuade the studios to back their format.' The article points out that all of the major Hollywood studios except Universal are backing Blu-ray; Universal is backing HD-DVD. It also notes that while one industry watcher believes the first format to have an installed base of two million homes will come out on top, there were millions of Betamax units already sold when VHS won out in the format wars of the 80's."
Your're right. That war has nothing to do with monopoly, and shouldn't be touched by EU. Both groups have more than enough cash to persuade whoever they want to join their camp. Overall the one with better connections and marketing power will win.
Just my 2p.
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
I sadly agree. If consumers are more interested in "zomg high-def jackass 2!" than they are in choosing a format that has more liberalized licensing, more power to them.
Assuming they're not using nasty tactics.
+5, Truth
The US certainly doesn't give a damn. At least some regulatory board is investigating, even if it turns out to be a red herring.
Consumers have the choice of purchasing a Blu-Ray player, a HD DVD player, both or neither.
as stated, the EU is trying to make sure there are options for the consumer, but basically, it boils down to this.
1) The average person cannot know all there is to know about everything, as such, most people don't know most of the things there is to know about what they buy. This means that the providers have a major advantage if they want to rip off or swindle someone. Unfortunately what the EU is doing is one of the more effective ways to prevent this, and thus could be considered necessary for people to not get conned.
2) Related to 1, "the consumer" is not organized or a group. Anything trying to protect the consumer typically has to walk a fine line to avoid things like libel, and there's a lot of data to parse through for some things. Add to that that these protective groups typically cant reach all consumers effectively, many will still make uninformed choices. As such, a group that takes consumer interaction out of the equation, to enforce a change, might actually be useful.
So, all the knowledge and organization is in the hands of the producer, not the consumers. While the consumers have the power, they cannot effectively wield it. Therein lies the problem.
So, in /. terms
US vs M$ Anti Trust - good thing
EU vs Hollywood Anti Trust - bad thing
Or am I missing something here?
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Essentially, the government does a hefty amount to prevent consumers from being conned, and as a result, consumers are lured into a false sense of security and therefore are easier to con.
+5, Truth
HDTV penetration has to be much higher in all markets. VHS and Beta both worked on all TV's made at the time. These only work on HDTVs (to get any benefit from the formats). The majority of TVs out there are still SD. Likely by the time HDTV penetration is high enough, another format will emerge, or hybrid players will be very common.
VHS beat Betamax because you could find a VCR much cheaper from one of the many COMPETING suppliers. Sony held Betamax closely and didn't want others to compete on the technology. Result: It died.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
shocked!
We all benefit from Free Markets because we get to choose between super-hd-blue or blue-super-hd. Why do we need regulators?
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They are investigating whether the named studios removed consumer choice by only releasing in BR format. A real open format competition would would be all studios releasing movies in both formats, and letting the consumer choose. What they need to consider, however, is that Sony now owns several major studios, so there is no reason for those studios to back their competitor.
Because standards are nice? Does your BT rip have sub-titles? Are they actually correct/present all the time? Is the video/audio quality consistent? etc...
I'd rather spend $9 on a movie [I buy them when they're in the bargain bins] than a day downloading a rip that MIGHT actually be done properly, only to find out I have to burn it to a disk to keep it [storing movies on a HD is annoying over the long run].
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Just like there is no technical reason a Nintendo game can't run on a XBOX. It's all 1's and 0's right?
But regarding the Blu-Ray and HD DVD there are storage size and other technical differences, which various studios might find useful depending on the situation.
Not to mention those pesky licensing fees. Why license both? If you do, you have to raise prices, and what consumer wants that? heh.
I disagree - the regulators are ... regulating.
They are investigating whether the manufacturers of players have engaged in anti-competitive practices when doing deals with the movie studios and other content providers. If it turns out that one or other of the consortia have strong-armed or bribed many studios into supporting their format exclusively then then there isn't a proper free market in next-gen players and the best interests of consumers are not served - consumers will choose to buy the players for the format with the most content available for it, regardless of whether that is the best format for consumers when judged on a level playing field.
The issue being brought up is if they used tactics that took the decision -away- from the customer.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
One word:
Cartel
While historically the reason behind the PAL/NTSC frame rate was the power supply frequency (50Hz/60Hz), it is not a problem with modern devices and certainly PAL devices all over the world display the same 25fps (with various methods depending on the device), not caring about the frequency of the power input - same with NTSC devices, or NTSC/PAL mode on the common multi-system devices.
The grandparent post is also not to the point. It is not really the NTSC/PAL difference the problem any more. Many DVD players will play both formats fine, however there is region coding. It can be circumvented some times, but it is really there to have us buy products specific tou our region.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
It is too bad that the winner will not be determined by the consumer. The victory could be through pricing, quality, useability ... whatever, but no, we will have the format decided through connections and power.
