Slashdot Mirror
NYT Confirms Movie Studios Paid to Support HD DVD
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times has confirmed the story that Paramount and DreamWorks Animation were paid $150 million for an exclusive HD-DVD deal that will last 18 months. 'Paramount and DreamWorks Animation declined to comment. Microsoft, the most prominent technology company supporting HD DVDs, said it could not rule out payment but said it wrote no checks. "We provided no financial incentives to Paramount or DreamWorks whatsoever," said Amir Majidimehr, the head of Microsoft's consumer media technology group.'" We discussed Paramount's defection on Monday.
Did anyone really expect anything different?
Let's drag out all of Sony and friends general ledgers and see how much "promotional consideration" Target and Blockbuster got. I really don't get why people are making a big deal about a company making promotional deals. Let's be serious, these days $150 million is about enough to cover one big budget movie.
if they were paid to support one technology over another, isn't that illegal, anti-competitive and/or monopolistic behaviour by the HD-DVD consortium? If so, would it be illegal if the consortium were innocent but the payoff came from some backer who stands to gain from HD-DVD beating out Blu-Ray?
When all of your wishes have been granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed - Marilyn Manson
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
So, where does this lead the general consumer? Should we be asking which technology will "win" or just who can get the checks cashed first?
My initial reaction too was "Big deal! No story here!" But then I got to thinking. Is this really different than Microsoft using various incentives to get governments/schools/other customers to buy Microsoft products? Does it just feel different because it's a bunch of big evil corporations using shady practices to try and outdo each other?
I've been saying since this format war started though that if someone REALLY wants to win, they should just pony up a ton of money to get George Lucas to release the unmolested, Greedo-shoots-first Trilogy in their format.
Wake me when one format bites the dust and players for the other format are $100. Till then I'll make do with DVD's.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Well they let Sony know that it will cost at least $150million for their loyalty. Blockbuster and Target were a steal hehe. Brilliant move.
Hope is the currency of fools
just so you can see a zit on a gnat's butt.
What?
Main Entry: payola Pronunciation: pA-'O-l& Function: noun Etymology: 1pay + -ola (as in Pianola, trademark for a player piano) : undercover or indirect payment (as to a disc jockey or perhaps a movie studio like Paramount) for a commercial favor (as for promoting a particular recording or for promoting a flagging HD format) We report, slashdot decides...
I see this as the Iraq war, a seemingly endless struggle that will be good for everyone when it comes to an end. Somebody WIN already!
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
Having the write layer near the bottom surface should make it more vulnerable to scratches than HD. But other details matter like the plastic used, coatings, error correction.
Has anyone compared HD and blueray on reliability?
And BluRay wouldn't be around, period, iof it weren't for the shitty PS3 no one would care....The difference is that the morons who bought the PS3 are funding the BluRay, whereas HD DVD backers are funding the HD DVD...big deal.
the checks were actually written by some Canadian company called BayStar Capital.
This is unfair competition, imo. Here's why...
You should never be able to pay a customer to specifically exclude a competitor. For example.. If you're paying a company a sum amounting to $10 to go with your product Y that costs $100 and exclude product X, it would mean your competitor would have to sell at $90 in order to compete - assuming both products essentially do the same thing. It artifically lowers the competitor's price... kind of like what has happened with AMD and Intel.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Now that combo Blu-Ray HD-DVD players are becoming increasingly available and cheap, any studio would be stupid to not take a cash payout for (what may end being an ultimately meaningless) format switch. With the format war continuing for at least another few years (by all likelihood), it's conceivable that mass adoption of combo players as they become affordable will mean that format difference will ultimately be of as little meaning as DVD+/-R is now. Besides, with adoption rates lagging so badly, the losses from switching to a less-popular format over the next 18 months are probably outweighed by the cash payment. Great business decision by Paramount.
Demented But Determined.
You know, we could live in a world where people had real choices and standards were formed by excellence. Right now you can get both. Blue Ray was the clear winner and that's why the deals were made. It would be one thing if they were just trying to keep their format alive, but they are using it to kill the competition instead. That's one big dumb business scratching the back of another and both of them screwing you and me.
This has anti-trust written all over it and we can only hope there's a conviction and a real remedy this time. It's funny how the Viacom executives did not stay bought and squealed on the deal. Crooked deals are like that because you can never pay off everyone. Now that they are caught, the investigation should start.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I can do without their movies for that long.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
bluray has substantial scratch resistance. Insofar as this is an issue, blu-ray wins hands down. CNET did a test a while back to that effect.
4 9.html
No test is really needed when only one platform requires this universal protection. I doubt this is a huge deal, but bluray discs are extremely durable. http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/572
Bluray wins in movie quality as soon as you unmute your TV, so who cares about scratch resistance?
This format war isn't about whether bluray is better than HD-DVD, this is about how much money Microsoft has. bluray has the supposedly better DRM and accordingly has most studios, so I would assume it's got the advantage. At this point, I would assume that you will see more dual format players, but you will also see far more bluray movies.
Thanks to Sony throwing away its game system brand for the lion's share of the HD player market, a studio would be crazy to release only on HD-DVD. But this gives Microsoft more time. Time for the XBOX to still be a valid competitor, time for Sony to suffer financially, time to spit out a next generation in two years. That's worth 150 mil to MS. A stupid download for GTA 4 was worth 50 mil, and this is a much bigger problem for Sony.
I don't hate MS nearly as much as I hate Sony, so reading this is sort of a guilty pleasure, but more of a meh.
I was flipping bits on an abacus, newb.
I have a 720p projector. It looks fantastic showing HD-DVD, which I picked at random. It is really nice to get away from lame DVD artifacts, and I figure if blu-ray wins, I'll finally have an excuse to buy a PS3. But let's summarize the other options, based on previous slashdot articles:
0) "I haven't watched anything on a TV since 1970 and now I'm Jesus Christ"
1) "Even if you don't watch broadcast TV, all movies are crap too. Ditto for music."
2) "I watch TV and movies, but who would pay for them when you can steal, I mean find them online?"
3) "I've never bought a DVD, so they'll pry $25 out of my hands for a blu-ray/hd-dvd disc when hell freezes over - I get them from the library, which is also my only social outlet"
4) "I'll buy hd-dvd/blu-ray when it costs $10 and the discs are $1. My VCR is still running."
5) "Physical media is dead anyway, in fact I don't even _type_ anymore because it involves physical contact."
