Toshiba Execs Declare HD DVD Not Dead Yet

Lucas123 writes "HD DVD proponent Toshiba remains defiant that its format will not succumb to the mounting tsunami of support for Blu-ray Discs. Akio Ozaka, head of Toshiba America Consumer Products, said at CES today that he was surprised by Warner's decision." It should also be noted that the HD DVD group has cancelled many of their meetings at CES.

Comments

It's only MOSTLY dead.

[JustShootMe]

...In-con-CEIV-able.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Divebus]

Not dead yet: Toshiba execs standing there with stopwatches saying "Wait for it... wait for it..."

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[xENoLocO]

It's a shame they haven't been like... advertising for it. Compared to Blu-Ray, hardly anyone has even heard of it.

Regardless, I'm holding out until the next big thing (tm).

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[VGPowerlord]

It's official; ComputerWorld now confirms: HD DVD is dying

Yes, but did Netcraft confirm it?

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Fred_A]

It's a shame they haven't been like... advertising for it. Compared to Blu-Ray, hardly anyone has even heard of it. I know it sounds silly but BluRay has a catchy name and people remember it. HDDVD just looks like a bad day at Scrabble. The naming decisions may be what sealed the fate of both standards.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[CastrTroy]

They really did need better marketing. My boss, who is a fairly technological guy, thought that HDDVD wasn't full high def, or that it couldn't hold as much data as BluRay. Apparently having DVD in it's name meant it was the same old technology, but bumped up just a bit. I corrected him, but it just goes to show you. HDDVD really does need to do some marketing. That's what it all comes down to in the end. Who markets their product better. Not necessary which product is actually better.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[kundziad]

It's funny because I would personally choose HD DVD if I were to judge by names. It gives the impression of being just another rock solid format like CD-R or DVD-RW.

Blu-ray, on the other hand, sounds like just another marketing invention, without any serious consideration of the implications of its widespread usage, etc.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Fred_A]

It's funny because I would personally choose HD DVD if I were to judge by names. It gives the impression of being just another rock solid format like CD-R or DVD-RW. I thought they didn't do too well with those considering the CD-R, CD+R and CD±R and given that nobody ever knew what those stood for.
People follow marketoïds even though you, I, and presumably most of us here aren't too fond of the idea.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Wowsers]

They really did need better marketing. They could rename it HDVD (backed by Microsoft and Windows Vista). That will really help sales.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[x-router]

HD-DVD can't hold as much data as Blueray so your boss was right in part.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is a CD+R?

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[dookiesan]

In past postings many on slashdot claimed that the BluRay name would hurt its sales since people would immediately know that HD-DVD stands for high def but no one will know what BluRay means. It puzzles me that HD-DVD hasn't caught on since the players are actually affordable and no one can tell a difference in video quality between HD-DVD and BluRay. I was ready to buy an HD-DVD player due to the price alone until I heard this news.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Tony Hoyle]

HDDVD always suffered from brand confusion. Walk into any electronics store and you'll see HDMI upscaling DVD players marketed as 'HD Compatible DVD Play' or even sometimes just 'HD DVD Player'.

Then sitting lonely on a shelf is a Toshiba HD-E1 'HDDVD Player' at £200 - 5 times the cost of all the others - and nobody buys because they assume it's more of the same.

OTOH Bluray is clearly different, so people are more likely to ask questions and consider it to be something different.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[dmsuperman]

Nonsense, it won't be a bad day at Scrabble until it's HHDDVVDDBVD!

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[borg007]

If you have to announce to people that something isn't dead then it is DEAD. I have to take credit for killing HD-DVD. I bought a Xbox Hd-DVD player and the next day Warner dumped the format. Microsoft, uncle already! So when is the Xbox Blu-Ray player coming out and are they exchanging them for the HD DVD players?

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Wildfire Darkstar]

HD-DVD needs three layers to reach 51 GB. Blu-Ray hits 50 GB at two layers. Both formats are capable of more layers than that, but the demand for that much space is not yet significant enough to justify the investment costs. For what it's worth, however, prototype Blu-Ray discs have been produced with a capacity of up to 200 GB. All of this information is likewise on Wikipedia.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[blzabub]

Okay, since you are the guy who did this, maybe you could buy a Blu-ray player now and kill that format as well. While I've got you here, maybe you could grab a copy of Windows Vista or did you buy that already?

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Kajukenbo]

I have to agree with this, even though I despise Blu-Ray for the DRM, the name is a good idea.
People ask questions this way instead of assuming they know what HD-DVD is.

I often tell people I teach Martial Science instead of martial arts just so they ask what the difference is. I can then explain to them that Kajukenbo is a self-defense system that bares little resemblance to something flashy like Tae Kwon Do. I have a 2nd degree black belt in TKD and a 4th degree in Kajukenbo. *I* know the difference but 95% of the people on the planet think all "karate" is the same - and that it doesn't work in a fight thanks to TKD... Giving them the name lets them be educated & google the differences.

The Blu-Ray name is clever & catchy, inspiring visions of lasers and the future - even if the DRM blows.

You are not Japanese! You are *not* a Tanaka! ;-)

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Shinmizu]

I don't know about that, but didn't snopes.com say that Netcraft doesn't exist?

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[toleraen]

I've heard just the opposite...I've seen maybe 2 or 3 commercials advertising Blu-Ray (PS3 commercials), but I've heard dozens of HDDVD commercials. Maybe they just do more radio advertising, maybe it's the radio station I listen to in the car, but the website thelookandsoundofperfect.com is definitely stuck in my head.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[DrXym]

I can see arguments either way. HD DVD sounds like a natural progression of DVD and more or less tells you what it is in it's title - high definition DVD. A consumer may hear Blu Ray and wonder what the hell it is since there is no clue in the title.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Fred_A]

WTF is a CD+R? Case in point.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it sounds silly but BluRay has a catchy name and people remember it. HDDVD just looks like a bad day at Scrabble. The naming decisions may be what sealed the fate of both standards.

It's funny how the Slashbots were saying the exact opposite before HD DVD's apparent demise. They were claiming HD DVD would win with Joe Consumer because "HD DVD" sounds like a better DVD, while Blu-ray is "WTF?"

Good to see that conventional "wisdom" is as useless as ever. :)

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[pan0k]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Sancho]

Blu-ray has a lot going for it. Everyone who bought a PS3 assuming that it would be the best console ever got a Blu-ray player. Blu-ray has also been marketed like nobody's business, and it got Disney as a backer.

From a production studio perspective, it has better DRM. HD-DVD DRM was cracked pretty early on, and I bet that caused studio execs to wet their pants. Blu-ray (and BD+) were cracked later, but firsts often matter more.

HD-DVD has... very little to compete with Blu-ray. Independent examinations have shown slight quality differences favoring HD-DVD for films released in both formats, though there's no technical reason that this must be the case. They've also got pricing--HD-DVD players are cheaper than Blu-ray. Generally speaking, though, that's not going to matter much. The studios are going to do what they want, and they want draconian, difficult-to-break DRM.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[mackid]

It's a shame they haven't been like... advertising for it. Compared to Blu-Ray, hardly anyone has even heard of it.

The reason why people have heard of Blu-Ray is largely due to the PS3 - all the teeny boppers whose relatives ask advice of are like "oh, yeah, Blu-Ray, my PS3 has that." HDDVD, aside from being a ridiculous acronym and lacking the "cool" factor, doesn't have a game console that plays it, giving Blu-Ray all the more advantage.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[XeresRazor]

More importantly, 50GB blu-ray's are here and now make up a bit over 50% of all blu-ray discs. There aren't any actual production 3-layer HD-DVD discs and noone's sure if they'll actually work on current players anyways. Even if the 3-layer HD-DVD discs do come out, giving them a tiny edge in space, HD-DVD will still be limited by it's lower maximum bitrate. Blu-ray has 48Mb/s transfer speeds compared to a mere 30 for HD-DVD (which is one of the reasons a lot of BD discs have full 5.1 uncompressed PCM audio and HD-DVD doesn't, BD has the bandwidth, and space to burn for higher quality), for comparison, DVD is 10Mb/s so HD-DVD is a simple 3x DVD transfer whereas blu-ray is nearly 5x.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[sxeraverx]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[KZigurs]

Funny, since I disagree. DVD is current format - even if I understand all the technical stuff, I want NEW. I want COOL. Blue LEDs are cool!

Althou honestly - I am looking at ish 4000 usd investement in my home system before I would even consider adding a hi-def source. Proper screen, upping sound, simplifying wiring and making sure my spouse is happy how it looks (hint: currently it is a bad ass superbly okay system - she hates it. it is 'ugly'). After that - okay, I will consider adding a reason to spend 60usd per movie disc. Currently an old sempron 2800+ connected via ATI 9800 and powerstrip -> rgb cable -> scart works just fine for me.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[ArsonSmith]

There's a reason marketing inventions are made. Just because they don't work for you doesn't mean that they don't work for a large enough majority of people for it to be useful.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[cicatrix1]

Except that for CDs, there's only CD-R. It's DVDs that have the + and - options.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason I seem to remember everyone thought the opposite when this war started. The thought was that HD-DVD was building on the good DVD name, while people wouldn't know what Blu Ray was and would ignore it.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Huxley_Dunsany]

Hindsight is 20/20. I seem to remember, when both formats were introduced a while back, the common sense logic dictated that HD-DVD would win the "war", since the name of the format was so straight-forward. It's like a DVD... but HD! "BluRay?! What the heck is that?!" was the response from most folks who came into the store where I worked at the time. I distinctly remember at least a few people who were under the impression that "BluRay" was some sort of suped-up laser pointer.

I'm not picking sides - I just find it amusing that the apparent marketing value of the nomenclature for both brands has done a nearly perfect 180-degree turn in a fairly short amount of time.

Huxley

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Dogtanian]

If you have to announce to people that something isn't dead then it is DEAD. The spokesman assures us that HD-DVD isn't dead, it's just pining for the fjords.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Dogtanian]

The reason why people have heard of Blu-Ray is largely due to the PS3 - all the teeny boppers whose relatives ask advice of are like "oh, yeah, Blu-Ray, my PS3 has that." Given the current price of the PS3, I find it exceptionally unlikely that more than a tiny proportion of kids in that age group (9-14 or so) will own one.

Late teens? More likely perhaps, but I'd assume that the vast majority of current owners are in their twenties or thirties. Course, that won't stop the kids from knowing about and wanting one (so in a way you're almost right anyway), but I'm sure Mummy and Daddy are more likely to buy them a Wii. Well, *would* if they could get their hands on one.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[skuzzlebutt]

Pretty good...so, for your next tricks can you fall in love with my ex, vote Republican, maybe buy a Prius? thanks in advance.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Enderandrew]

Sony was touting that they'll likely hit 300 GB BluRay discs someday.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[antek9]

What the **** are you talking about? It has a blue ray, right? Right? ;)

With that out of the way, let me repost what i wrote in another comment yesterday (I dislike linking to my own posts, as nobody clicks on those kinds of links anyway):

Don't underestimate the power of names here [..]. You might be a geek like me [..], so we'd know what we were talking about while shopping for HD-DVD, so as not to confuse them with the vanilla DVD format discs. But your mother in law might get confused a that point if you send her getting you some Blade Runner on HD-DVD.

In the not so distant future it will be much easier: Madam, do you need that movie on DVD or on Blu-ray? Actually, I find that completely unrelated name an ingenious move by that format's consortium.

Epilogue: Don't call the yet to come next gen disc format X-Blu-ray (or, mind you, S-HD-DVD for that matter); Green-beam or similar is much better in terms of user friendliness (ugly as it may be).

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[antek9]

That obviously accounts for only _some_ of the Slashbots on slashdot (as loud as they might have been). I never thought so, actually. HD-DVD might sound like a natural progression, but many non-geeks already gave up after CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW or double layer, or consider the whole Core2Duo, AMD-64-X2, Quad-whatever mumbo-jumbo. The CPU naming attempts being lame and even more confusing, I think that Blu-ray just got it right. "DVD or Blu-ray?" is an easy choice for John Doe; "DVD or HD-DVD?", not so much.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

At this point, it's just early adopters who're buying both formats. The success of either format is due to two things, the buying decisions of informed consumers (i.e. people who know the difference between Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and DVD) and the decisions of the studios releasing titles.

I think there's general confusion over what both formats actually are among the general public. At a movie theater this past Saturday, the two people behind me were having a conversation where one of them bemoaned that he'd rented a Blu-Ray but it wouldn't play in his DVD player. Evidently, he thought it was something they'd added to DVDs in such a way that a DVD player could still play it. The other person literally suggested that he'd have to go get an HD-DVD player in order to play Blu-Ray disks.

I personally believe that the studios have screwed up royally in releasing content in both formats. They should have, as a group, picked one format. As it is, the whole war is causing people who understand what's going on to hold off on buying until one format is the clear winner and is causing those who don't understand to get frustrated and write off the whole thing as being not worth the hassle.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Mana Mana]

> HDDVD always suffered from brand confusion. Walk into any electronics store and you'll see HDMI upscaling DVD
> players marketed as 'HD Compatible DVD Play' or even sometimes just 'HD DVD Player'.

*haha* Wasn't it last week that /. tossers were hailing just the opposite `brilliant! Them punters are capitalizing on the HD, and, the DVD terms. Ingenious!' And here you come. You're a genius. Prescient too.

Re:It's only MOSTLY dead.

[Chris Mattern]

I know it sounds silly but BluRay has a catchy name and people remember it.

Personally, I remember it mainly because I wonder why anybody would want to name their video technology "Blurry".

Chris Mattern

It ain't over till the fat lady sings...

[flyingfsck]

So watch out when they release classical operas on HD DVD.

Re:It ain't over till the fat lady sings...

[Z00L00K]

Or when the Dead Parrot appears...

"No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting."

Re:It ain't over till the fat lady sings...

[The_Mystic_For_Real]

Or the next *BSD release...

Re:It ain't over till the fat lady sings...

[hedwards]

That's apt considering that there should be one within the next couple of months. Kind of good for an OS family with 0% marketshare. ;-)

I'm just not sure why they can't do everybody a favor and just take a dive. The amount of money this is costing the film industry, and the number of people that are being pressured to put off making a purchase of either is large enough to justify giving up for the common good.

Re:It ain't over till the fat lady sings...

[monsted]

There are actually two FreeBSD-releases within a few weeks. Both 6.3 and 7.0 are due out "any day now".

Yum, ZFS!

Re:It ain't over till the fat lady sings...

[Stonent1]

Only a few months ago I could have sworn that slashdot had a story that Blu-Ray was failing. I specifically remember market research showing that people easily understood what "HD DVD" meant just by the name, but "Blu-Ray" doesn't immediately give any indication as to what it is. Also I remember hearing companies (I think Paramount was one of them) dropping Blu-Ray support.

Re:It ain't over till the fat lady sings...

[tbannist]

It's not really that Paramount was dropping Blu-Ray support, so much as Paramount received a very large bribe to release content exclusively on HD-DVD for a year.

Re:It ain't over till the fat lady sings...

[mikehilly]

apparently all is lost.....

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_n_binding_browse-b_2?ie=UTF8&rs=404276&keywords=opera&rh=n%3A404276%2Ck%3Aopera%2Cp_n_binding_browse-bin%3A387548011

Re:It ain't over till the fat lady sings...

[Enderandrew]

To which both Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg (nobodies in the film business) threw a shit fit, demanding that their films get release on both formats, if not BluRay exclusive. Both are big fans of BluRay. Right now Transformers is HD-DVD only, but Bay wrote on his blog that if Transformers didn't get a BluRay release, he'd refuse to do Transformers 2.

The format war was practically over a few months ago. Microsoft bribing Paramount only dragged it out, and in format wars, consumers lose. It wasn't a very nice move on Microsoft's part.

Re:It ain't over till the fat lady sings...

[AgentPaper]

Bay wrote on his blog that if Transformers didn't get a BluRay release, he'd refuse to do Transformers 2.

Oh, if it were only that easy!

Endless recreations of the Dead Parrot Sketch

[stox]

to follow.

Re:Endless recreations of the Dead Parrot Sketch

[Spudtrooper]

Alternatively:

Toshiba declares that HD-DVD feels happy, would like to go for a walk.

Re:Endless recreations of the Dead Parrot Sketch

[JustShootMe]

That there is almost good enough to be a fark headline.

Re:Endless recreations of the Dead Parrot Sketch

[Eccles]

I was thinking "Holy Grail" myself.

"I want to go for a walk!"
"You're not fooling anyone, you know."

Re:Endless recreations of the Dead Parrot Sketch

[pushing-robot]

I don't want to go on the fark!

Re:Endless recreations of the Dead Parrot Sketch

[omeomi]

I feel happy! I feel happy!

Re:Endless recreations of the Dead Parrot Sketch

[AHuxley]

Or Bring out your dead! http://www.youtube.com/my_messages

Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some 10-15 million rabid Sony hating Xbox/Microsoft fans in the US. They will support any 'not Sony format' with a fanatical commitment that is easily mistaken for broad consumer support.

Toshiba fell victim to believing HD-DVD was going to ever be supported by anyone beyond that niche demographic. And it cost hundreds of millions in their losing battle against BluRay.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't I allowed to hate *both* MS and Sony?

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[The Analog Kid]

Toshiba should have demanded that the 360 carry an HD-DVD drive standard. The addon carries extra bulk, and if you combine that with the cost of the 360, you might as well have just bought a PS3 instead.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[ergo98]

There are some 10-15 million rabid Sony hating Xbox/Microsoft fans in the US. They will support any 'not Sony format' with a fanatical commitment that is easily mistaken for broad consumer support.

You have got to be kidding.

Blu-ray is alive today only because a punch of pimply-faced teens got a PS3 for Christmas, and suddenly believed that they had to defend all things Sony, including the blu-ray format that they happened into by chance. The rabid, frothing pro-blu-ray hordes are a frightening sight to all, flooding the message boards with "YEAH! SUCKZORZ ON THAT PARAMOUNT!"

While Blu-ray has some technical advantages, its adoption is a massive loss for the average consumers.

Not only are users going to get fucked on the price of hardware (that is for those of us who don't want a media player in the form of game machine. When people actually intentionally buy a next generation media player, they overwhelmingly chose HD-DVD), but forget about combo discs on blu-ray. Yeah, you know that new movie -- guess you're buying it twice if you want it in both high def and able to run on the vehicle's DVD player and the old computer in the kids room. That's a part of the glorious scam of blu-ray.

Adaptive encryption...yeah, expect divx like lock-downs and timed rentals soon enough with blu-ray. It's commming....

Sony trojan horsed the PS3 into households, and then furthered their campaign by selective buyouts (I marvel that anyone believes that Warner wasn't paid off. Wait a couple of months kids, and the details will come out). Now they get to enjoy the lucre as consumers are screwed into buying hardware and software that is much more expensive than the technically equivalent, more standardized and more solidified competitor.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[dabraun]

Toshiba should have demanded that the 360 carry an HD-DVD drive standard. The addon carries extra bulk, and if you combine that with the cost of the 360, you might as well have just bought a PS3 instead.

How would they demand that? Microsoft simply does not care about HD-DVD enough to risk tanking it's game console like Sony did (by forcing the price up for something that doesn't actually help games).

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[JebusIsLord]

I suppose, if you don't mind not having games to play. I bought a 360 and the HD drive at the same time over a year ago, and while i'm disappointed that HD-DVD seems to have lost, I did rent a lot of high-def movies in the past year. The $200 is at least mostly justified. AND I got to play some sweet-ass games that weren't available on the PS3.

In a year or so i'll be picking up a PS3, and then the ol' HD-DVD drive can go in a closet.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

There are some 10-15 million rabid Sony hating Xbox/Microsoft fans in the US. They will support any 'not Sony format' with a fanatical commitment

If true, that is by far one of the most alarming statistics I have ever read. If large cooperations marketing has succeeded to the point that there are 10 million people that will not buy a company's product regardless of its technical merits and price point, we've reached a truly low point in society.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[beoba]

I like the part where you complain about fanboyism, and then immediately start going into wild speculation about "divx-like lockdowns and timed rentals", then follow that up with complaints of "selective buyouts" that both sides were doing.

Frankly, I'm just glad the whole thing's over, so that hopefully the burners will start getting more common/cheaper.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[ergo98]

I like the part where you complain about fanboyism, and then immediately start going into wild speculation about "divx-like lockdowns and timed rentals", then follow that up with complaints of "selective buyouts" that both sides were doing.

I'm not against blu-ray because I grabbed a flag and started waving it, declaring my allegiance. I'm against blu-ray because I think it amounts to a massive tax on consumers. I truly believe that HD-DVD was generally a better win for consumers.

That isn't fanboyism at all, and I didn't stumble upon the format.

And yes, blu-ray's adaptive, updateable encryption system is open ended on purpose. Blu-ray already has a pretty onerous system, so let's see what happens once HD-DVD is out of the way.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[beoba]

Unlike taxes, buying Spiderman 3 is not obligatory, so I'm failing to see your point. Care to specify what makes you consider HD-DVD to be a "better win", or are you going to continue sticking to PR-speak?

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[ergo98]

Unlike taxes, buying Spiderman 3 is not obligatory, so I'm failing to see your point.

Buying a Big Mac isn't obligatory, but when I do I pay tax on it. It still is tax.

Blu-ray comes with a significant price premium -- for both technical and licensing reasons -- over HD-DVD. Add the value of combo discs that you can get for HD-DVD, but not Blu-ray, and the average household either has to upgrade wholesale at once (have fun getting a blu-ray player for the SUV), or buy all media twice.

Blu-ray is a much more expensive proposition for exactly the same end result.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[moosesocks]

Consumers play a very small role in this "battle"

What it comes down to is which format studios and hardware companies are most comfortable supporting. For both, I'd have to say that HD-DVD comes out on top.

Studios have very strong reasons to be weary of Sony, considering that Sony has an appalling track record of refusing to play nicely with others, and also owns a movie studio themselves. Likewise, they've got their own reputations to worry about, should Sony pull another stunt, like the rootkit fiasco. Also, look at what happened to BetaMax.

Hardware vendors also have a bit to be concerned about. Although Blu-Ray has a small technical advantage over HD-DVD (the disc holds more), the players and discs are much more expensive to produce, and royalties are higher (and paid to Sony, who is in direct competition with other vendors). This translates to smaller profit margins, and a higher price at retail (both of which are bad, if your competitor can profitably sell what is essentially the same product for 2/3 the price). Once again, sony also doesn't tend to embrace standards (even their own!), and has a reputation of not playing nicely with others. Also, look at what happened to BetaMax.

Toshiba is a rather generic consumer electronics manufacturer, whereas Sony tends to be rather high-profile (and accordingly, high-risk).

Sony has a track record, and it's absolutely appalling. Even with all the marketing and buzz, studios and hardware vendors should know better than to trust them... this is where Toshiba put their money.

Unfortunately, it seems that Sony's been practicing a bit of payola, which is something that Toshiba hadn't considered, and something that Sony's *very* good at.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, both of you are morons. Seriously. You both need to drop the fanboyism because you're basically walking stereotypes.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are trying to sell a product that is competing a Sony product right now you will automatically get:

# A receptive audience in the US that is most comprised of Microsoft fans that are Xbox owners and or Windows PC gamers

# A core group of fanatics for your product that are willing to sit around in Net discussion boards 24/7/365 days a year hyping your product and trashing the Sony one

# Free marketing from sites like Slashdot and the endless Zonk anti-Sony/BluRay stories

# A wealth of bogus technical data and specs that 'prove' your product is superior to the Sony one

# A group of people who are willing to spend a huge amount of money in a short amount of time on your product and then go out on the Net and brag about attach rates and 'fastest selling' vs the Sony product

So if you are a company like Toshiba looking at early sales figures and reception to your product you can easily mistake this enthusiasm for your product for what it really is hatred of Sony. The same thing happened to Microsoft and the Xbox and once again with the 360. Dead in most of the world markets and surviving almost entirely on a core US anti-Sony group of consumers.

Toshiba is lucky HD-DVD got killed off this quick and most likely only has lost in the hundreds of millions. Microsoft is some 7 billion in the hole on the six year long Xbox marketplace disaster.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't you be in bed?

When someone has an argument that has some foundation in fact, calling it fanboyism just proves you to be an imbecile. Not that there was much uncertainty about that.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Baumi]

Add the value of combo discs that you can get for HD-DVD, but not Blu-ray, and the average household either has to upgrade wholesale at once (have fun getting a blu-ray player for the SUV), or buy all media twice. Wow, so the average US household has an SUV with a DVD player?

Jens

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[His Shadow]

I like the part where he doesn't think any format backed by Microsoft won't by default have a plethora of anti-consumer "features".

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Baumi]

Blu-ray is alive today only because a punch of pimply-faced teens got a PS3 for Christmas, and suddenly believed that they had to defend all things Sony, including the blu-ray format that they happened into by chance. While I own neither a PS3 nor an XBox 360, I find it funny, how the PS3 is usually getting slammed for being too expensive, having no cool exclusive titles and generally not seilling well - however as soon as we're talking about BluRay, it's suddenly supposed to be this Juggernaut driving out the other HD format. Could all the fanboys please decide whether they want to bah it for being a failure or for being too successful?

Adaptive encryption...yeah, expect divx like lock-downs and timed rentals soon enough with blu-ray. Rentals are always timed in some way or other - that's what makes them different from buying. Actually, timed rentals are IMHO pretty much the only valid use for DRM. (Especially when I can download them instead of having to go to ta store or wait for a DVD in the mail.)

Sony trojan horsed the PS3 into households So it goes like this:
1. Add Blu-Ray to console
2. Be a year late to market, more expensive than competition, and overall the worst selling console
3. ???
4. Dominate the HD market!

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Stormwatch]

Aren't I allowed to hate *both* MS and Sony?

Yes. Buy a Wii (if you can find one).

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[nolesrule]

Toshiba did their share of payola as well. They just weren't as successful.

That said, Blu-ray was a multi-corporation project, of which Sony was just a part. Most of the major CE manufacturers were involved from the start.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Divebus]

Microsoft announced they were discontinuing support for "HD-DVD For Sure" in favor of their new media player, the Zoob Toob.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[kilgortrout]

Nobody has to buy anything. And most US households will not be buying either blu-ray or hd-dvd. They'll be sticking with plain old dvd for the foreseeable future. People aren't holding back because of perceived format wars. They're holding back because there's not much value for the consumer in HD anything over what's available today.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[timeOday]

Which reminds me, Sony execs must be popping corks and slapping high-fives about now for their decision to build Blu-Ray into the PS3. I still happen to believe putting Blu-Ray into the PS3 was a purely strategic move that hurt PS3 customers by delaying shipment and jacking up the price, but if PS3 sales (though diminished) are what put Blu-Ray over the top, it doesn't really matter, does it? Big bonuses all around for root-kitting, format-pushing, technology-bundling Sony. This victory will make them a stronger company and increase their power to set technology standards, which given their close ties to content producers (they are content producers) is bound to be good for everybody but the customer. I hate it when the bad guys go long and win big.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Daniel Phillips]

So it goes like this:
1. Add Blu-Ray to console
2. Be a year late to market, more expensive than competition, and overall the worst selling console
3. ???
4. Dominate the HD market! A nice summary, but your ??? is in the wrong place, it is really more like:

1. Add Blu-Ray to console
2. Be a year late to market, more expensive than competition, and overall the worst selling console (but still sell millions)
3. Dominate the HD market!
4. ???

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Hal_Porter]

yeah, expect divx like lock-downs and timed rentals soon enough with blu-ray. What's wrong with DIVX style lockdowns btw? It seems like there's a market for it.

E.g. Netflix could send out disks which would become unplayable at the end of the rental period so you wouldn't need to return them. As far as I can tell the costs of producing a disk is negligable for DVD and CD and will probably become so for BlueRay and HDVD. So most of the cost is essentially an IP rights license. That implies that you could sell limited duration licenses to people for less than the perpetual one they normally get with a pressed disk.

Actually you could even imagine some sort of equivalent of Flexi singles - i.e. the disk would be manufactured to last for a short period for straight mechanical reasons. Maybe a biodegradeable disk so you can compost it when it expires. I can imagine you'd have a shelf of very cheap time limited movies (a dollar or so) at eye level near the checkouts in supermarkets. Basically the Top 10 best selling DVDs in a disposable format, designed to attract impulse buyers who only want to watch them once.

And it would be up to you whether you bought them/picked them up - I think there will always be a market for pressed disks that don't expire. In fact DIVX shows that maybe that is 100% of the market for DVDs - i.e. people won't buy things with an expiry date, regardless of cost. Mind you, you could make them wholly ad supported and bundle them with newspapers. In the UK newspapers often give away audio CDs - they pay a very small fee to the IP owner for the rights to do it. If you could convince the IP owners that they're giving away only a short license period, maybe you could give away DVDs instead.

But why worry about it? If there is market for time limited movies then you're free to ignore them. And if there isn't a market for them it isn't an issue. And it's odd that the same people who complain that 'the MAFIAA' should be innovating new delivery models rather than litigating tend to complain about things like DIVX, which is an example of them doing exactly that.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Erpo]

I truly believe that HD-DVD was generally a better win for consumers.

Why is that?

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[YesIAmAScript]

Delaying 360 to wait for HD-DVD to be cost-viable would have been a mistake. 360 debuted about 6 months before the first HD-DVD players were available at any cost.

Instead of making HD-DVD a winner, it easily could have made 360 a loser.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Osty]

E.g. Netflix could send out disks which would become unplayable at the end of the rental period so you wouldn't need to return them. As far as I can tell the costs of producing a disk is negligable for DVD and CD and will probably become so for BlueRay and HDVD. So most of the cost is essentially an IP rights license. That implies that you could sell limited duration licenses to people for less than the perpetual one they normally get with a pressed disk.

First, there is no "rental period" with Netflix, and if they ever implemented such a thing they'd lose a large number of subscribers. The beauty of Netflix is that you can keep a disk as long as you like with no real repurcussions (sure, you can't get the next disk in your queue until you return the current one, but with a 3-, 4-, or 5-out plan that's not a huge deal and is sure better than outrageous late fees).

Second, what are you going to do with all of those now-useless disks? As far as I know we don't have a reliable, biodegradable material out of which to make these disks, which means we're just going to fill up landfills with these. That was a huge component of the DIVX backlash, and any future scheme must have a solution for that up front or it's doomed to fail.

But why worry about it? If there is market for time limited movies then you're free to ignore them. And if there isn't a market for them it isn't an issue. And it's odd that the same people who complain that 'the MAFIAA' should be innovating new delivery models rather than litigating tend to complain about things like DIVX, which is an example of them doing exactly that.

DIVX already proved there's no market for this, and trying it again isn't really all that productive. People who want the MPAA/RIAA to innovate want actual innovation, not rehashes of already-failed schemes. Cable on-demand programs, time limited DRMed online purchases, Xbox Live Video Marketplace, etc are all examples of viable approaches of innovating in content delivery. DIVX is a horrible, horrible failure.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[squiggleslash]

That would have destroyed sales of the 360. Microsoft was absolutely right to keep the drive out of the console, it would have pushed prices up with very little net gain for the target demographic. PS3 users have been effectively paying a "Blu-ray tax" thanks to Sony making the opposite decision.

I think Microsoft went too far in its support for HD DVD. If, as seems likely, HD DVD does cease pushed as a mainstream format before the end of the year, I wonder if they'll reconsider the idiotic "secure path" crap they put in Vista, which has been widely blamed for Vista's problems? They put all of this in in the belief that this would help get Hollywood on-side with computer-managed high definition video, and HD-DVD in particular. With Blu-ray not making managed copy compulsory, managed copy is effectively dead, meaning the only thing left as far as Vista's DRM issues go is basic playback. If Microsoft yanked all of this from Vista, would the AACS at least concede to some degree in licensing a few non-secure path Blu-ray playback tools, or would they be content to see Blu-ray effectively illegal to view on post- and pre-Vista based Windows computers?

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[totally bogus dude]

Unlike taxes, buying Spiderman 3 is not obligatory, so I'm failing to see your point. Buying a Big Mac isn't obligatory, but when I do I pay tax on it. It still is tax.

That's got to be the most idiotic, nonsensical response I've ever seen. I'm truly floored.

Your other points seem to have some merit, but I don't actually care HD format wars one way or the other. Still, your argument would be more persuasive if you didn't say really weird things like "I pay tax on Big Macs, therefore it's a tax" ... when your argument doesn't really have anything to do with tax at all (or are HD-DVD players tax exempt or something?).

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[squiggleslash]

I'm pro-HD DVD myself, but this "Sony vs Microsoft" or "Sony vs Toshiba" crap has to end.

Sony was the largest backer of Blu-ray and was involved in its early development. But Blu-ray is a format controlled by a wide consortium of interests, of which Sony is a small player. Blu-ray was designed to appeal to studios, and to some extent, it does more than HD-DVD: Studios want region encoding, they want (however moronic it might be) 1980s software style copy prevention schemes (which, effectively, is what BD+ allows them to do. Make your discs faulty and then write Java code to make the player ignore the faults. Wow. That worked really well back when Woz was building disk drives...), and they don't want to be forced to sell anything other than a disc. HD DVD appealed to consumers. It's designed to be reliable at the expense of the discs being easier to copy. It's not region encoded. And it made managed copy a mandatory feature.

These feature collections have nothing to do with promoting Sony, Microsoft, or Toshiba, and there's pretty much no way any of these three companies could suddenly start dictating terms to the studios if the format they've nailed their colours to succeeds.

So can we stop using Sony as a reason to attack Blu-ray?

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[totally bogus dude]

I think the disparity is probably more an indication of just how few people care about HD formats at the moment. Sure there's enough people to make some noise, but when a "poorly-selling" console is able to "dominate" the market it tells you that the market isn't particularly large. It also suggests that a significant number of people are getting a HD player not because they specifically want one, but because the console they've bought happens to include it.

That's not necessarily a bad marketing / sales strategy though -- if you've already got a Blu-Ray player in your house, why go out and buy an HD-DVD player just to watch HD content? It also gives you a chance to try out HD content to see if it's worth it without having to first buy a player which you might never use again.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[pionzypher]

Perhaps not, but many households have a spare dvd player in the bedroom, kitchen, garage, etc. The kids might have one in their room. His point of the issues with migration is a good one. HD-DVD had one that didn't involve trashing discs because their format was incompatible.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with waiting, im still waiting for cheap dual layer discs.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Hal_Porter]

Second, what are you going to do with all of those now-useless disks? As far as I know we don't have a reliable, biodegradable material out of which to make these disks Actually there is

http://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/2005-03-15/russell-cornplastic/

So long as oil prices stay high, it's economic too. They quote $55 a barrel as making it attractive, my guess is that they should average well above that.

DIVX already proved there's no market for this, and trying it again isn't really all that productive. People who want the MPAA/RIAA to innovate want actual innovation, not rehashes of already-failed schemes. Cable on-demand programs, time limited DRMed online purchases, Xbox Live Video Marketplace, etc are all examples of viable approaches of innovating in content delivery. DIVX is a horrible, horrible failure. DIVX failed for a bunch of reasons. It's interesting that you think time limited DRMed online purchases are ok but time limited physical media is not. Time limited purchases are not inherently a bad idea, it's just that DIVX botched the implementation.

I think online DVD purchasing is not really viable at the moment since most people don't have a fast enough internet connection to make it work. There's a user friendliness issue too - people would presumably need to install special software to handle the download and enforce the DRM. And PCs are much too hackable for this sort of application because it only takes one person with a bit of reverse engineering experience and any DRM can be cracked. Plus most people don't like watching movies on their PCs. Certainly my parents generation would never do so, even though they're quite happy with a DVD player. They're not interested in watching movies more than once too.

I can vaguely imagine it working with cell phones though, provided bandwidth was cheap enough. You could stream the video too, so the handsets stay affordable. Cell phones are much harder to crack than PCs. And at least in Asia people are used to watching video on their cell phones. Admittedly that's broadcast TV and mostly because it is free. And cell phones don't really seem like a good platform for watching movies.

Perhaps it could work with satellite boxes though. Though in the UK video on demand for satellite doesn't really seem to have taken off.

But I'd still go for a time limited physical media over any online distribution method, just based on the way my parents are quite happy to spend a few hundred dollars on a decent video disk player for the living room but would not be at all concerned about disks that expired. The disks would need to be environmentally friendly in some way though. Maybe if they biodegraded or turned into blank writable disks it would be ok. It should also be possible to use the disks on most players, so it should be part of the standard to succeed. I'm not sure if BluRay actually allows this. Certainly if I designed it I'd add support, just in case one of the licensees wants to try it as a business model.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what I'd expect to hear from a fanboy.

Neener, neener, neener.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[jimmypw]

Which reminds me, Sony execs must be popping corks and slapping high-fives about now for their decision to build Blu-Ray into the PS3

Well OFC they are they developed it.

This victory will make them a stronger company and increase their power to set technology standards, which given their close ties to content producers (they are content producers) is bound to be good for everybody but the customer. I hate it when the bad guys go long and win big.

How will it be bad for the customer, If i believed everything i read on /. everythings bad for the consumer (which isnt far from the truth) but at the end of the day its technoligical development more than that its business sense and a business has share holders that have to be kept happy. If you want a slice of the winning pie invest in one of these companies.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the 'other' side is heavily backed by microsoft. No contest!

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[svunt]

And that will sort out your choice of Hi-Def playback how, exactly? Try to follow the conversation.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[twistedsymphony]

Since when is the BRD vs HDDVD battle video game related? if I hate Sony AND MS how exactly will a Wii aide me in purchasing a HD movie format? Honestly that's why Toshiba had my support... why Supporting Toshiba somehow makes me an MS fanboy I don't really understand.

Despite how much I like the HD-DVD format more than Blu-Ray Toshiba really needs to just throw in the towel at this point and do the consumer market a favor...

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Osty]

http://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/2005-03-15/russell-cornplastic/

I remember seeing something like that at the Illinois State Fair probably 15+ years ago. They were focusing on biodegradable plastic bags made from corn, but it's the same concept. Unfortunately nothing much really came from that, and I doubt much will come from this. For now, it's a novelty material used for products purchased by the hyper-environmentally conscious. Plastic bags and wraps are a far cry from a hard disk able to withstand the rotational forces in play with Blu-Ray drives. Maybe they'll get there, maybe they won't, but I'm not going to hold my breath hoping that Sony et al will use this when traditional disks are currently so cheap. Maybe if oil ran out it would be a concern, but there are much larger issues to deal with first beyond plastic materials (such as how you're going to power your Blu-Ray player and TV, for example :). Besides, even with biodegradable material, there's still waste (how long does it take the material to fully degrade?), while with online downloads there's just bits on the wire and on a hard drive.

I think online DVD purchasing is not really viable at the moment since most people don't have a fast enough internet connection to make it work. There's a user friendliness issue too - people would presumably need to install special software to handle the download and enforce the DRM. And PCs are much too hackable for this sort of application because it only takes one person with a bit of reverse engineering experience and any DRM can be cracked. Plus most people don't like watching movies on their PCs. Certainly my parents generation would never do so, even though they're quite happy with a DVD player. They're not interested in watching movies more than once too.

