Sony Paid Warner Bros. $400 Million to Go Blu-Ray?

eldavojohn writes "How much would you pay to be the leading video media technology right now? Is $400 million too much? Sony didn't think so and this article speculates that's how they won the Hi-Def format war. 'With billions of dollars in global sales at stake, experts had predicted the Toshiba-Sony battle would go on for years - not unlike the 1980s battle of videotape formats between VHS (Matsushita) and Betamax (Sony). That war lasted a decade, leaving Sony battered and humiliated. So how did this epic battle come to such an abrupt end? The answer lies in part with the bruising Sony experienced with Betamax, which, like Blu-ray, was also the better product on paper.'"

Comments

free market?

[timmarhy]

Now all those woffling on about free market eat your own hats.

Re:free market?

[FauxPasIII]

No they won't. For that crowd, bribery, collusion and cartelism are all part of the free-market experience, and they like it just fine! Just so long as the gummint doesn't butt in on all the fun.

Re:free market?

[Captain Splendid]

Beat me to it. This is why I can't support unregulated capitalism (cue downmods from the /. libertarian brigade).

Here's a thought exercise for you guys: Wipe the slate clean, everybody starts from zero, Adam Smith's extreme younger brother is in the hizzy.

Now, exactly how many seconds pass before two or more similarly skilled people start pooling their resources to reduce cost/corner the market? You'd go from 0 to Microsoft in no time flat with this method.

Re:free market?

[nurb432]

Free-market is not without its troubles, but its still a far better solution then letting the 'state' run things.

Re:free market?

[Citizen of Earth]

This is why I can't support unregulated capitalism

Not to worry — there is no such thing.

Re:free market?

[Captain Splendid]

the 'state'

It's spelled 'we, the people', dumbass. The 'problem', such as it is, isn't the system, but your particularly shitty implementation of it.

Re:free market?

[nurb432]

In a perfect world, yes 'the state' would be 'the people'. However, we don't live in a perfect world by any stretch of the imagination. Any form of government by its very nature degenerates, regardless of its so called 'implementation'.

Re:free market?

[hcmtnbiker]

So you take un-cited and speculative numbers from a random journalist? Werner Bros told why it dropped TotalHD, it was they pitched their hybrid-disc to other studios and none bought it. Even saying they're real, $400 million dollar bids are virtually meaningless, Werner Bros needed to be on the winning side, not one that just gave them money, even with the 400 million they could have taken a much larger hit then that if they chose wrong, that's why they wanted the hybrid-disc in the first place. Secondly, fta...


The answer lies in part with the bruising Sony experienced with Betamax, which, like Blu-ray, was also the better product on paper.

Why do they say that? Because Blu-Ray can hold more data? How about the $/Gb ratio, which HD-DVD holds a much higher number. Second how about which is a simpler technology, remember simple can be a good thing, HD-DVD wins that hands down. HD-DVD uses concentric circles where as Blu-Ray uses an outward spiral, that's why it's able to edge out in terms of size. The problem is writing/reading a disc like that, and doing it fast is extremely hard both on the hardware and software required. That's part of why blu-ray would always be more expensive then HD-DVD.

My hope is that this format is completely destroyed by the rise of computers and the internet sales market, which I think will happen. The adoption rate is still very small, and if the movie companies have any idea what they're doing at all they're going to move into the internet distribution market. Bottom line though, both formats suck, when i think back to the IBM floppy being surpassed by the Sony Compact Disk, is see real improvement, nearly 3 orders of magnitude difference in storage capacity. Then I look to DVD possibly being ousted by this new format, the Blu-Ray disc, and it's not even a full order of magnitude between a dual-layer dvd and a Blu-Ray disc. Sure there was DVD upping CD, but everyone still uses CDs. DVDs are more of a tweener, you put on them what you cant quite fit on a CD. Blu-Ray is another tweener, but it's for DVD, which is already barely over its next competition the CD. And yes, my argument is strongly based on the disc's viability for computer usage, but just think about it, they really arn't a huge improvement over the regular DVD, they're just barely good enough to give you true high-def, locking them in to serve only one purpose really well, if that.

Re:free market?

[Sciros]

Without some regulation, what happens is the gap between the haves and the have-nots increases even further. This isn't good for the economy of a country as a whole, by the way.