United Kingdom != European Commision.
Secondly, where's the evidence to back up this serious allegation? Thirdly states that make up the EU are sovereign, if companies want to sell their products there they have to abide by the rules. If not, they can take their wares and go home.
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
No one gives a crap about which format does what better. Honestly, in the context of playing movies and whatnot it really doesn't matter. I'm a pretty techy guy and I couldn't tell someone the difference between the two other than Blu-ray has more capacity, which doesn't affect movies that much (maybe a two disc HD-DVD set is one disc on Blu-Ray?) The winner here will be hybrid makers, as it won't matter who puts what out on which disc, it will play them all.
Wrong. The one that will win will be based on a different criteria.
HDV camcorders are dirt cheap now. The people buying these camcorders want to be able to send grandma a HD copy of little stevie banging his head on the concrete and trying to poke out the cat's eyes. Whatever format that makes this easy for Joe and Janet blow will win.
Right now Indie film makers are embracing the standard DVD players that support Divx 6 pro HD codecs. Giving you full 1080i HD pleasure on a standard DVD disc and on a player that costs around $99.00 and honestly does a fantastic job at it.
BluRay has no plans for supporting a consumer created Disk format. HDDVD can in theory be burned at home and played on standalone players but nobody has their hands on a HDDVD player yet to try it. All of these consortiums are intentionally ignoring the home and indie user and that is incredibly dangerous.
it leaves a giant window open for a 3rd party to come in and take control almost overnight from both of them. Free and open HDDVD standard with no royalties and high popularity? the studios would be all over it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
We and Amazon are going to be publishing 1000 HD DVD indie movies via their Manufacture on Demand system.
Since HD DVD can be written on a DVD-5 or DVD-9 media for shorter content, doesn't require AACS for replicated content, and has cheaper and more readily available replication, it's proving to be a much more prosumer-friendly format for authoring.
My video compression blog
Why is this posted here when 99% of the people claim they will never own "DRM-infected" media?
This is the same reason why I think HD-DVD will eventually win out. China's HD DVD format is based on the HD-DVD standard and players can be made on the same assembly lines. This makes it much cheaper for them to produce an HD-DVD player then a BluRay. We are already starting to see this gap in shelf prices. Since all the cheap players (and really most of the players in general) come from China, this gives HD-DVD a distinct price advantage. I predict that once the HD market grows beyond home theater enthusiasts and console gamers, there will be a sharp shift in what people go for. Alot more people can/are willing to afford a $100 player then an $400 player.
on standard DVD media...
I predict that once the HD market grows beyond home theater enthusiasts and console gamers, there will be a sharp shift in what people go for.
You'd be right, if HD-DVD survives that long.
For the market to grow beyond home theater enthusiasts and console gamers, a dominant format has to emerge. (Or dual players need to become ubiquitous and cheap enough to make the format war a mute point). Most people aren't going to invest in a new format until they know it'll be around a while.
Right now, Blu-ray seems to winning. Partially because Sony bundled the player with the PS3, but mostly because Sony owns a freakin' studio. Sony has a lot of motivation to get top quality movies out fast on Blu-ray, and since they own a studio they can do this. (They also will never release their movies on HD-DVD, unless Blu-ray is dead). Except for Universal, which is backing HD-DVD, no other studio really cares a whole lot. So, Blu-ray is getting better content, and it's the content that sells the systems.
So, in the near term, you have Blu-ray winning cause Sony owns enough content to force it to win. The long term will pretty much be decided by how things shake out in the near term.
Unless HD-DVD gets a lot of high-quality content fairly soon, it's dead. (At least that's my prediction).
Right now Indie film makers are embracing the standard DVD players that support Divx 6 pro HD codecs. Giving you full 1080i HD pleasure on a standard DVD disc and on a player that costs around $99.00 and honestly does a fantastic job at it.
BluRay has no plans for supporting a consumer created Disk format. HDDVD can in theory be burned at home and played on standalone players but nobody has their hands on a HDDVD player yet to try it. All of these consortiums are intentionally ignoring the home and indie user and that is incredibly dangerous.
It truly saddens me that so much disinformation gets 5 points.
First of all, almost NONE of the DVD players that support Divx support Divx in HD. To imply otherwise is just wrong. There are a very few expensive ($200 US minimum) DVD/media players that support the format such as the Avel I-O Link Player and some Helios players, but ZERO players under $100 US that can play HD Divx files. Right now, you can count on one hand the number of standalone players that are even capable of playing the format.
Secondly, while you may not know anything about people with HD-DVD players burning and playing their own discs, people on the Doom9 forums have reported being able to burn HD-DVD format to burnable media (usually DVD-9 as HD-DVD media is very expensive) and play them back correctly on HD-DVD players. And there certainly are plans for BluRay to be supported as a consumer format. There are recorders available right now, but they are very expensive.