A set-top box would be the way to go, like the announced Netflix box, AppleTV, the Xbox 360, or even a Tivo. That gives you the comfortable living room TV aspect as well as keeping the content away from a hackable device like a PC. The problem will be one of standardization. Nobody wants to have three or four boxes in order to play movies from different sources. Cable and satellite operators will probably "win" this one, with on demand content sent to boxes the customer already has. In fact they're already doing this today (at least in the US). Personally, I like my Xbox 360 since I can play games, purchase TV shows and movies, or stream my own content from my network (the PS3 can do two of those three right now), but I don't expect the Xbox 360 to appeal to non-gamers. Instead, I could absolutely see Microsoft shipping a low-cost hardware solution based on the Xbox 360 but with only media functionality (Video Marketplace and network streaming). If you could buy something like that for $100-200, put it in your parents' living room (the 360 works great with media remote controls, either those specifically for the Xbox 360 or for Media Center PCs), and hook it up to a home server with all of their DVDs ripped to disk, that's probably the best of all options. If that same box could also receive your TV (via IPTV over FIOS, for example), even better. Obviously they'd need broadband in order to purchase content online, but broadband availability and adoption is increasing rapidly.

I can vaguely imagine it working with cell phones though, provided bandwidth was cheap enough. You could stream the video too, so the handsets stay affordable. Cell phones are much harder to crack than PCs. And at least in Asia people are used to watching video on their cell phones. Admittedly that's broadcast TV and mostly because it is free. And cell phones don't really seem like a good platform for watching movies.

I used my iPhone on a flight recently to watch a couple TV show episodes, and while it was convenient I absolutely would not replace my 50" big screen TV with an iPhone any time soon. I wouldn't want to tie a m

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[BrentH]

While I agree that MS probably didn't want to risk supporting a dead format, I've read more than once about complaint from gamedevelopers that the 360 only supporting DVD places too much constraint on supplying the content they'd like. Games of more than 9GB are not rare these days and the PS3 has an advantage there.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[iamacat]

Because it's $200 with 9 free movies included, rather than $600 with none? It's one thing to win among 1% of the viewers, another to make a mass market product. HD-DVD may make a comeback at that time, or yet another disk-based or online product could leave both in the dust. But if I was Sony, I would be frantically thinking about how to drop the player cost by 75% and halve the movie price.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[BrentH]

You seem to be forgetting, that, even before PS3, BluRay was winning in Europe and Japan, if any format was winning. I (as a European) rarely see HD-DVD discs in the shops and have never seen a HD-DVD player advertisedor in shops, while BluRay is creeping up everywhere. DVD still dwarfs all other of course, but HD-DVD was never going to be it for the rest of the world.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[iamacat]

What's wrong with DIVX style lockdowns btw?

Only the colossal pollution and landfill burden created by billions of disposable disks that would be made per year only in US, not to mention the associated packing materials. Especially when they are perfectly recyclable electrons that are perfect for the case where you do not need/are allowed to archive the movie long term.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[caluml]

If large cooperations marketing has succeeded to the point that there are 10 million people that will not buy a company's product regardless of its technical merits and price point, we've reached a truly low point in society. Why? I choose not to buy Sony, in the full knowledge that their kit is probably better. I choose digital cameras that use CF cards over ones that use Sony Memory Sticks.

It's (for me) about using whatever uses most standardised additions. And I'm not a Microsoft fan either.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[WK2]

There are some 10-15 million rabid Sony hating Xbox/Microsoft fans in the US. They will support any 'not Sony format' with a fanatical commitment If true, that is by far one of the most alarming statistics I have ever read. If large cooperations marketing has succeeded to the point that there are 10 million people that will not buy a company's product regardless of its technical merits and price point, we've reached a truly low point in society.

Large corporate marketing has succeeded to the point that there are millions of people in the US who will buy a product regardless of it's technical merits and price point. (cue MS jokes) The problem is that nobody is an expert in everything, and sometimes we have to make uninformed decisions.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[CastrTroy]

Save your money, and just download HD Rips, or watch HD on demand with your cable company.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

There is plenty of Sony hardware which might have small technical and/or price advantages over the alternatives on the market. I won't buy any of it. Divisions of Sony have done things which I find unacceptable (rootkit fiasco, lying about rootkit fiasco, billing practices in gaming division, etc.) What is "truly low" about keeping in mind the way Sony conducts itself when making other purchasing decisions?

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[CastrTroy]

Wow, and I remember games that fit on a single 5.25 inch floppy disk. Zelda, Ocarina of Time fit in 26 MB. Super Mario 64 fit in 9 MB. Do you know why they want BluRay disks? So they can put more videos in the game. Have you ever played a game and thought, I need more videos. I need to spend less time actually playing the game. Render the cutscenes with the game engine, and compress the audio, and you should have no problem fitting your entire game on a DVD. I realize that things like textures can take up a lot of space in HD games. But I have trouble thinking that still images would take up that much space.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[kamikaez]

Nothing a brain root-kit can't fix..

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[CastrTroy]

With the cost of portable DVD players, why wouldn't most people have a DVD player you can use in the car.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[budgenator]

Maybe the fanboys are really saying "Not from any Media Company Format" rather than 'not Sony format'; after all the attacks through the MPAA, RIAA and the Sony rootkit; I'm not sure a bluray is trustworthy! If I'm stuck with one it's definitely going to be air-gapped from any network resources in the house.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[boot_img]

When people actually intentionally buy a next generation media player, they overwhelmingly chose HD-DVD.

Overwhelming?

According to this article, an HD-DVD rep said "HD DVD players represented 49.3 per cent of the players for high definition discs sold as of Dec. 22, quoting figures from market research firm NPD." (Excluding PS3).

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[ps236]

The problem is that the 'niche demographic' are actually the very few people who want high definition DVDs anyway... The vast majority of users are quite happy with normal DVDs.

Why spend $200 on a high-def DVD player when you can get a standard one for $30 and it's plenty good enough for most people? Why buy a movie for $28 on Blu-Ray when the same on a normal DVD only costs half that?

High-def DVD is not THAT much better than normal DVD for the vast majority of people to make it worth the extra money. DVD *was* far better than VHS (no rewinding, jammed tapes etc AS WELL AS better quality). High-def DVD is just a costly gimmick.

TBH, I don't care who 'wins'. No one really does except people who have been conned into buying players already, and the companies involved in making them.

Sony have probably won by simply *giving away* Blu-ray players to people who wanted a PS3, and by paying companies to produce Blu-ray DVDs. Technical merit has nothing to do with it, it's just who had the biggest pockets or could get the RIAA to ramp up efforts to get money from innocent people to pay for it.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[budgenator]

I think that will change when Ma & Pa Kettle waddle into the Big-Box store to get their new Digital-TV and the Blue-Shirts up-sell them to a 42" LCD, surround sound and Bluray player package so they can watch Raw and Smackdown in all it's glory!

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Serengeti]

"Blu-ray already has a pretty onerous system, so let's see what happens once HD-DVD is out of the way."

Let me tell you what will happen: Less. Sony won't be as motivated to upgrade the players if its not going to guarantee them more income. Furthermore, they'll be less inclined to lower the cost of their (relatively) expensive players.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[budgenator]

but we like attacking Sony and BluRay and they drew first blood.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Mordaximus]

How would they demand that? Microsoft simply does not care about HD-DVD enough to risk tanking it's game console like Sony did (by forcing the price up for something that doesn't actually help games).

How does 50Gb of storage hurt games, exactly? Just because most games now aren't any larger than what you can squeeze onto DVD, doesn't mean it won't happen in the future. The option is there. I'd say that is a perk.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Admittedly to fill up 9GB you're probably talking movies, but it's still not impossible to do it without. Think lengthy complex soundtrack, lots and lots of textures for multiple dissimilar worlds, detailed mapping, redundant sound effects (i.e 5+ different sounds for each 'event' to keep it from getting repetitive, mostly with vocals.)

Then theres also just really huge(as in span) games like the Final Fantasy series. Up the graphics, multiply it by game length..

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Tony Hoyle]

Bluray players play DVDs too. Very well, in fact. Nobody's going to be trashing anything.. except HDDVD early adopters who backed the wrong horse - that's the risk you take.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Tony Hoyle]

Not even close...

Bluray $337

HDDVD $299

Or if you're into bundles, Walmart to a PS3 and 15 free disks for $499.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Tony Hoyle]

I remember seeing something like that at the Illinois State Fair probably 15+ years ago. They were focusing on biodegradable plastic bags made from corn, but it's the same concept. Unfortunately nothing much really came from that, and I doubt much will come from this. For now, it's a novelty material

1999 called, it wants its pessimism back.

The technology is already becoming common in drinks containers. It looks and behaves just like normal plastic, except if you leave it lying around outside long enough it'll degrade. Our local pub even serves all their drinks in it.

As far as its use for CDs goes.. you have to go back to 2003 for that

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[poetmatt]

and both are still a complete waste of money and time. I'm still not even remotely enticed to buy BD or HDDVD, regardless of the increase in quality. They both are stupid. Who would want to buy into a format where you can only play "some" movies? Thats like buying a car that can only drive on highways and not local streets. If only this format war woudl end, both die off, and something new comes up.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[slashbob22]

Bluray players play DVDs too. Very well, in fact. Nobody's going to be trashing anything.. except HDDVD early adopters who backed the wrong horse - that's the risk you take.
Your parent wasn't quite clear but what is indicated through the conversation is that with HD-DVD you can play the newly purchased dual-mode discs on the new system in HD and the old DVD players at regular def.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[yakumo.unr]

Patent #6,816,972, owned by Sony, 'DRM software that could prevent PlayStation 3's from playing used or borrowed games'

They own this patent as I discovered in a comment earlier, I wouldn't put much past them with regards to heavy handed, anti-fair-use consumer restrictions.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[asc99c]

I think this actually accentuates the differences between the platforms - you comment is very fitting for typical American-style action-oriented games but not for games with a more relaxed playing style as is popular in Japan. It is likely a feature that will be better used and better received in the Japanese market.

Many sports and racing games could benefit from additional space for videos also - I'd happily watch a bit of HD video of the new Nissan GT-R if it was included in Gran Turismo 5.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[MojoStan]

Sony execs must be popping corks and slapping high-fives about now for their decision to build Blu-Ray into the PS3. I still happen to believe putting Blu-Ray into the PS3 was a purely strategic move that hurt PS3 customers by delaying shipment and jacking up the price, but if PS3 sales (though diminished) are what put Blu-Ray over the top, it doesn't really matter, does it? Maybe. I'm not sure, especially if this kills the long-term profitability of Sony's gaming division. The gaming division used to bring in the majority (yes, more than half) of Sony's total operating income. For those that haven't heard, Sony's gaming division lost a staggering Xbox-like ¥232 billion ($1.9 billion) in 2007 (total operating income ¥72 billion/$608 million). At the PS1's peak in 1999, the gaming division's operating income was ¥136 billion (out of ¥339 billion total). At the PS2's peak in 2003, gaming earned ¥113 billion (¥185 billion total).

If Blu-ray becomes the dominant video format (over DVD and downloads), how much income (from sales and licensing) does this bring to Sony? I know Blu-ray is primarily "Sony's format," but there's a lot of "partners" in the Blu-ray Disc Association. Will this Blu-ray related income be worth the loss in gaming income?

Year: Gaming operating income/(loss), total operating income
2007: (¥232 billion), ¥72 billion
2006: 9, 226
2005: 43, 146
2004: 68, 99
2003: 113, 185
2002: 83, 135
2001: (51), 225
2000: 77, 223
1999: 136, 339
1998: 117, 520

Sony's Annual Reports (big freakin' PDF files): http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/Archive.html

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[LordZardoz]

Blu-Ray is a Sony invention, and the primary means by which Sony has promoted the technology was to integrate it into the PS3. The consumer base for videogamers who are willing to spend huge amounts of money is easier to leverage than people who are content with standard DVD. This strategy has not worked out as well as Sony has hoped, since between Blu-Ray and the Cell Processor, the PS3 is a very expensive bit of consumer technology. Never the less, Sony is starting to make some more progress with the PS3 as the price drops, and even the less than hoped for PS3 install base is small, it makes for a much larger Blu-Ray install base than there would be otherwise.

Microsoft has chosen to back HD-DVD, and there is supposed to be an HD-DVD player add on for the Xbox 360. But because it is an add on, there is not a great deal of incentive to buy it.

END COMMUNICATION

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[samdu]

HD on cable looks ass compared to the disc formats.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I can tell the costs of producing a disk is negligable for DVD and CD and will probably become so for BlueRay and HDVD. So most of the cost is essentially an IP rights license. That implies that you could sell limited duration licenses to people for less than the perpetual one they normally get with a pressed disk.

Yes, that's the way it works with new technologies which are vastly cheaper to produce, they're always much cheaper. For instance, DVD was much cheaper than VHS and this cost was passed on to consumers... oh wait... okay, well CDs were cheaper than vinyl and downloads are cheaper than CDs and each time this cost benefit was passed on to... oh, never mind.

It's more likely that they'll keep the prices high (or start them low then jack them up once people have switched) AND restrict usage based on length of time/number of times viewed.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[MBGMorden]

640k ought to be enough for anybody huh?

Look, I'm fine with DVD capacity for the moment. But there was once a time when Nintendo thought that a cartridge had plenty enough space. It hurt them. There was a time when people thought "CD's are plenty big enough. If you use more than 1 you're just adding bloat.". The same is now happening for DVD's now. The bottom line is that we will always push the boundaries of our technology available, and to simply shrug off an improvement as "Not needed if you do it right!" is not a wise attitude.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Gulthek]

Microsoft has chosen to back HD-DVD, and there is supposed to be an HD-DVD player add on for the Xbox 360. But because it is an add on, there is not a great deal of incentive to buy it.

Says who? In my immediate family we have three of the XBox360 HD DVD players. They work great, save the hassle of another AV connection into the home theater, and were at the time of purchase the cheapest HD-DVD players on the market. FTW!

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Gr8Apes]

So can we stop using Sony as a reason to attack Blu-ray? No. It's simply the most effective attack against Bluray, since lots of people understand Sony==rootkit==bad.

Here's the real scoop: Bluray and HDDVD are equivalent from a consumer picture standpoint. There is no effective difference in the quality of the material presented to the consumer. Where they differ greatly is in consumer restrictions, with HDDVD having many fewer restrictions compared to Bluray, and also being far more stable than Bluray. I'm sure we've all heard the reports of the problems of BD/BD+ and playability on players? I wouldn't touch a BD player until there's a guarantee it will play all BD discs, without me having to do squat. Yes, I'm aware that HDDVD also "requires" updates, but so far, in 23 discs, not a single update has been required. BD encourages updates, HDDVD does not.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Wdomburg]

It may not be standard, but DVD systems in "family" vehicles are edging towards being a standard feature. And plenty of families that don't have it as a factory option have after-market (can be had easily for about $150) or portables (widely below $100). It's hardly a luxury item anymore.

(And plenty more homes have multiple DVD players.. One in the living room, maybe one in a family room, maybe one or more in bedrooms, one in pretty much every computer in the house, etc. My grand total is seven, which is why I only buy DVD or HD DVD combo.)

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[polaris20]

Aren't I allowed to hate *both* MS and Sony? I agree. It's like picking the shiniest of two enormous turds.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[samdu]

Blu-ray comes with a significant price premium -- for both technical and licensing reasons -- over HD-DVD.

It is also more expensive because, outside of the PS3, hardware manufacturers aren't subsidizing Blu-Ray. Toshiba has been selling HD DVD players at a loss for some time now. In essence, they were dumping them. And THAT is why they are just about the only ones making HD DVD players. Technology needs to drop in price naturally. There is NO incentive for hardware companies to sell disc players at a loss, as they don't get royalties on the back end like Toshiba does. Toshy squeezed out any chance of real competition on the player front by counting on money from royalties. The other cost differences between Blu-Ray and HD DVD are pretty much insignificant at this point.

Add the value of combo discs that you can get for HD-DVD

Most of the people I've encountered that had HD DVD players HATED the combo discs. They were noticeably more expensive than their Blu-Ray counterparts (when the same title was available on both).

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[samdu]

I think it really started this past holiday, actually. I saw a TON of HDTVs leaving the Circuit Cities and Best Buys here. Everywhere I went that had electronics, there were people buying HDTVs. 2008 should see the uptake of HDTV increase much faster than previous years. Add in the whole switch to digital TV and the morons at big box stores telling customers that they NEED an HDTV or they won't be getting any TV at all, and HDTV is about to take off big time. Christmas 2008 should be absolutely huge for HDTV. HDM should follow relatively closely. It won't catch up to actual HDTV sales for a while, but it'll start to take off this year as well, with next year probably being its break out year.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[AbRASiON]

This is not my post but I feel I need to link it here for you.

http://www.digg.com/apple/HD_DVD_vs_Blu_Ray_Battle_Over_Where_the_Studios_Stand?t=11796471#c11796471

The 'bad guys' are in both camps, Sony is NOT the only representative of Blu Ray.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[samdu]

Then you might want to check out the PS3. Bluetooth controllers, headsets, mice, and keyboards, SATA hard drive, WiFi, USB, Linux installable (instructions in the manual), supports DivX playback and DLNA networking, Ethernet... There's a LOT of "standard" stuff in the PS3. More than Sony has gotten credit for so far. The only thing really remotely "proprietary" in the PS3 is the Blu-Ray drive. And that seems to be making its way to becoming a standard as well.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this bullshit about having to buy all your media twice? Cos last time I checked, I could play my DVDs in my PS3/any other Blu Ray player out on the market. Fuck off.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[ergo98]

Still, your argument would be more persuasive if you didn't say really weird things like "I pay tax on Big Macs, therefore it's a tax"

The comment was in reply to the odd claim that something can't be taxed unless it's mandatory.

when your argument doesn't really have anything to do with tax at all

It's a figure of speech and it's pretty clear that it isn't a literal statement. It's in a similar vein to "the Microsoft tax" AKA "the Windows tax". Of course those aren't literally taxes, but they are arguably additional costs passed on to the consumer.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[squiggleslash]

And people understand Microsoft==LongListOfCrimes==Bad. The thing is, it's beside the point. I agree with your second paragraph and have pointed it out myself a number of times - it's fundamentally why I chose HD DVD, not just over Blu-ray but also over DVD; but if this turns into a war about who backs it, the technical advantages of HD DVD from a consumer standpoint are going to be ignored. And that favours Blu-ray, because quite honestly Sony is not more unpopular than Microsoft or vice versa, so the reality is that criticism that people might take notice of is buried and criticism that has critics written off as raving lunatics (and rightly so) is ignored.

Here's the deal: If the Blu-ray backers decide they're going to "seal the deal" and make a serious effort to challenge both HD DVD and DVD by abolishing BD+ (with BD+ discs re-released and made available for free replacement without BD+); make managed copy mandatory, backdated to all existing BD discs; make AACS optional; and freeze the standard so whatever it is in six months will stay current for the next ten years, no more firmware updates required, I'll change my mind and back Blu-ray. I want them to make Blu-ray palatable to me.

If Sony were to withdraw from the Blu-ray coalition and support HD DVD in HD DVD's present form, that wouldn't change my mind at all. Why should it?

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[CastrTroy]

Yes, but there are limits to working on any system. The PS3 has less usable RAM, the XBox 360 has less disc space, the Wii has less processing power, the computer has the highest limits, but the more you push the limits, the smaller your potential userbase becomes. Smart programmers/designers work within the limits of the system, to produce the best possible product. The dumb programmers/designers sit around and complain that the reason they can't do a good job is because of the limits of the system. If there isn't enough space on the disc, and multiple discs simply can't work due to the nature of your game. Then just compress the sound/video/images(textures) a little more. If the game doesn't look as nice on the XBox 360 as it does on the PS3, then just tell your users why. They should be able to accept that. In the end, the game will still be just as fun, regardless of the fact that the game doesn't look quite as good on one system as on the other. If visual effects are all your game relies on, your game is going to fail. The console that's currently selling the best, is the least powerful. This should go to show, that most people would rather have fun gameplay, and an affordable system, then uber-cool cutting edge graphics.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[ergo98]

What's this bullshit about having to buy all your media twice? Cos last time I checked, I could play my DVDs in my PS3/any other Blu Ray player out on the market. Fuck off.

Awesome! So you plan on buying only standard definition media for your high definition platform.

Good choice.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck would you want a DVD player in your car FOR?

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[tbannist]

For some reason you remind me of the guy who was saying that nobody needed color TV in the 60s. I mean the color TV shows weren't that much better than black and white. Plus black and white TV sets were much cheaper! Why get a color TV for $200 when you can get a black and white one for $30? Color is just a costly gimmick!

Personally, I think HD-TV is going to become the standard, in a couple of years it'll be abnormal for a family to not have at least 1 HD-TV. I don't have one yet, but my parents, my single friends, and my co-workers who don't have kids are all getting HD TVs and players. I know that's anecdotal, but what I see is HD TV going from bleeding edge to cutting edge.

It's selling well enough that the local tech stores, like Futureshop, that they are dramatically scaling back their inventories of regular tv sets in favour of HD sets.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Wdomburg]

Why exactly are you comparing two last gen players? The HD-A3 is $179.98, and the Panasonic DMP-BD30K (the only shipping 'final spec' BD standalone) is $414.99. From the announcements at CES it sounds like the gap will be narrowing shortly (with reasonable playerrs running $350 and crap off-brands around $300), but Toshiba still has a significant price advantage.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Wdomburg]

I think you meant:

2. Be a year late to market, more expensive than competition, and overall the worst selling console, losing billions of dollars (after selling millions of units at a loss).

The long and short of it is that Sony sacrificed profitability in their gaming division to wrest control of the HD media market. Probably good business on their part, but not necessarily in the best interest of the consumers.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Midnight Thunder]

Here's the deal: If the Blu-ray backers decide they're going to "seal the deal" and make a serious effort to challenge both HD DVD and DVD by abolishing BD+ (with BD+ discs re-released and made available for free replacement without BD+); make managed copy mandatory, backdated to all existing BD discs; make AACS optional; and freeze the standard so whatever it is in six months will stay current for the next ten years, no more firmware updates required, I'll change my mind and back Blu-ray. I want them to make Blu-ray palatable to me.

Yup, but in many ways we on /. are a small minority. The truth is most buyers of HD-DVD and Bluray know nothing about the limitations and advantages of each technology, or which is more likely to screw them in the long run. The only thing they understand is that it 'looks better' (open to opinion) on their HD TV, beyond that you will probably get some head scratching if they were asked why one was better than the other.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[squiggleslash]

How is that helped by making it a fight between Sony and Microsoft/Toshiba?

If you want to persuade people to use a format, you have to tell people the advantages. It's exactly the problem that they don't know the advantages that makes the Sony vs Microsoft/Toshiba thing a problem for HD-DVD. If you don't tell them, they will not know.

If Blu-ray succeeds (and HD DVD fails), I expect it to be the next laserdisc. If HD DVD, somehow, succeeds, I think it could displace DVD.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[DrXym]

Toshiba fell victim to believing HD-DVD was going to ever be supported by anyone beyond that niche demographic. And it cost hundreds of millions in their losing battle against BluRay.

Toshiba fell victim to believing it could go it alone against a consortium which more or less represents the entire consumer electronics industry (except Toshiba), and a good part of the movie industry. It's kind of odd for all the Sony hate when objectively Blu Ray had the industry support by far. Toshiba's main advantage was to slash costs on its players and hope that sales took off before Blu Ray caught up. It didn't, and without studio support, the format is looking distinctly dead. Who knows, maybe they'll get a studio to switch and drag the war on, but it's looking pretty bleak for them at present.

Anyway I think the background behind which studio did what will make fascinating reading. Maybe it could have gone the other way. I'd love to see what slides Toshiba & MS execs meant to show before Warner hoofed them in the balls.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[terjeber]

Blu-ray is alive today only because a punch of pimply-faced teens got a PS3 for Christmas, and suddenly believed that they had to defend all things Sony

This is just sad. Retarded. And sad. Last Christmas the sale of the PS3 wasn't all that high. This Christmas it was way too late to claim that Christmas gifts had anything to do with the uptake of Blu-Ray at all since Blu has been outselling HD DVD all year.

Not only are users going to get fucked on the price of hardware

How are they getting fucked? The Blu camp is selling the Blu players at a moderate profit. Toshiba is dumping players at about 1/3 of the production cost. Do you really feel that in order for you not go "get fucked" on price, your vendor has to sell you a product at 1/3 of his production cost?

that is for those of us who don't want a media player in the form of game machine

If you are looking for a Blu-Ray player, perhaps one that is also a capable Media Center, why would you care if it can also play games? Particularly if you are not intending to play games. Is there some divine punishment in store for you if you put a Blu-Ray player that in theory can also play games (it can't if you don't buy them) into your living room?

When people actually intentionally buy a next generation media player, they overwhelmingly chose HD-DVD

Overwhelmingly? Not really, and not any more. In December, according to the NPD numbers, standalone Blu players outsold HD DVD players.

yeah, expect divx like lock-downs and timed rentals soon enough with blu-ray. It's commming....

Funny. Argument by Paranoid Delusions. That's a new one.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

Well my roommate turned into a big Sony fanboi... PS3, TV, MP3 player. Yeah I remember the whole rootkit deal which sours my like for Sony. Now going 2nd hand here, he told me PSP and PS2 sales over the holiday season still eclipsed PS3 sales. The whole next-gen thing is still early adopter even with a few million units sold supposed compared to 140 million plus PS2 out there?

But I don't get regarding PS3 vs Xbox 360, is how Sony is so damn evil, and MS isn't with a 50-60% failure rate in the red ring of death. And supposedly the new chipsets still don't fix the issue, maybe reduced a bit. And then MS nickel and dimes you to death. The price appears cheaper until you've bought everything and then you've actually spent more than you would have on a PS3. And Blu-Ray does look better, and can hold more data. They're both DRM'd and as far as movies go the Studios demand it. So WTF? Same thing with DVD, it's DRM'd, even though it's been hacked to hell and back it's still a DRM platform.

But what I was gonna mention is the new Sony Walkman MP3 players. IMHO they are fucking awesome! My fanboi friend talked me into it. Sound quality is very very good for a portable. It plays MP3s, you can copy files to it like a USB HD, you don't have to use WMP11 to copy stuff. And it has the same size as a gen2 iPod nano, but a smaller control wheel, which allows them to include a nice 320x240 vibrant display for high quality video playback. and it has an 8MB flash drive capacity. As an iPod owner, I can say this thing blows away the iPod. Better interface (similar to a PS3 or something), not forced to use iTunes, sound quality is excellent (like it more than my Cowon iAudio X5). And it does video awesome, you convert to MP4, similar to PSP.

Sony is a big company, not everything they do is awesome, the rootkit thing still bugs me, but Apple and MS and a lot of other companies bug me. I don't like the big oil companies and the way they abuse their position, but I still drive a car and consume their product... I probably won't buy a PS3 or an HD-TV anytime soon if ever, but granted the field of choices I like what Sony has the most right at this moment.

But the truth is, my Mac plays HD, and I can download a few HD-WMV 720p video files off the net. They look pretty good, and play via quicktime with the Flip4Mac WMV plugin. AFAIK, no DRM issues, and I still think DVD is good enough, tho I will nod to HD/Blu-Ray crowd some of those filmed in HD vids I've seen really do look better. So really what I hope is that the stuff exists that I can copy/rip/burn/do whatever I want with Blu-Ray disc just like DVD, and it will be nice at this point Blu-Ray readers/burners will come down in price now. But I see a lot of people are not in any big hurry to get the next best must-have thing despite all the hype...

I'm just long windedly saying not everything Sony does is horrible, and they may be learning from some past mistakes and improving their stuff. See example of the MP3/Video Walkman. Very nice compared to their older product with the wierd format conversion stuff going on...

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[DrXym]

Microsoft certainly didn't appear to show much commitment to a format they were associated with. My guess is that they don't like physical media at all and have their eyes set on downloads. So they got close enough to HD DVD to get some control over it and threw a bit of cash around to prolong the war as long as possible. But they certainly didn't want to embrace it too tightly, not when a dead format could seriously taint the 360.

I expect that if Warner hadn't made it's shock announcement that MS & Toshiba would be right now touting a Toshiba branded 360 ultimate with internal HD DVD. The Toshiba branding would allow MS to stay aloof in case the format still tanked. As it happened, Warner put the boot in before we had a chance to know if such a device was for real or just a rumour. It would certainly be a waste of time now which might explain why no such announcements were made.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[DrXym]

Blu Ray does help games. It allows more content, more sound, more graphics, more languages. From a producer's perspective it also minimizes the risk of piracy meaning more revenues.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't I allowed to hate *both* MS and Sony? I agree. It's like picking the shiniest of two enormous turds.

That reminds me... isnt it election time over there in the US now?

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

"The technology is already becoming common in drinks containers. It looks and behaves just like normal plastic, except if you leave it lying around outside long enough it'll degrade. Our local pub even serves all their drinks in it."

WTF is wrong with GLASS?

Cornstarch bags are widely available where I live, and we use them for our bin-liners.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[gamer4Life]

Big bonuses all around for root-kitting, format-pushing, technology-bundling Sony.

Spoken like a true frothing-from-the-mouth Microsoft fanboy.

Sony has only "pushed" Blu-ray onto the PS3. Some may argue it was needed for the betterment of next-gen games.

Sony has allowed the PS3 users to incorporate standard hard drives, headsets, USB keyboards, Linux onto their system. No root-kitting involved whatsoever.

Were you talking about another product? If so, then it's off-topic, because as we know, Microsoft has done way more harm in forcing proprietary formats and software onto Windows.

Not only that, but they've set some harmful precedents that you fanboys seem to blindingly accept:

- multiple concurrent versions of consoles
- paying for online play
- an unacceptable rate of failure
- tying the console to the Windows platform ...as well as proprietary peripherals all across the board, from keyboards, headsets, wireless, hard drives.

If you really "hate it when the bad guys go long and win big", then you should not be rooting for Microsoft.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[gamer4Life]

Blu-ray is a much more expensive proposition for exactly the same end result.

Not the same result. Blu-ray as a medium, has a lower cost per GB than HD-DVD, as well as being more durable, due to a protective coating.

Retail stores prefer Blu-ray because of it's longevity.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, MS is the good guy in all of this. Yea. Anyways, I am a Sony fan. And believe me, when the rootkit thing happened, I was on their case here and elsewhere like everyone else. But compared to MS, I would take the lesser of the two evils. And I hate Sony's proprietary formats as much as the next guy.
But I love my Sony camera, TV, PS3 etc. Their build quality is unmatched.
Sony had to take a lot of BS just not from XBox fans, but from the gaming media itself. And guess what, Sony showed that they are not the idiots everyone thought they were. They had a plan, they took some losses to achieve that plan, but they seem to be getting there. So, yea, I am happy I put my trust in the higher quality machine and it seems to have been a good one.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[joggle]

If I thought the hi-def format war was over and HD-DVD was the winner I would buy a HD-DVD add-on to my 360 immediately. But since the war doesn't seem over yet I've been holding off. It would be the most economical way of buying a hi-def player if I were so inclined since I already own the 360.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[DrXym]

Blu-ray comes with a significant price premium -- for both technical and licensing reasons -- over HD-DVD.

I don't believe that for a second. HD DVD and Blu Ray are so close to each other in terms of their system requirements, their technical specifications and the standards they implement that I doubt there is any significant difference in the cost of either.

If HD DVD appeared cheaper (appeared being the operative word), it is more likely due to Toshiba being the sole provider of HD DVD players while Blu Ray consisting of a consortium of consumer electronics firms. Toshiba can set its prices however it likes including taking a large loss while BDA members are attempting to sell their players for a profit.

I expect that even Sony didn't subsidize its standalone players (though maybe it did with the PS3) for the obvious reason that it doesn't want to hurt BDA members.

Even so, BD players are dropping rapidly. Some are already sub-$300 and chances are they'll be sub $200 before the year is out. Chinese manufacturers will get in on the act to ensure cheap end systems and there are plenty of new models being announced in CES.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[cloakable]

WTF is wrong with GLASS?
It can be broken in peoples faces. I'd say that's a fairly large problem with it.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[ps236]

HD-TVs are selling. We've got two in our house - OK, they're only 20 inch ones, but they're 'HD'.

BUT, we don't get HD broadcasts on them as that would mean paying loads of money to Sky along with lots of extra fancy cabling to distribute HD throughout the house. When we've borrowed a (PS3) Blu-ray player to try with them we thought 'so what'.. Potentially on our main 34" TV we might be able to see a difference with a Blu-ray/HD DVD, but that's not HD yet as we don't want to spend $2000+ just to try it out when the TV we have is plenty good enough. We COULD tell a difference on my gaming setup with a 90" projector screen, but not that many people have screens that big :)

TBH, we only got the HD-TVs because we wanted LCD ones for the kids' rooms, and all the LCD ones were HD whether we wanted it or not.

The issue isn't really whether you've got a HD-TV as those are almost as cheap as non-HD TVs, but whether you've got a high def DVD player. Only one person I know has one (in a PS3) and they don't see what the fuss is about. No one I know has actually gone out to buy a standalone high def DVD player...

Stores *are* cutting back on normal TVs in favour of HD sets, because the pricing differential is minimal if at all. But they're still selling far more standard DVD players than high def ones at least partly because high def ones are so much more expensive with minimal benefit over standard ones.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[ergo98]

This is just sad. Retarded. And sad. Last Christmas the sale of the PS3 wasn't all that high. This Christmas it was way too late to claim that Christmas gifts had anything to do with the uptake of Blu-Ray at all since Blu has been outselling HD DVD all year.

There isn't an analyst on the planet who would point to anything but the PS3 as the cause of Blu-ray's success. 10,000,000 PS3, versus something like 300,000 standalone blu-ray players.

standalone Blu players outsold HD DVD players

For a brief period blu-ray took the lead while Toshiba stock disappeared on retail shelves.

Argument by Paranoid Delusions

Yes, it's paranoid delusion to fear media conglomerates when they're in bed with a company (that itself is a media company as well), put their interests first. Complete delusion.

Or you're just a sheeple. I think that's more accurate.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Daniel Phillips]

The long and short of it is that Sony sacrificed profitability in their gaming division to wrest control of the HD media market. Probably good business on their part, but not necessarily in the best interest of the consumers. How is getting a powerful gaming machine/highdef player at below manufacturing cost not in the interest of the consumer? This consumer for one is perfectly pleased.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Tanktalus]

I don't see where you're coming from with this. On one hand is the Republican contender. The other is a Democrat. One is a turd. The other is shinier...

Oh.

Nevermind.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to see trolling is alive, and apparantly well encouraged (insightful????) on /. I bought my PS3 over an XBox. I am 29 years old, and a Sr. dev by profession. I could go on and on about build quility and how it is cheaper in the long run. How I don't spend money on inane HDD's, or wireless controller charger packs, or online play, or a BlueTooth headset, or a WiFi adapter. But yeah, don't let facts get in the way of your blind rage.

The PS3 won because it is the better console, my opinion. And I put my money where my mouth is too. I have been a long time reader of /. And like most here, I hate MS just as much as the next guy. But the XBox (which to me is pretty inferior hardware) love I see here is crazy. Anything Sony does can't be right. But I detract.So much for wisdom of the crowds. And to the people saying Blu-Ray won because it has a catchy name, whatever happened to the "HD DVD will win coz Joe Sixpack ...." you know the rest.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

It's (for me) about using whatever uses most standardised additions.

You *are* making a decision based upon its technical merits and price point.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Good Point. I wold say there is a difference making a purchase based upon uniformed decisions, versus having full information and making the decision out of a "fanatical commitment".

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[ergo98]

I bought my PS3 over an XBox. I am 29 years old, and a Sr. dev by profession

My blind rage indeed.

Fanboy. Blind rage. The PS3 fanatics really are digging into the bottom of the barrel.

In any case, you seem to suffer from a rather common logical fallacy. One that leads you to defensively strike out in ridiculous, unnecessary ways.

The next generation media war is being settled by a game console that is largely the domain of pimply-faced teens. Your fallacy is presuming that such a statement includes you, when in actuality that allows for quite a margin of PS3 users who are nothing of the sort.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Hmm... Interesting. Economics works so incredibly well, until you start introducing variables like "ethics". I guess thats an exception the proves the rule? I must say that I would not buy product Q from company G, if they killed each employee after his eight hour shift, every day, regardless of how wonderful and how cheap the product was.

I 'd like to think that there is still some kernel of truth to my point, but his is what I do love about slashdot: anonymous strangers chiming in to explore any possible flaw in my logic. Helps keep me on my toes,and keeps ye olde ego in check.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[XeresRazor]

Not to mention Sony doesn't have you by the balls for hard drive expansion like MS does. The PS3 uses bone standard 2.5" laptop SATA drives and even includes instructions in the manual on how to replace the hard drive with a larger one (or a replacement if the included one fails at some point). They've also got standard memory card support, allowing you to use compact flash, SD cards, and memory sticks on the higher end models, or any storage device that you can attach via USB (although as far as I know MS does that as well, at least for storing media, don't think MS will let you toss a 200GB drive in your 360 though).

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Gravatron]

wasn't there a blu-ray combo disk also annouced? It just never seemed to make it to stores, proabably because of the costs associated. If blu-ray wins as a format, then prices will come down and we may start to see the bd-combo disks come out.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Gravatron]

I don't understand, the players play both dvd's and their own high def disks. Now if your wondering why someone would buy a bd when they can't play it on a dvd player i'd say it's for the same reason they bought dvd's that couldn't play on their vhs.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[iowannaski]

some of those filmed in HD vids I've seen really do look better

Yeah, as opposed to all those 8mm films we've seen released on HD-DVD/Blu-ray.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Giltron]

It will bring lots of money if sony owns alot of the rights to the technologies in Blue-ray. The licensing revenue is a nice chunk of pie (Toshiba makes tons money off of DVD).

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[terjeber]

And so far, not a single logical argument. I think that must be some sort of record. I hope you get well soon.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[poetmatt]

not quite. I am trying to draw the best comparison I can but compared to what you described I think neither the BD/HDDVD situation nor the vhs/dvd situation is an apples to apples comparison of the situation.

What we're lacking, is a single format due to MS trying to monopolize the competition. I honestly hope that china HD format kicks off instead and crushes both, or that people just pick one and accept it. We all know each of these format changes is completely retarded, with blu ray saying they won't play adult film and other assorted stupid things. This is standard MS policy, create "options" in ways they aren't needed.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Kelbear]

And to muddy the waters further...the Xbox360 is able to read data from the DVD than the PS3 is able to read data from the Blu-ray disk. (There are some workarounds for this though, like installing onto the harddrive or repeating data on the disc to reduce seek time.)

This means lower load times and/or higher-quality texture streaming. As mentioned before, this is great for action-packed romps that are short to begin with, but not as critical for long and relaxed games like j-rpgs.