6) "All video formats are the same, and anyone who says otherwise is blind... I love my 12" vga monitor!"
7) "LINUX LINUX LINUX!!!! Microsoft can suck my dick."
8) "They all use DRM, so I'm going to boycott life, as soon as I get one."
9) "First post!"
10) "All companies are run by Nazis who also control your congresspeople, and you live in a police state that just wants to monitor what you watch. It's too late to do anything about it, but I'm Canadian, which means I'm an expert on how the US sucks."
11) "DVI / HDMI / HDCP / WTF"
So in summary, I have seen an actual HD-DVD played back on a quality LARGE screen, and it looks very very nice.
Probably too good for you, if you don't care about movies. Or if you have anything less than a 60" screen,
which is the same thing. I am COMPLETELY PISSED that there are two formats, and that the movie studios won't do both formats. Is it that big of a deal to master two discs? What a cluster fuck. If money changes hands, whatever. Hopefully there will be a decent dual format player soon. And don't get me started on why I can't rip a movie I paid for legally!
But then I got to thinking. Is this really different than Microsoft using various incentives to get governments/schools/other customers to buy Microsoft products? Does it just feel different because it's a bunch of big evil corporations using shady practices to try and outdo each other?
Actually, the other part we're talking about here is Sony... remember the payola scandls?
I agree on this story not being a big deal. Not because what these corporations do is right (by any standarts), but because of the names involved in the discussion. Actually, i don't think a story about Howard Stringer selling crack to nuns in order to somehow sell more PS3s and Blu-Ray movies would shock me much either.
if they were paid to support one technology over another, isn't that illegal, anti-competitive and/or monopolistic behaviour by the HD-DVD consortium? If so, would it be illegal if the consortium were innocent but the payoff came from some backer who stands to gain from HD-DVD beating out Blu-Ray?
The market has a strange way of sorting some of this stuff out. While the players are several hundred dollars and the movies are well over $20 each, this is just a niche format at the moment. When the players are under $60 and the movies are under $15, wake me up. In the meantime, I'll stick with a Linux MCE setup and use the format that works in the movie jukebox. The last DVD player I bought retailed for under $30. Pre-viewed movies at Blockbuster are either 2 for $20 or 4 for $20. Only those with lots of cash will bother with the expensive formats. Right now they are in the Laserdisk catagory. Nice format, but limited selection at high prices. I did the Laserdisk thing. It had an advantage.. No copy protection. It met broadcast spec NTSC output unlike videotape.
The truth shall set you free!
Hey for 150 million I would have at least expected some physical incompatibility.
Sphere drive would have been cool, but not very child safe.
I will be a glad late adopter of HD DVD/Blu-ray since this is the same BS ploy used to delay previous generations next generation technology from being widely adopted (e.g., dvd-r/+r/ram, DAT audio tape, etc).
There is plenty of profit to be made by a) adopting an optical media standard and b) adopting a almost zero cost media encoding method
The least appealing aspect of the new video standards will be that they embed many dollars of fixed hardware costs by using high cost patented technology when almost equivalent low cost patented technology exists.
My guess is that the hardware makers and content producers want to milk their existing DVD investment for another few years.
Blu-ray is dead.
I'm glad someone's making a revitalizing effort on the part of HD-DVD, even if it means handing out buckets of cash. My biggest reason for supporting HDDVD over BluRay (other than a long-time dislike for Sony) is that HDDVD does not have any form of region coding, while BluRay does. I haven't seen that point raised here on Slashdot before, so I'm at the point of wondering if A) it's even correct, and B) if I'm really the only one who cares.
We've seen big companies embrace globalization when convenient many times before, and then immediately turn around and implement artificial barriers so that consumers can't take advantage of that same global market (the stories here on Slashdot a few years ago about textbook manufacturers come to mind, where they would sell English versions of their textbooks in foreign countries at hugely discounted prices, and then fight over efforts of other companies and individuals to make those same books available back to customers in the USA).
Region coding ought to be universally despised. So far as I know, with HD-DVD I don't have to worry about it. But Sony, showing their true stripes once again, embraced it with BluRay.
Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
just the way the answered the questions seems to imply they are the ones behind the payments and THAT is no surprise. Customers asking for HD-DVD you say? And what is the truth but a state of belief or perception of a belief... Glad to see Microsoft hasn't changed one bit.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
There is only one reason why someone would pay $150 million to buy the adoption of a particular format: The HD DVD people realized their preferred format was inferior, and could not possibly win in the marketplace in a fair competition on the merits.
In other words, the people who paid believed that the format they don't want to win, Blu-ray, is worth $150 million more than their HD DVD format in true value, so to even the score they had to pay.
That shouts very loudly to me. Someone with $150 million to spend has set the value of Blu-ray as being worth that much more than HD DVD. Thanks for the information. You have voted with your dollars, and shouted to everyone who thinks about it that Blu-ray should win.
From the New York Times article: "The battle over the competing high-definition DVD technologies has sputtered in recent months as Blu-ray discs have emerged as the front-runner. Blu-ray titles are sharply outselling HD offerings..."
Not only the corrupters, but the marketplace also, agree that Blu-ray is better.
I wonder how much it would cost to get Paramount and DreamWorks Animation to adopt 8-track tapes?
I wonder how much it would cost to get Paramount and DreamWorks Animation executives never to take showers or baths? Obviously, to them, everything is for sale, even their technical integrity.
If that kind of thing continues, the word "executive" will become synonymous with the word "sleaze".
HD DVD has an additional value for those who are currently manufacturing DVDs: it can use the same production lines as existing DVDs. BLU-RAY requires new production facilities. These are expensive. One way or another that cost will be passed on to the consumer. In the long run HD DVD may or may not be cheaper, but in the short run this is an advantage to HD DVD.
"There is only one reason why someone would pay $150 million to buy the adoption of a particular format: The HD DVD people realized their preferred format was inferior, and could not possibly win in the marketplace in a fair competition on the merits. "
And what merits would that be? They're both roughly comparable to each other, and the differences don't make much of a difference.
"Not only the corrupter's, but the marketplace also, agree that Blu-ray is better."
Sony would love you.
Try to find a picture, of, say Tiger Woods that doesn't have a Nike Swoosh... details of the endorsement deal are "secret". That is an endorsement and marketing deal, not a shoe payola scandal.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
> Can we drop this nonsensical meme.
Nope. Just because you are not able to understand something doesn't mean we should drop it. The particular meme happens to both correct and useful.