There's nothing insightful about your post; it's typical anarchist rhetoric, bound to no historical precedent or foresight.

Re:free market?

[hal2814]

Why? Sony made a smart business move wooing their competitor's biggest supporter with money. Toshiba lost out but if WB was the only thing keeping them alive, then it wasn't like their planning was exactly stellar. They deserved to lose at that point. WB doesn't care one way or another as long as their content sells. They don't really have a horse in this race even though they've acted like it. They could easily abandon BluRay tomorrow. The only party that didn't get what they wanted out of this deal was relying on another company's non-binding agreement to keep their entire product line alive. If you're that upset about it, then feel free to release your content on some other format. The free market lets you do that.

Re:free market?

[mweather]

My pot dealer says othwerwise.

Re:free market?

[cHiphead]

I think a better question would be how and what can be done differently, on an specific level, not just an answer of " 'the state' is bad and we need to change it".

Cheers.

Re:free market?

[Penguinisto]

the 'state'

It's spelled 'we, the people', dumbass. The 'problem', such as it is, isn't the system, but your particularly shitty implementation of it.

...shitty implementation of which system?

We got to see at least three major (and differing) implementations of Marx' setup. The number of deaths from it climbs up into the hundreds of millions, all told, and in places like North Korea, still climbing at horrific rate. Problem is, too many people are eager to claim their actions in the name of "the people", but the reality ends up being just the opposite. I think the USSR lasted approximately three years before it stopped being about "the people" and started being about "the state" (and yes, there is a distinction).

Capitalism (as practiced) isn't exactly a perfect system either (far, far from it). Quite frankly, it can outright suck at times. OTOH, it does have a tendency to keep its body counts down to a much more acceptable level.

Socialism? Cool... now who gets to fund it all when the majority of a populace figures out that they can do just fine without actually having to work for what they get? Ayn Rand may have been a nut case, but she does have a point - even economics has an ecosystem that requires each part of it to function well enough to survive. Humans are too damned lazy in nature to be eager about providing excessively for others in a system where they objectively don't have to.

Now here's the weak link in your arguments as per the free market... Collusion only works for as long as the people are willing to fund it. If not enough people buy Blu-Ray gear to justify the costs going into it, it eventually dies. If something freer, easier, and cheaper comes along (pick at least two) Last I checked, a lack of Blu-Ray gear won't prevent me from eating tonight, nor will that lack prevent me from drinking clean water, or having a nice warm environment in which to sleep tonight. This in turn leads to apathy among the larger population, which in turns leads to...

...fact is, the problem isn't the system per se - the problem is that too few people actually give a damn enough about forcing a change in the nastier incidents within it, at least not until the impact of any aspect affects them personally.

/P

Re:free market?

[Sancho]

The idea is that competing products weren't allowed to compete on the merits of the product--rather, they were competing based upon who could grease the most palms.

In this case, however, it could turn out to be better for the consumer. If there hadn't been these bribes, who knows how long the format war would have lasted? I bought into HD-DVD and I think that it was the superior (for the consumer) product, but without these dirty tricks, the format war could have gone on for years longer, and any customer who wanted to upgrade to HD would have to either buy two separate players (or one combo player which is much more expensive and which doesn't include all of the features of any one player) or relegate themselves to only buying movies from studios who support that format. Worse, it might be a trend that the studios realize they could push further--imagine if each studio had its own format (as you see with DRM downloads, in some cases) requiring its own player?

That doesn't mean that allowing bribery, collusion, etc. is better in the general case.

Re:free market?

[Abcd1234]

We got to see at least three major (and differing) implementations of Marx' setup.

I hate to break it to you, but no, we didn't. Last I checked, Marx wasn't a big advocate for totalitarianism.

Re:free market?

[DrSkwid]

> it does have a tendency to keep its body counts down to a much more acceptable level.

Or rather, it confined it's holocausts to the 18th & 19th century

they'll be back

Re:free market?

[JavaBear]

On the other hand, had MS not bought Paramount/Dreamworks last fall, the 'war' could have ended with Blu-ray as the victor anyway, after all HD DVD weren't fairing all that well before Paramount went exclusive for HD DVD.