The benefit is clear, but it's far from certain whether or not a bump in disc capacity would justify the added price tag to the unit.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[mitgib]

There are some 10-15 million rabid Sony hating Xbox/Microsoft fans in the US. They will support any 'not Sony format' with a fanatical commitment

If true, that is by far one of the most alarming statistics I have ever read. If large cooperations marketing has succeeded to the point that there are 10 million people that will not buy a company's product regardless of its technical merits and price point, we've reached a truly low point in society. Ummm, betamax, 8-track tapes .....

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[caluml]

Well, I never knew that. I don't have a games console of any kind though - but if I should get one, I'll remember that. Frankly though, Sony have burnt through any credibility they had with me - they can get it back, but it'll be tough.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Gravatron]

Actualy, the average gamer these days is an adult, and that includes the ps3's core audience. The whole 'pimply faced teen' is really a sterotype without a solid basis in reality. Unless of course you have access to some data the rest of us don't.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Gravatron]

Sony Computer Entertainment is strangely enough nothing like the rest of the company. The playstation line has always been pretty open. The net yazoo, the ps1 you could make games on, started this, but it really hit high gear with the ps2, which made heavy use of usb for accessories, and had a linux option. With the ps3, they just went all out, openeing up quite a bit to standards. The AV-multiout is pretty much the only non-standard connection on the thing. I don't even really consider them as part of the same group of people anymore, as they seem to be off doing their own thing regaurdless of the views of the rest of the company.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Stuntmonkey]

I think that will change when Ma & Pa Kettle waddle into the Big-Box store to get their new Digital-TV and the Blue-Shirts up-sell them to a 42" LCD, surround sound and Bluray player package so they can watch Raw and Smackdown in all it's glory!

The point is, the 42" LCD and surround speakers are major improvements to the viewing experience. HD-DVD (or Bluray) not so much IMHO. (This is based on actual experience: I have a 42" HDTV, surround speakers, and an HD-DVD player.) Some HD-DVD content is very good -- for example BBC's "Planet Earth" documentary -- but most movies don't look much better than DVD. Either the original source material isn't sharp enough to make a difference, or the studios are cutting corners on HD-DVD authoring. As HD becomes more prevalent this may change, but for now the visual difference is subtle at best. Broadcast HDTV however can be stunning, but again IMHO these disks aren't delivering a visual experience of that quality.

When the price of the units comes down to $150, it will make sense to buy one when you're in the market for a new DVD player. But shell out $300+ for one of these things? As an owner of one I can say you'd be better off spending that money on a larger screen, or better speakers.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[JebusIsLord]

You've confused "sweet-ass games" with "sweet ass-games". Amazing how the mind sees and hears what it wants to.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[ShadowsHawk]

Agreed. I refuse to keep purchasing physical media. I am now told that I can't rip media off the disc because I don't own the media. They also will not replace the disc if it is damaged. They're not getting another dime from me until we regain our rights.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Pluvius]

overall the worst selling console

The PS3 and the XBox 360 have been neck and neck for that title since the PS3 was released. Currently the PS3 is just edging out the 360 in terms of total sales within the same length of time due to a slightly stronger holiday season this year than the 360 had last year (aided in no small part by the Japanese refusing to touch MS consoles with a ten-foot pole).

Before you reply, I should point out that you said "worst-selling console," not "console with the lowest number of units sold." It's a very important difference, caused by the early launch of the 360, which anti-Sony fanboys (not saying you are one, of course; you appear not to care either way) like to fail to point out. It also helps to explain the apparent incongruity between PS3 sales and Blu-Ray dominance; PS3 sales really aren't all that bad, all things considered.

Rob

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[toddestan]

While I own neither a PS3 nor an XBox 360, I find it funny, how the PS3 is usually getting slammed for being too expensive, having no cool exclusive titles and generally not seilling well - however as soon as we're talking about BluRay, it's suddenly supposed to be this Juggernaut driving out the other HD format. Could all the fanboys please decide whether they want to bah it for being a failure or for being too successful?

Or it could be that the PS3's numbers in the context of a next generation gaming console are poor, but the same numbers in the context of a next generation movie format/player, they are pretty good?

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[antek9]

Aren't I allowed to hate *both* MS and Sony?

Yes, you isn't. No, wait...

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[antek9]

This is one of the best comments you can possibly make on the issue at stake.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[antek9]

Well, you can also argue that not delaying the 360 indeed did make 360 a loser. The whole hardware design is flawed, as stated by top MS execs, six months more could have made a whole lot of a difference in terms of QA and improving cooling, overall stability and power efficiency. Instead, they hushed it out the door to gain an advantage which is now little by little melted away by a catastrophic failure rate of nearly 100% over the expected lifetime of a console (i.e., 4 to 5 years).

Consumer adhesion is still amazingly high, though: Would you still buy another car by Ford Motors if their current models all suffered sudden breakdowns on the highway at a rate of more than 10%? The whole Xbox disaster should dismantle Microsoft's trustworthiness as a hardware vendor for a long time coming, but marvelously, this doesn't seem to have happened yet.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

we have three of the XBox360 HD DVD players

/. Readers, refer back to original post about Toshiba listening to the anti-Sony XBox360 fanboys.

And I'd make comment about how it's necessary to own three XB360s to insure that at least one isn't experiencing the Red Rings Of Death, but that'd just be mean.

(Note: I don't own a XB360 or PS3)

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

Think lengthy complex soundtrack, lots and lots of textures for multiple dissimilar worlds, detailed mapping, redundant sound effects

There's one problem here. You've forgotten your audience.

Reasonable arguments won't work here - you're talking to an XB360 fanboy. They think Halo, all the way through through Halo 3, is the pinnacle of modern gaming.

Halo was going to have a lot of diversity in it's levels, but that died out as soon as Microsoft took over which is why all the later levels are just rehashes of earlier levels (while playing them you can imagine dozens of middle-management Microserfs chanting 'Ship it! Ship it! Ship it!' to Bungie devs during development). The sequels have nosedived into mediocrity for the same reasons.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Wdomburg]

That assumes every consumer wants the gaming system. Believe it or not the gaming capabilities are of no value to some consumers. Not everyone games, and plenty of other people are happy with their Wii, 360 or PS2. Even in the case of a PS3 household a person doesn't necessarily want to replace all their DVD players with a console.

I was personally looking forward to replacing my DVD players as they died with HD DVD units for less than half the price of the PS3. The change of allegiance makes that somewhat less attractive now, but I've been sticking to combo discs anyways.

Personally I think the whole idea of trying to force a wholesale switch to HDM is stupid. Most people have multiple players and they're not going to switch them all to *any* new format overnight, especially since they can't in a number of cases (no in-car units, no portable units, no option for most notebook computers, etc).

If I were a strategist in the HD DVD camp right now I think I would be pushing the studios to start issuing all release as combo discs and shift the advertising campaigns to stress the fact that you can buy the discs knowing they will play anywhere ("including Blu-ray players!").

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[shplorb]

Despite that big loss, SCE is still doing a hell of a lot better than Microsoft's Xbox division.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[Hal_Porter]

That's a problem with British people though isn't it? I've never heard of glassing people anywhere other than Britain.

England seems to be entering a wierd sort of state where if you bash someone in the face with a glass, which should be attempted murder and punishable with a life sentence, the pub is somehow at fault for giving you a glass, so everyone is given plastic ones instead. And if someone shoots up a school, everyone loses the right to join a shooting club. If there is any crime with knives, knives are banned. The actual perpetrators of the crimes tend to get a light sentence though compared to most other countries. It's almost like people are expected to be animals and the pub is responsible for their behaviour, a bit like a pet owner is of his pets.

Pretty soon I suspect there will be a Happy Slapping like craze for poking people in the eye with sharp fingernails and blinding them and then everyone in British will need to be declawed like pet cats. If you're still in Britain you'd better hope that the Happy Slappers don't start jackrolling women since the government might decide to castrate everyone like pets too.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[10Ghz]

"When people actually intentionally buy a next generation media player, they overwhelmingly chose HD-DVD"

What kind of BS argument is that? fact of the matter is that PS3 is a great BR-player, and it's among the cheapest as well. And it has the bonus of being a game-console as well. If someone was thinking about buying a BR-player, PS3 would have been a good choice. Or are you saying that we should compare HD-DVD to standalone BR-players, players that cost more than PS3, while not being one bit better than PS3 at BR-playback? Like it or not, if someone wants a BR-player, PS3 is pretty much a no-brainer.

What does it matter that it happens to be a console as well? Why do we have these BS-discussion where people basically say "if we exclude the best-selling BR-player on the grounds that it can be used to play games as well, then we will see that HD-DVD was doing OK when compared to BR". Why on EARTH should PS3 be excluded? Because it's a console? It's also one of the best and cheapest BR-players on the market at the moment.

Re:Toshiba Fell Victim To The Xbox Demographic

[dabraun]

Of course it doesn't hurt games, neither would it hurt games to double the memory - but there's a balance between features and price. Based on the fact that the two most successful 'next-gen' consoles (360 and Wii in whatever order you choose) do not support an HD format I would say that the price was more important for consumers than 9gb vs. 50gb discs. Sure, this will change in time - when the processor is fast enough to render everything at 1080p or higher and people use higher res textures as a result - in some future generation a 9gb disc will be totally unacceptable - but that time is not here yet (and when it is those 50gb media drives will be far cheaper than they are now).

It was a risk Sony took because the potential reward for them was huge (owning the standard movie format going forward). The reward for Microsoft was far smaller; sure, HD-DVD is a bit more Microsoft-friendy, but it's not *their* format, in fact their codecs are in both formats anyway. Some have argued that Microsoft only cared that the war drug on long enough for the download market to make it irrelevant. I tend to think that they are right, though it would have helped if they could have drug it out another year.

porn is blue ray is it not?

[Anonymous Coward]

..the death of HD-DVD right there.

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[JustShootMe]

Red light, blue ray.

Just don't use a blacklight, you'll never know what you'll find.

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[pionzypher]

Insightful? Someone wasn't paying attention and got it slightly backwards. Of course that wasn't exactly true either as there are apparently some titles out and more coming.

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[hords]

Now Digital Playground is releasing their titles on HD-DVD and Blu-ray. No longer exclusive like the were.

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[Vampyre_Dark]

Yeah, insightful. That story is outdated. Porn is on blue-Ray now. Most notably, Pirates. http://www.piratesxxx.com/ (hopefully that link will go through.) Obviously, NSFW

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[DrEldarion]

Offline porn doesn't matter anymore. Everyone gets their porn on the internet nowadays for much cheaper. They'd rather pay $20 for a one-month pass to a site that has thousands of movies than $20 for one disc.

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[Swampash]

Mod parent up. Whichever format or delivery system is supported by the adult entertainment industry is the one that wins. See "VHS". Hell, see "Internet".

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[rujholla]

You do realize that article is over 1 year old???

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[Aqua OS X]

Optical disk porn is irrelevant, most self respecting geeks masturbate to online porn. If you're watching set-top pornyou're either training for the masturbation olympics, or are too broke to own a computer (and likely too broke to own an HDTV).

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must address a popup window about squirting teens.

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[und0]

I'm awaiting for NinjasXXX and then maybe PiratesVsNinjasXXX...

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[lukas84]

I must address a popup window about squirting teens.

Always those damned Zune ads.

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[Goaway]

Now I am curious. Please explain why you are so worked up about the article being one year old.

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[Jhan]

Optical disk porn is irrelevant, most self respecting geeks masturbate to online porn.

A simple couple of questions: How many nines on your internet service? How many nines on your home system?

My internet service is about 2 nines, ie. up 99% of the time. If I relied on the internet for porn this would mean a full 3.65 days per year of missed orgasms.

In contrast, my home systems for the last 20 years so far score in at better than four nines, 99.99% (thanks to RAID and backups). If a computer craps out, bring in the next oldest computer. If a disk craps out, use the RAID mirror, or plug in the backup. In any case no more than five minutes until I'm up-and-Up again.

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[metrical]

You type fairly well using only one hand.

Re:porn is blue ray is it not?

[rujholla]

Lol not worked up -- just a lot has changed since that article came out. As other posters pointed out.

Toshiba

[Moonpie Madness]

The DVD forum has been a bit of a bully, and while Toshiba made more then ten billion dollars through their involvement, I think a lot of companies are ready to try something else.

Blu-ray isn't the end of the world for them, as Japanese businesses are kinda incestuous and Toshiba has its own set of investments. Toshiba will make plenty of money, just not as much as they did last round.

I'm curious how Paramount deals with this. Does their contract (with MS or Toshiba) have an escape clause?

Anyway, HD DVD is done. Toshi can't be overtly honest about it until they get rid of some inventory. I saw a couple of people returning their HD DVD players, presumably from Christmas, to Target tonight. Are these people picking up PS3s? Probably some are. It's not like HD DVD owners should toss their systems, and I actually think they might be in for a pleasant round of super cheap movies and spare players.

And the Xbox 360 might even be helped by this. Think about it, the XBOX is not quiet enough to play a disc movie, at least for a lot of people. But it's just fine for downloads. Microsoft may ramp up and accelerate their download service now that this war is ending, instead of gaming each company against eachother like fools to slow adoption. Ps2 owners are slow adopted, but in my opinion 360 owners are fast adopters, and the console is more internet oriented. These people are much more likely to download movies, and I think the 360 is going to continue to do very well.

Warner did the right thing, and I'm confident there will be much more progress in HD movies. I think these films look much better than DVD, and while DVDs were much more of a revolution in technology, Blu-ray is a real step up that downloads cannot hope to compete with in the US.

We all knew this was going to end, and most of us realized bluray was going to win out. Warner had no leverage to end Blu-ray, so they used their power very effectively. And may have been planning this out. I expect to see Warner's movies all over Microsoft's system. I bet this was well known to MS, and the announcement the two companies have planned has to do with the 360's downloads.

In short, this is going to work out fine for everybody.

Re:Toshiba

[ChronosWS]

What's interesting to my mind though was that the quality of movies for Blu-Ray was so inferior. When we went to get our next-gen equipment, we surveyed the movie landscape. To this day, BluRay still has fewer good movies for it than Blu Ray. We tried to buy every movie of interest, and HD DVD had at least 4:1 ratio of quality flicks.

Since I already own both players, I guess I am technically format-agnostic. I would rather have had the region-less, less DRM-crippled format win, but as we all know this is not to be for our generation.

Re:Toshiba

[Anonymous Coward]

In short, this is going to work out fine for everybody in Region A.

Re:Toshiba

[G-funk]

In short, this is going to work out fine for everybody. You know, except for the whole region codes thing.

Re:Toshiba

[Osty]

And the Xbox 360 might even be helped by this. Think about it, the XBOX is not quiet enough to play a disc movie, at least for a lot of people. But it's just fine for downloads. Microsoft may ramp up and accelerate their download service now that this war is ending, instead of gaming each company against eachother like fools to slow adoption. Ps2 owners are slow adopted, but in my opinion 360 owners are fast adopters, and the console is more internet oriented. These people are much more likely to download movies, and I think the 360 is going to continue to do very well.

I firmly believe that online distribution of HD content is the way of the future, and disk formats are mostly dead except as a medium for games (even then, expect to see more and more games selling through downloadable markets like Steam, PSN, and Xbox Live). Thus far I've held off on buying any HD disk format player, and currently get my HD movie fix from Xbox Live Marketplace. If HD-DVD does die, I think your prediction is correct and we'll see more and more content move to places like Xbox Live Marketplace, which is good for me.

If this plays out as I suspect, Sony's going to be pissed because just as they finally "win" a media format war (they lost out with Betamax, Minidisc, Memory Stick, and UMD) content moves away from physical media into online distribution. Sony hasn't put anything beyond trailers up on PSN, and I question whether or not they have the experience necessary to "win" in that arena (as with networked gameplay, Microsoft's Xbox Live has a huge jump on PSN and generally executes much better with a more coherent experience, December's issues not withstanding). Sony might "win" with Blu-Ray, but they're going to have to really scramble to get into online distribution.

Re:Toshiba

[DrEldarion]

To this day, BluRay still has fewer good movies for it than Blu Ray. Seriously! If you guys thought the HD-DVD VS Blu-Ray wars were bad, just wait for the BluRay VS Blu Ray wars.

Re:Toshiba

[Moonpie Madness]

First, Sony won with minidiscs and won big. It's a hugely profitable format. Like billion dollar profits. In the US, it's not so big.

Second, downloads will not compete with blu-ray in this country. Sadly, there isn't going to be a great adoption of high speed internet for many years even if everything goes perfectly, which it will not. People with 1080p sets will want pictures that are enormous. 10gb minimum. The average home cannot download a movie of that quality very quickly, and the netflix model of distributing movies is much more efficient. Anyway, every expert in this industry is desperate to sell movies in HD capacities. Toshiba, Sony, and many others have spent billions. You think they are all wrong, but I haven't seen any reasons that justify your ideas. You really think every studio will make their entire library open online? And that enough people will download online to pay the kind of money we're talking about? And what about the royalties that the WGA is demanding? I think the studios worry their pie is smaller, and their cut is also smaller, with online distro.

As far as Sony losing in online distribution, I think that's also a bit silly. Sony knows how to sell songs and movies. And it just doesn't take a lot of awesome technology, beyond sheer server strength, to distribute content. If the PS3 continues to outsell the 360, they are going to do fine selling movies online.

But Sony is indeed taking their sweet ass time. They aren't letting the bandwitdh hogs like Home and movie distro out yet, mainly I think to avoid a lot of the problems MS is having with an obviously overwhelmed online service. Today, PS3's free service works well and MS's doesn't. I know that's temporary, but Sony is doing things carefully. You seem to think the Sony online experience executes much worse, but that's just not so. I have both, and usually the PS3 games have more players and less problems. The only problem is that the Ps3 has a very poor game selection. I spend more time playing my 360 because I like the games, but I wish I was on the PS3, which works very well.

I remember when PS3 released. Horribly overpriced with none of the promised games. Sony did that to win the format war. And you have to admit they would not have without this move. They aren't scrambling, they are actually acting methodically. One of your problems, as evidence by your dismissal oof the incredibly successful minidisc, is that you aren't considering the rest of the world. You can actually watch TV shows and more with the PS3, if you go to stores in different countries. Sony is obviously beating the 360 every but NA, and they are wise to do this, because those parts of the world are getting much richer much more quickly than the US. The dollar is slipping, and will continue to for at least some years. The Euro, Pound, Yen, etc, are much more valuable. Sony is killing the 360 where it's much more profitable and where the future is much more profitable.

Given how well things seem to be looking for the PS3, now that the absurdly early launch dearth of games and such is ending, it's hard to imagine that Sony will not be able to sell movies online. What do you think they will have to do to scramble? Sounds like a very easy task.

Re:Toshiba

[Moonpie Madness]

That's a great point. I don't like the region coding idea either. It's meant to curb piracy, but I question its effect in today's world, especially with blu-rays.

Probably didn't hurt the studio's adoption of blu0ray if HD DVDs are region free (and they must be, given all these comments about this topic).

I wish I had a good answer for this, but I don't. This is just a sucky aspect of the deal. Anyone know if you can sell blu-rays with region 0? Almost certainly yes, so this is all about the studios. SOny obviously made the call, so I don't expect many All region blu-rays.

Fortunately, it doesn't seem like downloaded movies are regionalized. I watch a show from Hong Kong that I get from the Playstation Store. hopefully, as DRM takes root, one small benefit will be that there is less region code crap.

But this is a valid concern for movie companies. In Asia, many countries simply do not care enough about intellectual property, and entire nations are consumed with bootlegs. Some argue downloading a song isn't theft, but obviously taking entire nations of customers away is a massive theft. Until laws are enforced, companies have to do something to prevent bootlegs, and that's a big big reason behind the ridiculous amount of DRM, HDMI BS, regioning, etc of blu-rays. That's just the way it is. It's annoying, but I think it's more fair to blame the people running governments without enforcing these law than to blame Sony. And to some extend the extreme poverty in parts of the world that tend to bootleg is more at fault than these company's protecting themselves.

The world isn't small enough yet for every government to be able to protect rights, so the entire world isn't small enough for one region code.

Re:Toshiba

[Osty]

Second, downloads will not compete with blu-ray in this country. Sadly, there isn't going to be a great adoption of high speed internet for many years even if everything goes perfectly, which it will not. People with 1080p sets will want pictures that are enormous. 10gb minimum. The average home cannot download a movie of that quality very quickly, and the netflix model of distributing movies is much more efficient. Anyway, every expert in this industry is desperate to sell movies in HD capacities. Toshiba, Sony, and many others have spent billions. You think they are all wrong, but I haven't seen any reasons that justify your ideas. You really think every studio will make their entire library open online? And that enough people will download online to pay the kind of money we're talking about? And what about the royalties that the WGA is demanding? I think the studios worry their pie is smaller, and their cut is also smaller, with online distro.

You don't say what country you're referring to in regards to broadband adoption, so I'll just assume you're talking about the US. Here in the States, there's a disconnect between urban/suburban and rural areas with respect to broadband, but that gap is slowly closing with DSL technologies working farther and farther away from COs, long-distance wireless, and fiber rollouts (I grew up in a rural area, and even my parents have broadband now thanks to long-distance wireless from the town 5 miles away). That combined with the fact that much of the population is in urban/suburban areas where broadband is available means that most of the market can get movies online if they were available.

On distribution speed, nothing's ever going to beat the convenience of driving to your local Blockbuster (assuming you have a local movie rental place, anyway) and picking up a disk. That said, I can download a ~5GB 720p movie off of Xbox Live in about a day on my 6mpbs cable line, while Netflix takes two days to get me a new movie (even with a local distribution center, it takes a day to get there and a day to get back), so I can definitely see online distribution taking over the Netflix/Blockbuster Online model. Sure, I'm "only" getting a 720p copy off of Xbox Live, but my TV is 720p and most HD disk material is natively 720p as well so it's not like I'm losing anything. That means it's a race between 1080p as a distribution standard and bandwidth increases allowing me to still download movies in about a day.

And finally, I don't think studios are going to be too concerned over their cut, since online movie distribution generally follows a rental pattern. You pay $5, and you can keep the movie for 2 weeks (some work needs to be done on the current licensing, as Xbox Live has a lame "2 weeks or 24 hours after first play" restriction that is too limiting -- bump the "after first play restriction" to 3 days or even drop it entirely and people will be much happier). Maybe I'm atypical, but I'm not a big movie purchaser. Once I've seen a movie once, that's enough for me. I own maybe a dozen DVDs of movies or TV series that I actually cared to keep, but the vast majority is a one-time-only deal. Given the prevalence of movie rentals, I suspect I'm not alone.

As far as Sony losing in online distribution, I think that's also a bit silly. Sony knows how to sell songs and movies. And it just doesn't take a lot of awesome technology, beyond sheer server strength, to distribute content. If the PS3 continues to outsell the 360, they are going to do fine selling movies online.

I was referring more to the interface and availability rather than raw capacity. As a marketplace, Xbox Live is very appealing because it presents everything to you in a logical way. PSN is more haphazard, acting as a simple web page in the PS3 browser. Unless you're using a mouse and keyboard on your PS3 (which you can, though it's a bit annoying to do so from a couch), the Xbox Live interface is much easier to navigate and

Re:Toshiba

[h4rm0ny]

And the compulsory DRM on Blue Ray. And the higher technology licensing costs than HD-DVD for everyone including small time studios that can less afford it.

But seriously, this summary is just a loaded invitation to people who like to say "told you so" and tired Monty Python jokes. HD-DVD has lots of discs out there, more on the way, it's not going to vanish any time soon. And over the next year, we'll see dual-format players become common which changes everything in that there will be little discincentive to releasing your movie on either format.

Re:Toshiba

[squiggleslash]

There's an interesting fact about region encoding and next generation players - unlike DVD, where you had to worry about whether your TV can be hooked up to a "foreign" player, pretty much every next generation TV in the world supports HDMI, and pretty much every Blu-ray and HD-DVD player in the world also supports HDMI and is available in your native voltage.

And Blu-ray supports three regions. Three. So if you want to play any disc in the world, you need three players.

And the regions have pretty much nothing economically in common. Africa and Europe are in one region for instance.

Which then raises the question: why did they bother? Blu-ray's region encoding does nothing but cause hassle. Studios that are genuinely worried about release dates are going to find that countries outside the US are full of US-region Blu-ray players. And Europeans can import cheap African discs, and Americans can get cheap Asian discs, so not even the old price-differential (sell discs at a low price to claw back some revenues rather than giving in to piracy in poorer regions) reasons explain any of this.

Re:Toshiba

[h4rm0ny]

That's a great point. I don't like the region coding idea either. It's meant to curb piracy, but I question its effect in today's world, especially with blu-rays.

Actually, the point of the region coding was not piracy, but profit. It enabled different pricing models to be artificially maintained in a global economy. I.e. The people of the UK will put up with higher prices than those of India, etc.

hopefully, as DRM takes root, one small benefit will be that there is less region code crap.

I doubt it. If anything it will get worse, see first point above. Secondly, it will enable studios to start shifting to a pay-per-view model if it takes root. No more owning the movie, you hire again and again and again. Studio's dream, our nightmare. All the more reason to reject DRM now while we can and we're a generation that knows what would be lost.

Re:Toshiba

[imdx80]

The people of the UK will put up with higher prices than those of India, etc.
which is why i decided to go for a region A player, for example local store sells bluray for £25+, local import store sells them for £18+, if i'm willing to wait for slow postage i can get them for around £12 or buy a few add 2 day postage and pay roughly an additional £3 per disc

when / if the price of region b drops i'll either buy a second player or if multi region has been done buy one of those

anyhow my local import store told me that he used to sell roughly 50/50 blu ray/hd-dvd, obviously because of the region freeness of hd dvd, but in the last quarter that had started to move to a blu ray preference

Re:Toshiba

[Moonpie Madness]

Well, I'm apparently flamebait right now. Not sure why. My nick should have indicated I'm in the states. I guess I found it more obvious than it was. Sony seems to get an unduly harsh analysis from you. It's very easy to get content on the playstation store, albeit it's boring and inferior to the XBOX system. The minidisc made a ton of money (more than all xbox profits over the entire lifespan of that system) and you consider it a failure. The PS3 is dramatically outselling the XBOX outside of the US, and you think the PS3 only beats the xbox in Japan,and that only because of xenophobia. Sony has obviously failed in one key way, they have let an enormous segment of the US market hate their guts.

Note that the potential to selling movies online is absolutely dominated by East Asia and Western Europe, where fast internet connections are cheap and reliable. Sony has an advantage, then. Do you understand how slow the rural DSL implementations are in the states? You cannot download at 6mbs with the kind of DSL most folks get in Kansas. That is not going to happen for many years. In the US, there is no chance in hell, even in your urban centers, of downloads seriously competing with physical rentals. There will be a small niche market, and that's it. The US infrastructure is not going to get any better for a fair amount of time, and the average person does not want to tie up their internet connection for an entire day to get a mere movie that looks and sounds awful next to a blu-ray. Americans can wait a few days for a much better movie to come from netflix without nearly as much effort.

You're right, the XBOX Live implementation, when it works, is nice in comparison to the lame Playstation store, PSN is obviously just a bandaid until Home is implemented. Which is taking forever. But remember, the PSN is free. There's a reason it's more bland. XBOX live is very expensive when you think about what you're getting, the opportunity to play demos and buy games. It should be better.

Betting against the US economy isn't what Sony is doing. Another very twisted way of seeing things. Sony only has so much investment to make in marketing, and they are betting on the Asian and Eurpoean economies a lot more than they are the US over the next ten years. Frankly, a very wise proposition. The US isn't just losing pace right now, they are losing to the tune of 200% to many european economies, and if you check your history, wartime will do that. The US will have an enormous boom once this war effort begins to wind down, but for the next many years, the other markets are sure to outperform considerably. Every dollar that Sony has made in 2006 is worth less than 75 cents in Japan. Microsoft has failed to do well where it really needs to. And that's something of a shock, because if anything, the weak dollar has actually boosted 360 sales, but they are simply not selling outside the US. The 360 has the best games, but something is missing. My general point is that we all know what Sony was up to with the PS3, they were trying to save the blu-ray format. And they probably did, and will make a ton of money as a result.

You're largely wrong about the 360's status today. The system is still very crummy today, as many are noting. I think you might just not have an open mind as far as these things are concerned, but Sony's free system is simply more reliable, particularly once you are playing an actual multiplayer game. I spend 90% of my time playing games on my 360. MS is already dealing with non-frivolous lawsuits and giving apologies and promises to fix what you apparently don't think is even broken. I love my 360, and it's got the best games, but your glasses are rose colored. MS is obviously not able to predict when their system will be overwhelmed, and theirs is the paid service.

Anyway, the 360 is the best system to own from a game perspective, and MS will get Live working again soon enough, though they still have that lawsuit and the profits lost from that free game to ans

Re:Toshiba

[Moonpie Madness]

Artificial as it is, I think it makes at least a bit of sense to sell a movie for far less in a dirt poor country. If that's not possible, the poor folks are the ones that get screwed, because the studios will just revert back to high price.

I actually am fairly certain region locking is meant to curtail bootleging, particularly in the blu-ray version, which has much larger regions (that imply that movies will no longer be cheap in Nigeria, for example). By offering one set of supercheap movies to bootleg-friendly nations, which is contained in its own region, there's less incentive to rip it, and there's at least some negligible difficult in getting that stuff to the other markets.

Hey, I didn't say it was smart or that it had any chance of working! I know it's dumb as dirt, and it's extremely crappy for consumers who can't get movies from overseas. But there is an antipiracy motive to it (that is linked to the motivation you mention, which is diverse price).

Again, the real problem is how shitty much of the world is. I'm playing on a 360 elite, I've got a PS3 folding, and my kids are bowling on the wii. Meanwhile, some dad out there is trying to get some food for his kid. The problem isn't distribution of wealth, it's tolerance for awful governments. I don't know the answer,and I know we can't just topple those shitty governments, but as long as they last we will have huge problems with media distribution and more importantly, human dignity.

Re:Toshiba

[Anonymous Coward]

XBOX live is very expensive when you think about what you're getting, the opportunity to play demos and buy games. It should be better.

come again? i dont pay for xbox live, and the only downside is that i cant get shouted at by 13 year olds in a game of "Generic scifi shooter with aliens part 3". Oh, and true, since the last update i have to wait a week longer then gold members to download some demos/content.

But as a silver member, i can download and buy all the DLC/games/demos i want.

With gold, you pay for the ability to play your games online against other people, thats it

Re:Toshiba

[orin]

I'll remember your words when I'm unable to play those Russian kids shows on Blu-Ray disc for my son because Blu-Ray is region encoded and trying to get around that so I can play "unauthorized" (read foreign language) titles. Fine for everyone my arse.

Re:Toshiba

[GweeDo]

"If the PS3 continues to outsell the 360, they are going to do fine selling movies online."

When exactly did the PS3 start outselling the 360? In Nov for example the 360 sold 770k and the PS3 only sold 466K according to NPD. Here is a decent graph of sales over the last year to show that the PS3 worldwide isn't closing the gap.

Re:Toshiba

[ivan256]

With a PS3 and a 360 hooked up to the same 25Mbit internet connection, downloading HD content from the Playstation store maxes out the pipe, and downloading from XBox Live results in a 100-200KB/second trickle. Sure, Sony doesn't have full movies up there yet, but when you can download a 400MB game in a couple minutes it becomes clear that Sony is at least doing something right in that department... I'm not sure what you mean by "coherent". I don't think that Live is significantly better integrated with the console than PSN is. I think "slightly" is a better acronym.

Regardless of all that, I still use my Tivo to download HD content. The interface makes Sony and Microsoft look like amateurs.

Re:Toshiba

[mpeg4codec]

Warner did the right thing, and I'm confident there will be much more progress in HD movies. I think these films look much better than DVD, and while DVDs were much more of a revolution in technology, Blu-ray is a real step up that downloads cannot hope to compete with in the US.

Wow astroturf much? I can only say that you've clearly never seen much on Bluray. Either that, or that you've never seen what an upscaling DVD player can do.

HD much better my arse. The quality difference is nil from five feet away on virtually any size screen. The only reason this ``upgrade'' exists is to push more draconian DRM on the consumer.

Re:Toshiba

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the 360 can play DVDs and especially HD DVDs just fine. The HD DVD drive is very quiet. The built in DVD drive on the 360 is loud but when playing a movie its rotational speed is much slower and quieter (still not as silent as the HD DVD drive though).

Re:Toshiba

[Doctor Faustus]

The quality difference is nil from five feet away on virtually any size screen.
I can see a huge difference on my 32" TV, but that's with my glasses on and the lights off.

Re:Toshiba

[XeresRazor]

Actually the blu-ray region codes do have some method to their madness, they're basically broken down:
region a = NTSC countries (the americas, japan, hong kong, and some other pacific rim countries)
region b = PAL countries (europe, africa, and australia)
and region c = the piracy belt (mainland china, india, and russia)

Basically region a and b are seperated technically (both support 720p and 1080i/p but they do so at different framerates plus legacy SD content on the newer discs (such as many extras, especially on older films) is still in standard PAL and NTSC formats. Region c on the other hand is seperated economically, by splitting off those regions they allow the studios to release extremely low-priced titles to combat piracy without worrying about the cut-rate discs being imported back into the other regions in large numbers (there's always the small percentage of people who will pick up a cut-rate player and discs while they're traveling overseas who don't mind unreadable menus and cantonese subtitles)

I'm as fundamentally against region codes as any other sane slashdotter but at least there is some reasoning behind the regions and it's not as arbitrary as the DVD region codes were (japan and europe both being region 2? they don't even use the same formats).

Re:Toshiba

[rtechie]

First, Sony won with minidiscs and won big. It's a hugely profitable format. Like billion dollar profits. In the US, it's not so big. MiniDisc saw very little adoption outside of Japan. It was popular in Japan largely because it was a recordable format before recordable CDs became widely available. Users would make "mix discs" out of purchased or borrowed music that sounded a lot better than mix audio cassettes. Others would use it to do live recordings. Nobody actually BOUGHT music in the MiniDisc format and it was completely killed off by CD-R. If the record industry had allowed DAT as a consumer format, MiniDisc wouldn't have gotten off the ground AT ALL.

Second, downloads will not compete with blu-ray in this country. Sadly, there isn't going to be a great adoption of high speed internet for many years even if everything goes perfectly, which it will not. Downloads are already, by a wide margin, how most Americans view HD content. If you track the HD computer downloads from iTunes and elsewhere you'll find the numbers are quite large. Broadband adoption is already very high among the target demographic for HD (wealthy 18-35 year olds), much higher than adoption of HD sets and especially HD players. Clearly the future of TV is IPTV, one way or another. This is the opinion of almost everyone.

You really think every studio will make their entire library open online? And that enough people will download online to pay the kind of money we're talking about? And what about the royalties that the WGA is demanding? I think the studios worry their pie is smaller, and their cut is also smaller, with online distro. The major labels were reluctant to get involved in online music for EXACTLY the same reasons. They were dragged kicking and screaming into it and the movie studios will be as well.

If the PS3 continues to outsell the 360, ... Sony is obviously beating the 360 every but NA, Where? The 360 has outsold the PS3 in every market except Japan where it is getting HAMMERED by Nintendo, which dominates every market but OWNS Japan with around 10 DS and Wii games sold for each PS3 game.

They aren't letting the bandwitdh hogs like Home and movie distro out yet, mainly I think to avoid a lot of the problems MS is having with an obviously overwhelmed online service. This is mainly because they don't work. I've seen Home and, at the moment, it's broken. XBOX Live is vastly more popular than PSN and during the holiday season XBL apparently nearly doubled it's subscribers, which is why the service has been having so many problems lately. And being Sony, a movie studio, DOES hurt Sony when trying to cut deals with other movie studios because they're perceived as a competitor. This was essentially why HD-DVD came into existence.

blueray hd dvd?

[timmarhy]

correct me if i'm wrong but isn't blue ray (i refuse to go with the stupid spelling fad) better on a technical level anyway?

Nice targeted advertising!

[StickInTheMud94]

My favorite part of this discussion thread was the "The Future is Blue" Ad that came with it. Very nice targeted advertising pointing at http://www.blu-raydisc.com/

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[Anonymous Coward]

That may be, but Bluray is pretty disastrous on a green level. HD DVD can use existing DVD factories, but a whole new factory has to be built for BluRay. I think I'll be putting off buying a player for as long as possible - DVD is just fine for me on the desktop.

They are both Laserdisc 2.0 anyway

[grapeape]

Wait for CableLabs, Phillips, Comcast, MS and others to announce the future of Tru2way (formerly known as Opencable) at CES this week. Then the war can begin anew. Tru2way is MS's inroad to the US cable systems and will allow their IPTV to be brought stateside, their launch with British Telecom is scheduled for this week as well. All the major cable providers are onboard including Time Warner. This all may just be playing into MS hands after all.

Re:They are both Laserdisc 2.0 anyway

[donaldm]

Except for a few urban centers you won't see so called "video on demand" because the bandwidth requirements are too large. What you may see is something like Foxtel has and that is video availability in that you get to choose out of 20 to 30 movies at a time and the movie you choose can be saved or recorded since you are not actually downloading) to your set-top back and played back almost in real time. Some set-top boxes (depends on your provider) actually let you watch the movie as many times as you want over a 24 hour period. Of course you need quite a good deal of DRM control on those set-top boxes but I am quite sure that has already been thought of (sarcasm) so the consumer gets screwed again.

Actually Sony would be quite happy if IPTV took off since they are in a nice position to provide the service and the content while Microsoft can only provide the service but still will have to pay for the content which they will pass to the consumer. Actually both would do this anyway.

For many an IPTV service would be very convenient and could put video stores out of business. For those people who actually want to play a movie many times then owning the movie on a media like Blu-Ray, DVD or HD-DVD is preferred. Personally there are very few movies I would want to watch more than once, but a huge amount of people do.

Re:They are both Laserdisc 2.0 anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Tru2way is MS's inroad to the US cable systems and will allow their IPTV to be brought stateside, their launch with British Telecom is scheduled for this week as well.

This has already been available from BT as the BT Vision product for months.

Re:They are both Laserdisc 2.0 anyway

[Zobeid]

LaserDisc was a pretty successful format. True it didn't set the world on fire the way CD and DVD did, but it was viable in the marketplace for about 20 years. At this point HD-DVD and BluRay can only dream of becoming Laserdisc 2.0.

I loved my laserdiscs, and if there was a HD version of that format I'd jump back to it in a heartbeat. No more DRM. No possibility of my player being "revoked" by a movie studio. No image constraint token. No region coding. No "FBI Warning" that I can't skip past. No trailers that I can't skip past, or commands that I'm "not authorized" to enter at certain times. Huge cover art!

Because, let's face it. . . HD-DVD and BluRay were never competing for the hearts and minds of consumers like you and me. They were competing for the hearts and minds of the movie studio executives. And the format that puts us the furthest under their collective thumb is, predictably, the one that's winning.