> All property rights are "government-granted monopolies". Do you mind if I use your
> car to go to the grocery store?
On the other hand, that is an analogy we should drop, not because it is old and tired, but because it is misleading. No real property rights denies you the right to drive an identical car to the grocery store. Only that particular car. So no monopoly in any useful (economical) sense of the word is involved that way.
So... which is it? Unmolested, or Greedo shoots first?
They probably show their love to his bank account already.
c++;
Um, I think you mean "Han-shoots-first".
according to george lucas, the version of A New Hope with the school of humorous singing animated spacefish is the unmolested version.
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
What's 150mil in the film industry these days? 3-4 non-blockbusters, 1-2 major releases? To go to one format just for 18 months at that price seems ridiculous.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Oh god, I wish I had mod points. I haven't laughed this hard since Tuesday.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Region coding or even format doesn't matter. You will be able to rip any foreign disk either way in the end.
--
thegirlorthecar.com - a dating game four guys
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
I'd go for Adam Smith rather then the silly upstart you mentioned for the idea of capitalism, and that idea is that in a perfect market economy we will get the best and cheapest goods possible.
Unfortunately, the perfect market cannot exist, and deals like the one discussed are moving us further away from it. Exclusive deals and trusts always hurt everyone except for the parties directly involved, because they hurt the market.
Which is why Smith (and Rand) are wrong, and capitalism works best under some kind of independent control.
Now that Paramount has lost Michael Bay as a result of this (for better or worse) I wonder if they'll re-evaluate their position...
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Does it just feel different because it's a bunch of big evil corporations using shady practices to try and outdo each other?
I think it is different. When MS were using their power to prevent competitors from selling their software, it was unfair competition because MS has a monopoly. Here they don't have a monopoly. The blu-ray consortium are perfectly able to compete by doing exactly the same thing. I feel that makes the competition fair.
Because Sony didn't offer financial incentives to Fox and Disney to go BluRay-exclusive at all, no.
Oh, wait. There was that bit where they were mastering, pressing and distributing the titles for free. Oops.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Yeah, all the market revolves around Star Wars flicks, those are the only movies worth seeing.
And Linux is still being run on 95% of all computers in the world.
Likewise, all that hot chicks want is big hairy, pony-tailed, mom's basement living, arrogant geeks.
Q: How many free market economists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Free market economists don't change lightbulbs, they prefer to theorize in dark while waiting for Adam Smith's invisible hand to change it for them
Unlike Blu Ray which still hasn't shipped a final BR player with an interactive spec. People buying BR players today are going to be hooped for that content in the future. How much do people want to bet that the sales teams at Target are not telling customers that.
You take that back! Just because plucky little Microsoft paid with a credit card and announced it didn't write a check, you hippies are all over them for duplicity!
They're just trying to manage their statements! You quit flaming them! Now!
What? Oh, you weren't flaming Microsoft? Well, why the hell not???!!!
And I'm sure they're going to feel your protest and change their ways. Yay for futility!
"We provided no financial incentives to Paramount or DreamWorks whatsoever,"
Of course not, I would expect the money was provided to freshly created shell-companies. We have to credit Microsoft with some sleazy business skills.
When I say I bought a house or a car. I have spent money to acquire the rights to the brick mortar, iron, labour everything that goes into the building of this house or car. There has been a transaction between the previous owner and me which says that the transaction was fair.
Now when you say that you have written a piece of work. Can you say that you have paid back for every piece of information that you used to produce that work. You cannot. There are literally millions of small pieces of information that goes into creating that work. It is true that a lot of creativity and effort goes into producing that work, but it is still built on a large amount of information that had required a lot of creativity, and effort. You never did pay for these pieces of information. You just used it and now you are trying to steal when you try to deny the right of those creators and their survivors (ie the public) to also enjoy the fruits of your labour, as you did theirs.
I am not against copyright, as long as it is copyright and not some kind of stupid "intellectual" property right. Copyright has a stated purpose, which is to allow creators to gain some payment for their efforts. But it is only that. Trying to make it into a perpetually owned property is an attempt to steal from the public domain. The same goes for patents, but the problem is less severe there.
In light of the above, copyright should be very limited in time, and scope. It should give some inalienable rights, such as attribution. But commercial rights should be severely curtailed. I believe, to just commercialize a product you should be required to register your work at the copyright office stating your intention to benefit from it, and providing a copy for its library. The right to benefit from it should be only for a very limited time, like 5 years (from the point of registration) allowing for one extension of another 5 years. Anything more in the Internet age is stupid and excessive. Works owned by Corporations should not be allowed to have an extension, that will make it more difficult for corporations to steal from the artists.
Everybody should be required to earn their living, and artists or RIAA/MPAA should not be above it. This means that no perpetually milking the only good thing that you produced.
There is a deeper meaning to the following quote by Newton which some people will never have the humility to understand.
"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
I beat the crap out of you.
However, if you sing a song I made, I'm unlikely to be able to beat you up for it because
a) I'm not there
b) I don't know you are doing it
c) I've lost nothing
but the government ARE there and they DO know you're doing it. So only government intervention can stop you using a non-rivalrous good.
Help Needed: Does anyone have any idea why someone would pay $150 million to try to make HD DVD more popular? There's obviously a lot of money in it for someone, but I can't imagine why.
..." with a raw data transfer rate of 36.55 Mbit/s. [My emphasis]
Comparisons:
Blu-ray: "A dual layer Blu-ray Disc can store 50 GB..." with a raw data transfer rate of 53.95 Mbit/s. HD DVD: "HD DVD has a single-layer capacity of 15 GB and a dual-layer capacity of 30 GB;
More comparisons: Blu-ray scratch resistance "has withstood direct abrasion by steel wool and marring with markers in tests" "HD DVD uses traditional material and has the same scratch and surface characteristics of a regular DVD."
"Blockbuster, the largest U.S. movie rental company, decided in June 2007 in favor of expanding Blu-ray support exclusively to an additional 1450 stores. The decision came following a trial in 250 rental stores, in which both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs were available. In the trial it has been found that more than 70% of high definitions rentals were Blu-ray discs." [My emphasis]
"According to a market research company Nielsen VideoScan, as of week ended August 12, 2007, weekly sales of Blu-ray discs were ahead of HD DVD with 66% of the market. In 2007 sales, Blu-ray leads with 66% of the market. Since inception, market share was 61% for Blu-ray and 39% for HD DVD."
