Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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
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.
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.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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).
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
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:
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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
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.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
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.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
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.
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?
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.
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.
Not completely, but I do argue that for most people, most of the time, rentals make more sense.
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.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Actually, from what I've heard, it will require at most a firmware upgrade. But we don't know that yet.
I don't think we know that, either.
I do not believe you're actually defending this.
So what if one region still has it in theaters?
Well, yeah, because they're morons. Doesn't make region coding right or desirable.
So what?
I'm sure I'm not alone in renting most movies anyway.
So early adopters get screwed.
Which, again, was not required.
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.
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.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!