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[jaxtherat]

Yes, ever so slightly. BUT, it costs more to manufacture, more for the drives, and it natively supports region locking and other consumer nightmares.

Plus, the storage capacity of HD-DVD (the other thing commonly touted as it's inferiority) is more than plenty for 1K HD content, and we're a REALLY long way away from (vaguely) affordable 2K+ HD capable TV's and Projectors...

You go pick which is more important to you.

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[T-Bone_142]

From a technical stand point blu-ray is slightly better then HD-DVD, however HD-DVD's are region free. Either way i wont be buying any discs using either of the new formats any time soon. For me DVDs are good enough and i rip all everything to my had drive anyways.

consumers lose

[thanksforthecrabs]

Cheaper...no region coding...HD DVD was the better product...Sony simply bought the support of corps...not earned it from consumers...

Re:consumers lose

[dasunt]

Isn't HD-DVD a standard?

As opposed to Blue-Ray, which is still evolving?

Re:consumers lose

[Renraku]

Look who was one of the major backers of it. Microsoft.

Do you think Microsoft would let us off without region coding? If they thought they had a chance, they'd region code it per state and give it a limited number of viewings before you had to recharge it. And the disc would be invalidated if played in another player other than the one it was first played on.

Re:consumers lose

[russholio]

Yes the encoding of the video formats on this standard are a loss for the consumer, but what about the underlying medium, is the extra capacity not a windfall. Won't PC users everywhere be revelling in the fact that a new medium is out there with the greatest capacity possible. I think this is the most important fact. Codecs and media rights can change, the physical medium cannot.

Re:consumers lose

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has no interest in region coding -- they do not produce media content, so region coding does not affect their bottom line at all. And in fact the HD-DVD standard does not allow for region coding as was mentioned in the grandparent, so I am not exactly sure what exactly you were shooting for with your post.

Re:consumers lose

[SanityInAnarchy]

HD-DVD is also still evolving, and Blu-Ray is also a standard, albeit more tightly controlled by Sony than HD-DVD is by anyone.

Re:consumers lose

[SanityInAnarchy]

Oh, they tried. Maybe not Microsoft, but the other backers...

And the only reason HD-DVD doesn't have region coding is, they couldn't agree on how to do it. (Probably on how to split the regions.)

But the fact is, they didn't. Which means that they now can't add it without forcing an upgrade to every player out there, which they're not going to do. Which means that, good intentions or not, HD-DVD is region-free, and for some discs, DRM-free. (Blu-Ray requires AACS and allows BD+, HD-DVD allows AACS or nothing at all.)

Re:consumers lose

[terjeber]

Better product? How?

HD DVD was created for one, and only one reason. Microsoft wanted the world to use Windows 9 media encoding rather than industry standard MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 encoding. That is the only reason that HD DVD exists today. The entire format was created for the single reason of pushing a proprietary encoding standard from a company with years and years of history of pushing inferior, proprietary, pay-MS-or-die technologies onto the consumer.

I simply do not understand how someone can be paranoid about Sony (who is only a member of the Blu-Ray alliance, and not the owner of the Blu-Ray format) and at the same time embrace a format created specifically to tie consumers, both disk-buying consumers and streaming and download consumers, to the cold, strangling embrace of Microsoft.

That was the purpose of the creation of the format for Pete's sake.

Re:consumers lose

[gmb61]

If that were true, then why does the HD-DVD spec require mandatory support for MPEG-2 and AVC codecs as well?

Re:consumers lose

[terjeber]

Because HD DVD would be dead in the water without it. That doesn't say anything about why Microsoft pushed it. Pushed it despite the fact that Toshiba didn't really want to do it. If you want to read up on the history of the formats I'd recommend www.google.com. For your own edification.

From whence comes salvation? All is quiet.

[SuperKendall]

Form both the Toshiba and Microsoft CES keynotes, not a peep of any news that would have helped HD-DVD much even before Warner took out the wind from their sales and the water they were sailing on. Toshiba hardly mentioned HD-DVD at all (focusing on LCD TV's) and Microsoft didn't mention HD-DVD once! What exactly is the magical force that will keep HD-DVD going past this point - with the media generally declaring HD-DVD dead the consumers will believe that as well, and start not buying HD-DVD products and media in droves. There's already a hint Target is dropping HD-DVD (slipped out by a Phillips executive during a CES keynote).

Paramount and Universal will be doubly screwed now until they come to Blu-Ray - no-one will buy HD-DVD titles in any numbers to speak of, and lots of people may shy away from any SD DVD's until those studios move to Blu-Ray and produce an HD title to buy. I know I had stopped buying DVD's for over a year now, thinking that anything I liked enough to buy could wait for on HD.

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a museum, and part of my job is to store photographs and news stories from the present day in a safe archive for potential reference in the future. For now, both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are a long way away from attracting our attention as potential archival storage mediums, but all the same I've been concerned by news that Blu-Ray's data layer is on the under-side of the disc, completely exposed save for a lacquer-like coating of some type. That's different from HD-DVD, which follows the DVD in having the data layer actually sandwiched in the middle of the disc between the plastic top and bottom halves. If that's the case, I wonder if Blu-Ray isn't just another small step towards a throw-away future. The pessimist in me also wonders if there isn't an intentional disinterest in protecting that data layer better, because of course if it degrades over time that just means that, in the case of a movie or video game, the owner is just going to have a buy another copy after some period of time. That's just speculation on my part of course, and the media hasn't been around long enough for any meaningful real-world testing to be done (so far as I know). All the same, I can't see Sony and friends really viewing that possibility as a downside, can you?

The topic

[eebra82]

Toshiba Execs Delay the Death of HD DVD Fixed that for you.

Most Blu-Ray discs region free

[SuperKendall]

Most non time-crucial movies (read: movies not yet released in the UK) are region free on Blu-Ray as well. The few UK BBC series I could find on Blu-ray currently were also region free. Yes the players support regions, but many fewer than DVD had and in fact we are happily in the same region as Japan which means a lot of Anime fans if they do impose some region coding.

It's more widely understood by studios that region coding is not as good for sales, they only use it for regional control now. I had also read early on that after a year Blu-Ray titles were supposed to go region free, which would make sense- but I can no longer find a reference to that, so take that thought with a grain of salt.

Re:Most Blu-Ray discs region free

[Pofy]

>Most non time-crucial movies (read: movies not yet released
>in the UK) are region free on Blu-Ray as well.

Yes, now they are, when they are "fighting" versus HD DVD. But who knows about the future and when there is only Blu-ray?

>It's more widely understood by studios that region coding is
>not as good for sales, they only use it for regional control now.

So how come most DVD still have region coding?

Re:Most Blu-Ray discs region free

[Anonymous Coward]

So how come most DVD still have region coding?

Most DVD movies (number of titles) are region free. But that's because they are pr0n. ;-)

Strangely, unit sales are higher for Hollywood films, and so i guess most DVDs (number of units) are bloody region 1 encoded. Argh.

Pissed off consumers

[tekrat]

So, the warranty on some HD-DVD players isn't even over yet, and the format is already being called dead, and there probably won't be any new content released after today.

Nice, so, all the people that spent $$$$ on some HD-DVD player or Xbox attachment are going to be mighty pissed off, as they have once again, fallen into what I call the High-Def money pit, where you have to constantly buy some new gizmo because the holders of the DRM willy nilly decide to change things.

How many TVs were sold as HD-ready, only to not be? How many 720p sets or even 1080i sets still don't have an HDMI connection? And let's not even get into Vista Media Center, or any of the other depricated formats that have lead to technological dead-ends and/or having to re-buy the same media all over again (MLB, anyone?)...

If I had been stupid enough to even join in the HD revolution, I'd be pissed off enough to start suing every company that dropped the ball. I'd start with demanding my money back, and when they refused, I'd start throwing lawyers into the mix.

I can't decide who's going to be marching on corporate america first with torches and pitchforks -- the early-adopters of HD, or those screwed out of TV when we switch to digital in Feb of 2009.

Either way there are going to be some demanding their pound of flesh. I just want to sit back and watch the whole thing -- in regular NTSC of course, because regular TV is good enough when you consider the content available.

TTYL

Re:Pissed off consumers

[HybridJeff]

Both formats are irrelevant, its easier and cheaper to just download HD content. Who wants to mess around with discs?

Re:Pissed off consumers

[aristotle-dude]

Both formats are irrelevant, its easier and cheaper to just download HD content. Who wants to mess around with discs? Do you think you could hook me up with your supplier of 100 MBit or faster internet access for really cheap? I don't think people who are buying 1080p TV's and either have no broadband available in their area or only have access to either Cable or DSL broadband are going to be interested in buying huge HDs to store all of the content, settle for heavily compressed 720p content with limited audio track options or wait for hours for the content to download.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[MarcoAtWork]

its easier and cheaper to just download HD content

let's see, the average cable subscriber gets 100 gigs/month, which equals about maybe two-and-a-half movies, and to download one of them, let's say 35 gigs, it would take about 50 hours at 2mbit (about the average speed of a lot of cable customers), hmmm, easier and cheaper? cmon, give me a break, until we all have 100mbit fiber in the house with 5-10 terabytes of cap/month it's not going to happen.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[Khyber]

Umm, the consumer, as stupid as they tend to be, will do ANYTHING inconceivable. What, you think they can actualy be bothered to make an INFORMED decision even more than a quarter of the time? They'll wait like sheep, and they'll love it, and YOU KNOW IT. *WE* won't fall for it, but then again, we're just about 3% of the population.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[Anonymous Coward]

I honestly feel sorry for Americans. I had to settle with 24 Mbit where I live because it's all I can get (ADSL), but even that is well enough for HD downloading. Sure, it's in x264 but a standard 1080p movie @ 8-9 Gb takes about 1,5 hours to get, so about in realtime if I was able to stream.

And as for storing, I don't bother. If I need the movie again, I'll have it 1,5 hours.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[Lord Kano]

I can't decide who's going to be marching on corporate america first with torches and pitchforks -- the early-adopters of HD, or those screwed out of TV when we switch to digital in Feb of 2009.

If you go and get the coupon it'll only cost you $10-15 to get a digital receiver for yout TV. The Government sold us out on that one. The FCC deserves the vitriol on this one.

LK

Re:Pissed off consumers

[noidentity]

HD DVD proponent Toshiba remains defiant that its format will not succumb to the mounting tsunami of support for Blu-ray Discs.

Wait, don't we want one of the formats to die, so that there will be one HD format that everyone can support? Until then, it's a waiting game.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[reidconti]

Nice, so, all the people that spent $$$$ on some HD-DVD player or Xbox attachment are going to be mighty pissed off, as they have once again, fallen into what I call the High-Def money pit, where you have to constantly buy some new gizmo because the holders of the DRM willy nilly decide to change things.

How many TVs were sold as HD-ready, only to not be? How many 720p sets or even 1080i sets still don't have an HDMI connection? And let's not even get into Vista Media Center, or any of the other depricated formats that have lead to technological dead-ends and/or having to re-buy the same media all over again (MLB, anyone?)...

If I had been stupid enough to even join in the HD revolution, I'd be pissed off enough to start suing every company that dropped the ball. I'd start with demanding my money back, and when they refused, I'd start throwing lawyers into the mix. Man, bitter, are we?

I waited a few years and bought a top-end 1080p LCD for a little over 2k because I felt that was the right pricepoint for me, and I felt that 1080p was relatively future proof.

Maybe now I wish I had a 120hz set but I can tell you I'll just keep this for many years to come.

I waited for Blu-Ray to win and prices come down; I don't mind paying 300-500 for a player if its the RIGHT player. That seeems reasonable. $1000 is not. Nor is $200 if I think the format will die tomorrow.

So now I'll pick up a Blu-Ray player for 200-300 in the next few months. I will make sure to get a 24fps/60fps unit so when I eventually get a 120hz tv I'll bet set for Blu-Ray films.

Also, I bought my iPhone the day after the price drop.

Am I the only one making rational purchasing decisions based on my estimation of technology, what I can afford, and where it falls into my list of priorities? And then doesn't want to sue everyone involved if I make a bad decision?

Get a life.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[tekrat]

Man, bitter, are we?

No not really, but I'll bet someone is. I'm speaking for them.

Am I the only one making rational purchasing decisions based on my estimation of technology, what I can afford, and where it falls into my list of priorities? And then doesn't want to sue everyone involved if I make a bad decision?

Apparently, you forgot to read the last line of my post where I indicated that I owned an NTSC TV and hadn't yet joined the so called HD revolution. The only thing I'm bitter about is how the entire US is being hoodwinked by the consumer electronics maufacturers, who think they can have their cake and eat it too, and keep making us buy a different overpriced gizmo every week so they can show quarterly growth.

To make the ubiquitous car analogy on Slashdot, imagine if you bought a car that ran on special gas, and weeks later, they cancel that special gas, and guess what, there's no plan for your car to be converted to the "other" gas that "newer" cars run on, nope, you just have to run out a buy a new car.

Every week, I read stories on Slashdot about how people are getting screwed because of actions of large faceless companies and a government run by those same corporations. Our government was originally created to protect the people from this kind of abuse, but now, it just exists to feed those companies.

We're shutting down analog cellular? Ooops, screwed those early On-Star customers. MLB changes DRM formats? Ooops, screwed everyone who paid for content. Bought a HD-ready TV, and then they add on the HDMI DRM-laden do-hickey if you really want HD? Ooops, screwed thousands more who paid for those TVs... The list goes on.

Personally, if I want to watch something I download it. I don't want to run the risk of being screwed by something I bought and paid for because the company that I'm "renting" what I bought decides to change things so they can make more money.

I own a regular 20" TV and that's all I need to watch CNN and the Weather. Everything else I pretty much got covered by the computer, my portable media player or my phone. Frankly, I can't even imagine how pissed I'd be if I actually owned any of this DRM-laden HD crap -- because I'm pretty pissed off already just by proxy.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[Aladrin]

"Nice, so, all the people that spent $$$$ on some HD-DVD player or Xbox attachment are going to be mighty pissed off,"

No, that's not quite true. I recently got an HDDVD player for $200 (the hda3) and it comes with 7 free movies. Admittedly, they aren't the $60 ones that are just coming out, but decent movies. They still all retail for at least $25. That's $175 worth of movies, plus a player, for $200. I'm going to be hard-pressed to be pissed at getting an upconverting DVD player (assuming HDDVD is dead) for $25.

So while people who paid too much for their player will be pissed, those who paid a decent price are quite happy with our purchase.

Disclaimer: I actually received the unit as a gift, but the giver paid $200.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Your idea of a hidef filesize seems off. You must be using the maximum disk capacity of one of these formats.

After encoding, you'll find even 1080p content is rarely larger than 10gigs. The entire Heroes Season2 in 1080p is 22gigs.

Source: http://thepiratebay.org/search/1080p/0/3/0

Yes this is lossy encoding. Yes it is noticable at times, and in some cases I'd rather extend more disk/bandwidth to get rid of it.. but nobody downloading HD movies really has that option, if they're downloading them they're getting them at those sizes.

Even if you're talking legal streaming, I just cant see people putting out 30gig movies yet. Like you said, when we all have 100mbit (and much more storage) maybe, but for now even the purchasable streams/downloads are going to be compressed.

For the record, Time Warner seems to do okay streaming HiDef content with their On Demand service. Admittedly I only used it a few times, but it worked okay. Much better than their SD on demand stuff.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[jmac1492]

Either way there are going to be some demanding their pound of flesh. I just want to sit back and watch the whole thing -- in regular NTSC of course, because regular TV is good enough when you consider the content available.
Sorry, the revolution will only be televised in HD.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[justleavealonemmmkay]

Nice, so, all the people that spent $$$$ on some HD-DVD player or Xbox attachment are going to be mighty pissed off, as they have once again, fallen into what I call the High-Def money pit, where you have to constantly buy some new gizmo because the holders of the DRM willy nilly decide to change things. How many TVs were sold as HD-ready, only to not be? How many 720p sets or even 1080i sets still don't have an HDMI connection?

Format wars are for idiot that can't wait to buy see the last opus of Vin Diesel in higher def (think of it: good stuff is expensive, but old stuff is cheap even when good, so good stuff will only be released when there is a sufficient user base). Hint: you'll not see quality movies on HD before 2010 dipshit. That's when I *might* buy my BD player for 40

Format wars are for idiot that don't know that industry WANTS idiots to finance their R&D departments by buying overpriced prototypes. VHS vs V2000 vs Betamax. DCC vs MD. DVD-R vs DVD+R. Bluray vs HDDVD. When will these idiots learn ?

Re:Pissed off consumers

[poot_rootbeer]

I can't decide who's going to be marching on corporate america first with torches and pitchforks -- the early-adopters of HD, or those screwed out of TV when we switch to digital in Feb of 2009.

Neither.

HD early adopters tend to be technophiles who don't mind pouring money into a pit to be able to say they have the latest and greatest gear, and are about to come due to upgrade from their inferior equipment anyway (who wants a 42" 1080i plasma screen when there are 50" 1080p LCDs on the market now?).

The only people at risk of being screwed out of TV next year are those who depend on rabbit ears to get reception; those who have cable or satellite TV service, as most of us do, are not affected by the digital switchover. And subsidies for converter boxes are already being made available.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[aristotle-dude]

That's all nice and all but what happens when you ISP decides to either cut you off or put a monthly download cap after checking your activity? You should not assume that your internet access is unlimited.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[nuzak]

> How many 720p sets or even 1080i sets still don't have an HDMI connection?

Still don't? I'd say damn near zero. Even the 720p-only TV I got years ago (well it does 1080i but it has to downscale) has one hdmi input, most tv's these days have at least two.

> I can't decide who's going to be marching on corporate america first with torches and pitchforks -- the early-adopters of HD, or those screwed out of TV when we switch to digital in Feb of 2009.

The latter of course. The early adopters are gamblers that have been burned before. The people still on broadcast analog tend to think that reception over rabbit ears is enshrined in the Constitution.

Re:Pissed off consumers

[vimh42]

I take offence to (some of) your post. I spent money on a nice HD-DVD player and honestly don't regret the investment. The purchase was just a few months a go and while it is a nearly top of the line player, I got it at what I consider a fairly reasonable price.

I knew the scales were tipping one way or another but whichever way it goes, there is still plenty of value in my purchase. When I find a deal on a BlueRay player that I can stomach, I will purchase it. And however things go I don't care, I'll be set. Besides the dust hasn't settled yet.

At the end of the day, the only annoying thing is I'll have two players to deal with when I want to watch a movie instead of just one.

I'm sure some people will be pissed. But you're only helping fool them into thinking they are losers in a guessing game instead of suggesting where they can find more value in their goods (which other posters have done so I won't stress it).

I agree with you a little more when it comes to early HD TV adopters. But that's really HD format independent issue.

All technology is a sinking ship. Pick your plank.

Is that really true?

[zippthorne]

I know they keep saying that, but aren't BluRay disks still essentially 12 cm polycarbonate disks with a reflective layer and a pitted layer?

Is the process really so different that it's easier to build an entire new plant rather than retool an existing DVD plant?

Harder than HD-DVD I can understand, but assuming BRD has won the format war (especially depressing as consumers haven't really had a say yet), I find it hard to believe DVD plants will basically be gutted and replaced as they phase out and BRD phases in.

Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Color..

[SuperKendall]

Yes, ever so slightly. BUT, it costs more to manufacture

Since many millions more discs have been pressed in Blu-Ray (thanks to PS3 games) the production costs have dropped substantially. And the consumer only sees movie prices which have remained identical between the two formats.

more for the drives

Sony just announced a $200 PC BD-ROM. How much are HD-DVD ROM's again? Scale shows advantage once again.

and it natively supports region locking and other consumer nightmares.

Most titles do not use the region controls, and there are fewer regions than DVD had - which means greater, not lesser, consumer acceptance of the format on region bounds.

Plus, the storage capacity of HD-DVD (the other thing commonly touted as it's inferiority) is more than plenty for 1K HD content,

Not if you also want lossless audio, or have a longer movie with a lot of detail. Then you have to make sacrifices. You've also forgotten that this is the year some systems will start to support Deep Color in HDMI 1.3, and we'll start to see movies support that as well. A greater bit-depth for color requires more space.

You go pick which is more important to you.

As an engineer it has always seemed pretty obvious to me.

consumers win

[deek]

And at the same time, Blu-ray is faster, has more capacity, and all video releases have to be region free a year from initial release. Price will come down more after time. The only problem is that I don't trust Sony.

Re:consumers win

[SanityInAnarchy]

And at the same time, Blu-ray is faster,

It does have a higher bitrate, but the HD-DVD scripts actually run faster than the Blu-Ray interactivity stuff.

has more capacity,

HD-DVD has a triple-layer, 51-gig disc on the way. So, actually, HD-DVD has more capacity.

and all video releases have to be region free a year from initial release.

Which is still a far cry from not supporting region coding at all. With Blu-Ray, you're guaranteed to have region coding eventually, and more DRM crap now. With HD-DVD, you will never get region coding.

Price will come down more after time.

HD-DVD is cheap now.

So we get to wait. Again. Like for all the other Blu-Ray features. (Hint: Cheapest HD-DVD players all support, at a minimum, 128 megs of persistent storage, scripting, and an Internet connection. Not one of those is required by Blu-Ray, only supported, and at least some of it hasn't been done yet.)

Re:consumers win

[Anonymous Coward]

It does have a higher bitrate, but the HD-DVD scripts actually run faster than the Blu-Ray interactivity stuff. Well yeah, javascript vs. java. It depends on the manufacturer's implementation of the system and if the preload the runtime environment

HD-DVD has a triple-layer, 51-gig disc on the way. So, actually, HD-DVD has more capacity. Um, you do know that current HDDVD players can't read that disk and won't be able to even with a firmware upgrade. 51GB discs use a different process (and 17GB layers instead of the usual 15GB) causing them to be incompatible with current players. I'd call that at least a minor problem. Bluray on the other hand has 100GB (quad layer) discs which should be compatible with most current players albeit requiring a firmware update.

Which is still a far cry from not supporting region coding at all. With Blu-Ray, you're guaranteed to have region coding eventually, and more DRM crap now. With HD-DVD, you will never get region coding. Region coding allows a studio to release the movie on disc in one region while it's still in theaters in another. Without it, they usually wait for it to complete its run in theaters -- which is why some titles have been delayed from being released on HD-DVD

HD-DVD is cheap now. Can't argue there ^_^. But only the players are cheap, movie prices are the same. So the inital purchase of the bluray player is a tad expensive, but if you factor in the usage across a span of at least a few years. The cost of ownership sorta evens out in the long run

Not one of those is required by Blu-Ray, only supported, and at least some of it hasn't been done yet.) the persistent storage is required by Profile 1.1 which is now the standard profile. All players which are now being manufactured (new models) must have 256MB of persistent storage. The scripting, I'm assuming you mean HDi, can't really be argued since Bluray went BD-J. Internet connection is in Profile 2.0 (along with 1GB persistent storage) and will most likely become the standard profile in about a year. Personally I could care less about internet connectivity but I guess some people like that...

Re:consumers win

[SanityInAnarchy]

Um, you do know that current HDDVD players can't read that disk and won't be able to even with a firmware upgrade.

Actually, from what I've heard, it will require at most a firmware upgrade. But we don't know that yet.

Bluray on the other hand has 100GB (quad layer) discs which should be compatible with most current players albeit requiring a firmware update.

I don't think we know that, either.

Region coding allows a studio to release the movie on disc in one region while it's still in theaters in another.

I do not believe you're actually defending this.

So what if one region still has it in theaters?

Without it, they usually wait for it to complete its run in theaters

Well, yeah, because they're morons. Doesn't make region coding right or desirable.

But only the players are cheap, movie prices are the same.

So what?

I'm sure I'm not alone in renting most movies anyway.

the persistent storage is required by Profile 1.1 which is now the standard profile. All players which are now being manufactured (new models) must have 256MB of persistent storage.

So early adopters get screwed.

The scripting, I'm assuming you mean HDi, can't really be argued since Bluray went BD-J.

Which, again, was not required.

Internet connection is in Profile 2.0 (along with 1GB persistent storage) and will most likely become the standard profile in about a year.

Which means people will have to code for the lowest common denominator, or risk not working on some players, pissing the early adopters off again -- except "early adopters" now includes everyone rushing out to buy them now, assuming the format war is over.

In other words: They are playing catch-up, technologically.

It's like the Xbox 360 -- developers can't assume you have a hard drive, because some models come without one. Therefore, pretty much all games are forced into supporting running without a hard drive, holding them back.

PS3 games can assume a Blu-Ray disc, so 50 gigs of data, and a hard drive, so 20-60 gigs of storage. Xbox 360 games get a 9 gig DVD, and that's it.

Personally I could care less about internet connectivity but I guess some people like that...

There are actually some pretty exciting things we could do with Internet connectivity -- things we were doing on HD-DVD, but that's probably not happening now.

Re:consumers win

[10Ghz]

"HD-DVD has a triple-layer, 51-gig disc on the way. So, actually, HD-DVD has more capacity."

Is it fair to compare upcoming and currently unavailable HD-DVD-discs to BR-discs that are available as we speak? As it has been said, BR-folks are also working on more layers. Why shouldn't we compare triple-layer HD-DVD to those upcoming BR-discs instead?

IF we look at the situation right now, BR has more capacity. If we look at the situation in the future, BR is still going to have more capacity.

HD-DVD was never cheaper

[SuperKendall]

HD-DVD movies always cost the same for consumers as Blu-Ray, except when you had combo discs - you payed $5 more for a disc you might have had to boil to play. Fantastic. I never understood the "cheaper" argument at all, t makes no sense even if you factor in the player cost (since player costs are one time and you'll likely watch many hundreds of movies over it's lifespan). It's a recurring theme that HD-DVD people bring up though as if it mattered.

Re:HD-DVD was never cheaper

[edwdig]

The cost factor of Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD wasn't really on the consumer end. It's on the manufacturing end. Blu-Ray discs can't be made with the existing DVD making equipment. You need to buy all new equipment and replace your manufacturing plants. HD-DVD discs just require a relatively inexpensive upgrade to the DVD equipment.

Some of the movie studios didn't want to make the investment for Blu-Ray, hence the creation of HD-DVD.

Sony wins this war by getting enough Blu-Ray manufacturing plants built before HD-DVD gets a large userbase. HD-DVD wins if it can build a large userbase quickly.

Re:HD-DVD was never cheaper

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Come on, the "boiling" thing was just an early problem, if it really was a problem. Even as a Blu-Ray fan, it's a silly statement to bring up.

The initial cost of the player IS a concern, a lot of people didn't think that the additional $200 to buy a player meant anything.

Re:HD-DVD was never cheaper

[iainl]

When I bought my HD-DVD drive for the 360, the cheapest BluRay player in the UK was 4 times as much. You're right that there wasn't a lot of different on the software side, but I just didn't have the cash to buy a player.

Still don't, so no new movies for me for a while; I refuse to waste money on standard-def stuff that I'll end up replacing as soon as I can afford to buy another player.

Re:HD-DVD was never cheaper

[clickclickdrone]

>It's a recurring theme that HD-DVD people bring up though as if it mattered. This speaks someone with more disposable income. I could *just* about justify GBP175 for an HD-DVD player but the cheapest BR option is a PS3 at £350 or so, way out my price range.

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[jaxtherat]

Most titles do not use the region controls, and there are fewer regions than DVD had - which means greater, not lesser, consumer acceptance of the format on region bounds. That's fine, but in my experience (I buy a lot of European DVD's as I speak several languages) there was a lot of stuff on DVD that was released in one region, and one region only due to lack of demand, and was region-locked it was low budget, and had to obey a draconian publishing contract or risk rejection.

I certainly hope that what you say (and respond to the next guy) is true, but I'm taking it all with a bucket of salt as this is Sony and movie studios we're talking about...

And when does that take off

[SuperKendall]

A war fought over cable lines is like Hannibal crossing the alps with elephants. What horrible ground to hold in a pulverizing HD media war.

I mean, another Microsoft cable box attempt? Are they going to give everyone a Surface table for a penny?

tsunami?

[Swampash]

At this rate, a better metaphor would have been "rising sea levels".

The ad at top of the screen says the future is blu

[jaypaulw]

fyi

War would have ended if HD-DVD shipped in Elite

[SuperKendall]

Toshiba should have demanded that the 360 carry an HD-DVD drive standard.

That move would have won the format war outright.

A little less clear, but I feel just as certain victory would have Microsoft include HD-DVD with the Elite model. That would have been around the time of the Paramount switch, and the momentum of those two moves would have fed off each other to spook people away from Blu-Ray and probably get either Fox or Disney to go neutral in teh same way the Warner move has spooked people off HD-DVD and probably is forcing retailers and consumers to support Blu-Ray exclusively very soon.. It's not like you can really argue at that point it would have made the 360 cost prohibitive since it would only be on the top-line model anyway.

Just as Sony won the format war through costly initial action, so Microsoft helped destroy HD-DVD through penny-pinching inaction. I guess Toshiba should have tried to wire the HD-DVD contract with the Three Laws of HD-DVD media.

Re:War would have ended if HD-DVD shipped in Elite

[Anonymous Coward]

"That move would have won the format war outright."

Bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

Re:War would have ended if HD-DVD shipped in Elite

[MarcoAtWork]

A little less clear, but I feel just as certain victory would have Microsoft include HD-DVD with the Elite model.

why would microsoft care? They came out with a cheaper console, have a lot more market share (and better games) for now, and since hd-dvd has lost I bet they will come out with a blue-ray add-on for the xbox before the end of the year. Sony bet everything on blue-ray, MS just stood on the sidelines and focused on the console and games, without caring too much about the blue-ray/hd-dvd angle, knowing that no matter who won they could come out with an external player without risking being on the losing side.

Re:War would have ended if HD-DVD shipped in Elite

[Nursie]

"knowing that no matter who won they could come out with an external player without risking being on the losing side."

Really?

I thought the current HD-DVD addon had no capability to do HD-DVD games and was movie only?

And even if it could do games then microsoft would fall into that (historically) fatal mixed-estate trap, where an X360 game is no longer just going to work on every console but will require people to check they have the righthardware first. Like a PC game.

Whereas Sony have the extra BluRay capacity from the word go.

I'm not sure how big a problem it would be, but it has been a problem for people in the past, and you may find that no (or not many) games developers would target the newer hardware as they wouldn't be assured of the whole install base as a market.

Re:War would have ended if HD-DVD shipped in Elite

[MarcoAtWork]

that's what I mean: I don't think MS cares about games being on blue-ray/hd-dvd, the add-on is purely for movie watching, so games will continue to ignore it.

Re:War would have ended if HD-DVD shipped in Elite

[Nursie]

Fair enough. I think some dev companies (square for a start) will start to care about the extra capacity sooner or later. Maybe MS just hasn't planned the same lifetime for the X360 as Sony have for the PS3. Not necessarily a bad thing if, in a couple of years, they come out with something that beats the socks off the PS3 in othe hardware terms.

ehe

[ActionAL]

this is revenge for microsoft bribing paramount into converting to hddvd. paramount has transformers and was a mighty blow to bluray, so sony's next move was to take over warner bros. now with most of the studios over on bluray, paramount and hddvd have embarassed themselves. and universal is probably sitting thinking how to dump hddvd as fast as possible now.

Re:ehe

[Moonpie Madness]

universal never committed to exclusivity to HD DVD, so they don't have to worry too much. They can just keep making movies that support sales figures. Paramount will not profit from their payola.

You just don't get in bed with Microsoft, or you will get fucked. IBM learned this, Sony learned this, many others have learned this. Microsoft is well positioned with Vista and the 360 to sell a lot of movies online. We all knew that they were just trying to minimize how many HD players and HD movies were out there by keeping this format war going forever. Paramount had to know this, and now that the format war climaxed much faster than anticipated, Paramount had better have an escape clause in their exclusivity promise.

The point is that the narrative has been written. Anyone who reads news about this stuff has heard that the format war has now been decided. This will snowball as some, then more and more, go ahead adn splurge on that blu-ray player, perhaps a PS3. The PS3 saved blu-ray, and now the blu-ray saves the PS3. And as market share becomes more unbalanced, yet more people go ahead and get a blu-ray player. Snow balling like this isn't possible to stop at this point.

And the fact is, with the WGA strike, these studios are total idiots not to end this format war already. People want stuff to watch on TV, and many will pay for new stuff. The WGA strike is the perfect opportunity to get hardware players sold.

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has a few technical advantages (more GB per layer is the big one), but Blu-ray has only one thing that the movie distributors care about - an extra level of DRM.

Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray use AACS encryption, which has been cracked. HD-DVD only has this DRM, so the format is compromised from now until the end of it's life. Blu-Ray on the other hand has an additional optional layer of DRM, BD+, which has not been cracked yet.*

The rabid, paranoid executives at BIG MOVIE COMPANY are always going to demand that it be difficult to copy their movies, so it's no surprise they are going to the format that makes it harder to do so.

*note, AnyDVD can circumvent BD+ now, but not completely. The latest version can copy a BD+ enabled disk to a harddrive, where it can only be played back using PowerDVD. Still no copying to recordable discs or transcoding or anything useful, unfortunately.

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[Cinnaman]

Yeah 10 extra GB per layer.

The new HD-DVD meme. Not easy nor cheap.

[SuperKendall]

Both formats are irrelevant, its easier and cheaper to just download HD content.

Pay attention everyone, this is the new meme that all the cool HD kids are spreading now in some kind of bizarre "Scorched Earth" strategy meant to destroy both formats, after all Sony must die right?

Well lets think about both your arguments:

1) Easier. To play HD content from a disc I just place a disc in a player, and it's playing. To get HD content online I have to decide to buy it from somewhere (and have an internet connection to my system at the TV). Then I have to wait for it to buffer enough to start watching. And then I have to watch a greatly compressed video/audio experience that makes buying a decent HD set a waste. Or I can go for a torrent, and spend days downloading a full quality mvoie only risking many thousands of dollars in fines if a torrent that I must leave up for days on end is discovered. If I downloaded the content legally and want to share it with a friend I can't do that. If I downloaded it legally I load them a hard drive (!). If I have physical media, I just loan them a disc (unless - sweet irony! I have a BD burner and they have a BD-ROM, in which case I can burn a disc).

How was that easier?

2) Cheaper. Yes free is certainly cheap, though of dubious ethical value. Online downloads? Cheap indeed but either they are (a) very cheap and the media expires shortly, or (b) actually rather expensive for the same non-portable highly compressed content I mentioned before. And in the meantime I can rent Blu-Ray discs from Netflix more cheaply than any online service, and probably get them faster than a torrent and cheaper than legal online HD media.

I got Blade Runner 5 disc set for $28

[YesIAmAScript]

5 BluRay discs for $28. So I don't think media cost is much of an issue.

Besides, a dual-layer BD costs less than $2 to make, and a single-layer BD is always an option, storing 25GB, which is almost as much as a dual-layer HD-DVD and cheaper to make too.

I am not a manufacturer. Are you?

[SuperKendall]

The cost factor of Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD wasn't really on the consumer end. It's on the manufacturing end.

So then as neither of us are manufacturers, who cares? Since that cost was hidden in the absolute sense to us, why not in fact even prefer the retailer who has lower margins? In the end the costs go down to equivalence, and the margins may stay somewhat lower to entice people away from DVD.

Some of the movie studios didn't want to make the investment for Blu-Ray, hence the creation of HD-DVD.

Ha Ha ha! You mean Toshiba wanted the majority of royalties from HD discs just like DVD and managed to club Universal (and eventually Paramount) into joining the mad scheme. Never pull a war carriage with just one horse, I say.

HD-DVD wins if it can build a large userbase quickly.

It lost the entire year in sales. Last month in the time where player prices were at the cheapest for HD-DVD, Blu-Ray standalone sales (leaving out the PS3 which is insane all by itself but I'll grant that concession) were greater than HD-DVD - to the extent that even Toshiba's own figures for YTD player marketshare(scroll about midway down, look for the pie chart) showed Blu-Ray players with a lead for the year whereas just months prior the situation was reversed! Not only did Blu-Ray player sales pick up, they went at such a clip as to *catch* up.

People still pay for porn sites?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought most net wankers would go to a site like Cheggit and get all the porn you can shake a dick at for free.

Re:People still pay for porn sites?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Unlike regular movies in which we have a rich underground ('The Scene'), someone somewhere has to buy the porn you mention before it can be pirated and found out there on BitTorrent communities like Cheggit. There are tonnes of porn DVD's out there you won't find on BitTorrent because nobody has bothered ripping them.

2) Cheggit, and many websites like it (Porn or not porn), are at registration capacity. Private trackers may be great for quality but they are terrible in terms of making piracy easy for the majority of fappers out there.

The exception to #1 of course is hacked paysite passwords being used to rip the content, but you will find most of the popular/big adult sites these days do a good job of containing password leaks.

So at what point...

[Anonymous Coward]

...can I buy a Toshiba-branded Blu Ray player?
Or are they seriously going to take their ball and go home?

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[Divebus]

correct me if i'm wrong but isn't blue ray (i refuse to go with the stupid spelling fad)...

OK, I'll correct you. It's actually spelled Blu-ray and it's not a fad. Stupid yes, but not a fad.

Sony formats always take an early lead

[symbolset]

And then they exploit their market leverage for licensing dollars. The pendulum swings and the end is always the same.

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[DrEldarion]

That makes HD-DVDs as scratchable as regular DVDs (read: very).

From what I hear, that coating on Blu-ray is very good.

Unskippable crap...

[flyingfsck]

You are forgetting something: If you put a disc in a player, then you have to watch the advertisements, warnings and other crap that you cannot skip or fast forward through. If you download the movie, that crap is either already cut out, or you can skip it very easily on Linux.

Re:Unskippable crap...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what Linux has at all to do with any of the current coversations.

Re:Unskippable crap...

[squiggleslash]

Oh come on, even on DVD where they put all the trailers, the amount of unskippable content these days is generally tiny, usually the legal and copyright notices and half the time not even that is unskippable.

On HD-DVD I've noticed you don't even get that. I assume it's the same with Blu-ray. There's a copyright notice, and then it generally goes right to the menu.

In any case, here's the real reason why the online stuff isn't doing it: Unless your a confirmed computer geek, the only way to get content to a TV from the Internet is to use a device like the AppleTV. There's only one AppleTV, it doesn't have content that seriously rivals either of the HD formats in quality (not that that matters much), and it requires a computer to do the whole buying and downloading thing. And, just to add insult to injury, you have to have a decent 'net connection.

Now sure, some people like to watch movies on their laptops. But most of us prefer watching it from the comfort of our couches on a moderately largish screen.

For the time being, the next five-to-ten years at least, online "HD" viewing is going to be hard media based for the vast majority of viewers.

And unless the HD DVD people really find some way to turn the situation around over the next six months, they'll be buying the same plain-old DVDs they've been buying for the last ten years, save for the laserdisc crowd who'll get Blu-ray.

Re:Unskippable crap...