This comment on the CDFreaks.com differences page is interesting, I have no idea whether it is valid: "To make a (HD)-DVD disc you need two moulding machines and an extra process to glue the two 0.6mm substrates together, which means you loose valuable seconds. Also the HD-DVD disc tolerances for flatness & thickness are extremely tight (twice more critical than that of normal DVD). To make a Blu-ray disc you need only 1 moulding machine and you don't have to glue the two substrates, which means less production time. In fact a Blu-ray disc can be compared with an up-side-down CD disc... which is very simple to make. As for disc tolerances of Blu-ray, these are comparable with normal DVD, resulting in an much more controllable production process. This means better yields and that future high-speed discs are easier to make. All in all, you might be able to upgrade DVD lines to make HD-DVD's, but in time the mass-volume production process itself will be less expensive for Blu-ray."
From CDFreaks pros and cons: "Blu-ray requires a much lower rotation speed of the disc to reach the specified transfer rate of 36Mbps."
And "Hybrid Discs -- Here we can find an advantage for Blu-ray, resulting from the new structure of the disc. Since the recording layer for Blu-ray data is only 0.1 mm away from the surface of the disc there is enough space below to integrate a complete 8.5 GB DVD DL disc."
(I have no connection whatsoever with either format, of course. My only interest is that the format that becomes popular be the best format technically.)
The HD-DVD and Blu-ray movie market is small and will not pick up till the adoption of HDTV gathers a decent momentum but unless people are going to buy 32" and above HDTV's you are going to be hard pressed to see much of a difference between a HD movie and an upscaled DVD movie. Once you get 40" and above HDTV's you can really start to pick the difference but that at the moment is a much smaller market.
The only way you are going to see a huge take up of HD movies is if the Movie companies drop support for DVD but to do this will really hurt Toshiba unless they can get HD-DVD as the main choice of the HD market and this is not going to happen. So like it or not we are going to have the two HD choices for the foreseeable future.
Even if you have a PS3 or Xbox360 add-on or even a dedicated HD player (Blu-ray or even HD-DVD) you can still watch the DVD version which will save you money and most players will upscale them to HDTV resolutions. For movie studios to just back HD-DVD but still release on DVD is rather silly since it won't really hurt the sales of Blu-ray players of which the PS3 is by far the greatest seller which is getting close to 5M world wide now and we are not up to one year of sales yet.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Not only the corrupters, but the marketplace also, agree that Blu-ray is better.
If that's the case, and consumers choose what's best, then why did VHS beat out Betamax, which had better video and audio quality across the board? Why is Windows the de-facto operating system for home computers?
You make it sound like the majority of consumers actually make informed decisions when they go out and buy electronics. I can only assume your post was written tongue in cheek, because it appears you infer that people actually go out and research the underlying technology of various products before they make their purchase.
Personally, I give Blu-Ray an automatic 25% edge in the market over HD-DVD because Blu-Ray sounds cooler, and "HD-DVD" has a sort of legacy sound to it. Seriously. I think that, to the average consumer, the name would have more bearing on their purchase than any technical aspects.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
At least you could fast forward to the beginning of the movie. I wonder what sort of torture the new format(s) will try on us?
There is only one reason why someone would pay $150 million to buy the adoption of a particular format: The HD DVD people realized their preferred format was inferior, and could not possibly win in the marketplace in a fair competition on the merits.
Yeah, that *must* be the reason. Jesus Christ, listen to yourself.
Why does this myth keep getting circulated. Please can we stop this now. The fact is that Betamax had mildly better video, indescernable to most people. Also VHS tapes were available in 2 hours varieties a long time before they were with Beta. You can have your two Beta tapes for a movie to my VHS one. Also, VHS were less restrictive with their license, so a lot more VHS movies were available than Betamax (this include Porn). And VHS let a lot more companies make their machines than Sony did, so there were more machines available.
Right now, I may buy a DVD when it's in the $5 bin at the store. Other than that, I am buying no more DVDs until this stupid format war settles itself.
I just wish it would hurry because a BluRay or HD burner with reasanbly priced (inexpensive) blank media would be great for backing up my computer.
Specifically they mentioned that they didn't provide financial incentives TO Paramount or Dreamworks. No where do they say that they didn't provide the funds. Would it be that surprising if the actual incentive was "provided" by a third party other than directly from Microsoft?
I don't know whether Microsoft was involved in anyway or not. What I do find interesting is how denials like these are phrased. This is PR and much of PR is about stating facts that are true without actually telling the whole truth.
Aside from other things, Betamax suffered from a critical technical flaw: you had to split a significant number of movies across two cartridges, forcing you to get up and swap them out to finish watching, and making recording of longer programs impossible without a very high chance of missing portions of the program (guaranteed if you weren't available to switch disks out at the right time).
Time and time again, the marketplace has shown that user convenience trumps technical quality unless the latter is absolutely overwhelming.
Unfortunately for HD-DVD, Blu-Ray trumps it in convenience, technical quality, and library of available media.
The only way the HD-DVD format can survive is to attempt to foster the belief that the high def format race is still a relatively dead heat. Doing so lowers the perceived risk of entering into an exclusive deal like this, as the studio won't believe that the race will be decided soon enough to leave them with the possibility of having picked the wrong format. Studios entering into such an agreement are basically gambling that the worst case scenario is that the race will be decided in favor of the opposing format after the contract is expired. More deals foster the dead heat perception, which again makes it easier for studios to sign deals, etc., etc., so they are essentially hoping to initiate a feedback loop that will allow them to effectively buy a victory in the format war despite being at a universal technical disadvantage.
//TODO: Insert catchy phrase
That does not rule out Microsoft providing financial incentiive to a HD-DVD intermediary organization who subsequently funneled the money to the studios.
Your Microsoft Windows monopoly dollars at work, killing competition and preventing the consumer marketplace from deciding the better solution.
Really bad, actually, since Blockbuster Video, the biggest rental chain the the US, announced months ago they were going with BluRay. Great way to assure your videos DON'T get to customers. This just makes me believe the "original story" is probably not true. No major film studio would cut off their product from getting to a chain like Blockbuster, unless the money given would have made up for the loss several times over (which I highly doubt).
In other words, the people who paid believed that the format they don't want to win, Blu-ray, is worth $150 million more than their HD DVD format in true value, so to even the score they had to pay.