I agree that HD DVD were the better one from the perspective of the users (Weak DRM and no region codes) but in the longer run that may also have hampered the technology with studios trying to drag their heels a bit, until even worse DRM schemes were introduced on the download services.

Re:free market?

[DragonWriter]

Free-market is not without its troubles, but its still a far better solution then letting the 'state' run things.

That's a nice bit of ideology; in practice, the policies sold as "free market" amount to letting a narrow group, backed by the coercive power of public institutions acting to protect their narrow interests under the flag of "property rights", etc. This is especially true of "deregulation" efforts, which usually are, in fact, efforts which recast regulations into the form preferred by the leading firms in the regulated industry, and serve largely to protect them from competition and protect and reinforce their dominant position.

There is a reason that the biggest advocates of so-called "free market" policies are exactly the people that the theorist to whom "free market" advocates like to pay lip service, Adam Smith, warned must always be particularly distrusted when advocating policies because they can be counted on to do so out of narrow interests that will almost invariably be opposed to the public interest, organizations of merchants and manufacturers in particular industries.

Re:free market?

[ArikTheRed]

Any sufficiently powerful corporation becomes every bit as degenerated as a government. In a perfect world, Rand would be right - but it's not, and she isn't.

Re:free market?

[visionsofmcskill]

Your close to the banana, but not quite there.... theres a variety of complicating issues with this.

The first and foremost (for any system of extremely progressive taxation) is real tax havens, I dont mean illusary non-citzen ones... but the very real threat that a society that implements extreme taxation on its resource leaders will litterally suffer expatration. People would swear off their american citizenship and be gladly welcomed into ameniable nations (and would apply for citizenship there... which would be granted on account of their resources).

Remember... a really rich person would gladly pay taxes at 50% in france or where-ever over 90% in the USA... even if it meant giving up their citizienship.

Youd need to implement some pretty heavy handed anti-emmigration and/or foreign income protectionisms that would be very oppresive and likely ineffective to pull it off.

I personally have often contemplated similar methods... such as an income cap... or other such devices... where-in there is that same similar form of control... i also thought maybe instead of capping or taxing away the money we could instead force charity/non-profit for excess income.

So a person who makes over 5 million a year must invest 90% of his/her additional earnings into charitable foundations (revieed and approved by the government as being real and socially beneficial) and the like... but of their choosing. In this way a person could still spend their earnings according to what they think is best (funding charities that do the thing they believe in), but wouldnt be outright loosing all their "hard earned" cash to thrid parties who may use their money against their intrests.

Even that system would be hard to prevent flight of capitol with.

Considering everything... without a worldwide enforcement.... it would be damn hard to implement anything too aggresive... as wealth is only usefull to an individual during their lifetime... i think the path of least resistance is to slowly but surely become much more aggresive with our inheritance taxes.

Fundementally the drive to excell and suceed is almost always balenced with the reward.... which is most of the time implemented through money. We dont want to sap that drive.... so let people become as rich as they can be within our current (or somewhat modified) progresive tax system.... but lets remove inheritance... lets say that a person can give no more than a set amount to their prodigy (10x the median household income per child)... and that the rest (upon death) must be given over to the charities of their choosing.

This would be a system that once again, gives the right of choice to the earners of money... allows them to keep and have as much as they can earn post taxes... during their lifetime.... allows them to invest freely and widely and spend like crazy if they like (and may encourage it as death will part them of all).... ensures a significant but not unfair inheritance to all their children and allows them to keep their money even past their life in causes that they believe in and brings honor to their name.

Think of it as a highly incentivized philanthropy.

Re:free market?

[phoenix321]

Now imagine a state-run bureaucracy had to develop an optical storage medium. Just. Imagine.

Ideas for the state-sponsored requirements:
- archival grade 100 years at room temperature
- compatible with all existing hardware sitting *somewhere* in the offices in some backwater county office
- mil-spec version available and compatible with all other equipment
- export restriction to everywhere outside North America.
- support for people with all kinds of disabilities including but not limited to complete acephalia and worse.
- complete control over privately created media or at least the ability to track yet-unspecified *offenders* (think of the children!)
- fair bidding procedure, following a strict rule involving not more than 5 different three-letter agencies
- the procedure must be rigged so that the company of a member of the currently ruling party wins
- development cycle must take less than thirty years to complete
- a 50-percent price increase by the government-licensed contractor is only allowed three times during that period
- developing contractor can employ the Army and Some Other Agency to guard their offices. Operating somewhere in the desert on a base that does not appear on any map and is blocked from Google Earth is acceptable.