[Moonpie Madness]

You are forgetting something. When I torrent a movie, I often get some bullshit Trojan,

Oh, and sitting through ten minutes of commercials is unbeleivably annoying, but it beat the shit out of sitting and waiting for ten gigs to DL.

If you download a movie that you didn't buy, you're begging for crap quality. You may like that because you're poor, but I paid a lot of money for my TV and my sound system, and I don't mind paying a few bucks to netflix to get a very high quality movie.

The market will prove me right. Downloads will not beat movies until you can download ten gigs in half an hour.

Re:Unskippable crap...

[Nursie]

When I torrent a movie, I often get some bullshit Trojan,

You're doing something SERIOUSLY wrong then. Movies don't usually come in executable format, you know.

Re:Unskippable crap...

[Anonymous Coward]

you are forgetting something. When I torrent a movie, I often get some bullshit Trojan,

perhaps you should check the extension before clicking "big titty sluts vol. 18.avi.exe" then

Oh, and sitting through ten minutes of commercials is unbeleivably annoying, but it beat the shit out of sitting and waiting for ten gigs to DL.

well yes, if you downloaded movies in the same shitty codecs they use on HD media you'd be downloading 10GB, but if you used something more efficient (x264 for example) you'd be pulling down far less. I'd bet I could download enough of a, x264 HD movie to start watching it (while downloading the rest as I watched) in less time than it would take for you to get in the car and drive to the video store, and have it finished well before you were done waiting for your disc to come in the mail

Re:Unskippable crap...

[Moonpie Madness]

I was being a bit facetious, but often these files, even nonexecutable .avis are attempts to infect systems. You might find that they demand you download their free player to play the.avi (obviously a dumb thing to do, but you did waste hours of your connection downloading the file, which is annoying enough).

Or the file might be compressed in such a way you can't tell what is in the file until you open it up.

These are just risks you have to navigate. Some are easy to avoid, some are more difficult. I'm willing to pay netflix, not only to get 1080p and lossless sound, but also to not have to worry about all the crap that is flooding torrent search engines.

Re:The new HD-DVD meme. Not easy nor cheap.

[uzibear]

i still feel that the winner in the war of bluray VS hddvd will be the DVD, or really, it will be downloadable content; i forsee on-demand and other downloadable-everything as the next format, with bluray a mere stopgap, and i don't think it will ever reach mainstream adoption; doesn't mean it won't be nice for the next few years while we get some faster download speeds rolling out

Unlikely

[Namarrgon]

Toshiba should have demanded that the 360 carry an HD-DVD drive standard.

That move would have won the format war outright.

Doubtful. But it would certainly have subjected the 360 to the same cost and time overruns that the PS3 suffered from.

No-one would argue that much of the 360's current success is due to it launching a year earlier with a cheaper price. Making the HD disc player optional might (in the long run) make it harder for devs to squeeze large games in, but definitely kept the console cheaper and simpler for the so-crucial first couple of years of its life.

As for putting it in the Elite, its sales weren't large enough to make much difference to Toshiba, and increasing the cost would not have helped that. Armchair analysts can call it "penny pinching", but in the world of business, the user always pays in the end. Sony's decision to sacrifice their Playstation brand on the altar of Blu-Ray success has cost them dearly, at least in the short term.

Re:Unlikely

[rujholla]

at least in the short term

I think you are right about it being short term. I have a feeling that in a year or so we will see games coming out for the sony that won't fit on 360 -- course in Sony fashion they will probably be $100 and carry DRM that prevents them from being resold. :(

Re:Unlikely

[Taulin]

No-one would argue that much of the 360's current success is due to it launching a year earlier with a cheaper price.

And, let's not forget the 360's success might also be due to its large library of really good games. I will now end up getting a PS3 just mainly for Blue-Ray. I also concur that the only way the 360 would have helped the format wars is if it had it from the beginning. Just starting to offer it in the Elite model would not have been enough as current owners would not have bought a second system, and people are still not buying the elite because the Pro is good enough, and cheaper.

Re:Unlikely

[Vorpix]

sales of the Elite are not high simply because it didn't offer that much more over the premium model. if it had included HD-DVD, that would no longer have been the case, and sales would have reflected this.

Re:Unlikely

[tbannist]

I think the point was that blue lasers need for both HD-DVD and BluRay drives were hard to get when the PS3 launched, they would have been impossible to supply the number needed to launch the 360 a year earlier with an HD-DVD drive built in. Thus the 360 wouldn't have had a big head start and wouldn't have as many games. If MS had included the HD-DVD drive they'd probably be in last place, instead of second place.

Much of their success is directly attributable to launching early and getting some early bandwagoners on board.

Re:Unlikely

[Kelz]

Not to mention Japan. It may however have split the HD market, with Japan getting blu-ray and the US getting HD-DVD.

Re:Unlikely

[Gravatron]

I can't see why they would do that to videogames. SCE has always been the more reasonable of the sony corp holdings.

Re:Unlikely

[dank zappingly]

While I agree with much of what you said, the video game console is one of the few things left where the user doesn't always pay in the end. While everyone knows that most consoles are initially sold at a loss (not the Wii though), the PS3 was initially sold at a phenomenal loss. Why was Sony willing to subsidize it so much? They profit from game sales and Blu-Ray sales. The same sort of synergy did not exist for the 360 because Microsoft didn't really care who won the format war, they just wanted to create confusion until they could perfect digital delivery (the michael bay theory). This is probably why the 360 plus HD-DVD drive still cost more than Sony's machine. (That and the fact that you had to pay for two disk drives). While people are still calling the PS3 a failure, I think in this case the inclusion of the Blu-Ray drive was a smart business decision that virtually guaranteed victory in the format war.

Re:Unlikely

[Namarrgon]

The PS3 was sold at a loss with the full intention of making back those losses, through game licence fees (the usual console approach) and, longer term, through Blu-Ray licence fees (movies and drives). The costs of both those fees are undeniably passed on to the consumer. Assuming Sony's business plan works, users will indeed eventually pay, with interest - Sony is not a charity.

You could argue that individuals who buy subsidised hardware but few games & movies do come out on top, or that original Xbox owners (as a group) didn't pay in the end (since MS never made back their losses), but those losses are still passed on to other users and other products (unless the company goes bankrupt of course). Sony's losses now just increase the pressure on them to raise prices elsewhere, or at least delay dropping them when costs decrease. Of course, in Sony's case, they've been charging more than most on their consumer electronics for some time, so perhaps the users have already paid.

I agree that including Blu-Ray in the PS3 weighed hugely in the format war, but suggesting that MS is trying to promote format confusion by supporting one format only is not only illogical, but simply run-of-the-mill conspiracy paranoia. Their primary business is games and consoles, not movies or media hardware, and they've said (twice now) that they're open to doing a Blu-Ray add-on for the 360 if that's what consumers demand. Download services are inevitable and open to all vendors (including Sony), but are far more dependant on global broadband penetration than anything MS can do right now.

Toshiba should avenge the HD-DVD by reinventing it

[anandsr]

The only way out for HD-DVD is to concede defeat and open the specification in ways that Hollywood cannot handle. By removing the DRM, and removing any RAND licensing. Allowing anybody to produce HD-DVD devices and disks without obtaining license. Only act as a certification agency.

This will allow cheap HD-DVD devices and disks to be made in China and dumped into the US market. These will be used by people wanting to rip, burn, and trade the BlueRay DVDs available in the market. That would be sweet revenge ;-).

There is a huge market potential for HD-DVD in backups.

-anandsr

open it up

[nguy]

Maybe Toshiba should consider opening up the format completely: no royalties at all for implementing any part of HD DVD, high quality open source implementations under Apache 2, etc.

Of course, it looks to me like disks are pretty much dead anyway; just like there won't be a successor format for the CD, there may not be a successor format to the DVD either.

Re:open it up

[Moonpie Madness]

First: good point about CDs and DVDs needing no successor. You're right about that, I suspect, albeit you may have exaggerated. Maybe not to the same extent, but for most people, DVD is actually very good. There is a multibillion dollar market for next generation discs, but it probably will never beat DVD.

Second: Why the hell would you want Toshiba to go royalty free? Is this some sort of "I really hate Sony" thing? Lots of money was invested into that format. Money that will never come back. Same for Blu-ray. Toshiba actually stands to make money from either format, though obviously would make far more from HD DVD. Your idea would destroy all profits from both HD DVD and Bluray development, costing thousands of jobs and stifling innovation. I fail to see how anyone benefits from such a measure.

You already have open formats. Just use your computer and upload your stuff or burn it to data discs in whatever file format you want. You already have what you want. Maybe not 25 gb discs, but so what? The real problem is that you don't have any content worth putting on these discs. Everyone who does is desperate to get them as DRMd as possible. That's a major reason why blu0ray is both winning and sucking for the owners of early players.

Re:open it up

[nguy]

Oh, stop arguing from your gut and use your head. There are two competing formats, hence both sides should lower their prices until they effectively make near zero profits. That's the free market at work. It's a good thing. We can only hope that this will happen for future DVD formats, instead of the price fixing that's taking place right now. And since Toshiba is losing, it's their turn to lower their prices.

As for losing jobs, that's a good thing, too. Say, BlueRay wins and all the HD-DVD engineers are let go. Rather than maintain a redundant and useless format that nobody wants, they will find jobs doing something productive instead.

Re:open it up

[Moonpie Madness]

Well, Toshiba lower prices below profitability because they were expecting enormous profits later.

I think part of the free market is that sometimes there are times to reap what you've sown. Using immense profits in one area to fuel innovative research in another. It's not as though all ideas are beasts running around killing eachother for limited wealth. That's not true. The market itself grows, and everyone can do better, if certain ecoomic ideas are followed.

There's no reason for Toshiba to lower prices. They will make more money by not doing so, especially since they make money on sales of Playstation 3s, etc. When a deal was made between Sony and Toshiba, both parties gave up something that, to them, was worth less than what they got. The both came out richer, and that's how the economy grows. With each fair deal, the economy gets larger.

Also, it's not as though every engineer that would lose their job if HD-DVD were made a free standard would be off to make something else innovative. Generally, you need a lot more than engineers to make new things. You need wealth too. If HD-DVD is made an open format, then there would be less wealth in electronics companies, and less research. It's simple. There would be fewer deals made, and therefore less wealth generated.

In programming, where there is less need for money, open source ideas have been enormously helpful because of the massive monopoly Microsoft has erected. I don't think this is true in the media format arena.

Price fixing, as lame as it sounds, is actually necessary. These companies, all the many that have organized together, have to know what's coming in the future. I have no problem with Toshiba making 12 billion on DVD, or Sony making 24 billion on blu-ray. That's awesome, actually. Take that money from the average joe, and make something amazing. Something like OLED TVs at 1080p, or whatever. Concentrations of wealth are not always good, but rich technology companies can be wonderful for a lot of people who didn't get rich.

I definitely do not want to see barely profitable DVD formats. Why would I? To save 100$ over the course of five years? Why would I want that? I want Sony and Toshiba to invest billions into cool tech that they think will make them richer, because I want to have access to new things that require such research investments. That's what's best for me, my friend.

Welcome to the Betamax theory of CE

[symbolset]

Basically all media come in two formats: A cheap and popular version and a marginally technically better but far more expensive version that hangs on but never holds sway. The better more expensive version always takes the lead early on because early adopters are willing to pay premium prices for quality products. Then the R&D giant behind it leverages the popularity to ramp the licensing cost at just the wrong inflection of the demand curve, driving consumers to the adequate and cheap version until you can't find content in the high quality version any more and Betamax version buyers lose all their investment in quality equipment and content.

It's easy know which version is which because Sony is almost always behind the expensive one.

SCSI, and all the iSAS evolved variants, are examples of the Betamax of hard drives. Notice you can't get one in decent capacity for any price these days?

It's like watching all the Friday the 13th sequels actually. Each time it looks like it's going to be a new movie, and then it's the same movie all over again.

Excellent news

[Weaselmancer]

As soon as there is a definitive loser in the hi-def wars, the loser will drop their prices to next-to-zero to spite the winner. And either disc would make an excellent data storage medium if the price was right.

Re:Excellent news

[foreverdisillusioned]

Errrr... well I suppose that's a possibility, but that's not what happened with Betamax, was it? They remained more expensive than VHS, and maintained a niche hobbyist/professional market.

Of course, in that case Betamax was arguably the superior format. HD-DVD is not, (except in terms of DRM, but then is that really important to people who are burning their own?)

Black Knight, anyone?

[SanityInAnarchy]

It's just a flesh wound!

Re:Black Knight, anyone?

[too2late]

I'll bite ya legs off!

it's the grail

[callmetheraven]

"He's getting better!"

Re:it's the grail

[callmetheraven]

For, since her own father, who, when he seemed about to recover, suddenly felt the icy black hand of death upon him!

He's died!

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[SanityInAnarchy]

Not if you also want lossless audio, or have a longer movie with a lot of detail. Then you have to make sacrifices.

Were it just rumors, or is there a triple-layer HD-DVD format coming out?

If so, that kills the sheer capacity advantage -- it's 51 gigs, so actually slightly larger than Blu-Ray. There might still be a bitrate advantage, though.

good start

[callmetheraven]

Aren't I allowed to hate *both* MS and Sony? Yep! Hate em both! I do! IMHO both formats are DRM-crippled. I say it's "one down, one to go!"

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[donaldm]

If you want long time archival storage you still have very little choice but but to use tape which may have a life beyond 10 to 20 years (depends on the brand and what you are willing to pay). Even film may only last a few 10's of years. As for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD or even DVD for that matter you would be crazy if you honestly think you are going to get much more than 15 to 30 years although you can get some DVD's that are supposed to last 100 years. In a few years (months) you may get some Blu-Ray or HD-DVD disks that can last a long time but you are going to pay for them, even so you are going to find that 50GB disks (dual layer BD) are too small for some archiving.

Basically anything in digital format can have an unlimited lifespan providing you backup and refresh that data to a storage repository every time that storage repository is upgraded or replaced. Tapes have proven to be the best solution here although there are newer backup solutions (see HVD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc) that may supplant them in the foreseeable future. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD or even DVD will work for small amounts of data but not when you want to backup terabytes and above. As for archiving for say 100 years on CD size media, forget it, the backup/refresh method is still the best way. Well that and acid free paper and clay tablets which are know to survive for a few thousand years :-)

Slashdot admins must have all bought BR

[peas_n_carrots]

.. the sensationalist headlines make it look like the Slashdot fellas all bought BR gear. Kinda sad how unabashedly they pimp their bias.

I'm convinced that HD-DVD's biggest mistake was the lack of burners. If burners had been available at reasonable prices (under $200), there would have been loads more HD-DVD owners. It was surprising to see BR burners out relatively early, though their cost is very prohibitive.

My biggest concern with BR is the encryption key changes that Sorny will inevitably push. They've already done it once after the initial release was cracked. That caused many players to break on the newer titles, requiring firmware updates. What happens down the road when manufacturers drop support for older models? 1st & 2nd gen players would be the first to suffer, as they would no longer be able to play newer titles with newer encryption/keys. It's enough for me to skip BR altogether, even if that bastard format "wins".

Re:Slashdot admins must have all bought BR

[grapeape]

They already announced at CES the latest plan to make their 1st and 2nd generation Blu-Ray players obsolete, BD Live is coming for interactivity on Blu-Ray unfortunately it requires an Ethernet connection that most of the first 2 generations of players are missing.

Re:Slashdot admins must have all bought BR

[IrquiM]

there's a difference between obsolete and "not being able to run all the extra materials"

Re:Slashdot admins must have all bought BR

[Moonpie Madness]

A: there's a lot of bias out there, and slashdot is often accused fairly accurately of being biased against Sony, which is a general trend in the US. I don't think for an instant that Slashdot is trying to hurt Toshiba's efforts so much as they just want a sexy headline to generate ad revenue. usually, it's the juicy-ing up of stories, either way, that can be confused with bias. Sony has so much bad news in the past couple of years, that the natural tendency to exaggerate in headlines made slashdot look biased against Sony. Now, it looks like they are Blu-Ray fanboys. It's just normal tabloid style journalism.

B: you are right, Blu-ray has been a bit of a clusterfuck. If you bought a PS3, you're going to be ok for the entire time blu-ray is out there, because that's Sony's baby. otherwise, I have no idea how the many early blu ray players are going to work. People will be very pissed.

I hope there is some sort of adaptor, usb->ethernet, made to help these players work, or that manufacturers replace them in some fashion. Otherwise, that's quite uncool.

Also, if every working blu-ray player has to be online, then how is Blu-ray going to compete with download services? Quality alone is a great strength, but I think limiting the blu-ray homes to online homes is a tremendous mistake. Just let the 2% pirate, sue the shit out of awful companies like lik-sang (that put honest people out of work), and accept a small bit of piracy.

Not sure why you think blu-ray is "bastard". Just because the old models don't work? Ask yourself: what kind of douchebag pays 600$ for a barebones DVD player? Early adopters get burned every time.

And "wins" need not go under scarequotes. Sony will make billions. It's clear at this point. That's going to make the PS3 gambit look quite wise, even if Sony never sells another PS3 game. It's a well earned win.

Re:Slashdot admins must have all bought BR

[terjeber]

I have no idea how the many early blu ray players are going to work.

How about "all of them"? They won't have interactive internet oriented features, but they will still work. Besides, these were bought by early adopters. Early adopters are going to move to 2.0 compatible players this year without thinking about it. That is the nature of early adopters. They have hundreds of dollars to piss away down the "early adopter" drain every month. They simply do not care.

If you were an early adopter on a tight budget, then you were an idiot.

Re:Slashdot admins must have all bought BR

[Moonpie Madness]

I agree that early adopters should expect this sort of problem. But that totally contradicts your other statement that early adopters are going to have to replace their devices.

And it's not clear that all that early blu-ray devices lack are extra features. Do you own a blu-ray disc? It probably has a warning that it doesn't work in early blu-ray players. Why?

While it's always wise to save your money if it's tight, that's not a very good answer. If someone pays good money for a blu-ray player, it ought to work. IF it doesn't that's unfair, and probably breach. That thing wasn't advertised as a temporary blu-ray player.

Time will tell, and the people running blu-ray seem smart enough to deal with this problem correctly.

Re:Slashdot admins must have all bought BR

[terjeber]

If someone pays good money for a blu-ray player, it ought to work.

Blu-Ray players work, old ones play new movies. No problem. They can not do the extra features that are on the disks, but they can play the movies etc.

Re:Slashdot admins must have all bought BR

[Moonpie Madness]

A quick google leads me to believe you're right.

But still, you didn't answer my question: do you have any blu-ray movies? Don't they disclaim that they won't work in all blu-ray movie players? Perhaps this is just lawyers being lawyers.

Certainly, this takes a huge criticism away from the HDDVD fans. If all blu-ray movies works in all blu-ray players, that's 99.99999% of satisfaction. All that other crap is generally useless and often annoying. I don't really see many people even noticing.

So, all this version crap relates to ancillary nonsense like trailers, and only slightly harms super-early adopters. And the regions are a major drag, but again, not even noticeable for most consumers.

So what is the advantage HD0DVD has that makes up for the seemingly fundamental major technical inferiorities, such as bitrate and capacity? Can someone explain to me why HD0DVD advocates chose their position? If it's for a specific set of movies, that I can understand, if it's the lame Sony bashing out there, I at least acknowledge that reality. Is there something else I'm overlooking? Price is probably all there is, but we all know Toshiba was just subsidizing. Their is no reason to believe HD DVD is really going to be much cheaper after blu-ray tools up, is there?

They say HD DVD is more similar to DVD. Does this mean long-term or short-term savings? And how much were those HD-DVD players before Toshiba subsidy?

Re:Slashdot admins must have all bought BR

[terjeber]

do you have any blu-ray movies? Don't they disclaim that they won't work in all blu-ray movie players?

Some of the early Blu-Ray players (and HD DVD players for that matter) had software issues that made them incompatible with some newer Blu-Ray movies. The disclaimer points out that if a movie doesn't play in your player, you need to update the player with new firmware. Both Blu-Ray and HD DVD players have had a number of firmware updates due to such problems.

So what is the advantage HD0DVD has that makes up for the seemingly fundamental major technical inferiorities, such as bitrate and capacity?

It's easier (at least in theory) to make illegal copies of an HD DVD movie.

They say HD DVD is more similar to DVD. Does this mean long-term or short-term savings? And how much were those HD-DVD players before Toshiba subsidy?

The physical structure of an HD DVD is similar to that of a DVD. How this is an advantage, given how easy it is to scratch DVDs is something I am not certain about. Twelve months ago this similarity meant that pressing HD DVDs was a bit less expensive than pressing Blu-Ray disks. Today that price difference is only a few cents. As for the price of HD DVD players, since the players are extremely similar, component wise, to a Blu-Ray player, the cost of manufacturing an HD DVD player is similar to the cost of manufacturing a Blu-Ray player. In the store they would therefore have similar price tags unless someone was dumping. Toshiba is the only producer of HD DVD players, and with Microsoft support they are dumping them on the market at below cost.

Re:The new HD-DVD meme. Not easy nor cheap.

[peas_n_carrots]

"1) Easier. To play HD content from a disc I just place a disc in a player, and it's playing. To get HD content online I have to decide to buy it from somewhere (and have an internet connection to my system at the TV). Then I have to wait for it to buffer enough to start watching." blah blah ad nauseum

Where exactly does this magical disc appear from? Last I checked, you have to go out and buy or rent one, which means driving out to the store, hoping that they have the particular title you want (in stock or at all). Oh you use Netflix? Let's see, that's 4+ days waiting for the disc to arrive in the mail. A minute of buffering doesn't sound so bad after all.

Broadband in the US is way behind. As it stands now, the streaming video experience isn't ideal. It will improve, as will just about every other technology.

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[Jugalator]

Sony just announced a $200 PC BD-ROM. How much are HD-DVD ROM's again? Supposedly around $100: http://www.crn.com/digital-home/202801738

But really, over time I think these BD drives will go down further because of what you say. The HD-DVD vs Blu-ray disc pricings are already quite evened out here already, despite the alleged higher production costs of Blu-ray discs. Similarly, although it's still not competitive with DVD-R's, BD-R discs use to give you more for your money than HD-DVD-R's. If you manage to find yourself a HD-DVD burner, which is pretty hard where I live compared to a Blu-ray burner.

As an HD-DVD developer...

[SanityInAnarchy]

isn't blue ray (i refuse to go with the stupid spelling fad) better on a technical level anyway?

Not really. I thought so too, but in practice, HD-DVD wins. (And I'm not just saying this because of my job; for all I know, our company will be forced into Blu-Ray, or something completely different.)

What Blu-Ray has going for it (other than this latest blow) is capacity and bandwidth, and a ton of empty promises about features which are mostly not implemented. And capacity, at least, was rumored to be about killed by some triple-layer HD-DVD format, which would beat dual-layer Blu-Ray by a gig.

What HD-DVD has (had?) is price and features. Since people are pronouncing the format dead, I think I'm entitled to one last rant -- I am an HD-DVD developer.

So here's how it breaks down: Blu-Ray requires entirely new equipment to press. HD-DVD can modify existing DVD equipment. There have also been (barely) sub-$100 HD-DVD players at some point -- that's yet to happen for Blu-Ray, cheapest I've seen is a $200 drive (not a standalone player).

The price of the discs is mostly irrelevant, as now is really not the time to be buying discs to keep. But I would expect them to be cheaper, and there was also the strange run of dual-format (HD-DVD and standard DVD) discs -- literally two-sided, side A for HD, side B for DVD.

Now, as to the actual technologies... Note that I have not actually seen a Blu-Ray disc play, so all of this is from what I've heard my co-workers say, and I don't remember it incredibly well. But the HD-DVD information should be dead accurate.

To start with, Blu-Ray requires AACS, and supports region coding and something called "BD-Mark". Meanwhile, HD-DVD has optional AACS (though some features are inaccessible to unencrypted discs), and does not support region coding. So even if you hate Microsoft, as a geek, you really want HD-DVD to win, for that reason.

It also supports standard dual-layer DVDs as a medium. Same HD content, good codecs (VC1, h.264, etc), scripting, but if it fits in 9 gigs, you can burn it to a cheaper disc. I don't know if it actually supports single-layer DVDs (though I imagine it does), or CDs (though I doubt it). So, low-capacity all the way up to the proposed triple-layer makes it more flexible than Blu-Ray in terms of disc format.

Blu-Ray is Java. HD-DVD is JavaScript. Having used both languages, I'm amazed anyone would argue for Java, but people do. And it almost seemed logical -- I expected the Java to be faster, but it's not.

Let that sink in a moment. In the actual, real-world use, any Blu-Ray player other than the PS3 is slow as hell with simple menu animations. By "slow as hell", I mean you will actually see it redrawing each frame in blocks, for a tiny menu taking up maybe an eighth of the screen. HD-DVD, on the other hand... Well, I can make it slow, but not that slow. Half-second animations that take up half the screen are, at worst, a little jerky, but never do you see it redrawing in chunks like that.

Now, just guessing, but I suspect that Blu-Ray hands over more control to the Java itself -- that is, it is actual Java code doing those animations. Not so with HD-DVD -- I just tell it to change some property (x, y, width, height, opacity, etc) by some amount over some duration, and let the player handle the rest -- probably with native code, probably a good chunk of it in video hardware.

And, from what I've heard through the grapevine, Warner's actual tech people agree with me -- they'd much rather work with HD-DVD and with JavaScript. So this smells like an executive decision, made for strategic reasons, not technical ones, and certainly not with the consumer in mind.

HD-DVD also has a much stronger base of what's required. Even in those sub-$100 players, you get:

• An ethernet port
• 128 megs of flash
• Picture-in-picture support (muxed into the main video, or downloaded)
• Dynamic rescaling of video (opening "chapter

Re:As an HD-DVD developer...

[BrowncoatJedi]

It doesn't matter. You lost. Get over it and move on.

Re:As an HD-DVD developer...

[Nursie]

The triple layer HD-DVD did have a couple of extra gig on dual layer BD. However there are quad layer BD discs in the pipeline (have been demo'd, not production yet) that will have FAR more capacity.

And this:

Note that I have not actually seen a Blu-Ray disc play,

Followed by this:

any Blu-Ray player other than the PS3 is slow as hell with simple menu animations. By "slow as hell", I mean you will actually see it redrawing each frame in blocks, for a tiny menu taking up maybe an eighth of the screen.

Just desroys your credibility, sorry.

Java runs quite happily on a cheap mobile phone these days, I don't think for a second that anything that can decrypt HD video on the fly isn't going to ave the power to run a little java on the side. So when you say:

"The menus aren't really going to be much more than standard DVD menus."

You're talking out of your arse. And as for region coding, whilst the early versions of the standard don't support it, it was certainly being worked on.

You can also put BluRay on DVD using the AVCREC format, much like the HD-REC format for HD-DVD.

HD-DVD has been moving on to things like "Managed Copy", which is designed to allow (for example) legally ripping a movie to your iPod

That's part of AACS but was not included in the first version due to Toshiba (yes, the HD-DVD backer, Toshiba) requesting an interim standard because the main one was taking so long. So it looks like older HD-DVD discs and players likely didn't support that either, and going forward BluRay probably will.

Now, I'm not saying BluRay was the vastly superior format, but I am saying that HD-DVD was not all you've said here, and BluRay does have some advantages in capacity and throughput.

Re:As an HD-DVD developer...

[SanityInAnarchy]

That's what I'm doing. Right now, in fact.

But I figured I'd get a last rant in.

Re:As an HD-DVD developer...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Just desroys your credibility, sorry.

Note that I also said that I had heard some from co-workers. I did not make up the redrawing block-by-block -- that actually did happen, and it was pretty embarrassing.

Java runs quite happily on a cheap mobile phone these days, I don't think for a second that anything that can decrypt HD video on the fly isn't going to ave the power to run a little java on the side.

Except that there are, in fact, players which absolutely do not support running a little java on the side.

Consider: Maybe they actually don't have the power? Maybe the decoding is somehow done in hardware?

Re:As an HD-DVD developer...

[msebast]

# Better audio
# Better video

That's really the whole point isn't it?
Your post has convinced me that Blue-ray is the better standard.

As a customer I don't actually care how nice the menus or extra features are.
Just give me a button to click so the movie will start playing.
And the movie should look nice and sound good.
The rest is just useless fluff.

Re:As an HD-DVD developer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh and your rant is incorrect in that the 3-layer HD-DVD is 1 GIG LESS than 2 layer Blu-Ray

Basically, your rant is FUD of the worse kind in most ways.

Re:As an HD-DVD developer...

[jwdav]

The only difference between *DVD* and HD DVD is capacity and bandwidth - it's a disc format which is all about capacity and bandwidth.

Re:As an HD-DVD developer...

[SanityInAnarchy]

As a customer I don't actually care how nice the menus or extra features are.
Just give me a button to click so the movie will start playing.

Well, hey, HD-DVD doesn't require DRM, and is region free. So eventually, you'll just be able to put the disc into your computer, open VLC, skip all the logos and antipiracy bullshit, and play the movie. (Well, skip the logos -- I haven't seen any antipiracy bullshit on HD-DVD yet.)

But honestly, that better audio/video part? Not noticeable. Or go try it for yourself and see...

Oh, by the way: I had exactly the same reaction you did when I started working there. I changed my mind when I started to notice features which actually help with that main bit, the desire to "just play the movie". Specifically, I was able to "bookmark" a scene, turn off the player and the TV, and go away, then come back, start it all back up again, and find my bookmark.

That is, not just the chapter -- when I resumed, it took me to the very second I left off.

How many bookmarks could it handle? That depends on their script, but figure 128 megs worth of custom XML. I figure I'll never fill that with bookmarks.

Re:As an HD-DVD developer...

[SanityInAnarchy]

You obviously didn't read any of that rant, did you?

There are things I said which are obviously wrong, but there is absolutely more to HD-DVD (versus DVD) than capacity and bandwidth. Maybe you were thinking of HD-DVD-ROM?

Re:As an HD-DVD developer...

[Anonymous Coward]

I own both Blu-Ray & HD DVD players. In my experience the HD DVD player is far better. The HD DVD player works better with far fewer issues.

Re:As an HD-DVD developer...

[msebast]

Working smoothly on an opensource OS is a requirement for me before I'll buy either HD-DVD or Blu-ray.
I don't really mind if I have to download a newer equivalent of libdvdcss from some website in eastern europe. But I'm not going to install windows just to play DVDs.

The bookmarking thing sounds good. Mythtv has a similar feature which works quite well.
Is the bookmarking implemented by the DVD player firmware or by the java/fancy menu stuff that comes on the dvd?
It sounds great if it works the same on every dvd. But if the implementation is different on each title (or from each studio) then it might be more confusing then useful? And I bet one bookmark is sufficient for most people.

Re:As an HD-DVD developer...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Is the bookmarking implemented by the DVD player firmware or by the java/fancy menu stuff that comes on the dvd?

By the Javascript. (Yes, there is a huge difference. I love Javascript, can't stomach Java.)

It sounds great if it works the same on every dvd. But if the implementation is different on each title (or from each studio) then it might be more confusing then useful?

Maybe so, but the point is, the players did not have this feature to begin with. It is therefore possible for studios to invent and deliver new and useful features. Some of them are tied to the movie, most of them are gimmicky (like Transformers having a HUD showing the "health" of each robot)...

More than that...

[SanityInAnarchy]

HD-DVD has optional AACS encryption. You can burn an unencrypted HD-DVD, even on a dual-layer standard 9 gig DVD, and it will work. I think it won't let you access network or storage, which makes it not as useful or cool, but technically, the crypto is optional.

HD-DVD is also region-free. There is no option whatsoever for region coding. If you really wanted to, you could release a multi-region, encrypted HD-DVD which adapted based on the default language of the player, or even a GeoIP lookup if they have it plugged in to the Internet.

Blu-ray has mandatory AACS encryption, and the optional BD+, and as far as I know, absolutely no format cheaper than a single-layer Blu-Ray disc (25 gigs). So much for home recording.

Oh, and there are a large number of technical advantages to HD-DVD -- for one, there's a triple-layer disc coming, so it now beats Blu-Ray on capacity. But it's obvious that Warner doesn't care about the technical issues.

Re:More than that...

[ortholattice]

Blu-ray has mandatory AACS encryption, and the optional BD+, and as far as I know, absolutely no format cheaper than a single-layer Blu-Ray disc (25 gigs). So much for home recording.

So if AACS is not optional, wouldn't that justify possession of its cryptographic keys and/or DeCSS-type software, in spite of the DMCA, so that we can guarantee access to our own content in the future?

Or do we face a future where our own data archives can be cut off from us, even remotely, at the whim of whatever industry/government body controls key revocation?

Re:More than that...

[Kjella]

Oh, and there are a large number of technical advantages to HD-DVD -- for one, there's a triple-layer disc coming, so it now beats Blu-Ray on capacity. But it's obvious that Warner doesn't care about the technical issues. Yeah, and Blu-Ray has quad-layer (100GB) in the labs too. Except there's no way current players would read those "triple-layer" discs, at least I've never seen a release where such compatibility has actually worked smooth. At any rate, I doubt that really mattered. HDDVD and Blu-Ray both look stunning, the extra 20GB is great for data but doesn't deliver all too much for a standard movie. So far it seems most of it is used to deliver 96KHz/24bit LPCM which is neat, except no human is anywhere near hearing that kind of frequency, resolution and can't distinguish it from lightly compressed (5:1) codecs anyway.

Re:More than that...

[ThirdPrize]

HD-DVD is also region-free. There is no option whatsoever for region coding. If you really wanted to, you could release a multi-region, encrypted HD-DVD which adapted based on the default language of the player, or even a GeoIP lookup if they have it plugged in to the Internet. While it's good for the consumer, perhaps that is why the studios don't like it.

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[squiggleslash]

Nope, Blu-ray has more capacity per layer, but the capabilities are poorer from a consumer point of view.

Ironically, Blu-ray and HD-DVD had just caught up in terms of maximum capacity per disc - in the middle of November, HD-DVD adopted a system that increased the maximum capacity of an HD-DVD disc to match Blu-ray's (51G HD-DVD compared to 50G Blu-ray, using three layers and two layers respectively), but to date no discs have been made (well, it's been a month and a half) and no players have been updated to support the three layer format.

HD DVD discs do not need DRM, and do have to support "managed copy" meaning consumers can assume that if they buy an HD-DVD movie, they'll be allowed to (using licensed software) transfer copies to their computer or to a movie jukebox or something similar. HD DVD also has a slightly better sound codec selection, specifically making player support for the lossless Dolby TrueHD format compulsory, allowing studios to master HD DVDs with sound in that format. Not that that's a big thing, I just thought I'd mention it.

With the exception of the above issue of the new three layer discs, the HD-DVD format is more or less finalized, whereas Blu-ray is still in a state of flux. Blu-ray also has some issues, from a consumer point of view, such as the BD+ access control system, which meant some discs last year wouldn't play on some players without firmware updates, and region encoding.

The war might be over, but the battles will go on.

[Pathway]

Well, the fact is, Warner Bros. has decided to make the choice for Blu Ray. So, does this mean that the Format War is over?

Probably.

With nearly everybody exclusively Blu Ray now, I doubt if HD-DVD Can recover from this blow. Personally, I hadn't made a HD Disc Player purchase yet. I haven't yet seen picture quality above and beyond what my DVD player can produce to warrant the upgrade. Maybe if I got a bigger TV, I might see a difference.

I was kind of hoping that HD-DVD would continue to win support and edge out Blu Ray for dominance. HD-DVD seemed up to the task, looked cheaper for the players, and seemed stable. Blu Ray, on the other hand, I've heard nasty things about, like that not all the players will play all Blu Ray discs. Also, I've heard that there is a Blu Ray 2.0 which is in the works, and some of the older 1.x discs may have problems... And the HD-DVD players are cheap, too.

I read somewhere that WB chose Blu Ray because of a recent surge in it's popularity, especialy in December... Uh, can we say Cristmas? Take that number and subtract the number of Playstation 3s sold in the same month. Trust me, Mom and Dad bought that PS3 for Timmy to play games, not to watch Blu Ray DVDs. *sigh*

Oh well. If HD is Dead, a whole bunch of HD-Players are going to be thrown away this year.

--Pathway

Price per gig

[SanityInAnarchy]

Subject says it.

And by the way: There is a triple-layer HD-DVD format, which is one gig higher than the highest (dual-layer) Blu-ray disc. (Blu-ray has no triple-layer discs.)

Also, how are the video formats a loss? The video is exactly the same, except that Blu-Ray has a higher bitrate. It's the DRM, region coding (or lack thereof), and interactivity that's different.

No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Easier. To play HD content from a disc I just place a disc in a player, and it's playing.

Wow, you get discs out of thin air? How'd you manage that?

To get HD content online I have to decide to buy it from somewhere (and have an internet connection to my system at the TV). Then I have to wait for it to buffer enough to start watching.

That's not "downloading", that's "streaming".

But let's try a fair comparison, then, shall we? To play HD content from a disc, I just drive out to Wall-Mart, buy a disc, bring it hope, break open the shrink wrap, put it in a player, and it's playing. Or I go on Netflix, add them to my queue, wait for them in the mail, open the package, open the disc, put it in the player, and it's playing -- and then I have to remember to mail it back afterwards.

To get HD content online, I have to decide to buy it from somewhere (just like the above), wait for it to download (a hell of a lot faster than mailing), press play, and it's playing.

And then I have to watch a greatly compressed video/audio experience that makes buying a decent HD set a waste.

It is too bad that there isn't more quality HD stuff online, then. But that's not a discussion of "easier" -- that's a discussion of "better quality" -- and high-quality stuff certainly does exist.

If I downloaded the content legally and want to share it with a friend I can't do that.

Erm, where are we talking about? There's at least one high-quality, un-DRM'd show online right now. (Exclusively online, actually.)

If I downloaded it legally I load them a hard drive (!).

Or you could just send it to them over the Internet. Or burn it to a disc -- but it can be any disc, really, even a 4 gig DVD.

If I have physical media, I just loan them a disc

Then they scratch it, and you have to buy a brand-new copy of the disc.

Online downloads? Cheap indeed but either they are (a) very cheap and the media expires shortly, or (b) actually rather expensive for the same non-portable highly compressed content I mentioned before.

Not much online right now, but there are at least some that are, again, portable and of decent quality.

probably get them faster than a torrent and cheaper than legal online HD media.

Fiber is coming. Actually, in my hometown, it's here -- 100 mbits to the home. Just did the math, and that means at most an hour and a half to download 50 gigs of data -- assuming it's a full Blu-Ray disc (most BR movies are only 25 gigs). Unless you live right next to NetFlix, or you're getting some 10 or 15 discs per day, that pretty much has you beat.

Cheap? Well, that Sanctuary link seemed reasonable, though certainly not as cheap -- but NetFlix is rental, and Sanctuary is to own. $8.75 for four episodes, which are, on average, 15 mins -- so less than $20 for a movie's worth, which is cheaper than new DVDs.