Spoken like a true BR fanboy. It always amazes me to no end how you people go complete bonkers about any positive news for HD. What do you think the BDA has been doing lately? Huh? You think Target just up and decided not to sell HD for their health? Hell no, they got paid you fool. If you think that the BDA is not shelling out millions upon millions to buy the format into success, you are a complete fool. Frankly, any studio or retail that decided to choose either format at this point in the game is frankly moronic. Fine PR is selling discs 2:1, well HD is selling stand alone players out the ass compared to BR. Why? Price of the players, I got my HD player for about $250, impulse buy because Heroes is HD only. Had Heroes not come out on HD and been BR only, I would not have bothered because the damned BR players are too expensive and the stand alone players all suck ass! The only decent BR player is the PS3, period. Both formats are terrific, and if there was a BR player under $400 that I knew would actually be capable of playing the movies coming out in the future (and didn't suck so bad), I would have both! As it is, the HD is the only one I can afford. Also, HD is the ONLY format that at the time of the players hitting the shelves, had full feature support on the players. The first and second generation BR players do not have support for all the features (yes fanboy I know what a firmware update is) because they are not even finalized yet. It won't be until after Oct. 31 that BR players are mandated to have PiP, HD has been doing that since day one. The video encode is THE SAME (well except for the first batches of BR which used MPEG2 because some arrogant company *ahem*SONY*ahem* did not have the authoring tools ready). BDA has been late to the gate in every step of the game here and is only selling more movies because of the PS3. And this is only because there are no killer games coming out and since the owners are bored, they decide to rent/buy a movie to feed their $600 monster. Well, that's my thought at least. One thing is clear to me, BR would be tanking if not for the BDA buying off retailers and studios; not having the studios owned by Sony; and the PS3 hype. Feature to feature, HD has been in the lead from the start, manufacturing costs for HD is very little more than DVD, you use the same equipment as the physical disc structure is the same between HD and DVD; BR requires a much different process and costs much more (gee, I wonder why I see BR discs that cost less than HD discs when they cost so much more to make, hmmm, BDA buy off? could be). Any superiority between the formats really amounts to nothing, they both sound and look great, 20GB, big deal, still plenty enough room for the movie and extras out the wazoo. As soon as there is a capable BR player that I can afford, I will be buying one, that won't be for a while due to the arrogance of the BDA not lowering the price, and that arrogance is quite enough for me to just not bother with BR until they get their act together. It just reminds me too much of the rootkit situation.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Is it possible that we are confusing Capitalism with Free Market economy? In Capitalism, the money drives the market. Big companies can spend a fortune making deals and forming marketing campaigns to get their product on the shelves. It doesn't guarantee the best products get out, but the company with the big money can get in early. Free Market economy puts more power in the hands of the shoppers. Yes, a big company may still get out there first. But in the long run, it's the consumers who decide which product will survive.
This is just delaying HD DVDs inevitable death. Part of me thinks this money was funneled through Toshiba, as we know Microsoft likes to brag that they are sitting on $50 billion dollars. This would be like buying a candybar to them. Given the head start that Microsoft and HD DVD had and that it is cheaper in cost, it is a huge deal that Bluray is beating them already, not only that but PS3 systems are projected to outsell XBOX 360s for the month of July.
I don't know how this isn't illegal, but I'm not a lawyer. It just stinks.
trade secrets before Copyright. Blacksmiths and tanners and masons never jealously guarded secret techniques to be passed down from father to son (or to valued apprentice), and that were often lost because people died before passing on their secret knowledge. Never happened. All information is free dude!
Are you truly so anal that you can't watch them on normal DVD?
Do you mind if I use your car to go to the grocery store?
Yes, and I'll shoot you for even trying.
Can we drop this nonsensical meme. All property rights are "government-granted monopolies".
Property rights, in their most basic sense, are "I have the right to whatever property I can hold onto without you taking it from me." We've layered morality onto this long before we had anything resembling government (ie, "Thou shalt not steal" and similar religious edicts from other times and religions), calling stealing wrong, and this presupposes we have property rights at all.
As we became a more organized society and formed governments, we took these moral values about property and turned them into laws which we empowered the government to enforce.
But the government never "granted" us these rights.
If you truly, honestly believe that Sony hasn't spent far more on getting movie studios to align with Blu-ray only, placing Blu-ray on the end-caps of every Best Buy, Circuit City and Target in the country, and turning Blockbuster Blu-ray only, then I've got a wonderful bridge to sell you...
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
I saw a comparison recently, I believe linked from AVSforum, that showed the replication price difference between the two - it showed that yes, Blu-Ray replication is somewhat more expensive, but not substantially so - and replication of single-layer Blu-Ray discs is actually *cheaper* than replication of dual-layer HD-DVD. That matters because most HD-DVD movies *have* to be dual layer, due to the size, whereas most Blu-Ray movies are still single layer.
I think that pretty well shoots the "but HD-DVD is cheaper!" argument directly to hell - while it's *strictly* true, the most common situation is one that is, in fact, less expensive. (Yes, the players are still more expensive... though I'm waiting for Samsung's BD-UP5000 so I can get one player, watch everything, and not have to worry anymore.)
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Personally, I give Blu-Ray an automatic 25% edge in the market over HD-DVD because Blu-Ray sounds cooler, and "HD-DVD" has a sort of legacy sound to it. Seriously. I think that, to the average consumer, the name would have more bearing on their purchase than any technical aspects.
I agree with you about the importance of the name, but came to the opposite conclusion... "Blu-Ray" sounds stupid, and nobody knows what it means, whereas everyone knows what a DVD is, and, hey, this HD stuff is supposed to be important, so HD-DVD sounds exactly right.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
see that the winner of the oh so critical DVD wars will get there on MERIT as opposed to simply buying off the judges.
which leads me to ask, where's my 1500 bucks to convert to HD-DVD? time for MS to come after us consumers....I'll take 1500 to go with Blu-Ray too. come on Sony, step up to the plate.
Exactly. They were secrets. If you don't want anybody to make copies of your "intellectual property" then keep it a secret. Don't tell anybody. On the other hand, the modern media conglomerations want to sell us unending copies of the same non-secret information. If they don't want anybody to have their precious property, maybe they should reconsider the practice of making millions of copies and sending them to store shelves around the world.
You think they're selling their "technical integrity"? Really? They are a company who is in the business of making money for their shareholders and executives. There is no "selling out". There is no compromising of morals because they were paid to support a format.