The perks:
- if the product fails, you can still bill the Government
- if the product succeeds, the taxpayer will pay you, if they like or even ever heard of your product or not
- if the product succeeds, the Government will buy equipment from you for a hundred years and *then* upgrade their remaining legacy stuff anyway.

The dangers:
- if the incumbent loses the next election, you're history as well.
- your work is too good. Somehow your leading researchers are changing to Some Federal Research Agency or disappearing otherwise.

Re:free market?

[homer_s]

So two people voluntarily made a transaction and you don't like it because it goes against your morals and what you think is "correct"?.

So you agree with the crowd that wants to ban gay marriage?

Re:free market?

[DragonWriter]

We got to see at least three major (and differing) implementations of Marx' setup.

Well, no. What are usually characterized as implementations of Marx's setup are solely the various major derivatives of Lenin's setup, which replaced Marx's requirement for an advanced capitalist society with an active, politically mobilized, proletariat aware of and leading the restructuring of society with a narrow activist elite vanguard leading in the name of the proletariat as a shortcut, because there was no prospect of the place Lenin wanted to implement revolution meeting the prerequisites in Marx's theory anytime in Lenin's lifetime. (The major implementations here include, of course, Stalinism and Maoism and their derivatives.)

There are lots of other adaptations of the ideas that Marx laid down, incorporating elements both of Marx's critique of capitalism and his prescriptions for alternatives to address those critiques, that are usually ignored. But these other adaptations (including many of the forms of democratic socialism in place in Western Europe, and some movements that replace the state as the principal locus of worker control of the means of production so which are not principally models of government) are usually not held up by those who want to criticize the supposed essential and universal failure of "Marx's setup" even though, while they are radically different than Marx's setup, they are often no more radically different from that setup than Leninism and its descendants are. Ironically (or perhaps deliberately), the opponents of "Communism" buy into the propaganda of Leninism (that starts with the name "Marxism-Leninism") as thoroughly as do those who have claimed to adhere to Lenin's views.

Re:free market?

[FauxPasIII]

> So two people voluntarily made a transaction and you don't like it because it goes against your morals and what you think is "correct"?.

Corporations are not people.

Re:free market?

[That's Unpossible!]

What are they, buildings?

Re:free market?

[DragonWriter]

Last I checked there's a difference between economic policy and political philosophy

There really isn't; economic structure and political structure are intrinsically inseparable. There are uses, at times, for analytically pretending that there is a wall between them and that they can be examined in isolation, just as there are uses for all sorts of fundamentally inaccurate assumptions in simplifying analysis of various problems, but in reality they both fundamentally concern the same thing and they are intertwined at the most fundamental level. Economics is about the distribution of goods and services. Politics is about the distribution of power. But power is fundamentally the ability to get people to provide you the goods and services you desire: it is, precisely, the same thing as "wealth".

Now, in many systems (particularly, the kind of democratic capitalism the West aspires to), there is an effort to try to have, at the same time, virtually unlimited and unregulated concentration of "economic wealth" while maintaining an equal distribution of "political power". Inevitably, also, this effort fails because the two quantities are inseperable. Each is simply a different way of referring the capacity to get other people to do what you want.

Re:free market?

[Penguinisto]

In practice, can you point to one example where collusion failed and a pick-2 solution arose?

Actually, yes:

The Movie Industry.

No, seriously, the movie industry. Around 1911 or so, the entire movie industry was controlled and locked by Edison and a heavy collusion with manufacturers of motion picture equipment. Every bit of movie equipment (including film(!?), cameras, lighting rigs, and projectors) was to be rented, period. In response, a group of filmmakers ran off to California, built their own equipment, and proceeded to make movies. The result is Hollywood and the MPAA. While we can all appreciate the irony of the MPAA being founded by "pirates" who were "stealing" Mr. Edison's "Intellectual Property", the point is that competitors managed to break a collusion-heavy industry to come up with cheaper, faster, and better movies... a product that the public was more than willing to pay for. Edison eventually had to simply give up trying to contain them.