The trouble is, there isn't really anyone doing "rentals" without DRM, and they are not doing the DRM particularly well. DRM done right can actually facilitate more mobility and flexibility. I can burn Steam games to DVDs, make as many copies as I want, or I can simply download the Steam client somewhere else, login, and re-download the entire game.

But at least right now, I think there's a big window for someone who wants to "rent" DRM-free movies over the Internet. Make it cheap enough, and basically assume that a full-quality copy of it will take too much space for now, so people will only keep 5-10 movies around, if that. Do it right, and by the time the technology catches up, people will already be in the habit of buying this stuff legitimately.

Oh, one parting shot: With digital distribution, you aren't necessarily sending money to a network, to the MPAA, to Sony -- depending on how it's done, you certainly can send it straight to the people responsible.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[iainl]

[quote]But at least right now, I think there's a big window for someone who wants to "rent" DRM-free movies over the Internet. Make it cheap enough, and basically assume that a full-quality copy of it will take too much space for now, so people will only keep 5-10 movies around, if that.[/quote]

But that just can't happen. Firstly, because there really is no concept of "renting" DRM-free data files, because the customer never has to give it back at the end of the rental period. So you've got your assumption that people won't keep many files around.

Which kind of works on a locked-down system like the 360, where you've an artificially limited space that you can't archive data from. But a 500Gb external drive, big enough to store 10 packed-to-the-gills BluRay titles, 16 maxed out HD-DVDs, and at least 25 movies in 1080p if you start throwing extras away and still keep the bitrate at "acceptable" levels, in the UK costs around the same price as 3-4 BluRay films.

There's simply no way you can get Hollywood to sell people DRM-free movies for less than the price of the blank media to back them up, even if you could somehow afford the bandwidth costs on top of that.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I have physical media, I just loan them a disc

Then they scratch it, and you have to buy a brand-new copy of the disc.

Exactly - and that's assuming you even can loan the disk to a friend. There's no reason why the producers can't arbitrarily decide to use the in-built DRM to tie content to one particular player (to limit sharing and second-hand resale), or limit the number of times you can play the content (meaning you're less likely to waste plays by loaning the disk to friends).

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SuperKendall]

Wow, you get discs out of thin air? How'd you manage that?

Either by owning it or it came in the mail within a day of my thinking I'd like to see something.

That's not "downloading", that's "streaming".

You've obviously never used iTunes to buy video. It's only the most popular online video store on the planet. It starts downloading, and you can watch was has been transferred thus far. At the end you wind up with a file you keep.

To get HD content online, I have to decide to buy it from somewhere (just like the above), wait for it to download (a hell of a lot faster than mailing), press play, and it's playing.

But there was a lot of setup you had to do to make that happen, some of it involving a network connection to the TV that not a lot of people have. You are suffering from the tragic Slashdot myopia of assuming the whole world has a media PC, or even wants a media PC.

It is too bad that there isn't more quality HD stuff online, then. But that's not a discussion of "easier" -- that's a discussion of "better quality" -- and high-quality stuff certainly does exist.

It is a discussion of easier, because the higher the quality the larger the size and that impacts on easier. It impacts time to download, and the users ability to back up files.

Erm, where are we talking about? There's at least one high-quality, un-DRM'd show online right now. (Exclusively online, actually.)

Well I was talking about media generally, you can't say that all shows are going to do that. And while Production Values for that show might be high, where is the 1080i feed?

Or you could just send it to them over the Internet. Or burn it to a disc -- but it can be any disc, really, even a 4 gig DVD.

You've lost the plot man. I'm talking HD media which even for TV is not going to fit in that 4 GB DVD. And transferring that volume of data is slow for just about anyone in the US right now, and for many many years to come.

Then they scratch it, and you have to buy a brand-new copy of the disc.

Have you tried to scratch a Blu-Ray discs? This is not DVD's we are talking here. For most people, a disc is far more durable than fragile digital media which is gone as soon as the hard drive as gone. And if you scratch a disc you scratch ONE disc, unlike a hard drive dying which can take out scores of shows at a time. I know because I myself have downloaded a lot of content and backing that up is a huge chore.

Fiber is coming. Actually, in my hometown, it's here -- 100 mbits to the home. Just did the math, and that means at most an hour and a half to download 50 gigs of data -- assuming it's a full Blu-Ray disc (most BR movies are only 25 gigs). Unless you live right next to NetFlix, or you're getting some 10 or 15 discs per day, that pretty much has you beat.

A few problems here. One, most Blu-Ray discs are now 50GB discs. Two, you 100MBit connection is throttled somewhere around the ISP. If you are sharing with a neighbor you may see that, but someone who lives across town, or downloading from a server in another city? doubtful. And then there's the management of that 50GB data chunk. I own a few hundred DVD's right now and the though of managing 50GBx200 is daunting. And I know what I'm doing!

The trouble is, there isn't really anyone doing "rentals" without DRM, and they are not doing the DRM particularly well. DRM done right can actually facilitate more mobility and flexibility

No question. My question is how soon will media companies get that right? Seems like a long wait to me. It seems likley to take many years.

But at least right now, I think there's a big window for someone who wants to "rent" DRM-free movies over the Internet.

I agree, for some movies - but that's not a model that can really replace ownership for people, not anytime soon.

Oh, one parting shot: With digital distribution, you aren't necessarily sending money to a network, to the MPAA, to Sony -- depending on how it's done, you certainly can send it straight to the people responsible.

I've bought DVD's directly from small companies as well, and plan to continue doing so with Blu-Ray.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

But that just can't happen. Firstly, because there really is no concept of "renting" DRM-free data files, because the customer never has to give it back at the end of the rental period. So you've got your assumption that people won't keep many files around.

You're right. I speak only of that concept to set the price, because otherwise, you'll get the reverse happening -- I often rent DVDs and rip them.

I don't know about others, but there's only so many times I can watch a movie. I have owned a total of maybe three DVDs, ever, because there are just not that many movies I can watch obsessively enough for it to be worth it not to just rent them.

There's simply no way you can get Hollywood to sell people DRM-free movies for less than the price of the blank media to back them up, even if you could somehow afford the bandwidth costs on top of that.

I do believe you can afford the bandwidth costs.

And therein lies the pity -- I know Hollywood will never go for it. And I know that it would only really work if it launched with a huge library, thus discouraging people from simply dumping all five movies an indie release would start with to their existing hard drives and leaving.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

But there was a lot of setup you had to do to make that happen, some of it involving a network connection to the TV that not a lot of people have.

That is true. But I think there's a valid question of whether it's easy once you do have such a device. And I think that there's a market for cheap set-top boxes there.

You've lost the plot man. I'm talking HD media which even for TV is not going to fit in that 4 GB DVD. And transferring that volume of data is slow for just about anyone in the US right now, and for many many years to come.

Well, let's suppose, for a moment, that it your movie requires the full size of, say, HD-DVD. 30 gigs means on it would take eight 4-gig DVDs, right?

Which means at that quality, it would fit about one episode of Sanctuary.

That's all assuming you do no transcoding. I'd think if you're lending it to your friend, you could afford to do that. After all, if they end up liking it a lot, they can just get it themselves, right?

Two, you 100MBit connection is throttled somewhere around the ISP.

Define "throttled". If you mean the bottleneck due to upstream, well, they are starting to build that, too. They're planning to deliver IPTV over it, so I assume they realize the kind of infrastructure they need.

No question. My question is how soon will media companies get that right? Seems like a long wait to me. It seems likley to take many years.

I'm willing to wait, and in the mean time, I'm willing to support the concept by buying Sanctuary episodes, and any similarly good production I can get in DRM-free, downloadable form.

I agree, for some movies - but that's not a model that can really replace ownership for people, not anytime soon.

Not completely, but I do argue that for most people, most of the time, rentals make more sense.

I've bought DVD's directly from small companies as well, and plan to continue doing so with Blu-Ray.

Except for, you know, the licensing fees to Sony, AACS, and Microsoft. Buying online means, at worst, a licensing fee from MS or Apple for the codec, but arguably, most of it will go to bandwidth.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[jdgeorge]

Fiber is coming. Actually, in my hometown, it's here -- 100 mbits to the home. Just did the math, and that means at most an hour and a half to download 50 gigs of data -- assuming it's a full Blu-Ray disc (most BR movies are only 25 gigs). Unless you live right next to NetFlix, or you're getting some 10 or 15 discs per day, that pretty much has you beat.

Hmmmm..... A residentail fiber offering, giving 100Mbps in the US? I think not. I don't know where you're getting that 100mbps number; the fastest I've seen mentioned (yet to be built, as far as I can tell) is supposed to be about 25mbps.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SuperKendall]

That is true. But I think there's a valid question of whether it's easy once you do have such a device. And I think that there's a market for cheap set-top boxes there.

Possibly, the AppleTV being one example. But management of lots of files gets to be a problem in a way that does not occur with physical media. I don't mind downloading TV shows because if I lose some of them to a crash, I didn't pay much and don't care much. But movies I spend more than $5 or so on, I care a lot more about longevity and most people will be upset if they lose them.

hat's all assuming you do no transcoding. I'd think if you're lending it to your friend, you could afford to do that. After all, if they end up liking it a lot, they can just get it themselves, right?

Transcoding means I have to spend a lot of time and compute power, and having transcoded before sometimes you mess up and get too large a file anyway. Generally I just want to hand someone something quickly and easily.

Define "throttled". If you mean the bottleneck due to upstream, well, they are starting to build that, too. They're planning to deliver IPTV over it, so I assume they realize the kind of infrastructure they need.

Sure your provider is building a nice path right to you. But that's not the same as getting content from all over. And as I said, transmission times are just one part of the equation - that faster path will not help you obtain Sanctuary any faster.

I'm willing to wait, and in the mean time, I'm willing to support the concept by buying Sanctuary episodes, and any similarly good production I can get in DRM-free, downloadable form.

I'm not willing to wait. I enjoy hollywood movies at a level of quality now better than most theaters I do do (even digital projection theaters). But I also buy and support independent productions as well, and soon many of those will also be producing Blu-Ray discs which I would prefer to buy over downloaded content for something I really like.

Not completely, but I do argue that for most people, most of the time, rentals make more sense.

Even there for a lot of movies I prefer a Blu-Ray rental to any download that would be practical in the next five years for the majority of the US. That's why physical formats still matter.

Except for, you know, the licensing fees to Sony, AACS, and Microsoft. Buying online means, at worst, a licensing fee from MS or Apple for the codec, but arguably, most of it will go to bandwidth.

Companies don't have to use AACS. I don't mind licensing fees going to people who actually provide something of value.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

It's not Verizon, and it's certainly more than 25. I have downloaded torrents at some 3 or 4 megabytes per second, without interfering (that I know of) with anyone else's web browsing (certainly not my own).

Ah, found it: they also have gigabit services.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

if I lose some of them to a crash

Well, that depends. Sanctuary, at least, will let me download it as many times as I want. I've seen other services where it's a limited number of downloads, but very few limit you to exactly one download.

That doesn't mean I'd be happy in the case of a crash, but I wouldn't be happy with decaying media, either. If the files are indeed available for download forever, that also means that they're immune to just about any kind of data loss, including my house exploding.

Generally I just want to hand someone something quickly and easily.

Yes, there's an advantage to that... I concede that point, at least until transcoding is no longer such a big deal. (Think mp3 audio.)

For now, well, my brother just "handed" me something relatively quickly and easily: I had a laptop at his house, so I grabbed some files off his network share. But they were on the order of 700 megs each, not 50 gigs.

But that's not the same as getting content from all over. And as I said, transmission times are just one part of the equation - that faster path will not help you obtain Sanctuary any faster.

Alright, what are the other parts of the equation, then?

Companies don't have to use AACS. I don't mind licensing fees going to people who actually provide something of value.

Well, people recently picked apart a rant I gave, so I'm trying to remember if this is accurate... But I think AACS is actually required by Blu-Ray. I know it's not required by HD-DVD.

As for "something of value", I don't consider the AACS to be something of value... The rest of it is actually more of an activism bit, in that there are other things Sony does which make me want to boycott them as entirely as I can.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SuperKendall]

Well, that depends. Sanctuary, at least, will let me download it as many times as I want.

Until the server goes away. Or they decide that what you paid for it originally is no longer enough to warrant further downloading. And again, right now Sanctuary is the absolute best case possible because it drops so very many restrictions that we have with other online media. The media future is not one in which I and other people only watch Sanctuary, no matter how good it may be.

Alright, what are the other parts of the equation, then?

Storage and maintenance and management and constant connectivity and device usability and persistence of the company selling your product. That's just off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more subtle problems.

Well, people recently picked apart a rant I gave, so I'm trying to remember if this is accurate... But I think AACS is actually required by Blu-Ray. I know it's not required by HD-DVD.

Nope. Otherwise you couldn't burn your own Blu-Ray media. Does it really sound like companies would do that, the same companies that make camcorders?

As for "something of value", I don't consider the AACS to be something of value...

Nor do I, the "value" is the content. In the end I do enjoy some content produced and all things being equal I'd rather reward the people that produce it as best I can.

The rest of it is actually more of an activism bit, in that there are other things Sony does which make me want to boycott them as entirely as I can.

Like what - using standard USB for connected devices? Supporting Linux on the PS3? Perhaps there are also reasons to support Sony.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Until the server goes away. Or they decide that what you paid for it originally is no longer enough to warrant further downloading.

It's possible to design a Blu-Ray disc that does both of these, although generally, the first part won't be true.

Or wait -- maybe it's not possible yet? I know it's possible to design an HD-DVD disc that way...

Storage and maintenance and management and constant connectivity and device usability and persistence of the company selling your product.

Ah, but you also said something about "will not help you obtain Sanctuary any faster". I don't really see how anything other than bandwidth contributes to the speed at which I obtain Sanctuary.

Nope. Otherwise you couldn't burn your own Blu-Ray media. Does it really sound like companies would do that, the same companies that make camcorders?

Yes, it does. Sony has released DVDs with copy protection that their own DVD players couldn't deal with.

It's also possible that you could burn your own Blu-Ray discs, but only through their software, which applies some level of DRM to them anyway.

I know how it works for HD-DVD: There are some features which you can only access (local storage, network) if your disc is AACS-encrypted. There were plans to make it possible to only sign a disc, but access the same feaures.

Nor do I, the "value" is the content. In the end I do enjoy some content produced and all things being equal I'd rather reward the people that produce it as best I can.

So would I. And when I can view that content on Linux on my desktop, maybe I will. That's one reason Sanctuary has my enthusiastic support.

Like what - using standard USB for connected devices? Supporting Linux on the PS3? Perhaps there are also reasons to support Sony.

Well, they've done far too much at this point for me to trust them. It's going to take a lot more to gain that trust back.

Specifically: Standard USB is what the Xbox 360 uses as well, and the Wii uses Bluetooth. Supporting Linux on the PS3 in a hypervisor which denies access to the 3D hardware... what's the point, really? I can think of some academic uses for it, but as a consumer, there's not really a reason to buy a PS3 over a 360, and there's more than one reason to buy a 360 over a PS3. (Not even getting started with the Wii...)

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SuperKendall]

It's possible to design a Blu-Ray disc that does both of these, although generally, the first part won't be true.

First of all, since network connectivity is not mandated - how would you design a disc to be remotely disabled? Sorry, not possible. HD-DVD does mandate network connectivity in the playback device BUT does not require it be actually hooked up.

Secondly, we're talking about problems we have *today* with real media. Real Blu-Ray discs do not have that problem. Real online purchased video content, almost without exception, does.

Ah, but you also said something about "will not help you obtain Sanctuary any faster". I don't really see how anything other than bandwidth contributes to the speed at which I obtain Sanctuary.

Interface and knowledge. The time for me to obtain Sanctuary is infinite if I do not know about it. That's what happens with little islands of media. Then of course, once you know something is there it's a matter of how you download it, if I need to give them a CC number but am unwilling to do so, etc.

Yes, it does. Sony has released DVDs with copy protection that their own DVD players couldn't deal with.

That's not the same thing at all as home burned media playing on a player.

It's also possible that you could burn your own Blu-Ray discs, but only through their software, which applies some level of DRM to them anyway.

But they do not do that, mostly because it's INSANLEY STUPID. Do not forget that multiple computer manufacturers are part of the Blu-Ray consortium as well. Even Microsoft has contributed somewhat to the standard.

I know how it works for HD-DVD: There are some features which you can only access (local storage, network) if your disc is AACS-encrypted. There were plans to make it possible to only sign a disc, but access the same feaures.

Although it would be cool to author my own disc with advanced features, those aspects are not at all required for most home movie uses.

Well, they've done far too much at this point for me to trust them. It's going to take a lot more to gain that trust back.

And they'll never be better if you don't support positive efforts.

Specifically: Standard USB is what the Xbox 360 uses as well Not for controllers though, only for storage.

I can think of some academic uses for it, but as a consumer, there's not really a reason to buy a PS3 over a 360

Except for the whole Blu-Ray player thing, and some really unique titles like LittleBigPlanet coming down the pike. The 360 is better in that regard (they finally have a Katmari game) but I've not seen much new in that space.

Also the PS3 now has rumble and motion sensing in the controller, and there are already a number of smaller games that make great use of that (motion sensing).

The only reason to get a 360 is a few exclusive titles. If you don't care that much about Mass Effect or Halo though, most everything else interesting is either cross platform or has equivalents on the PS3. I really liked Geometry Wars but there are some equally awesome games on the PSN network (Super Stardust, Everyday Shooter). And of course, I don't have to pay every year for Live so it's really a cheaper platform in the end.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

First of all, since network connectivity is not mandated - how would you design a disc to be remotely disabled? Sorry, not possible.

No, it'd just make you an asshole. All you have to do is warn that network connectivity IS mandated for your disc, and refuse to run if you can't connect to a server.

HD-DVD does mandate network connectivity in the playback device BUT does not require it be actually hooked up.

HD-DVD developer, remember? It's trivial for me to turn off the sound, put a big black box on top of the movie, and give you a notice that I need network connectivity to continue. It will technically still be playing (if I didn't pause it), but you couldn't tell.

Secondly, we're talking about problems we have *today* with real media.

And today, the servers have not gone away.

Then of course, once you know something is there it's a matter of how you download it, if I need to give them a CC number but am unwilling to do so, etc.

I'm not entirely sure if all of that adds up to the time needed to drive to a store, or to sign up for a Netflix account if I don't have one already. (Oh, and Sanctuary does Paypal. I'll let you decide if that's good or bad.)

But they do not do that, mostly because it's INSANLEY STUPID.

They do DRM at all, therefore, they are already insanely stupid. QED.

And they'll never be better if you don't support positive efforts.

So I do support positive efforts, from companies with a track record of positive efforts.

Except for the whole Blu-Ray player thing

Still quite a bit more expensive than an HD-DVD player.

and some really unique titles like LittleBigPlanet coming down the pike.

For unique titles, I'll buy a Wii.

If you don't care that much about Mass Effect or Halo though, most everything else interesting is either cross platform or has equivalents on the PS3.

So the PS3 is "good enough", or about as good as the 360? Fine, but the 360 was cheaper, last I checked, so really the only thing left is the Blu-Ray player.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SuperKendall]

No, it'd just make you an asshole. All you have to do is warn that network connectivity IS mandated for your disc, and refuse to run if you can't connect to a server.

Spec does not allow for this. Let me repeat - Not possible. You CANNOT mandate a disc have an internet connection. It can't be published, can't be AACS encoded without permission, etc. etc. etc.

Give up your point which was only theoretical anyway!

HD-DVD developer, remember? It's trivial for me to turn off the sound, put a big black box on top of the movie, and give you a notice that I need network connectivity to continue.

And trivial for your disc to never be published. Sorry about that, guess you should have been such a jerk in again a purely theoretical situation which will never happen even as our sun grows dim and expands to encompass the earth.

And today, the servers have not gone away.

MLB baseball clips from that online sportcasting place that folded anyone? Oops, gone. See, I use examples form things that actually happen in real life.

I'm not entirely sure if all of that adds up to the time needed to drive to a store, or to sign up for a Netflix account if I don't have one already. Those are single time events compared to your per-title examples.

They do DRM at all, therefore, they are already insanely stupid. QED.

People accept the RM today and buy products with it, therefore the developers and businesses that include the DRM that sells are actually quite clever to get people to accept it. Never confuse evil with stupidity.

So I do support positive efforts, from companies with a track record of positive efforts.

You only support companies you support. Sure, that makes *loads* of sense. A kind of Biosphere of customer support, nothing ever gets in or out. Of course, you'll neevr actually change behaviour the way I will but at least your walled off from everything.

Still quite a bit more expensive than an HD-DVD player.

On a per movie basis for all the movies I will watch, a blu-ray player even today is insignificantly less expensive than an HD-DVD player. If you consider the cost per Disney (read: Pixar) or Fox title your HD-DVD player is infinately expensive since it will not play them even as the sun grows to... yadada yadda.

For unique titles, I'll buy a Wii.

So will I, but it doesn't have the same unique titles. Again you are choosing to wall yourself off just because you'll not accept anything new in your life.

So the PS3 is "good enough", or about as good as the 360?

Actually as a home theater component far better, since it is quieter. As a gaming system I primarily chose it over the 360 since it's so much cheaper (I plan to have it about six to seven years and live at $50/year...). And like I said it has unique titles, great graphics along with a motion sensing controller.

Fine, but the 360 was cheaper, last I checked, so really the only thing left is the Blu-Ray player.

Like I said you're not even right about that. Though I guess since you prefer the sealed off approach perhaps you choose not to pay for live. I still prefer a more reliable console though.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Spec does not allow for this. Let me repeat - Not possible. You CANNOT mandate a disc have an internet connection. It can't be published, can't be AACS encoded without permission, etc. etc. etc.

Now, this seems a bit limiting in other ways.

Simplest example: One project we were planning was some sort of universal checkdisc. You'd throw every checkdisc video pattern imaginable on it, and let people download playlists -- maybe not actual playlists as the player understands them, but at least something the script would do.

There wouldn't be much point to having such a disc work without a network connection.

And trivial for your disc to never be published. Sorry about that, guess you should have been such a jerk in again a purely theoretical situation which will never happen even as our sun grows dim and expands to encompass the earth.

Somehow, I think the AACS licensing authority could be corrupted in less than five billion years.

I admit, I had not heard of that restriction, but there's no technological reason it can't be done, and nothing inherent in the players themselves. There are tons of things claiming to be DVD discs or CDs which have copy protection not allowed by the DVD or CD specs either, respectively.

MLB baseball clips from that online sportcasting place that folded anyone? Oops, gone. See, I use examples form things that actually happen in real life.

And that's a reason to not trust any service secured that way?

AltaVista is, while not gone, certainly no longer relevant. But I use Google all the time.

People accept the RM today and buy products with it, therefore the developers and businesses that include the DRM that sells are actually quite clever to get people to accept it. Never confuse evil with stupidity.

Except that it doesn't really buy them anything other than a temporary advantage. It will be cracked, and when it is, they will lose to piracy -- again. Anything which makes a pirated product of higher value than the legitimate product is of questionable business sanity.

You only support companies you support.

No, that's not what I said. -1 Lack of reading comprehension.

Of course, you'll neevr actually change behaviour the way I will but at least your walled off from everything.

I actually came up with a list of things the companies I boycott could do to win me back. They haven't done them.

On a per movie basis for all the movies I will watch, a blu-ray player even today is insignificantly less expensive than an HD-DVD player.

Not relevant, when I rent most movies anyway.

If you consider the cost per Disney (read: Pixar) or Fox title your HD-DVD player is infinately expensive since it will not play them even as the sun grows to...

Ditto with your Blu-ray player, and Paramount/Universal titles. Where's Heroes on Blu-Ray, hmm?

"infinitely expensive" is a nonsensical statement. You could say that a Blu-Ray player has more worth, due to a better selection of movies. I'm not yet convinced it's a better value.

So will I, but it doesn't have the same unique titles.

In other words, I should buy all three?

For my money, the 360 and the Wii are better than a PS3. I just haven't seen any compelling PS3 exclusives, but there's Mass Effect and Halo on the 360, and Zelda and friends on the Wii.

Bonus: Nintendo has not actually screwed consumers over. Microsoft and Sony both have, Sony moreso in recent years.

Actually as a home theater component far better, since it is quieter.

Ah, true. But the 360 is certainly not cheaper with an HD-DVD drive, so I wasn't counting the home theater in that estimate.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SuperKendall]

Simplest example: One project we were planning was some sort of universal checkdisc

Yep, not a movie. Nor would it be publishable as a consumer product that met the standards for that format if you did require a connection.

There wouldn't be much point to having such a disc work without a network connection.

Sure there would, the test patterns. Internet could easily be optional.

I admit, I had not heard of that restriction, but there's no technological reason it can't be done, and nothing inherent in the players themselves.

But we are not talking about what the players can do. We are talking about what studios can do. And they have restrictions on what they are allowed to publish to meet the guidelines set up by the BDA.

And that's a reason to not trust any service secured that way?

It's more than enough, I didn't trust them before that and that episode just confirmed it. I buy online video myself but I have no illusions I'll be able to play it forever, or that I "own" it the same way I own movies I buy.

AltaVista is, while not gone, certainly no longer relevant. But I use Google all the time.

That metaphor is irrelevant, every search is a unique and dynamic thing that you use the contents of once, a movie or other video you purchase is a single product that lasts forever (or it should be).

Online rental is a totally different matter, but you can't replace physical discs without having some form of "forever" media, people generally will not stand for it otherwise.

Except that it doesn't really buy them anything other than a temporary advantage. It will be cracked, and when it is, they will lose to piracy

Aha! So you are saying that a product with DRM is equivalent to one without DRM. So then DRM does not matter, on discs or downloaded media and we can remove it as a factor.

Except we can't, because physical media has been cracked and downloaded video has not. Thus physical media is superior, and not even just for all the obvious reasons.

No, that's not what I said. -1 Lack of reading comprehension.

-1 for not saying what you mean to say, becaue what I wrote was what you said - summarized into the essential nature of your argument.

I actually came up with a list of things the companies I boycott could do to win me back. They haven't done them.

Sure you have. And they are supposed to meet these secret demands why again? I influence through money. You have no sway with them to meet demands they don't even know about anyway! Through purchases, I transmit my wishes in a language they can understand and respect.

Not relevant, when I rent most movies anyway.

So do I. You said most, which is not all, and therefore relevant.

Ditto with your Blu-ray player, and Paramount/Universal titles.

One month and I'll have those too. Which was obvious from the start of the stupid war. Disney + Fox + Sony on one side? The only way they were going to lose is if Microsoft pushed HD-DVD ot with the 360, and when that didn't happen it was game over for HD-DVD, basically before a single player or movie for either format was sold. When selling a movie format, the key is movies - not cheap players or internet features no-one cares about. This is obvious from the results, for from almost the moment people got a reasonable Blu-Ray player (the PS3) Blu-Ray titles outsold HD-DVD worldwide.



No, the PS3 for the unique games it has and games with more expansive graphics, and a Wii for those. Everything else is covered just by having a PC. I certainly wouldn't buy a 360 for games from a graphical standpoint, because it's limited to a great extent with only DVD for storage. You either have to chop up a game or make it look worse to cram it on the DVD.

Ah, true. But the 360 is certainly not cheaper with an HD-DVD drive

Games have audio too.

Or Live at $0/year.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Sure there would, the test patterns. Internet could easily be optional.

Understand, the test patterns are in whatever order was convenient at the time. The key feature of this disc was to be able to pick out only the test patterns you actually need to run on this particular consumer's TV, and run those.

If Internet was optional, it would require a lot more discs, or a lot more pre-programmed playlists (and a lot more fiddling to find the right one).

But we are not talking about what the players can do. We are talking about what studios can do.

Fine, the studios could band together and lean on the BDA, or whoever else they need to.

Fortunately, I suppose, you'll still have all your existing (working) discs. But is it so unbelievable that this standard could silently change, and new discs would silently include this copy protection, and you wouldn't find out until you had a dozen discs and your Internet went out?

It's more than enough, I didn't trust them before that and that episode just confirmed it.

Yeah, I feel the same way about Sony.

I buy online video myself but I have no illusions I'll be able to play it forever, or that I "own" it the same way I own movies I buy.

Depends where you buy it. If I lose the Sanctuary episodes I bought, that's my own fault. So I "own" it in the same way as DVDs, only moreso, because at least for now, if I lose the physical copy, I can still download another one (for free).

Online rental is a totally different matter, but you can't replace physical discs without having some form of "forever" media, people generally will not stand for it otherwise.

Point well taken.

However, there is one good argument for why rentals might. I don't like it, I prefer to pay more and actually own what I own, but it goes something like this: Sign up for a music service, like Napster or Zune. Download all the music you want. Add up how much it would've cost you to buy that music on iTunes. Calculate how many years you'll have to "rent" before it becomes more expensive than iTunes.

Even if one such service dies, another will replace it. What you lose is specific, esoteric songs, but the premise is that there will always be more, equally esoteric songs to replace them.

Aha! So you are saying that a product with DRM is equivalent to one without DRM.

I am saying that, for what the media industries are claiming to be trying to combat, it does nothing. No matter how hard the DRM is to crack, you only need one person to crack it, and the the cracked copy is online, forever. (Or at least, for long enough.)

For the consumer, it still sucks, unless you are going to become a pirate, or unless the DRM is completely cracked, the way DVDs are.

Except we can't, because physical media has been cracked and downloaded video has not.

Except that most downloaded video has, including downloaded video which comes without DRM. Physical media is not only going to be DRM'd, it's going to be in a format which we have to reverse engineer. (I've seen morons on Slashdot claim that HD-DVD is an "open standard"... HAHAHAHAHA)

Again, one person cracking it once and throwing it up on BitTorrent doesn't make it irrelevant for the purposes of consumer choice. Until I can just fire up VLC on Ubuntu and play a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, I absolutely consider the openness of a format to be a factor.

Sure you have. And they are supposed to meet these secret demands why again? I influence through money.

They are not "secret", I was just feeling a bit too lazy to write them up here. But it seems pretty plainly obvious what steps could be taken. Un-hypervisor-ing PS3 Linux would be a good start.

So do I. You said most, which is not all,

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SuperKendall]

Understand, the test patterns are in whatever order was convenient at the time.

Yes but that still doesn't require the internet at all, you just put in a lot of pre-programmed choices and frankly with BDJ you could simply provide an on the spot selection for order you wanted them played in. I don't understand how the internet is even useful, since anything you define on the web you could have simply included as an option on the disc AND it will be les suser configurable.

And of course, again it's a single theoretical example.

Fortunately, I suppose, you'll still have all your existing (working) discs. But is it so unbelievable that this standard could silently change, and new discs would silently include this copy protection

Yes because it makes no sense to do so, nor is it the direction companies are headed, nor would consumers buy the discs. My guess is only 20% of BD players ever get connected to the internet. And that is quite a high estimate, I figure.

Yeah, I feel the same way about Sony.

As you should about any company selling DRM media. I feel the same way about Apple's media.

Except that most downloaded video has, including downloaded video which comes without DRM.

Bullshit. Find me a cracker app for Windows media DRM protected files. Doesn't exist.

Physical media is not only going to be DRM'd, it's going to be in a format which we have to reverse engineer.

Already done though, so I'm not sure I see why you are even arguing that point. It doesn't matter how hard it is if it's done! I can already download full rips from HD-DVD and Blu-Ray dsics today.

Depends where you buy it. If I lose the Sanctuary episodes I bought, that's my own fault. So I "own" it in the same way as DVDs,

Non mainstream examples are not useful nor pertinent.

However, there is one good argument for why rentals might. I don't like it, I prefer to pay more and actually own what I own, but it goes something like this: Sign up for a music service, like Napster or Zune. Download all the music you want.

Since that has infinite cost (lifetime of payment) it's not cheaper at all. That's why people hate it and don't use it, generally speaking. Something that practically caps at 10% marketshare is not a good example.

Even if one such service dies, another will replace it. What you lose is specific, esoteric songs,

1) you don't know there will always be a replacement, 2) the esoteric songs are exactly the ones I treasure the most. Again this is why people stay away in droves from the drek that is rented music.

I am saying that, for what the media industries are claiming to be trying to combat, it does nothing.

That is correct, but again irrelevant since they don't know that (or don't act like they do).

There are some small, tiny quantity which I actually buy. I think it's less than five.

Judging by the movie industry as a whole then you are obviously an aberration, which is why I don't think much of the arguments you put forth make much sense in practical terms and the larger market.

Speculation. Possibly accurate, but let's find out in a month.

Inevitable, guided by the giant hand of economic forces. As I said I saw it coming before the first players came out. You can "speculate" the sun may not rise tomorrow but equally powerful forces dictate that happening as well. I know this sounds a bit seldonesqe but it does not make it less true.

No bookie would take odds on this not happening, and you know it.

You called the PS3 "more reliable". I'm just asking you to clarify what you mean by that.

Hardware and software, basically nay meaning you could imply. Not to mention the wireless controllers don't overlap with a far too overused portion of the spectrum.

HDi is just a spec. (Yeah, they renamed it, because iHD sounded too much like an iApple product.)

I had not he

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Yes but that still doesn't require the internet at all, you just put in a lot of pre-programmed choices and frankly with BDJ you could simply provide an on the spot selection for order you wanted them played in.

With HDi also.

What makes it useful is the ability to target specific player models (which is a lot easier for the server to do, as players do set the user-agent), specific players (each player has a unique ID), or specific users -- a tech might have a specific list of tests they might run, and would want to have those remembered, rather than having to find them among thousands of permutations, or program them from scratch every time.

And we did think it was a rather strange idea, but someone did want us to make it.

I don't understand how the internet is even useful, since anything you define on the web you could have simply included as an option on the disc AND it will be les suser configurable.

Wait, how is the web less user configurable? We have PUT and POST, you know...

And yes, it could be included as an option on-disc, but then you have a choice:

• Include every permutation you think is relevant, and piss off the people who need one that's not included
• Don't save any lists, and instead let the tech manually select which pattern is needed, generally from a very large list
• Burn specific discs for specific purposes, which costs a hell of a lot more than running a server

And of course, again it's a single theoretical example.

Agreed. But it is a valid one.

And just because I haven't thought of it, and you haven't thought of it, doesn't mean it's impossible, or that it wouldn't be useful. I admit that "we haven't thought of it" is not a particularly strong argument, but it has to be considered, especially when we're talking about a lifetime spanning a decade or more -- unless you're wrong and Internet distribution kills disc formats.

Look at the tricks HTTP continues to do.

My guess is only 20% of BD players ever get connected to the internet. And that is quite a high estimate, I figure.

Apple has less than 20% of the desktop/laptop market, but people do still make and sell Mac-only programs.

Bullshit. Find me a cracker app for Windows media DRM protected files. Doesn't exist.

Bullshit. Did exist, and will exist, if it doesn't right now.

Already done though, so I'm not sure I see why you are even arguing that point. It doesn't matter how hard it is if it's done! I can already download full rips from HD-DVD and Blu-Ray dsics today.

For the pirate, it's done. For the consumer, it's not.

What I can't do is download an open source HD-DVD or Blu-Ray ripper. I could get a list of keys from somewhere, but this still requires someone else to crack it, first.

Straight DVDs are completely cracked, which means consumers can crack them without even trying -- just play them in VLC.

Non mainstream examples are not useful nor pertinent.

I could say the same for unqualified, broad generalizations.

Understand that when I talk about moving to Internet distribution, I am generally talking about at worst Flash-bound, but never DRM-bound.

Since that has infinite cost (lifetime of payment) it's not cheaper at all.

You're not going to live forever. And if you did, would you still be listening to the same music?

1) you don't know there will always be a replacement, 2) the esoteric songs are exactly the ones I treasure the most.

And that is worth a premium. Still, it's worth calculating how much of a premium you're paying for that choice and reliability.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SuperKendall]

Wait, how is the web less user configurable? We have PUT and POST, you know...

And BDJ allows for an even richer interface, or at least the same level of customizability.

Include every permutation you think is relevant, and piss off the people who need one that's not included

In 50GB of space you cannot convince me it's impossible to hold every test pattern you would ever need, along with the interface to allow someone to select any permutation they like on the fly.

Agreed. But it is a valid one.

No, no it's not because it's such a corner case, a complete aberration from the general use of movies on disc. It's nothing like that, a use that while technically possible is not what the technology was built and is targeted for.

Apple has less than 20% of the desktop/laptop market, but people do still make and sell Mac-only programs.

But not for Linux systems, generally.

Bullshit. Did exist, and will exist, if it doesn't right now.

Link or it doesn't exist. If you an I can't find anything, or if it exists for a day and then vanishes - it does not exist for all intents and purposes.

What I can't do is download an open source HD-DVD or Blu-Ray ripper. I could get a list of keys from somewhere, but this still requires someone else to crack it, first.

No, but you can buy one (AnyDVD).

I could say the same for unqualified, broad generalizations.

you cannot since they are far more applicable.

Understand that when I talk about moving to Internet distribution, I am generally talking about at worst Flash-bound, but never DRM-bound.

Flash bound is internet bound. Network based storage is still a good twenty years off from acceptance - people like to own things, and ownership is physical to most people. Sorry, that's just how humans work and like all other endeavors that attempt to ignore human nature, it will always be a small thing in a very big pond.

And that is worth a premium. Still, it's worth calculating how much of a premium you're paying for that choice and reliability.

It's pretty easy to run that calculation - anything I pay to won music is lower than infinity.

So now something's only relevant if the media industries know about it?

No, consumers - I'm talking there though about what medias companies know vs. what they actually do. They know DRM will be cracked but still act as if it will not be,

Judging by Netflix and video rentals in general, and by the relative size of most people's movie collection, I'm not that far off. Twenty DVDs is still not a lot, compared to the number rented.

It's quite a few when you multiply that by the average size of the US population, and consider how many discs Netflix needs to operate.

Do my arguments have flaws of their own, or is this just an ad-hominim?

I've done nothing but point out flaws in your arguments.

I am, however, saying that while it's obviously likely to go one way, we don't know yet.

Just like you don't "know" the sun will rise tomorrow? Those are the level of odds we are talking about.

I'm not saying that a user could cleverly trigger this on an actual released disc. I'm saying that by the time users get their hands on Blu-Ray-burning software and start messing around, they'll almost certainly trigger these.

That seems unlikely since consumer burning tools will generally use subsets of functionality, I don't know how many people will be doing general BD-J stuff.

What is this again about paying for Live? Is there really that much more you get with the paid subscription?

Multiplayer match play????

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

And BDJ allows for an even richer interface, or at least the same level of customizability.

I'm still confused. What is not "rich" about REST?

And unless you at least include web support, I don't see how it's the same level of customizability.

No, no it's not because it's such a corner case, a complete aberration from the general use of movies on disc. It's nothing like that, a use that while technically possible is not what the technology was built and is targeted for.

Again, I'll direct you to HTTP -- a simple file-sharing protocol, with far fewer features than FTP, which is now being used to deliver applications, for RPC between applications...