You mention voting and merits and corrupters [sic], where do you think we are? This is not a thread discussing politics or the ethics of a moral society. This is not your favorite local band who just signed on with a major label. This is a company who sells their product to whoever will buy it. In this case it was advantageous to them to limit their distribution method because they were paid to do so.
Grow up.
I think thats a great idea about Lucas.
On the other hand, please explain how this is a "shady practice"?
I can only buy certain models of TVs at CostCo (PriceClub) compared to Circuit City. Models specifically made for CostCo, offered at a lowered price that you can't buy anywhere else. Target (I think, maybe K-Mart) only carries the Martha Stewart Line of household items. Howard Stern is exclusive on Sirius radio while Opie and Anthony are only on XM and have a deal to be broadcast over the air as well. RockStar is releasing exclusive content onto the 360 release of GTA4.
These are not shady practice's. This is very transparent for all the world to see (or guess if they're not researching) and is done everywhere. Go to McDonald's and get me a Pepsi will you. Oh right, you can't.
Grow up and realize companies have one purpose to make money for their stockholders, not to ensure you can watch any movie you want because you bought a specific player.
Currently, DVD DRM is effectively non-existent. You can copy, transfer and watch the media that you bought however you want.
Many of the audience here would like the same abilities from the next DVD.
Otherwise, with DRM enforced:
- you can't backup (you need to repurchase)
- when the "Really high def" movies come out, you can't transfer to that disc.
(you need to repurchase)
- you can transfer to portable devices. (you need to repurchase)
- if they decide that you need to watch a 15 minute commercial before the movie, you have no choice.
- the signal is essentially the new analog. sure it's digital in theory. It's this codec and that codec in theory. But in practice, it's a pile of encrypted bits.
Have you actually viewed a 50 gig MPEG4 HD movie and compared it with a 30 gig HD movie?
Or a 20 HD gig movie, or a 8.5 gig HD MPEG4 movie? At what point can you really notice the difference?
Where was the DVD forum when the whole DVD+/-R/RW cockup was going down?
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Put down your MiniDisc player, and stop calling Suncoast demanding that they get you a Beta copy of "Wild Hogs". It's over.
Other delusions you need to disabuse yourself of:
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
HD-DVD sucks. Its transfer rate is slow, the discs are hard to make, its capacity is low.
Technically Blu-Ray kicks the crap out of HD-DVD but there is a problem: It's more Sony proprietary crap that no one wants to buy into.
So we're left with a choice of two evils. I say neither format is going to take off, the whole thing is a clusterfuck, write all this off until something better comes along.
Oh, and I mean "unmolested, Han-shoots-first trilogy." Or if you get right down to it, "Han-shoots" is most accurate.
Lucas is gradually brainwashing me. =(
This brings up a good point. What format is HD porn available on now? My bet is that that format wins in the end.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
I'd like to know which $1000-an-hour asshat lawyer got paid under the table for this....so we can shoot him.
The fact is that Betamax had mildly better video, indescernable to most people.
That's true. Consumers were looking through the marketing filters when they made a choice, though. Betamax actually had a huge advantage over VHS in video sharpness, color noise and audio quality, especially as the battle progressed. Color on VHS looked like a Monet painting - fuzzy water colors. The Beta looked much closer to a direct broadcast signal. Most consumers were buying whatever Billy-Bob down the street had. He had a VHS because the early Beta machines were more expensive than VHS machines (because of the way the tape transports were built). Price usually beats function into second place.
The biggest driving force was the cost of blank tape. The first Beta and VHS tapes cost $22-$24 apiece. You wanted a machine to stretch that cost over as many hours of recording as possible. That got VHS the foothold.
The only time [consumer] Betamax started taking market share back from [consumer] VHS was when Beta-HiFi came out. It took the VHS camp a year to respond and created more expensive "8 head" VHS machines, which the Beta camp could do with two heads. "Gosh, 8 heads MUST be better". No, the VHS format needed that to make a marginally acceptable image at multiple speeds. At the same time, the Beta camp figured out how to make much less expensive tape transports, so cost was erased as a factor.
SuperBeta produced a measurable sharpness increase of 20% but all the VHS camp could do is relax the white clip circuits (VHS-HQ) by 20%. Consumers only saw the "20%" figure and concluded they must be the same thing without actually looking. You could turn SuperBeta on and off and see a real difference. Not so with the VHS-HQ switch. S-VHS was actually more akin to SuperBeta but that came years later and required special [expensive] tape. The VHS camp couldn't even respond to Beta-ED but by then it didn't matter for the consumer. Movie stores started stocking more VHS and that created an avalanche effect driving more consumers toward buying VHS machines. Game over for consumer Beta.
Broadcasters adopted the Beta format over the VHS format for news (originally) because of the dramatic quality differences. The VHS based news recorders were blown off the market within a year by Beta. This started the 25 year dynasty of Broadcast technical progression: BetaCam, BetaCam-SP, Digital BetaCam, BetaCam-SX, BetaCam-IMX, HDCam and HDCam-SR. If you saw the last several Star Wars movies, they were shot with HDCam - a Beta format derivative, not film.
At every turn, the consumer didn't look at quality or function one bit. The Beta transport could skip forward and backward at 20x speed with a viewable picture because of the transport design - something the VHS couldn't do. It made smaller Camcorders when they came out with full recording capacity which the VHS camp couldn't do. With a fresh eyeball, the Beta format was hands down the superior machine with lots of technical headroom, but the consumer ignored the facts and went with the flow. Oh well. Here's an ugly page with some technical differences between Beta and VHS, none of which mattered to consumers.
You can have your two Beta tapes for a movie to my VHS one.
I only recall a few Beta movies on two tapes and those were very early rare birds. The earliest Beta tapes were only one hour long but that was fixed quickly with Beta-II and L-750 tapes (which could do 3+ hours at Beta-II).
Most of the stuff on
So, let me get this straight. There are two formats and a lot of money competing to let us watch shitty movies in ever higher resolutions.
Could we please get less shitty movies at *any* resolution?
And how much has Sony lost selling the PS3? I'd say much of that was to get more marketshare for Blu-Ray in general.