Want another? How about...

The AFL/CIO, WRT the US Auto Industry.

Crazy-sounding, I know, but true... the auto unions had a dominant lock on American automobile manufacturing. By the late 1960's, they were pretty much dictating terms to every major US maker out there, and the disproportionately high salaries of auto workers were being passed on as a higher cost to the consumer. Then the Japanese came along with Nissans, Datsuns (Mitsubishi), Toyotas, and Hondas. The Germas showed up with Volkswagens and Audis. The OPEC embargo of 1974 caught the domestic big boys off-guard, while the Japanese and Germans were more than ready to take advantage of it with their existing engineering and dirt-cheap costs. It was such a powerful shift, that the gov't actually intervened to bail out Chrysler at one point. It also broke the Teamsters' back... hard. Now they are forced to play nice, with nowhere near the power they once had.

Okay, if you don't like those two, let's try...

Microsoft.

But, they're still a monopoly, you cry. Yes, for now... and in spite of a practically non-existent governmental punishment (c'mon, seriously... it wasn't jack and didn't even slow 'em down), the likes of Linux and Apple in the marketplace are now climbing at astronomical rates, as people choose to take their money elsewhere. It was certainly enough to get Dell interested in selling Linux gear (and on the business level - HP, and IBM, and...) Yep - it'll take time; exactly however long it takes for consumers to stop funding them and put the money elsewhere.

'course, there is no perfect example, because there is no perfect situation. Capitalism itself is highly imperfect. Someday, hopefully someone can come up with something better. Until they do, it's pretty much the best we got. Ain't much, but it beats everything else we've tried as a species.

Reg'ds,

/P

Re:free market?

[immcintosh]

Short answer, yes and no.

Longer answer, there are plenty of things we don't allow people to decide to do together. For example, kill each other. Doesn't matter one bit whether it's in private, voluntary, or not, it's simply not allowed. Likewise, things like bribery and collusion are regulated against because the majority find them unacceptable and detrimental to the general public welfare. Until somebody comes up with a consistent, coherent, universal ethical system (and nobody yet has), we're stuck with "mob rules" on a case by case basis when it comes down to it. Either that or barbarism and anarchy. Unfortunately, if the majority find gay marriage unethical (I certainly find no such thing), then we're stuck with that until and unless they become more enlightened.

That is... unless you've got a Philosopher King in mind for us?

P.S. Corporations are not people anyway. Here's the difference: people are assumed to have all rights naturally, and laws are made to restrict those rights. Corporations are assumed to have no rights naturally, and laws are made to grant those rights. Big damn difference.

Re:free market?

[Penguinisto]

Or rather, it confined it's holocausts to the 18th & 19th century

I wouldn't be so sure... Mao managed to wipe out (roughly) 100+ million of his own people during the "Great Leap Forward"... over 10% (at the time) of China's entire population. The USSR comes in at a somewhat close second, and only had a peak population of ~300m during the 1980's. I'd have to go dredging numbers (population vs. deaths during a given Purge or Gulag expansion period, and esp. during the starvations in the Ukraine), but I'm fairly willing to wager that as a percentage of the whole, it was a whole lot safer (odds-wise) to live in 18th/19th century England than it was to live in 20th Century Russia.

It's one thing to get killed due to willingly working under unsafe conditions and the like. It's another entirely to get executed or sent to die in a slave labor camp, just because the neighbor down the street reported you as a 'counter-revolutionary' to the local authorities. You're still perfectly free to walk away from the latter situation with at least a reasonable chance at continued survival...

Now as to whether or not free and open Capitalism would ever get to the point where millions are killed off due to malice on the part of those at the top of said system? Remains to be seen. OTOH, it's a lot harder to pull off than if you were in, say, Stalin's boots...

/P

Re:free market?

[Aereus]

Game companies sign deals all the time to make certain games exclusive to a certain console. I guess they are in collusion as well?

Re:free market?

[Headcase88]

I guess you missed this (emphasis mine):

However, I realized in my 30's that the libertarian philosophy breaks down when anyone gets much over 100 times the resources of the average citizen

From my POV it's a close call. There are different types of checks and balances for this kind of thing and using taxes to do so, while not libertarian in itself, doesn't stop someone from being largely libertarian just because they think it's a good idea.