Or, take Javascript. It was built to validate form submissions, and to do the things that CSS does now. And Javascript is now being used to develop applications.

Was built and is targeted have little impact on the reality of what it can do, or even on what it might be a good idea to make it do.

But not for Linux systems, generally.

What does that have to do with anything?

I was replying to your estimate that only 20% of BD players will be connected to the Internet.

Flash bound is internet bound.

No, it's not. And that was also "at worst".

Network based storage is still a good twenty years off from acceptance - people like to own things, and ownership is physical to most people. Sorry, that's just how humans work and like all other endeavors that attempt to ignore human nature, it will always be a small thing in a very big pond.

Oh, thanks! I didn't know that.

I guess I'll go tell that to Apple. This iPod thing was a failure after all.

It's pretty easy to run that calculation - anything I pay to won music is lower than infinity.

You're going to live forever? How??

It's quite a few when you multiply that by the average size of the US population, and consider how many discs Netflix needs to operate.

So why haven't they bought Netflix?

I don't mean that literally. I mean, if Netflix is actually as successful or moreso than a model of buy-to-own, it's the studios' fault for not cashing in on it.

Judging by the movie industry as a whole then you are obviously an aberration, which is why I don't think much of the arguments you put forth make much sense...

I've done nothing but point out flaws in your arguments.

...right. Because my own buying habits being an aberration make my arguments flawed.

Just like you don't "know" the sun will rise tomorrow? Those are the level of odds we are talking about.

Guessing you didn't major in statistics.

Try this one: Calculate the odds that one or more studio CEOs will suddenly go batshit insane and back HD-DVD. Compare those with the odds that the sun goes poof.

That seems unlikely since consumer burning tools will generally use subsets of functionality, I don't know how many people will be doing general BD-J stuff.

Probably not many. Possibly enough.

In any case, all it takes is a particular subset of the functionality that works on the PS3, but blows up Grandma's first-gen standalone player.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SuperKendall]

I'm still confused. What is not "rich" about REST?

We are talking UI, not communications protocol. You can do a lot with DHTML but not for example show active movies in the UI the same way you could with BD-J. There's a reason people would prefer real apps on the iPhone over web apps.

And unless you at least include web support, I don't see how it's the same level of customizability.

Because for your single example the user could more easily choose the exact series of test patterns desired based on a more refined GUI not hampered by DHTML limitations or the availability of network which as I said only 20% of people would have hooked up anyway. A disc of test patterns I'm assuming would be used in a variety of environments and players, not all of which would have internet. And since there is no need for it...

Was built and is targeted have little impact on the reality of what it can do, or even on what it might be a good idea to make it do.

Correct. But it's not a good idea in even your example that is unlike any other disc sold on the market.

No, it's not. And that was also "at worst".

All flash video to date is streamed over the network.

I guess I'll go tell that to Apple. This iPod thing was a failure after all.

You mean the same iPod which lets people download and "own" songs and store them locally?

Songs are much easier to manage than video today, and for some time.

You're going to live forever? How??

TBD but, yes.

I don't mean that literally. I mean, if Netflix is actually as successful or moreso than a model of buy-to-own, it's the studios' fault for not cashing in on it.

That is also correct.

Because my own buying habits being an aberration make my arguments flawed.

Actually it's the flaws in your arguments. Try removing those first. Also the fact that your buying habits do not reflect the majority of people. means your arguments based on your habits are fundamentally flawed when doing general analysis of consumer or producer behavior.

Guessing you didn't major in statistics.

As a theoretical CompSci major statistics were a strong component of my education.

Try this one: Calculate the odds that one or more studio CEOs will suddenly go batshit insane and back HD-DVD. Compare those with the odds that the sun goes poof.

I have - we know a lot more about human nature than the dynamics of the sun. And what we know about human nature says that's a lot more unlikely.

Probably not many. Possibly enough.

I wouldn't even rate it as possible. J2ME programming is a lot easier and there are still a very sall number of people doing that compared to the market for cell phones as a whole. Consider that there's also a DVD menuing system today but consumers simply do not touch it - all of the popular DVD authoring software packages for consumers bundle canned functionality people make use of.

In any case, all it takes is a particular subset of the functionality that works on the PS3, but blows up Grandma's first-gen standalone player.

Grandma will not have a 1st gen player though, she's not a bleeding edge buyer - nor are there enough of them even to really matter once a format takes off.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

We are talking UI, not communications protocol.

In that case, let's talk about UI. Remember back when you said:

I don't understand how the internet is even useful, since anything you define on the web you could have simply included as an option on the disc AND it will be les suser configurable.

Ok, now I see the problem. You said "web", when what we both meant was REST.

You see, HDi is a script that runs off disc or persistent storage. It's Javascript and XML. It has an API which allows it to fetch things over HTTP, but it does NOT have a web browser. Thus, the only relevance of "web" here is as REST -- it's really just a form of restricted Internet access that has nothing directly to do with the Web.

("Restricted" because it does not allow protocols other than HTTP, or ports other than 80 (or 443 for SSL), etc etc)

So, anything BDJ can do, HDi can do. And right now, HDi can do it better.

not for example show active movies in the UI the same way you could with BD-J.

Not only can I show active movies in the UI, I can download or stream them, too. Could watch the original movie, while streaming in a live director's commentary talking head...

There's a reason people would prefer real apps on the iPhone over web apps.

Yes, there is, but it has nothing to do with XML or JavaScript.

Because for your single example the user could more easily choose the exact series of test patterns desired based on a more refined GUI not hampered by DHTML limitations or the availability of network which as I said only 20% of people would have hooked up anyway.

Except HD-DVD markup is not HTML, though it resembles it. And HDi does not require availability of the network, so I could still fall back to your way if it was not available.

Correct. But it's not a good idea in even your example that is unlike any other disc sold on the market.

Let's talk about that after you understand how my example works.

All flash video to date is streamed over the network.

Also not true. (Alright, technically it's Director, but it's the same tech.) And that's not counting downloading the flv file directly and watching from mplayer or VLC.

You mean the same iPod which lets people download and "own" songs and store them locally?

Or copy them from their friends, or download them from the Internet.

I wouldn't even rate it as possible. J2ME programming is a lot easier

Than what?

Grandma will not have a 1st gen player though, she's not a bleeding edge buyer

No, she's a hand-me-down have-to-buy-it-for-her.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SuperKendall]

Ok, now I see the problem. You said "web", when what we both meant was REST.

No, I didn't mean REST. I was saying anything you could do on the web, could be included on the disc standalone and with a better UI. Someone has to set up the web site and they could just as easily set up a disc.

You see, HDi is a script that runs off disc or persistent storage. It's Javascript and XML. It has an API which allows it to fetch things over HTTP, but it does NOT have a web browser. Thus, the only relevance of "web" here is as REST -- it's really just a form of restricted Internet access that has nothing directly to do with the Web.

Obvious, I already knew this. BDJ you see is Java and thus can do more interesting things (or at least the same things) with all that same data stored locally. You are making the classic engineer mistake of trying to do something, just because you can - and it's *still* the worst example ever since it's nothing like what .999999999999% of all discs ever made will do.

So, anything BDJ can do, HDi can do. And right now, HDi can do it better.

Like video previews of each selected test pattern in a checklist you re-order by dragging items? Sorry.

Not only can I show active movies in the UI, I can download or stream them, too. Could watch the original movie, while streaming in a live director's commentary talking head...

400 streams at once then?

In any case BD-J is as I said at least equivilent - only *I* don't have network overhead an latency for calls, or have to have a network at all for that matter. Mine is a vastly superior engineering solution since it is more robust and easier for the user to actually use.

Yes, there is, but it has nothing to do with XML or JavaScript.

Not exactly but it's part of the deal.

Except HD-DVD markup is not HTML, though it resembles it. And HDi does not require availability of the network, so I could still fall back to your way if it was not available.

So then why even use it if you don't need it. Again it's simply a waste. And I can also look for a network connection with BD-J and use it if I find it. So the network is irrelevant in this example.

Let's talk about that after you understand how my example works.

I understood it's failings in conception.

Also not true. (Alright, technically it's Director, but it's the same tech.) And that's not counting downloading the flv file directly and watching from mplayer or VLC.

Which, just like all the other examples you ever give, is never actrually done in practice. Only in your imaginary dreamland of non-streamed Flash video where every person on earth has forty internet connections in each room!

Or copy them from their friends, or download them from the Internet.

Thus are not stored on a network, just as I said. Sorry your point deflated there.

Than what?

Than BDJ. For one thing there's just a lot more known about it. For another the capabilities of mobile devices supported by the various J2ME profiles are much more limited that the possible actions you can take with BDJ.

No, she's a hand-me-down have-to-buy-it-for-her.

Then you would have been rather foolish to buy her a first gen player knowing they would be less lightly tested. However, given a good enough BD-J implementation test harness it should still work out.

Re:No technical reason for this.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I was saying anything you could do on the web, could be included on the disc standalone and with a better UI.

Erm... Yes, you are obviously either not understanding or not bothring to read. Any UI you can do on the disc standalone, you can also do with a connection to the Web. Anything you can do in HDi, at least, which requires a Web connection, also requires a UI to be developed, client-side, in the same manner as you would do without the Web connection.

Obvious, I already knew this. BDJ you see is Java and thus can do more interesting things (or at least the same things) with all that same data stored locally.

Sounds like you need to read some Douglas Crockford.

But yes, at least the same things. Provided it has the same APIs available (do I have persistent storage?)

You are making the classic engineer mistake of trying to do something, just because you can - and it's *still* the worst example ever since it's nothing like what .999999999999% of all discs ever made will do.

Wow, almost 1% won't do this! (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

And the point you are missing is that someone hired us to do this.

Like video previews of each selected test pattern in a checklist you re-order by dragging items? Sorry.

The last time I saw a BDJ demo, animation was pitifully slow. By "pitiful", I mean "redrawing in large chunks, visibly." If the situation has changed, I'll retract that.

In any case BD-J is as I said at least equivilent - only *I* don't have network overhead an latency for calls, or have to have a network at all for that matter.

Neither do I, unless I want to.

If the commentary was ready before the disc was burned, it can be muxed in as a secondary video stream. (Note: 'a', implying there can be more than one secondary video stream.) If the commentary was not ready, or if, for some reason, people have a fetish with "live" commentary (maybe with some sort of IM window opened back to the director), then it can be streamed over the network, also.

If there's really a problem with reading from disc that fast, the whole thing can be preloaded into RAM or persistent storage.

I'm not sure if more than one such stream can be played at once, though.

Not exactly but it's part of the deal.

Not so much.

That is, there are three distinct reasons that I can think of that people would prefer "real" apps on the iPhone:

1. "Real" apps can interface more directly with the rest of the UI and the hardware, and thus do more. That's an API issue.
2. There's no offline browsing mode, so web apps require an Internet connection to run. That's a browser issue, and partly an API issue.
3. "Real" apps are faster. For instance, you'd have to be insane to use an audio codec written in Javascript, let alone video. But for most "applications", this is a non-issue -- the CPU-intensive parts are already done in an API somewhere.

HDi has a sort-of OK API, compared to the absolute crap that is the browser API. There are still some genuine WTFs in there -- FileIO is way more limited than it needs to be -- but again, not a restriction of Javascript per se (or XML), but of the API chosen.

So then why even use it if you don't need it.

I don't know. I can play Quake3 fine singleplayer; why even include multiplayer if I don't need it?

Oh yeah, I remember now -- added value.

And I can also look for a network connection with BD-J and use it if I find it. So the network is irrelevant in this example.

The difference is that in your case, the network hardware may not even be available. If I remember, there was also a big joke about the PS3, despite having wired and wireless Internet for

DRM is optional.

[SanityInAnarchy]

You don't get all the interactive features if you go DRM-free -- you get a lot of them, but not all. But it is an option, and with a standard 9-gig DVD, too.

Were it not for the licensing crap -- that is, if I could just take the HD-DVD spec I've got here and release it to the Internet -- I imagine you'd already be seeing high-quality open source implementations. As it is, if you're willing to pay ludicrously high fees for software like Scenarist, that and a dual-layer DVD burner will give you high-def content, which will actually work on your retail HD-DVD player.

Re:The war might be over, but the battles will go

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would a whole bunch of HD-DVD players be thrown away. You still get 5 free movies via Mail-in Form. At a cost between $20-30 for each of those movies, that's $100-$150 of subsidizing right there. My dad who bought a HD-A30 (The highest end HD-DVD player currently by Toshiba) got the 2 movies in box (300 and Borne Identity), 3 free movies from Amazon, and still gets the 5 via mail. Basically, the 10 movies subsidized the cost of the player ($223).

It will still play the movies he purchased, and will still be a very good up-converting DVD player for regular movies.

Besides, when I bought my hundred dollar walmart special HD-DVD player, I knew that like it or not, I'm gonna buy a blu-ray player too. I'm just gonna wait till they come down to that $100 range, cause like it or not, some movies I want are bluray exclusive. Though I'm definitely gonna buy a non-sony version of one.

See, I don't understand why the movie companies would back this. Sony can not only sell the units, but they can use the units to subsidize the cost of their own Blu-ray releases (and since they don't license the technology since they own it), studios are actually paying Sony to compete with them. Though I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that Blu-ray disks are more restricted (DRM, Access, Region Encoding). HD-DVD's aren't.

Though I wonder how this affects Europe. There's many Blu-ray only movies in America that are on HD-DVD in other regions (Europe or Japan), and one could theoretically import those currently. I wonder if this changes that too?

Re:The war might be over, but the battles will go

[Moonpie Madness]

You said that HD players were cheaper. You actually said it twice. But you do realize they were loss leaders? Toshiba sold them for a loss, just as Sony does with the PS3.

WB chose blu-ray because it was on the other side, giving it no other logical move. Warner couldn't help HD DVD win, because they already were helping it as much as possible. They needed this idiotic format war to end if it's going to be adopted at all and Warner is going to make the kind of money they ought to be making, so they did the only thing they could do to end it by harming HD DVD. With the WGA strike, now is a great time to shift the customers over to anew format. They always want something new and interesting, and TV isn't there right now.

I don't think many people bought a PS3 just for the games. The PS3 is a cool little toy, but it's not exactly the best gaming system to own today.

Why get either if you're happy with DVD? The late adopter always wins. If you wait five years, these players will be cheaper. If you have an HDTV, and can't see the difference, your money is better spent at the optometrist. Even if you stick with DVDs, the PS3 is one of the best DVD players you can get, since it upconverts DVDs very well, streams content from your computer and can broadcast it to your PSP over the internet, will be a DVR soon, and does other neat little things.

A lot of the problems with blu0ray are related to an extreme DRM posture. It may be the format to significantly curtail bootlegging. I doubt it, but it's the best shot, and I think that's just fine. You aren't going to damage a blu-ray beyond repair on accident, so might as well see if it's possible to really harm piracy with DRM. I it isn't then maybe they will give up and try a more open approach. If it does succeed, then that's great! Bootleggers take food off the table for good families out there.

Re:The war might be over, but the battles will go

[dracocat]

I am pretty sure the WB execs were smart enough to factor in PS3 sales and account for how many of them were bought for gaming only.

Don't dismiss the number of people that were thinking of a Blu Ray player, and thought they might as well spend a little more and get a PS3 at the same time.

Re:The new HD-DVD meme. Not easy nor cheap.

[Anonymous Coward]

To get HD content online I have to decide to buy it from somewhere (and have an internet connection to my system at the TV). Then I have to wait for it to buffer enough to start watching. And then I have to watch a greatly compressed video/audio experience that makes buying a decent HD set a waste. Or I can go for a torrent, and spend days downloading a full quality mvoie only risking many thousands of dollars in fines if a torrent that I must leave up for days on end is discovered. Or you do it the smart way, and get basically any HD movie that's been released to date at full connection speed, without exposing your IP to any lurking authorities, and watch your movie when you wake up the next day. Or if you don't mind H.264, which looks pretty damn good, you wait about 3 hours instead. Boo hoo. Easier than a $300+ player and NetFlix or spending $20+ for a movie I'll watch once.

By the way, it would be just as fast if it were available legally online. But it's not. So you make do.

Pay attention everyone, this is the new meme that all the cool HD kids are spreading now in some kind of bizarre "Scorched Earth" strategy meant to destroy both formats, after all Sony must die right? Damn, I have mod points, you're on my foes list, and that was flamebait, yet I'm writing this stupid AC reply instead. Always next time I guess.

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[Knetzar]

unless all previous players support the extra layer(s), then 3-layer HD-DVD might as well be a new format.

Re:The new HD-DVD meme. Not easy nor cheap.

[Aceticon]

I have a digital media player at home which can play DivX and XVID movies, not to mention all other common video encoding formats.

It's a little box, smaller than most portable DVD players, with a 250GB disk inside. It has an ethernet port and can browse and play movies from any PC i have in my home network which is on at the moment (i use a Ethernet-Over-Powerline solution for the part of my home network which is not wireless, so i have no unseemly cables running around the place). It also has a USB port, so i can plug an external HDD to it (it can play movies from one of those too).

This thing is great for playing movies, TV series or any other video content in digital format. Video compression using one of the MPEG-4, Divx, XVID codecs means that i can fit a lot of movies in the 250GB HDD I've fit in it. Add to this the extra space from all the machines i have at home plugged into my network, not to mention portable HDDs i have lying around and that means hundreds of movies are literally at my fingertips (it has a remote control :)).

I could literally many days in a row watching movies and TV series from it, sitting in my sofa the whole time without barely moving a finger (as long as i used diapers and stock up on food first ;))

Performance is great, since it uses a dedicated hardware solution (an Integrated Circuit specific for that) for decoding the digital media files and re-sizing the image (if needed). The only problem i ever had with it was, because my (original) HomePlug network was using the lowest speed (11Mb/s) adaptors, when playing HD content over the network, the movie would stutter for scenes were the camera was panning fast or for a long time (due to the way movie compression works, those scenes required a higher bandwidth), and that could be fixed in newer versions (for example: use the local HDD as a cache).

These things are being made in China by loads of manufacturers (check www.alibaba.com) and cost maybe 50$ a pop (without HD) at wholesale prices. There's at least 2 (maybe 3 or 4) different IC manufacturers with microchips designed specifically to play DivX/XVID/MPEG-4 content.

Add to this the fact that with a modern broadband connection, it's perfectly possible to download from the internet at least 1 movies or 3 TV series episodes in HD format during the night, every day (on a slow connection).

So, to summon things up:
- A cheap, little box next to my TV can play HD video content from a collection of hundreds/thousands of video files, including just downloaded content from a PC. No need for little disks which can be scratched, no need for huge volumes of space to store said collection, no restriction of backing up the videos, no need to move a muscle beyond those needed to press the keys on the remote.

That's convenience.

Funny part is that, at shop prices and including the HDD and 2 HomePlug adaptors (2nd gen, 85Mb/s), the whole setup has cost me about £200 - cheaper than a PSP3 or the cheapest BluRay player available in the UK.

So how exactly is anybody with a setup like mine going to want to change back to using expensive, scratch prone little disks running on expensive hardware only this time around the laser is blue???

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[jimicus]

Purely out of curiousity, how have tapes proven to be the best solution?

Readable or not, you've got the issue of obtaining/maintaining the equipment to read the damn thing. As far as I am aware, no tape technology guarantees 100% backward read capability to all past tapes built around similar technology (even with DLT, not all of the newest drives are 100% backward read capable to every past DLT format).

That doesn't even account for when a totally new tape technology comes around - which happens every 10-15 years.

Re:The war might be over, but the battles will go

[Anonymous Coward]

Trust me, Mom and Dad bought that PS3 for Timmy to play games, not to watch Blu Ray DVDs. *sigh* The same thing could have been said for the PS2. but the ps2 was strategic for introducing dvd sets into alot of homes, including my own as it was my family's first dvd player.

The same goes for my ps3, I bought it primarily for games but also use it as my primary movie player now.

Blu Ray, on the other hand, I've heard nasty things about, like that not all the players will play all Blu Ray discs. Also, I've heard that there is a Blu Ray 2.0 which is in the works, and some of the older 1.x discs may have problems... And the HD-DVD players are cheap, too. Some need firmware upgrades to play newer discs, which in a year or so's time should be inconsequential. We're still in the early adopters phase and crap happens. Bluray 2.0 isn't really in the works. The profile has been defined, it's more a matter of deploying the profile which some manufactures have taken into account and some haven't. The PS3 is Profile 2.0 capable as it's main difference over 1.1 (which the ps3 is compliant with as of update 2.10) is internet connectivity and 1GB of local storage

read somewhere that WB chose Blu Ray because of a recent surge in it's popularity, especialy in December... Uh, can we say Cristmas? Take that number and subtract the number of Playstation 3s sold in the same month. Um, I'm pretty sure Warner could care less about how many actual bluray units are in homes than how many BDs they sold during that period, and if you check the charts, the potter series and 300 sold very well in BD format during the holidays; which is why they made their decision to go blu

Did Sony deny losing a couple of months ago?

[mcvos]

I seem to recall a story where someone from Sony denied they were behind and claimed it was an even race. Now Toshiba denies losing. I really don't know who not to believe anymore.

'Ere, he says he's not dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.

Re:Toshiba should avenge the HD-DVD by reinventing

[benzapp]

In your dreams.

If they remove DRM, not a single Hollywood studio will release on the format. It's that simple.

Never happen

[too2late]

At least not in the next 5 - 10 years... "As of Q1 2007 52.72% of US households had a broadband connection" (http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0708/) and I believe "broadband" is defined as 200 kbit/s or better by the FCC... not exactly going to be able to download those 15 GB movies by the time the pizza guy gets here. I'd rather own a hard copy anyway

Not just Sony!

[closer2it]

This is *NOT* just a Sony Corporation technology! It's an Association of company's

From wikipedia:

The current 18 board members (as of December 2007) are:
* Apple Inc.
* Dell
* Hewlett Packard
* Hitachi
* LG Electronics
* Mitsubishi Electric
* Panasonic (Matsushita Electric)
* Pioneer Corporation
* Royal Philips Electronics
* Samsung Electronics
* Sharp Corporation
* Sony Corporation
* Sun Microsystems
* TDK Corporation
* Thomson
* Twentieth Century Fox
* Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group / Buena Vista Home Entertainment
* Warner Home Video Inc. (Exclusively as of January 4 2008)

Re:Not just Sony!

[tepples]

The current 18 board members (as of December 2007) are: But which board members exercise the greatest level of control of the format, other than Sony?

Re:The new HD-DVD meme. Not easy nor cheap.

[darkfire5252]

Am I the only guy out here that thinks the battle between HD-DVD and Blu-ray is irrelevant? With flash memory as cheap as it is and only getting cheaper, the logical progression is going to be selling thumb drives with movies on them. The size of the drive can be only as large (within a power of two...) as the content requires, and the corporate bobble-heads can decide to change up the DRM scheme ad infinium, provided there's a DVD-player firmware update standard of some sort...

Good reason for Ozaka's remarks

[earlymon]

If I had a large inventory of a dead format to dump, or had some lawyer telling me to find a way to avoid a class-action lawsuit for being part of a rip to 750,000 consumers, I'd come out swinging in the media with remarks like that, too.

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[donaldm]

In the enterprise and I am talking about many terabytes here then tape is still the best backup solution. It may not be the most reliable since DLT tapes even with the best of care can and do break and I can assure you that can be very embarrassing especially when doing a Disaster Recovery. It must be noted that tapes can be put in a RAID configuration with enterprise backup solutions which arn't cheap, but even then you can still have failures.

You are spot-on with regard to technology changes and as I have said before the backup and recovery/refresh on change methodology is so important since you keep your original data and that is assuming the format of your original data does not change. If your data format changes you are going to have a huge problem. I am fully in favor of open format solutions which makes recovery or portability so much easier. Unfortunately many businesses don't think along this line and usually data is lost between hardware or format changes and of course it is always the System Administrators fault.

Personally I don't think CD/DVD style media are good for large amounts of archival storage but they do offer 10 to 20 year storage for smaller amounts of data such as films and music and at least even if Blu-Ray becomes the prefered format you can still read CD's and DVD's with the device of course the same can be said for HD-DVD. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are ok for High Def films and a reasonable amounts of data but at the moment I would not want to bet the business on them. HVD does offer an alternative to tape but as you have mentioned a technology change (ie. new formats or hardware) will stuff up long term archival recovery.

For home use I would recommend a backup disk (or disks) that will fit one backup on it and at least enough space on said disk that can store a few weeks or preferably months of incrementals. It only took me 5 hours to backup my 30GB of personal data, install Fedora 8 and recover all personal data as well as do an update. That worked for me but what happens when you have terabytes or more of data? It does not take any rocket scientist to pick holes in my personal home backup strategy but what home user can afford a reliable backup system that covers all disasters.

Actually on a slightly different note I have read that for short term archive storage and near-line capability HVD is becoming fairly popular with stand alone libraries although from my experience many of the libraries in the area where I live use central servers. I cannot comment on museums but I don't think they are different to what a library requires with the exception of requiring more pictures. At the risk of repeating myself an open format solution is by far the safest bet for any long term storage.

Demographics

[DeanFox]

I think this format war belongs to the 35+ demographic. I was talking with a couple tech savy neighbourhood kids to get a feel for where they were at. Their response? "You buy that shit? Why don't you just download it, that's what we do." They're bypassing this entire nightmare.

$1000 players, $500 HDCP strippers, format "A" vs. format "B", cables, plugs... ad nausium. The generation that matters in the next 10 years are laughing at us 'old' people. They could care less about physical media when on-line on-demand is available.

The warranties haven't even expired on some of these HD-DVD boxes people spent a lot of money on and the format has already been declared dead. My age group is the last generation used to "owning" physical media. For us the format matters. Remove the media as in download on demand, whatever the source, and none of this matters.

I'll wait for several reasons. Least of which, is that either format is moot as is DRM so long as the direction is toward downloading. Cable has on demand viewing, Netflix has started the same thing. I don't think the next 5-10 years is going to be about physical media. Corporations are still battling over a format when it's replacement is available and in use. Things are moving quicker then they have in the past. I declare both formats dead or at least very temporary.

-[d]-

Re:Demographics

[stewbacca]

While I can't wait for the death of physical media either, my cable HD-on-Demand is awful, and I haven't seen a viable on-line service that can deliver HD video on demand yet. I just want an HD player to rent movies, mostly. I haven't been in a video rental store in years, though, nor am I sure if Netflix has HD rentals? I might buy the occassional GREAT movie, since I have little time to sit through fluff Hollywood stuff once, let alone over and over again.

And yes, I fit the 35+ demographic, but there are many like me ;-)

Re:Demographics

[Nex6]

There is a very good reason for this, the "young" interact very differently with technology while there are 'growing up'. for example, they dont own there own houses, and if they rent have roommates etc. so they 'tend' to just live on there computers, so in this regard downloading is better for them. but that will change, they will want to watch these same movies later on the big screens. (appleTV)

I had this talk with my teenage daughter many times before shee graduated highschool, her and her friends used to think myspace was the center of the world, and email and Im was for old folks... well now... they are are dumping myspace as a primary communctaion meduim. what changed? they did; they got older and relised they have different needs and adjusted. now they are all moving tomore tradinional meduims like email and IM.

same, thing here. online digial content will be very very important. but the format for the next gen DVD is just as important. maybe more so, tho i think the recent annocemnts put the nail in the coffen kind of thing for HD DVD. on raw techincal prowess BluRay is better once you forget the DRM stuff. and for most people thats not an issue.

-Nex6

Re:Demographics

[Anita Coney]

"they will want to watch these same movies later on the big screens"

And why can't they watch the Matroska/MKV movie they downloaded from the Pirate Bay later on the big screen? DVI to HDMI cables aren't that expensive, you know.

Re:Demographics

[GauteL]

"I think this format war belongs to the 35+ demographic. I was talking with a couple tech savy neighbourhood kids to get a feel for where they were at. Their response? "You buy that shit? Why don't you just download it, that's what we do." They're bypassing this entire nightmare."

More like: this belongs to the "has a job and a life" demographic. When you spend your entire day working for a living and actually earn money, it becomes less attractive to spend your time fiddling with bittorrent.

P2P downloading is only free if:
a) Your time means nothing
b) You pay nothing for bandwidth
c) The chance of getting caught is 0% or the consequences of getting caught is 0%.

a) and b) may well be the case for "tech savy neighbourhood kids" living with their parents and c) is small enough not to matter for most people.

Since HD content requires insane amounts of bandwidth to download in a timely fashion even from high speed/high availability servers, Physical discs will be relevant until bandwidth becomes sufficiently cheap and HD-video downloads becomes sufficiently easy. To get both of these would probably take 5 years or more given the current (appalling) rate of bandwidth improvement.

Re:Demographics

[DeanFox]

[Cut to head shaking with cartoon sound of rattling marbles]

Myspace and IM vs. what Email? as compared to future buying habits? Study the Greats. A lot of information can be found about formulating an analogous premise. The next buying demographic will change their attitude and will gladly had over wads of cash and be grateful to do so once they "grow-up" because MySpace is now no longer hot?

Okay, let me explain myself better. I want the product. The tie-in with media/product is changing. They used to be one in the same. Even I could care less about physical media and I grew up with it.

I can already get the "product" with a couple clicks. During the next 5 years that's only going to get easier. If I replace my drive or need space, I'll download it again. I do that now with my MythTV PVR. All my "product" is on disk. In fact, I only use the physical media as a means to get on it my Network. Replace the physical media step with download and my end result is the same.

I see the only difference in attitude between the two age groups is paying for it. The younger are more willing to freeload but when they "grow-up" they'll pay? I give you that. But what will they be willing to pay for? Will it matter to them to have physical media or will they be content with a download. To answer that question see Apple.

What I'm seeing in this next demographic is that the media and product tie-in is changing. I'm even changing my attitudes and I'm a Dino :). I'm going to wait this out. I'm not going to invest in physical media format lock-in with DRM when I can already move past that to the next paradigm. But, that's just me :)

Media-less product. It's closer than we think. In fact, it's already here; I already have it.

-[d]-

Re:Demographics

[DeanFox]

P2P downloading is only free if:
a) Your time means nothing
b) You pay nothing for bandwidth
c) The chance of getting caught is 0% or the consequences of getting caught is 0%.

a) and b) may well be the case for "tech savy neighbourhood kids" living with their parents and c) is small enough not to matter for most people. "A": aptget install [package]. 10 minutes? 45 for full intragration?
"B": Unlimited (so far) up to 30meg down, $45 a month.
"C": Netflix for starters.

In my world all of your conditions have been met or do not apply. Don't be discouraged that this technology is too difficult for you. It will get easier and you'll soon enjoy the freedom others have.

The 45 minutes I spent (thank you Ubuntu) setting this up far outweighs $1000's of "real" dollars. Especially considering those $1000's have been spend on hardware already obsolete before it's even out of warrentee. That $4000 investment will go dark in 2009 with the flip of a switch. I'll trade a couple hours for that nightmare any day and don't have to re-purchace the next round of hardware in 2 years.

I ain't buying into this hardware DRM, format lock-in. Either will the kids I talked with when they grow up and start to "matter" (as if somehow they don't now).

That's my life. Your mileage may vary.

Re:Demographics

[iceperson]

If that's the case then they can look forward to seeing less content created that they want and more stuff for us "old guys". Then again, do we really need another American Pie, Knocked Up, etc...?

Re:Demographics

[DeanFox]

LoL, less content. Uh-huh.

Threats, downplays, complications, complaints...

To all the responding viral media plants... Provide it and they/we will pay for it. Sheez.

Re:Demographics

[powerlord]

P2P downloading is only free if:
a) Your time means nothing
b) You pay nothing for bandwidth
c) The chance of getting caught is 0% or the consequences of getting caught is 0%.

a) and b) may well be the case for "tech savy neighbourhood kids" living with their parents and c) is small enough not to matter for most people.
"A": aptget install [package]. 10 minutes? 45 for full intragration?
"B": Unlimited (so far) up to 30meg down, $45 a month.
"C": Netflix for starters.

In my world all of your conditions have been met or do not apply. Don't be discouraged that this technology is too difficult for you. It will get easier and you'll soon enjoy the freedom others have.

I'm so glad to hear that Netflix is now hosting torrents for free downloading, right?

I'm sorry, did you mean to imply that Netflix has a download client that integrates into Linux?

Okay, then how IS your C relevant at all to A and B?

Re:Demographics

[DeanFox]

I'm so glad to hear that Netflix is now hosting torrents for free downloading, right?
I'm sorry, did you mean to imply that Netflix has a download client that integrates into Linux?
Okay, then how IS your C relevant at all to A and B? Ignorant and obtuse. Is that on purpose? Insult someone, then ask for information. Is that your usual approach?

Either way, my "C" works just fine thank you. In Linux. With Netflix. A script here and a layer there, all brought together with one point and click. Technologhy made simple. Just because you can't figure out how make technology work for you doesn't necessarly obligate me to teach you. Especially with your 'tude.

But, don't fret. Hold off on that expensive, obsolete hardware and leave the format war behind. It won't be but a couple years before people like you can do it too.
-[d]-

Re:Demographics

[ahoehn]

I'm surprised that neither camp seems to be targeting that under-35 market with burnable media.

Most of the popular HD-movie rips I see on Usenet (you know, when I'm just browsing by) are in the 4-6GB range. It'd be nice to fit 10 of those onto one disc for, you know, backup...

1) Make your standard affordable as writable storage media
2) Everyone puts a drive for your format in their computer
3) Win the format war!!!

4) Put the movie studios out of business!!
5) Fail because there's nothing left to pirate!
Alternate 5) Give everybody hugs because the decline of the movie studios leads humanity into a post-capitalist utopia.

Re:Demographics

[powerlord]

You're right, I certainly took too argumentative a stance, however I was genuinely surprised by your comments, so I'll try not to be either "ignorant or obtuse".

Just recently Slashdot was talking about problems with Netflix downloads, and I thought it was pretty clear that while individuals can put together wrappers to download and strip Netflix streams into non-DRMed files on Linux, the official viewer was made for windows.

I assumed that since the discussion was what the average person would do (which is a far cry from the average Slashdot user), a connection between Linux and Netflix might be a bit much for them, unless there is a package dedicated to this already (in which case I'm genuinely curious about its existence).

Yes, I'm sure that things can be scripted together, but is it something that is a supported package or is it something you put together for yourself?
Is all of this within Netflix's Terms of Service?

You also mentioned in your post here
"In my world all of your conditions have been met or do not apply. Don't be discouraged that this technology is too difficult for you. It will get easier and you'll soon enjoy the freedom others have."
I'd suggest that you tone back your own attitude a bit also. Just because someone doesn't follow your reasoning, doesn't mean "this technology is too difficult for them", or is your usual approach to dismiss someone's position and then insult them?

Re:Demographics

[DeanFox]

We're too off topic to continue this thread. The article is about media formats. We're off on a HOWTO:...

BTW: To my point, Comcast will announce this week at CES unlimited movies on demand available 24/7.

Again, and back to my original point, I believe physical media formats will soon be moot.

-[d]-

Re:Demographics

[GauteL]

""A": aptget install [package]. 10 minutes? 45 for full intragration? "

So the initial download of the P2P client is all the fiddling that is necessary? Aren't you forgetting a few steps, like searching for the content you want in the format you want,making sure it is genuine and decent quality, making sure the download speed is ok and unpack the resulting RAR-files.

Re:Demographics

[DeanFox]

You are right and I am wrong. I stand corrected. Your arguments have shown me there is a market for this stuff.

While we're on the subject... I happen to be the Nephew of a royal family illegally defrauded from their rightful inherence. I'm looking for an investor interested in a guaranteed return of at least 22 million dollars. Would you be interested?

-[d]-

Re:Demographics

[ShadowsHawk]

Dish network has been pretty good so far. Their menu structure works well and the PPVs are relatively inexpensive ($3.99). Combine that with my HD-DVR and I'm very happy. I'm staying out of the war, but netflix does carry BR and HD-DVD.

Re:Demographics

[LWATCDR]

Netflix has HD-DVD and Blueray DVDs. I got a $98 HD-DVD player and I do like it. I will be a little bummed if BR wins but then for $98 it is a great upscaling DVD player and I only have one HD-DVD movie.

In other news

[Matt867]

In other news Microsoft execs declare Vista not dead yet!

Re:In other news

[Matt867]

To the mod who gave this a 0, you have no sense of humor and/or an inability to read the title of this article.

A look at CES shows HD-DVD dead.

[guidryp]

It looks like everyone but Toshiba is make a Blu Ray player and only Toshiba is making HD-DVD players. That speaks volumes.

So, any HD-DVD writers yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there any HD-DVD writers available that I can put in my computer to back up data to yet? There are for blu-ray. I could care less about watching "HD" movies on my PC (like Vista would let me if I even wanted to), but I like the 50GB storage capacity of the media. If there's no HD-DVD writers then it's dead to me, and blu-ray is the only way to go.

DRM's holy grail

[sm62704]

"I'm not dead!"

"What?"

""Nothing -- here's your nine pence."

"I'm not dead!"

"Here -- he says he's not dead!"

"Yes, he is."

"I'm not!"

"He isn't."

"Well, he will be soon, he's very ill."

"I'm getting better!"

"No, you're not -- you'll be stone dead in a moment."

"h, I can't take him like that -- it's against regulations."

"I don't want to go in the cart!"

"Oh, don't be such a baby."

"I can't take him..."

"I feel fine!"

"Oh, do us a favor..."

"I can't."

"Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long."

"Naaah, I got to go on to SCO's -- they've lost nine today."

"Well, when is your next round?"

"Thursday."

"I think I'll go for a walk."

"You're not fooling anyone y'know. Look, isn't there something you can do?"

"I feel happy... I feel happy.

[whap]"

"Ah, thanks very much."

"Not at all. See you on Thursday."

"Right."

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[Malc]

Well you just look daft if you can't spell a product name properly. It's "Blu-ray" or "BD". Anything else just looks like ignorance, but go ahead if it makes you feel special.

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[Anonymous Coward]

All signs point to current HDDVD players supporting 3-layer discs. There aren't any in production (nor will there likely ever be now) to fully confirm this, but from the initial testing that Toshiba did, it worked.

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[gEvil (beta)]

Sony just announced a $200 PC BD-ROM.

Of course, you'll need an HDMI-enabled video card and monitor to fully utilize it. And then that also doesn't address the myriad HD audio problems that PC playback presents--no support for some of the newer codecs, or arbitrary downsampling of the audio. As much as I would like to be able to put together an HD HTPC, things aren't nearly ready enough for it yet.

Why should HD-DVD player owners care?

[wolfen]

I bought an HD-A3 in one of the waves of discounts and free HD-DVD's that happened in 2007. My $35 Radio Shack special DVD player had finally poppped its defective capacitors and I needed a new DVD player.

An upconverting DVD player with 10 free movies that also happened to play HD-DVDs was a pretty good deal for $179 and if Blu-Ray ends up winning out, I'll care about the time that studios completely abandon the DVD format...