When you have to pay people to switch, expect that they're switching to the worst system. You don't have to pay people to switch to the better system. That's how Betamax lost out to VHS.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Prices will eventually bottom out at the mass production levels deliverable from China. In the long term, price is irrelevant. It will consist of the cost of paying people a dollar a day, cheap land, and shipping over the ocean in disposable containers ... the price of DVDs today.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
"I have a 720p projector. It looks fantastic showing HD-DVD, which I picked at random. It is really nice to get away from lame DVD artifacts, and I figure if blu-ray wins, I'll finally have an excuse to buy a PS3."
Funny but I do see one plus for Hi-def equipment. It makes the Computer/Tv/Internet convergence easier.
Microsoft [...] said it could not rule out payment
but said it wrote no checks yet
"We provided no financial incentives [...] yet
fixed it...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
'Anyone that doesn't know the difference between "loose" and "lose" immediately loses all credibility with me. '
I've seen that kind of argument a lot recently. It's something like, "If I can find one mistake, even in a hastily written comment, then I can ignore anything you say as being obviously wrong."
I suppose that is a way of responding to having more information than a person can handle.
Anyway, it should be: 'Anyone who doesn't know the difference between "loose" and "lose" immediately loses all credibility with me.'
Since I found an error, does that mean I can ignore what you said?
There is only one reason why someone would pay $150 million to buy the adoption of a particular format: The HD DVD people realized their preferred format was inferior, and could not possibly win in the marketplace in a fair competition on the merits.
And Sony paid Target for an exclusive marketing deal this holiday season because Blu-ray can't compete with HD DVD, right? These sorts of deals are hardly unusual.
In other words, the people who paid believed that the format they don't want to win, Blu-ray, is worth $150 million more than their HD DVD format in true value, so to even the score they had to pay.
Or in otherwords, the people who took the money expect that the potential sales of Blu-ray over the next 18 months would be less than $150 million. Frankly not that much money to companies which regularly spend more than that on production of a single movie.
And it's not as if they cut a couple of big honkin' checks. That figure (if even accurate) includes "a combination of cash and promotional guarantees". The example they cite is a cross promotion deal with Toshiba involving Shrek the Third. That's money that would have been spent, regardless, and Toshiba reaps the benefit of having a big name title to promote the player.
Personally I'm not in a rush to buy either format, although prices on HD DVD players are now edging into the "eh, what the hell?" territory if one of my SD players goes tits up on me.
...INTEROPERABILITY!
Isn't it ironic that the consumer vigorously defends his right to "choice" but won't make a move until the choice is made for him?
I don't see the irony in this particular case. Consumers want REAL choice, and that means interoperability. We have quite a choice in automobiles, for example--we can buy anything from a Smart ForTwo to a Hummer H3. The vehicles are all very different and are tailored to bery different wants and needs. However they all run on the same petroleum fuels and operate on the same system of public roads. Thus there is interoperability. Pure electrics, fuel cell power and compressed methane and propane powered cars are by far less common because there is less fuel delivery infrastructure for those vehicles, which is why flexible fuel vehicles and hybrids have fared much better...this just enforces the point.
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD do not interoperate so it is really a false choice. Consumers don't give a rats arse about the laser frequencies used, or how the data is laid out or encoded, or whether Java is used to program navigation--by picking one format or the other you reduce the REAL choices--the selection of player hardware and the content (movies) to use with the player. Competing *NON-COMPATIBLE* formats are not choices at all, thus both formats will continue to languish forever until one or more of the following happens:
* studios stop playing the exclusivity market-manipulation game and release everything in both formats (yeah, right--since when is THAT industry about fairness?)
* HD content players that support both formats become widespread (both formats are the same physical dimensions after all so it is easier done and has been done--they just need to be perfected and more models released, however being bigwigs like Sony and Toshiba are firmly in one camp or the other it presents challenges)
* one of the formats finally dives up and dies (it's a toss-up right now because the HD video market is so small and new--it's a toss-up between the blu-ray's higher capacity and a bit more studio-friendly DRM vs. simpler and lower-cost hd-dvd and the percieved continuity in technology from present DVDs due to the similar name).
>"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM Love your sig. It made me think. Wait. I think it made me think. On second thought, hate your sig.
The NYTimes reporter was sloppy with his language and didn't realize how cryptic it reads.
But I frequent http://avsforum.com/ where Amir frequently posts. From reading his posts there, here is what the NYT article meant:
"Microsoft, the most prominent technology company supporting HD DVDs, said it could not rule out payment made by parties unbeknown to Microsoft but said Microsoft, themselves wrote no checks. "We provided no financial incentives to Paramount or DreamWorks whatsoever," said Amir Majidimehr, the head of Microsoft's consumer media technology group."
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Thanks for your answer. I didn't realize how little technical issues mattered, or how much money is involved in manipulating the outcome.
The "more money than brains" folks rule the world?
I don't think so. I think that one technically knowledgeable Slashdot reader could write one article about the technical merits, and have it published on Slashdot, and $150 million would seem like pocket change compared to the power of Slashdot readers telling all their friends which is the best.
I like Blu-ray only because it has a faster data rate and can hold more data. I plan to use whatever format becomes popular as a data backup method.
I don't watch Hollywood's goofy movies, and I recommend that people who want control their lives educate themselves about reality, not fantasy.
Last time, in the war over DVD-R and DVD+R (DVD+R is better technically), the manipulations caused DVD to become useful much later than it would otherwise have been. I suggest that we not let non-technical people have control over technical things.
I wish Slashdot readers would stop thinking that they are weak concerning matters such as this.
I believe the porn industry has choosen HD-DVD...
Walk with Music;
So what?
Sony paid Target and Best Buy to only carry BR players where consumers can actually see them. They stick Toshiba's HD-DVD players in the corner with old 8-track players.
Sony HQ has ordered Sony Pictures to not release any content on HD-DVD, not for 18 months, but *ever*.
Sony paid Disney to keep its content off of HD-DVD. They caved into Fox by adding draconian BD+ DRM to BR discs to convince Fox to only release its content on BR.
This HD-DVD Paramount deal is simply the other side finally waking up and fighting back in a likewise manner.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Every troll needs a bridge...
Walk with Music;
Unfortunately for HD-DVD, Blu-Ray trumps it in convenience, technical quality, and library of available media.
How is blu-ray any more convienent? Put disk in player, hit play.
How is blu-ray significantly different in terms of technical quality when they support the same codecs and both have ample capacity and bandwidth to serve 1080p video + TrueHD audio?
There is a slight advantage to Blu-ray at the moment in terms of available media, but it's minimal; Amazon reports 402 titles versus 456.