It's like saying someone isn't conservative just because they support gay marriage.

Re:free market?

[Just Another Poster]

I hate to break it to you, but no, we didn't. Last I checked, Marx wasn't a big advocate for totalitarianism.

Yes he was. Observe his attack on what he called "bourgeois freedom"; freedom of speech, religion, and property:

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/marframe.htm

Re:free market?

[AmigaMMC]

In the United States, Corporations are "people" - that has been defined by the Supreme Court a century ago.

Re:free market?

[OakLEE]

I think there is a general misunderstanding of the wealth gap and its significance. The fact that there is a widening gap is not bad per se. The decade of the 1990s saw one of the largest post-WWII increases in the wealth gap any, yet I'm pretty sure most people here that was a pretty bitchin' time.

The key lies not in the existence of the gap, but the reason for its existence. Increases in the wealth gap are totally immaterial if they are accompanied by a general rise societal welfare. For example, if the average income of a person in the top 1% increased from $1 million to $2 million, while the average income of someone in the middle 50% increased from $45,000 to $90,000, the wealth gap has increased between these two percentiles has nearly doubled, but the person in the 50th percentile has still seen his quality of life nearly double (assuming money is an adequate proxy).

If on the other hand, the increase in the gap is due to the fact that one part of society is benefiting from wealth creation and economic growth disproportionately, then that is when societal problems start to creep up, as the poorer segment of society feels cheated or taken advantage of.

Of course, the same logic also applies to attempts to decrease the wealth gap. Decreases resulting from policies that encourage the poorer segments of society to benefit from a larger portion of economic growth, are more desirable that merely confiscating wealth from the rich. For example, I would argue that policies that make it more affordable for lower income people to go to college are a much better than merely raising marginal tax rates on rich. In the 1960s, we had marginal rates that varied from 70% to 91%(!). These rates were so high that they actually encouraged high income individuals to create businesses that actually lost money (i.e., negative economic growth) to reduce their taxable income.

People must remember that economic growth and wealth generation are not zero-sum games. A widening of the wealth gap is not prima facie evidence that the inequities in society are becoming imbalanced, and merely trying to shrink it for its own sake is not sound policy. After all, there is the old Russian saying that the one thing the Soviet Union did well was making everybody equal, equally poor.

Re:free market?

[spectecjr]

No they won't. For that crowd, bribery, collusion and cartelism are all part of the free-market experience, and they like it just fine! Just so long as the gummint doesn't butt in on all the fun.

Speaking of the Gummint butting in... whatever happened to the DOJ's investigation of claims that Sony was deliberately sabotaging the HD-DVD consortium?? (In 2004, no less).

The EU also fined Sony, Fuji, and Maxwell for price fixing... a sign of things to come?

Last July, the EU started investigating why Blu-Ray was winning, wondering "whether improper tactics were used to suppress competition and persuade the studios to back [Sony's] format."

*shrugs*

Yeah right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Next they'll be saying Sony would put rootkits on CDs or something...

Re:Yeah right.

[kerohazel]

Of course not. They'll put UNCRACKABLE rootkits on Blu-ray, and encode it with a 16-byte number that no one will ever figure out.

No more HD-DVD?

[esocid]

Third, the company sold Blu-ray to rival movie studios with the promise of superior digital copyright protection.

There you go right there.

1. Promise the movie companies that your formats are less prone to being pirated.
2. ?
3. Profit!

Market Isn't Even Ready

[milsoRgen]

I don't even think the market is ready for HD, we barely have downloads that offer DVD quality. The hardware feels a bit immature in my opinion, with perhaps the exception of the PS3. However my personal experiance with stand alone players comes to one thought, "Why the fuck am I waiting for my movie player to boot up?"

Now call me when we have the bandwidth to stream HD, and we're not paying a premium for discs and when we all have large screen hi def tvs that actually can utilized the enhanced resolution.

That being said, let Sony blow their wads.

Re:Market Isn't Even Ready

[robizzle]

I don't think the availability of high quality downloads should effect whether or not the market is ready for HD media. Instead, the limiting factor is the ubiquity of high def TVs in the household; there is no sense in getting a blue ray player if you have a 480 TV.