I don't understand all the angst about this. If HD-DVD dies then, worse case, you have a nice upconverting DVD player that will work nicely with your HD TV and you can worry about Blu ray when the price gets reasonable 5 years from now. :P

gahh

[justleavealonemmmkay]

Could NOT care less!

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[MojoStan]

Sony just announced a $200 PC BD-ROM.

Of course, you'll need an HDMI-enabled video card and monitor to fully utilize it. And then that also doesn't address the myriad HD audio problems that PC playback presents--no support for some of the newer codecs, or arbitrary downsampling of the audio.

An HDMI-enabled Radeon 2400 card (with "full" h.264/VC1 acceleration and on-board audio) can be easily found for less than $50. If someone is considering a Blu-ray player, they probably already have an LCD or HDTV with HDMI.

As much as I would like to be able to put together an HD HTPC, things aren't nearly ready enough for it yet I think it's getting close. A quiet, Blu-ray playing HTPC that's just 1.5" taller than a PS3 (same width and depth) can be built from less than $600 of Newegg parts (including Media Center remote). Here's my quick-and-dirty list:

• LITE-ON SATA Blu-ray drive: $190
  InWin Mt Jade small microATX case with 300W PSU: $50
  Sapphire 100203L Radeon HD 2400PRO video card (HDMI video and audio): $45
  Foxconn 945G7MC-KS2HV motherboard (945G chipset, Core 2 Duo support): $38
  Intel Celeron 420 (Core 2 Duo based): $38
  80GB SATA hard drive: $43
  Corsair Value Select 2GB memory set: $39
  Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit (OEM): $112
  eDATA DEC-200B Media Center Remote: $30
  Total: $585 (without shipping)

Of course, that's just what I consider the minimum to play Blu-ray. It can easily be upgraded for other HTPC functions like PVR (bigger hard drive, dual-core CPU, HDTV tuner).

The "war" isn't over

[Gr8Apes]

This was a paid advertisement by the BD camp to offset the huge surge in HDDVD sales over XMas.

Disney has been rumored to start supporting HDDVD as well, so this might have been a step to halt that. WB was well paid for this announcement, yet oddly, no date has been set, just alluded to. Time will tell.

Personally, I hope HD DVD "wins" for the movie format, and BD for optical storage.

Re:The "war" isn't over

[Anonymous Coward]

The date has been set, Disney is not switching. Warner was offered $500 mill by both sides and chose the one that made better business sense. End of story, see the Digital Bits and Variety and Financial Times articles for full info.

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[gEvil (beta)]

Alright. From the reviews on the NewEgg site, people are able to use that drive to play about HALF of the BD titles out there. Not to mention that you still didn't address my concern about PowerDVD (the only available software player out there) either resampling or downconverting the audio, if the codec is supported at all. Oh yeah, and the video card you gave me only supports 5.1 sound, not 7.1 like a fully-capable HTPC should. As I said, as much as I want one, the equipment/software isn't even ready yet.

Martial Science?

[lazuli42]

What is the difference between martial arts and martial science? Do you perform double-blind experiments to see which stance is more effective for self-defense? What types of measurements do you use? Hey, I bet you have those high-speed cameras like on Mythbusters so you can really study the movements of your karate.

They should choose their friends well

[Ilgaz]

There are some 10-15 million rabid Sony hating Xbox/Microsoft fans in the US. They will support any 'not Sony format' with a fanatical commitment that is easily mistaken for broad consumer support.

Toshiba fell victim to believing HD-DVD was going to ever be supported by anyone beyond that niche demographic. And it cost hundreds of millions in their losing battle against BluRay. HD DVD could be a serious competitor if there wasn't MS and their OS fascist media division wasn't involved. They showed signs of "Windows only" from the start, they could sit and write HD DVD.Framework via XCode to support OS X, they could release a not cheap but working fine Quicktime export plugin for VC-1, they could make Roxio (Adaptec) support HD-DVD recorders on their OS X consumer products, they could help Linux guys sort out basic data recording, they could plug into OS X professional tools like Final Cut suite, AVID suite to support HD-DVD output.

What did they do? All the media industry, using Sony/Apple devices daily saw Windows Vista laptops made by Toshiba supporting HD-DVD. Imagine you are a high end Hollywood technical person using Mac OS X and you don't even have basic data recording capability if you use your Mac. You will choose HD-DVD while you are happily backing up those DV files to BluRay?

For a long time, if you have good money to spare, you can buy a Firewire Blu-Ray recorder from Lacie, install Toast 8 (comes free) and even use BluRay RW on OS X. HD-DVD was basically non existent on anything except Windows.

I really don't get this "Sony hate" anyway. It uses H264, has Java which is totally open now, they sponsored TerraSoft solutions to ship a PS/3 Linux, they use industry standard frameworks like OpenGL on Sony PS3... Just because we hate Sony, we should support MS'es best friend Toshiba and XBox 360 introduced format?

Toshiba should have chosen their friends well. On media industry, you can't dare to mess BOTH Sony and Apple and get successful. You can't get adopted when you are friend of a company which sees everything except Windows doing that "multimedia thing" as a loss. We speak about a company who hated the fact that Linux/FreeBSD/OS X people can happily watch Youtube via Flash technology and decided to kill (!) it with SilverLight.

With current prices, you are shipping $30-$40 , high end 1080P content having audiophile like features, your target demographic is NOT XBox 360 gamers. They will happily download those 720p highly compressed x264 torrents, they will pay $30-$40 for a game they play. Sony made clever choice while they added everything to make PS3 a high end home multimedia/communication central. There are many people who has Ps3 and uses it just like a very high end personal entertainment device rather than gaming. Same for PSP too. I got friends having PSP but only using it as a handheld multimedia device.

Blu-ray won the battle but lost the war

[Anita Coney]

Let's assume that Sony won the DVD-A/SACD battle. After it was over, no consumer gave a rat's ass. Thus the HD audio war was fought for nothing.

I'll go out on a limb here, DVD sales are in the dumps for a reason. The vast majority of people don't watch movies over and over again. Thus, they do not see any value in buying DVDs. If people won't buy cheap DVDs they certainly not going to go out and buy expensive Blu-ray movies, especially when you consider the playback machine costs $400 (USD)!

The future of movies will be streamed. You can call it IPTV or movies on demand, or whatever. But the future of physical media is dead. CDs are dead. DVDs are dying. Blu-ray was dead before the battle even started.

Re:Blu-ray won the battle but lost the war

[Kenshin]

Maybe you don't watch movies over and over (I don't either), but some people do watch movies over and over.

A friend of mine has a kid, and he must have watched March of the Penguins 50 times. Star Wars, even more.

Re:Blu-ray won the battle but lost the war

[kidgenius]

Agreed. My fiance has two movies that she watches about once a week (per movie). If it was on tape, she would've long worn them out. And I always get the hankering to watch movies that I have from time to time as well. What I think it happening though is that people are creating libraries for themselves. Instead they are just getting movies that they know they will watch repeatedly.

Re:Blu-ray won the battle but lost the war

[Anita Coney]

"but some people do watch movies over and over."

I kind of clarified that already when I wrote, "The vast majority of people don't watch movies over and over again."

I have to admit, kids are the exception. My kids do tend to watch movies over and over again. (On a side note I really don't think kids could appreciate the difference between an upsampled DVD and a Blu-ray disc.) However, for most adults they'll watch a movie once or twice and be done with it. Even renting a DVD two or three times is cheaper than buying it on sale.

Of course the fanatics out there will want to "own" movies to watch over and over again. I'm guessing Blu-ray could survive as a niche market, sort of like how they still sell LPs for the audio freaks.

But the war will be won by streaming because it will suit the needs of the vast majority of movie viewers.

Re:Blu-ray won the battle but lost the war

[Kenshin]

The problem with streaming is that you're stuck with what they're offering. My girlfriend has video on demand, and really wanted to watch a certain movie with me. When I came over to watch it, it had already been removed from the library.

The promise of "every movie, ever" is bullshit, and will be for the foreseeable future.

Re:Blu-ray won the battle but lost the war

[Anita Coney]

"The promise of "every movie, ever" is bullshit, and will be for the foreseeable future."

I guess we'll have to disagree on that point. I remember back when people argued that the music industry would never allow their entire catalog to be legally sold online, but yet iTunes and Amazon (and any number of others) prove otherwise.

Integration is overrated

[justleavealonemmmkay]

Integration is overrated anyway. Why the heck should my console play films ? some generic codec playback can be in place to play generic stuff like DIVX, but why put an overdimensioned reader that won't be supported by games for said console anyway ?

Consoles have become bloated. Why buy a $500 console that will support flavour A of next gen format that will die in 2 years in favour or flavour B and otherwise will be a lousy first gen player when you could

1)Buy a "to-the-point" console (a naked 360 or a Wii) and a dedicated player. Each can fail without having to replace both. Price comparable. Still the problem on betting on the right horse.
2)Buy a "to-the-point" console, a $40 DVD player, and when it's available (and interesting contents has been released) a $50 flavour B player. Each can fail without having to replace both. Price much lower.

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[Gr8Apes]

Yes, ever so slightly. BUT, it costs more to manufacture

Since many millions more discs have been pressed in Blu-Ray (thanks to PS3 games) the production costs have dropped substantially. And the consumer only sees movie prices which have remained identical between the two formats. BD prices are generally $5-$10 more than their HD DVD counterparts. Only in the last 2-3 weeks have BD prices dropped on sale to HD DVD prices.

Sony just announced a $200 PC BD-ROM. $200 usually, on sale. So Sony's taking a $300 hit to compete? Note that almost all current BD players are $499, and sometimes $399 on sale. HDDVD players are usually MSRP at $299 and $199 on sale. HDDVD 1080p players MSRP are $399, and can be currently easily gotten for <$250 on sale.

Most titles do not use the region controls, and there are fewer regions than DVD had - which means greater, not lesser, consumer acceptance of the format on region bounds. How does no region control vs any region control = greater consumer acceptance for the latter? You're using double-speak now.

Not if you also want lossless audio, or have a longer movie with a lot of detail. Then you have to make sacrifices. You've also forgotten that this is the year some systems will start to support Deep Color in HDMI 1.3, and we'll start to see movies support that as well. A greater bit-depth for color requires more space. Both formats support the same audio codecs: TrueHD, whether Dolby or DTS.

As for greater bit-depth I strongly suspect it'll be a while: "currently, studios don't distribute content in 10-bit color depth, though most filmmaking is done in 10-bit video"

Dead collector

[Thelasko]

Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead! [Hits gong]
Public: Here's one.
Dead Collector: Ninepence.
HD-DVD: I'm not dead!
Dead Collector: What?
Public: Nothing. Here's your ninepence.
HD-DVD: I'm not dead!
Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Public: Yes he is.
Public Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
HD-DVD: I'm getting better!
Public: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
HD-DVD: I don't want to go on the cart!
Public: Oh, don't be such a baby.
Dead Collector: I can't take him.
HD-DVD: I feel fine!
Public: Well, can't you wait around a couple of minutes, he won't be long.
Dead Collector: No, I promised the Robinsons, they've lost nine today.
Public: Well, when's your next round?
Dead Collector: Thursday.
HD-DVD: I think I'll go for a walk.
Large Man: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
HD-DVD: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[The Dead Collector glances up and down the street furtively, then silences the HD-DVD with a whack of his club]
Public: Ah, thanks very much.
Dead Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.

Same expereince, different now

[SuperKendall]

That's fine, but in my experience (I buy a lot of European DVD's as I speak several languages) there was a lot of stuff on DVD that was released in one region

Yes, exactly - I had the same expereince. The point is they realized that was annoying - which is why now, theres only one region for the whole of Europe. And that they don't even region code most titles at all, like I was saying with BBC shows I found on Blu-Ray. The situation is far better on Blu-Ray than it was on DVD.

Rumors and incompatible

[SuperKendall]

Were it just rumors, or is there a triple-layer HD-DVD format coming out?

They were looking at that but were not sure it was compatible with the existing players, meaning they'd have to start player sales from scratch... the fact you see no announcements with these discs tells you all you need to know about compatibility.

That was only ever a desperate hack though, as it relied on the fact that players built a little over spec might barley just be able to read another layer, in conjunction with relying heavily on error correction techniques to be able to read anything from that layer at all!

Blu-Ray can also easily add more layers for computer storage, which means it still has a sizable lead in storage capacity for data applications.

Netflix next day for me

[SuperKendall]

Where exactly does this magical disc appear from?

Amazon - two days max (I have prime). Or for $2 more I have it the next day.

Netflix - One day max (they have regional shipping centers).

Sure it's not quite as instant but the quality is much better. Look, I do use downloads for TV myself but for movies it just makes no sense to me, or at least not nearly as much when the quality of a disc is so much higher.

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[Anonymous Coward]

Since many millions more discs have been pressed in Blu-Ray (thanks to PS3 games) the production costs have dropped substantially. And the consumer only sees movie prices which have remained identical between the two formats.

In fact, in theory, it's actually cheaper to manufacture a Blu-ray disc, not more expensive. Early DVD manufacturing had a huge problem with the 0.6+0.6 mm bonding process required to make the discs, often resulting in warping. Since the Blu-ray layer is on one side of the disc (just like CDs, though on the opposite one), all you have to do is stamp and coat a single piece of plastic, instead of stamping and then bonding two pieces.

The only reason this hasn't been the case up to this point is the huge existing base for DVD manufacturing. Once Blu-ray supplants DVD, it should actually be somewhat easier and cheaper to produce discs, with fewer rejects.

This is also incidentally why there hasn't been a "flip disc" format for combo Blu-ray/DVD. Besides there not being much demand for it from the current users of HD disc formats (flip discs were never very popular for DVD, either; most people would rather have a pair of discs with disc art than a double-sided shiny platter), you need to change from a single platter of plastic to gluing two platters together again. Unlike for a CD, though (where the data layer is on the opposite side of the whole 1.2mm disc), there's no reason why Blu-ray couldn't support a flip disc format. Saying so (as one poster did) is just misinformation.

And because the Blu-ray data layer is in a different location from the DVD layer, they actually demonstrated the technology to put both data layers on the same side, rather than a clumsy flip disc solution. Of course, nobody seems to want to use it because of the manufacturing expense of bonding possibly four layers together... but it is possible.

HD-DVD does support region coding

[iceperson]

Region coding is optional for HD DVD and can be enabled at any time.

About the 51Gb disks:
"James Armour from Toshiba's optical storage division at CeBIT this year, and were told that although the third layer would be harder to read, and generate more data errors"

Oh, and Sony and TDk have been working on a 200GB blu ray disc.

I'm sure there's more inaccuracies in your post, but I really didn't read much after the points above...

So do I

[SuperKendall]

I have a Mac mini that I use as a DVR. I also have a lot of downloaded media, some from iTunes and some not...

So I know as well what can be done. But I also know how impractical this solution is for everyone. And I know the limits of the system and that it has not in any way eliminated the need to rent and buy some DVD's in the past. So why will upgrading the box msot people cannot manage with more HD content realistically eliminate the need for physical discs? I can see right now it does not, mostly because I'm not willing to illegally download a lot of content, and I'm unwilling for a number of movies to suffer through a more compressed version than I could otherwise obtain.

Have you calced out the cost of that

[SuperKendall]

Current Blu-Ray discs are 50GB.

So how soon will 50GB of flash memory come down to $2? (that's roughly the cost of pressing a disc).

How soon will the majority of people have a computer attached to a TV that can read files from that flash drive and play them on TV?

Now you see why the people that think the war is irrelevant are such a small population.

No you dont

[SuperKendall]

Of course, you'll need an HDMI-enabled video card and monitor to fully utilize it.

No titles today include the ICT token which would cause the output to be degraded. Nor will they ever I think.

As for the Blu-Ray drive the other poster mentioned, it's a lite-on. I'm talking a Sony BD-ROM which pretty obviously will have an easier time reading things. And I'm sure PowerDVD will have an update shortly, you act like the deficiencies it shows are forever. It's just software! Generally if you want more flexibility you have to wait a bit longer.

Stop the Moderating Madness! Mod Parent Down

[mpapet]

You've also forgotten that this is the year some systems will start to support Deep Color in HDMI 1.3, and we'll start to see movies support that as well

Stop the color madness now. And I mean Right Now. In order to get you to consume DRM equipment, they are selling you a convenient fiction called "Deep Color." HDMI is a Trojan Horse and Deep Color is an absurd lie used to get DRM through the consumers front door.

This is one takes too long to explain and requires some ****actual**** technical knowledge of rendering color digitally. I don't mean color pablum on some well-regarded hdtv forum, because Teco's/Samsung/etc LCD panel engineers aren't hanging around dispelling the marketing myths.

Deep Color is designed to fool everyone, including the geeks because so few people know about rendering digital color. In summary, let's assume the player device can actually send images in some kind of fantastical super-wide-gamut to the display. (which it can't and won't. Ever. ) You still have a display utterly incapable of rendering all of those colors!!

Please recall the display beauty of the 32-bit CRT. The display industry won't ever forget the business disaster that was and that's why you'll never see one again.

Digital output is fully capable of rendering all of the color that a display can render and it is Free from DRM. Which is why it should be the output of choice in any Freedom-loving home in the world. Except it's status as being free from DRM makes it public enemy #1.

Stories like this are extremely harmful. What most of you fail to recognize is you are discussing the noose the media conglomerates will use to overcharge you for their product, limit competition, and ultimately hang you.

Today's lesson: HDMI is how consumers all over the world will submit to total media control.

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[SuperKendall]

BD prices are generally $5-$10 more than their HD DVD counterparts. Only in the last 2-3 weeks have BD prices dropped on sale to HD DVD prices.

Sorry, but I've been tracking Blu-Ray prices on Amazon for about a year and that's just plain wrong. Sure BOGO's have reduced costs on both discs but I'm talking MSRP *and* actual retail prices which were generally a few dollars lower.

$200 usually, on sale Not a standalone player. A PC drive, and that price is MSRP!!! You obviously are not keeping up with CES.

How does no region control vs any region control = greater consumer acceptance for the latter? You're using double-speak now.

Do you honestly that that DVD (not HD-DVD) had *no* region controls? Read what I said again! We are talking Blu-Ray vs. DVD here as far as what consumers are willing to accept, since obviously DVD represents a baseline for mass acceptance.

Both formats support the same audio codecs: TrueHD, whether Dolby or DTS.

Correct. Both formats support the same audio codecs. But lacking the space, very few movie titles on HD-DVD include lossless codecs - Transformers being the most egregious example.

When you have more space to spare you can actually make use of all the standards your format supports. HD-DVD is an OK format for HD TV shows which are smaller, but it's not a great format to shoehorn whole movies into.

No, it's not dead.

[Stupid Dog]

It just smells funny.

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[MojoStan]

As I said, as much as I want one, the equipment/software isn't even ready yet. I said "I think it's getting close." I'm not really disagreeing with your opinion. What I meant was: if I wanted a Blu-ray player today, I'd rather spend $600 on an upgradable (hardware, software, firmware, drivers) Blu-ray HTPC than $400 on a 40G PS3 (which apparently cannot do Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD). Set top Blu-ray players are still so expensive (and "cheap" ones are incomplete) that I'd rather deal with an upgradable HTPC.

I didn't check the details of my quick-and-dirty Newegg list, but I think all the problems (except for TrueHD or DTS HD) can be fixed with alternate parts or relatively inexpensive software upgrades (supposedly 7.1-capable PowerDVD Deluxe is $35 at Newegg). For TrueHD or DTS HD (which requires HDMI 1.3), I guess HDMI 1.3 video cards and motherboards won't be ready for a while.

Re:The new HD-DVD meme. Not easy nor cheap.

[Anonymous Coward]

While your leap to the defense of Sony is cute, I think you missed the OP's point.

Even if Blu-Ray has won (and it looks like it has) it is unlikely to be as widely used or useful as DVD or VHS simply because the internet is close to steamrolling it. Is it there yet? No, of course not. But it's getting really close.

The only two barriers left to HD content over the internet are:
1) High speed internet (with cable and fios we're most of the way there)
2) Devices to get it to your TV.

2 is the one that we're really waiting on. There are a large number of services out there already sending movies to computers. It's going to take a cheap computer-to-tv or internet-to-tv device to push us there.

Just think if Apple put the iTunes Store directly on the AppleTV and let it buy+rent movies without needing a computer?

Or what if Netflix released a $100 device to let you stream Netflix movies (a service they already offer direct to computers).

We may not be there yet, but the writing is on the wall.

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[punissuer]

correct me if i'm wrong but isn't blue ray (i refuse to go with the stupid spelling fad)...

OK, I'll correct you. It's actually spelled Blu-ray and it's not a fad. Stupid yes, but not a fad. I'd rather that companies had to trademark intentional misspellings than common words the way Microsoft tried to do with "Windows" and "Bob". If you won't use the term "Blu-ray", then how will you avoid confusion with a description of the laser that's in the device, as well as in HD-DVD players?

The difference...

[raehl]

If you get in a fight with a martial artist, he'll punch/kick/throw/hold you.

If you get in a fight with a martial scientist, he'll write a paper about whether a punch/kick/throw or hold was most effective while you kick his ass.

Re:The difference...

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is, people give a shit about martial arts because it's totally awesome. Nobody cares about martial science unless you corner them with your smug-ass bullshit.

Re:The war might be over, but the battles will go

[Doctor Faustus]

Trust me, Mom and Dad bought that PS3 for Timmy to play games, not to watch Blu Ray DVDs. *sigh*
Well, no. Buying them for games is probably more common than buying them for movies, but if you decide you want a Blu-Ray player, it doesn't really make sense to buy a stand-alone unit when the 40GB PS3 is in the same price range.

I bought mine to watch movies, and got a game for my son as an afterthought.

Of course it's a trojan

[SuperKendall]

Stop the color madness now. And I mean Right Now. In order to get you to consume DRM equipment, they are selling you a convenient fiction called "Deep Color." HDMI is a Trojan Horse and Deep Color is an absurd lie used to get DRM through the consumers front door.

Very true. I hate HDMI as much as you do, honestly - but since it and DisplayPort share the same characteristics as far as protected paths and encryption, there's really no choice in the matter - so I've given up the fight against it. On to the technical points.

Deep Color is designed to fool everyone, including the geeks because so few people know about rendering digital color. In summary, let's assume the player device can actually send images in some kind of fantastical super-wide-gamut to the display. (which it can't and won't. Ever. ) You still have a display utterly incapable of rendering all of those colors!!

As a very involved side hobby, I have been a digital photographer for some time now. There are in fact a number of displays that can go beyond the current 8 bits per channel you normally see (generally 12 bits), and also have a wider gamut (they are generally targeting better presentation of the AdobeRGB space). There's no reason that technology cannot move into consumer HD displays, and it is - that's the other end of the equation that is arriving later this year, TV's that can display a wider gamut. That's why I brought that up, because we already that have players that can support HDMI 1.3, and soon will have movies and displays that can also take advantage of this.

Please recall the display beauty of the 32-bit CRT. The display industry won't ever forget the business disaster that was and that's why you'll never see one again.

Wider gamut displays for digital photography are not exactly mainstream but Eizo is doing quite well, thank you very much.

Stories like this are extremely harmful.

I would argue that misinforming people that wider gamut displays are impractical does more harm from a technical knowledge standpoint.

Re:Of course it's a trojan

[mpapet]

As a very involved side hobby, I have been a digital photographer for some time now

And nowhere in your recent past were you a color engineer at either the input or output ends of the process. You and others like you are running on a broad and deep set of misconceptions bordering on mythology regarding imaging technology. It is marketing's fault, but that's another story.

There are in fact a number of displays that can go beyond the current 8 bits per channel you normally see (generally 12 bits)

This statement is a perfect example of the mythology imaging enthusiasts rely on. More importantly, you stubbornly hang on to the mythology when there's no basis in fact for such an absurd statement. Here's a tip for you: more bits does not equate to a wider gamut.

Re:Of course it's a trojan

[SuperKendall]

And nowhere in your recent past were you a color engineer at either the input or output ends of the process. You and others like you are running on a broad and deep set of misconceptions bordering on mythology regarding imaging technology. It is marketing's fault, but that's another story.

That what pray tell is Eizo selling if not a 12-bit 96% AdobeRGB gamut monitor? I know this from the angle of someone used to working with larger gamuts than will display through the output device I am working on, and also printing - all things you seem to be unaware of.

This statement is a perfect example of the mythology imaging enthusiasts rely on. More importantly, you stubbornly hang on to the mythology when there's no basis in fact for such an absurd statement. Here's a tip for you: more bits does not equate to a wider gamut.

Of course more bits do not provide a wider gamut. But a wider gamut does, normal monitors do not display 96% of the AdobeRGB space. I don't know what call I have to believe such odd things - except for actual shipping products that is!!!

Seems to me like you are living proof that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I don't know if you had someone tell you all this stuff about it being impossible to reproduce a wider gamut with digital displays or what, but obviously you are quite wrong from the standpoint of what is actually being done today and is planned for the near future. If you want to argue about if the expansion of the gamut is observable for a given device or standard, that is quite another matter (though obviously said monitors would not be selling if that were not the case) - but it's not at all impossible to create wider gamut displays and they have been selling quite well within certain spaces. There is no reason to think the dedicated home theater space would not accept them just as readily.

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[Gr8Apes]

Sorry, but I've been tracking Blu-Ray prices on Amazon for about a year and that's just plain wrong. Sure BOGO's have reduced costs on both discs but I'm talking MSRP *and* actual retail prices which were generally a few dollars lower. You're not alone in tracking. Actual retail prices in Nov/Dec of 2007 were around $24 for HD DVD (only) vs $29+ for BD disks.

A PC drive, and that price is MSRP!!! You obviously are not keeping up with CES. The LG BD/HD DVD drive was selling for $229 last month.

Do you honestly that that DVD (not HD-DVD) had *no* region controls? Read what I said again! We are talking Blu-Ray vs. DVD here as far as what consumers are willing to accept, since obviously DVD represents a baseline for mass acceptance. Let's keep it to HD DVD/BD and not obfuscate the discussion with DVD. My point was that BD continues the consumer screwing over, one facet of which is region control.

Both formats support the same audio codecs. But lacking the space, very few movie titles on HD-DVD include lossless codecs - Transformers being the most egregious example.

When you have more space to spare you can actually make use of all the standards your format supports. HD-DVD is an OK format for HD TV shows which are smaller, but it's not a great format to shoehorn whole movies into. It's actually an all right format for most movies, too, but not all. I wonder if a LOTR movie will fit onto even a 50GB BD disk?

XBMC is the answer.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can pick up a used original Xbox for $60 from GameStop/EBGames and turn it into a full-featured media player for the cost of an IDE hard drive. An Xbox won't play 720p+ content (just doesn't have the horses) but 480p/540p plays fine.

I've personally procured no less than 10 Xboxes for friends and family; this past Xmas was the third year in a row that I have given a modded Xbox as a gift. I gave one to my dad in '05, one to my uncle in '06, and a second one to my dad in '07. Neither of them have owned a game console before in their life.

XBMC is just that good.

Re:Toshiba should avenge the HD-DVD by reinventing

[terjeber]

There is a huge market potential for HD-DVD in backups.

Wish it was so. After years and years, even the inventor of the HD DVD format, Toshiba, has been unable to create a HD DVD writer that works. Think about that for a second. They simply can't do it. You can bet your ass they have tried. Are they incompetent or is it that hard? With the format now dead, you can bet your ass those people in Toshiba R&D are being moved, head and beard, to the new Blu-Ray division. This means that there will never be a working HD DVD writer on the market. Ever.

Burnable Blu-Ray has been on the market for quite a while. I'll go with what works. I have a Blu-Ray player in my home theater setup, and I will probably install a Blu-Ray burner some time this spring once the new 4x burners come down a little in price.

Other dead digital formats

[mrCasual]

Laserdisc is also dead, but it's still the only digital format where you can clearly see Greedo shoot first.

I am happy with both formats.

[shelterpaw]

I'd rather have dual players and competition. It seems like the technology is there so it's a shame to see the possibility of one being thrown aside. Technology should embrace both.

Laserdisc is an Analogue format

[Brit_in_the_USA]

Apart from the addition of a simple digital sound carrier to later discs the video and most audio tracks of Laserdiscs were analogue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_disk#Technical_information

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[SuperKendall]

You're not alone in tracking. Actual retail prices in Nov/Dec of 2007 were around $24 for HD DVD (only) vs $29+ for BD disks.

You can't track some mythical average price overall. I'm talking about price for normal, popular titles. Otherwise box sets and things like the $5 HD-DVD sampler disc set throw off the average in either direction. You're not using eProductWars average I hope...

The LG BD/HD DVD drive was selling for $229 last month.

Irrelevant since I wasn't talking about last month. I was simply stating that was the new low price for PC Blu-Ray drives to point out costs were not as high as claimed.

Let's keep it to HD DVD/BD and not obfuscate the discussion with DVD. My point was that BD continues the consumer screwing over, one facet of which is region control.

You aren't keeping to BD/HD-DVD only yourself if you talk about "continued" screwing over. MY point was that the "screwing over" as you put it is greatly reduced for the consumer over what they previously had. You can't ignore consumers altogether and keep the conversion on some theoretical plane, there are real people out there with real DVD players and what has to be considered is how will they react when thinking about Blu-Ray in the future. The answer is they may notice they can play content from the UK they could not before - even in the US a fair number of people are familiar enough with region free playback they will be happy lots of UK content has no region coding to work around with players.

It's actually an all right format for most movies, too, but not all. I wonder if a LOTR movie will fit onto even a 50GB BD disk?

Probably yes, with extras on a separate disc.

Please God, let them both die

[Stuntmonkey]

I actually own an HD-DVD player, and I want the whole damned thing to die.

My challenge to hardware engineers everywhere: Just give me a friggin "Play" button. I don't want to watch previews. I don't want to watch cute animated menus with everything in different places because no interface guidelines exist. PLEASE DO NOT give UI designers a Turing-complete language to play with. And if you find yourself producing a video playback device with more than 70 buttons on the remote control, please reflect upon the fact that you may have taken a wrong turn somewhere in the design process.

DVD is bad enough, but the HD-DVD disks I've used elevate the problems to a whole new level of Hell. I have a Ph.D and I can't navigate these things. Watching a movie last night it took me literally 5 minutes to figure out how to turn subtitles on and off. The problem is that all of these things are being engineered by Japanese companies, and for all their strengths one thing about the Japanese is that they produce crappy software and user interfaces. There, I said it.

I hope that internet-delivered video will win. If not from the studios, then from some brave soul who has navigated the HD-DVD nightmare and ripped a clean copy into BitTorrent that I can just friggin PLAY.

But more stuff has rarely added

[Tran]

to a good game play expereience.
Yes, I subscribe to the notion that one doesn't need glitz to make a good game.
Design a good game first, then flesh it out with glitz. And as otheres have mentioned, if the glitz stays efficiently within the limitations of the platform the games will still be good.
If you have a a lousy game to start - no manner of glitz will save it.

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[Gr8Apes]

You can't track some mythical average price overall. I'm talking about price for normal, popular titles. So I suppose the titles I bought, including Bourne Supremacy, Transformers, The Mummy, and others are not popular nor normal?

The LG BD/HD DVD drive was selling for $229 last month.

Irrelevant since I wasn't talking about last month. I was simply stating that was the new low price for PC Blu-Ray drives to point out costs were not as high as claimed. Actually, it is relevant. Your price was only $30 less than a combo drive that supported both formats a month ago. Granted, it was slightly more than 12% less expensive, but there certainly wasn't a huge price discrepancy then either. The problem with BD is stand alone players. That PC drive won't play any of the BD+ titles out there. That's the problem with BD, the BD on the packaging doesn't indicate with any reliability at all that the disc inside will play on your BD player.

You aren't keeping to BD/HD-DVD only yourself if you talk about "continued" screwing over. You're correct. BD screws people over with region control. HD DVD does not and therefore is the better choice. BD screws people over with no guarantees that a BD disc will play in a BD player. HD DVD guarantees that your HD DVD disc will play in an HD DVD player. Most BD players screw people over by not supporting DVDs. HD DVD players will play DVDs. BD doesn't require the supporting of managed copy. HD DVD does. BD requires encryption for your own content when recording to a BD disc. HD DVD does not.

Thanks for clearing that up, as we now can see that BD seriously screws consumers over while HD DVD does not.

Re:blueray hd dvd?

[ahabswhale]

The protective layer on blu-ray discs is very effective. When I rent them from Netflix, they aren't scratched at all unlike the DVDs and HD-DVDs I rent from them. In fact, I like it so much it's the only thing I like better about blu-ray than HD-DVD.

Stay away from Blu-Ray and HD DVD!

[willbry]

Until this war is over, I'm not going to be an "early adopter" of either technology.

I'm very happy with my DVD upconverter.

http://dvdupconvert.wordpress.com/

Re:Cheaper already, and you forget about Deep Colo

[SuperKendall]

So I suppose the titles I bought, including Bourne Supremacy, Transformers, The Mummy, and others are not popular nor normal?

Of course they are, and the price for those was generally about the same as similar quality Blu-Ray titles.

Actually, it is relevant. Your price was only $30 less than a combo drive that supported both formats a month ago.

Still less. And by some reports it didn't seem to work very well.

That PC drive won't play any of the BD+ titles out there.

And you know this to be true of an unreleased drive because....? It's a software issue.

You're correct. BD screws people over with region control. HD DVD does not and therefore is the better choice.

In theory it was better only from a technical standpoint. In practice, only marginally so since there are fewer regions and most titles do not enable it. In practice from a consumer standpoint the Blu-Ray solution was actually better in some ways because some titles that release in theaters at different times saw Blu-Ray releases because of the region coding where the HD-DVD versions were held back. The complete lack of a movie affects far more consumers than region controls do.

Thanks for clearing that up, as we now can see that BD seriously screws consumers over while HD DVD does not.

Wait - Strike that, reverse it.

A forgone conclusion

[Eskarel]

Sony owns the rights to movies, Toshiba doesn't. So long as Sony didn't give up on their own format there were always going to be movies that you couldn't get on any format other than Blu-Ray, and since none of the other media companies have a vested interest in one technology or the other they were going to swap over eventually. The only way that Toshiba could have one this is to convince Sony that the money they were going to lose holding onto their old format was greater than the money they could potentially win if they got control of the technology and that wasn't likely to happen unless HD DVD got massive market share and consumers would rather have scrapped HD all together than buy a Blu-Ray box.

History Lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

BD discs by specification was always better. The only thing HD had up on BD was duel formate DVD. The BD said they can do that on a hybrid. So that was over. HD made the mistake by releasing a 1080i , 5.1 system. Hello duh even after its 4th revision it still doesn't have HD-THX support DUH se BD was always top notch 1080p HD THX HD Dolby. When I crank up my HD-Dolby (movie 300)on 12 speakers pumping 1600 watts I not only feel the difference be see the difference.It you have a 5 speaker box stereo on a 720 p LCD bought at best-buy go by your HD DVD.
know-your-shit@hotmail.com because I know mine

Re:Toshiba should avenge the HD-DVD by reinventing

[Compenguin]

> The only way out for HD-DVD is to concede defeat and open the specification in ways that Hollywood cannot handle. By removing the DRM, and removing any RAND licensing. Allowing anybody to produce HD-DVD devices and disks without obtaining license. Only act as a certification agency.

You are aware that Toshiba and Microsoft don't own the majority of the patents on HD-DVD?

Not dead yet

[roedelius]

it's only a flesh wound!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4

Then release some content

[jasonditz]

You've got Universal and Paramount, you've got an embarrassment of riches of potential content, so why can I count the significant releases coming this quarter on one hand?

If you're going to make a race of this at all, you guys seriously need to get some content out there. You've got the whole Star Trek library to work with for Christsakes, why is the first season of TOS the only HD-DVD content out there? Where are the resplendent 1080p releases of all the movies? Ditto for Indiana Jones.

Having just bought my HD DVD player a couple of months ago, I'm glad to hear they've decided to make it a race. But I'd be more glad to see some new releases I actually want to buy.

In the Walmart clearance section

[Skapare]

I was at Walmart this evening, browsing around. Guess what I found in the clearance section: 4 Toshiba brand HD-DVD players!

Re:The war might be over, but the battles will go

[Pathway]

Trust me, Mom and Dad bought that PS3 for Timmy to play games, not to watch Blu Ray DVDs. *sigh* The same thing could have been said for the PS2. but the ps2 was strategic for introducing dvd sets into alot of homes, including my own as it was my family's first dvd player. The same goes for my ps3, I bought it primarily for games but also use it as my primary movie player now. It looks like everybody who responded to my post pointed this out: They bought it for the Blu-Ray player as well as the game system. Okay, sure... most of those who read deep into comments on slashdot, have accounts, and willing to respond to my post probably would buy a system for its' many possible uses. But, again... not Mom and Pop. Most of them probably don't even realize that it's possible. And if I'm wrong, good for them.

Some need firmware upgrades to play newer discs, which in a year or so's time should be inconsequential. We're still in the early adopters phase and crap happens. Bluray 2.0 isn't really in the works. The profile has been defined, it's more a matter of deploying the profile which some manufactures have taken into account and some haven't. The PS3 is Profile 2.0 capable as it's main difference over 1.1 (which the ps3 is compliant with as of update 2.10) is internet connectivity and 1GB of local storage Ah, good info. Unfortunately, anybody who doesn't go with the PS3 option will have to upgrade their BluRay players as well. These users will be, on average, much less likely to be tech savy than the PS3 owners. Will they have it connected to the internet? Perhaps. The technology's saving grace is that they are now selling with the updated code, and only a few users should be effected... But I fear Sony will come out with the 2.0 standard some day, causing major headache for all. I hope I'm wrong here.

read somewhere that WB chose Blu Ray because of a recent surge in it's popularity, especialy in December... Uh, can we say Cristmas? Take that number and subtract the number of Playstation 3s sold in the same month. Um, I'm pretty sure Warner could care less about how many actual bluray units are in homes than how many BDs they sold during that period, and if you check the charts, the potter series and 300 sold very well in BD format during the holidays; which is why they made their decision to go blu Don't give WB too much credit, but you're right. I'm sure they looked the numbers over very carefully. All of them. Number of players sold for each format. Number of discs sold... I'm just arguing that they may have counted the PS3s as BluRay players, even though I'm willing to bet more than half of them are never going to be used as BluRay players for another 12 months. And I'm also curious to see what the BluRay player to PS3 ratio actually is... but I guess I'll never know. --Pathway

Not for you, for the war

[SuperKendall]

This speaks someone with more disposable income

Not at all, eventually players will be cheap enough they'll meet your budget.

What I was talking about was that the player price did not matter for the format war. It was only ever about content, that's why even without Warner exclusive and more expensive players Blu-Ray has managed to hold a huge sales lead and this past holiday season Blu-Ray players were outselling cheaper HD-DVD players. Players were always going to get cheaper, but HD-DVD was not going to get Fox and Sony and Disney (well, they would have if Microsoft had included HD-DVD but not with only standalone players).