The issue with this competition seems to me to be that while the format used for movie production may not matter (there is very little difference between an HD image read from an HD-DVD versus a BRD,) the long-term issue will be capactity of the discs for other purposes. As the size of game files, home-made digital videos and libraries of music get larger, I would much rather be able to use BRDs than HD-DVDs as the BRD can hold two times the data of its counterpart, if not more (depending on compression, and whether or not the disc is dual-sided or not). What a tremendous waste of money to support (force the use of) the lower quality/capacity medium. Incidentally, it is ironic that the comparison between VHS and Beta is mentioned, because the deciding factor between those options was the fact that while Beta provided higher quality, VHS had a greater capacity for length of recording. BRD's provide both equal quality and, again, far greater capacity. It seems to me that this is just another example of Microsoft making a poor product decision and then throwing its billions of dollars into a mafia-style attempt to control the public's demand for their product.
Microsoft did the same thing at encoding.com in the 90's. Customers were ordering primarily Real Video so Microsoft paid a bunch of cash (a truck full of loose change in this case) to have a Windows Media Video version made of every file (or something like that - I wasn't privy to the exact conditions of the deal - hell I may still be under NDA on that one but I'll be damned if that'll turn me into a coward).
Then there you proably have your winner.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
"If that's the case, and consumers choose what's best, then why did VHS beat out Betamax, which had better video and audio quality across the board?"
For one thing, because Betamax could only record one hour compared to VHS's two.
Who wants to change tapes in the middle of a film - or be locked out of recording shows off the air - no matter how high the 'quality'? Especially when you're playing it back on a low-res TV?
Consumers aren't always dumb.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
HD DVD had two things going for it over Blu-ray.
1)
Faster to market, there were many things the same as DVD
2)
Cheaper to implement, there were fewer changes to the mass duplication infrastructure.
Technical problems kept either of those from being factors.
Too bad for HD DVD.
Real world experience tells something different. When people hear about Bluray - they don't know anything and they want to learn. When they hear about HD-DVD, they think it is a HD version of DVD and if they have a DVD player and a HDTV, then they can get HD-DVD. Go see some of the comments on merchant sites like Amazon. A lot of people have bought HD-DVD versions of movies and then complained when they could not play it on their DVD players connected to their HDTVs. There is no such confusion with Bluray. In this case, the different name actually helped.
Not really. The porn industry is content with DVD and doesn't actually want an HD format. Porn at HD is not necessarily a good thing.
Right now, they can forget about selling movies in europe, and Neelie smit Kroes wil kick their asses ! ( Demanding over 150 Million! )
1:
Given most consumers are in no hurry to pick a format until one wins (most wouldn't want to drop $100 on one if they'ed have to get the ohter anyway in 2-3 years) and given it may take 18 or more months for one side to give in, Paramount may think the next 18 months don't matter. Why not get paid for farting around.
2:
Maybe Paramount is deliberately picking the wrong format, and the money is just a sweetener in the pot. If Blu-Ray wins, and Paramount goes Blu-Ray now, they sell one copy each of all their movies to interested parties. If they go HD, then Blu-Ray they can sell the same movie twice to some viewers.
3.
Paramount isn't always known as the brightest company. They have a record of messing up with one of their best known properties. (Star Trek)
4.
Paramount can't LOSE major sales from doing this, only delay them. Even if everyone boycotted them until they swapped back to Blu-Ray, once they do, who else can you get Paramount movies on Blu-Ray from?
Final note:
HD vs Blu-Ray shows that the world of movies / music is *inherently* more messed up than physical goods. No matter how shoddy of a format Paramount brings to the table (even DivX) you're not allowed to get a better version of "The Search for Spock" from anyone else. It's not in the best interests of the media companies to share, so I don't see this changing anytime soon.
The point is that there hasn't been a video technology that has been both successful and NOT the chosen format of porn. If Tivo added easily accessed porn they'd probably have 50% market penetration in 2 years.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
This isn't wrong, just misleading. BetaCam is a component format that shares little in common with the consumer-level Betamax.
Yeah, VHS sucked. So did Beta at first. LaserDisc looked better than either. But consumers wanted cheap players and long recording time, not the best picture quality.
Cry me a river. No one cares anymore. Just like no one will care in 10 years about HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.
>. Actually, from what I had heard, porn makers don't want to have to increase the quality of their current works now -- porn looks worse in HD than it does in DVD, not better. The only time they like high-res images are with static shots that can be photoshopped.
Ah, HTML filter. I was trying to make a wincy face there, but no such luck.
A lot of people have bought HD-DVD versions of movies and then complained when they could not play it on their DVD players connected to their HDTVs
Ah, good point, I can see where people who don't follow this stuff could get confused. Hadn't thought of it like that before.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
BetaCam is a component format that shares little in common with the consumer-level Betamax.
I wouldn't dismiss the differences so quickly. The first BetaCam machines had transports which were nearly identical to some consumer Betamax machines. The video heads were re-engineered but were the same diameter, the video writing speeds were the same and the fixed head layout was very similar. The threading mechanism was the same containing parts interchangeable with consumer machines.
The major difference was the tape being run at 3X forward speed through the transport to allow for a wider video head track and the addition of video heads and electronics for component video as you pointed out. Otherwise, Betamax and BetaCam were so similar that you could play a BetaCam tape in a Betamax at some forward shuttle speed and get recognizable picture and audio from it.
The thing that killed off the VHS broadcast machines in favor of the Beta transport was the video head writing speed. Beta made a better picture. The test criteria for ABC news for acceptance was that a 3rd generation copy of either contender had to look at least as good as a 1st generation U-Matic (3/4") recording. Beta won, VHS lost.
Cry me a river. No one cares anymore. Just like no one will care in 10 years about HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.
I don't care about those now.
Most of the stuff on
I disagree. A company who has $150 million to invest in their product in such a manner that the competition is left in the cold seems like prudent business sense. I noticed you think Blu-Ray is better. Out of the two formats, Blu-Ray has the most flaws. It's a Sony product, and their flagship product for all-in-one entertainment, the PS3 still has playback issues with Blu-Ray disks. Where is the 720p? What does it say, when the product with the 'superior technology' needs multiple firmware updates to just be functional? HD-DVD will win, not because of a better product, but because of better marketting. Oh yeah, just so you know, BETA-MAX was the superior product, but the porn industry chose VHS for the cheaper costs involved in making their goods. (Cameras, and playback machines were cheaper as VHS.)