Conversely, I think the lack of high quality downloads would actually spur increased demand for the delivery of high quality content though other means (in this case, HD discs.) If people have high def TVs, they are going to want high def content. If they can't get high def content from the internet, they will try to get it from high def media.

Re:Market Isn't Even Ready

[PCM2]

It's definitely a few years away. The stereo industry always loves to soak the "hi-fi" consumer; but meanwhile, mainstream consumers have been going nuts over MP3s, which generally have lower sound quality than CDs.

But remember, the industry holds the strings. All they have to do is start releasing new movies on Blu-Ray before they release them on DVD, and DVD dies sooner or later. Downloading DVD images that have been reformatted to 4.7GB with DVDShrink is one thing. Downloading DVD images of movie that you could get in hi-def for $20 is another.

I think it ultimately depends on what the consumer really wants. CDs had great audio quality, but they became mainstream maybe ten years after the Walkman. Portable CD players always sort of sucked. Enter the iPod, and the die is cast. Similarly, if consumers value being able to watch a movie right now more than they value building their own home theater -- the modern equivalent of hi-fi -- then in a few years it won't really matter what format the plastic discs come in.

Re:Market Isn't Even Ready

[edwardpickman]

Why is everything about download? The primary reason people download is for file sharing sites so some how I don't think Sony is bemoaning loosing that business. I'm old enough to have spent my whole childhood preVHS. The early Betamaxs hit in my late teens but only recorded an hour and there were no prerecorded tapes. We didn't have cable in my area so unless you saw a movie the first week or so of it's release you had to hope for a cut down TV version of the film. I find it amazing how spoiled people have become in a little over a generation. Technology just isn't moving fast enough to suit their own personal needs. A hundred years ago most people still rode horses or walked, there was no radio and TV was decades away. Even movies were a rare treat and they were all shorts. These days if they can't get HD video beamed directly to their iPods they think we're still in the stone age. BluRay was never meant as a download format. Apples and oranges. When transfer rates get up to the point of supporting HiDef downloads I'm sure there will be yet another format. You might as well complain about not being able to download Hi8 movies. It was never intended as a download format.

Re:Market Isn't Even Ready

[TheRaven64]

Conversely, I think the lack of high quality downloads would actually spur increased demand for the delivery of high quality content though other means (in this case, HD discs.) And how is DVD-A doing in comparison to AACs from iTunes? In the music industry, people value convenience a huge amount more than quality (or, rather, fidelity). It will be interesting to see if the video industry is different. DVDs gave better quality and convenience than VHS and CDs gave better quality and convenience than analogue tapes. I can't think of a single instance where consumers have been forced to choose between the two and gone with quality.

Re:Market Isn't Even Ready

[morari]

I wish we could stop hearing about streaming video. I like having my content conveniently on actual media that I can access instantly whenever I want without having to go through or ask anyone else. Most of the world doesn't even have broadband at all, which I think is a far more important problem than people not being able to download and redownload gigantic movie files because they've never heard of a disc binder.

Re:Market Isn't Even Ready

[_xeno_]

Well, I know a lot of people with laptops that have displays capable of at least 720p. Sound quality may not be great, but they can show a high-def movie in an honestly OK quality.

I don't know quite so many people that own HDTVs. (Actually, I haven't asked in most cases, so I could be underestimating, but you get the idea.)

The penetration rate for something that can display a high-def movie via download is much higher than HDTVs. Granted the experience won't be as great, but it's a place to start. Once people have downloaded movies, things like TiVo or Apple TV can be used to display them in a home theater.

So in that aspect, I can see downloads as being much more accessible than Blu-ray.

The remaining unsolved problem being download speeds.

Re:Market Isn't Even Ready

[jtownatpunk.net]

I think the limiting factor is the limited intelligence of the end user combined with the ridiculous complexity of connecting and configuring everything. Long gone are the days when you plugged the coax into the back of your TV and that was it.

"Hrm. Your cable box has a DVI port and the TV is HDMI. Best Buy will charge you $100 for that cable. Let's order it online for $15 and use component for now. Plug the component video output of the cable box into the component input of your TV. No, that's composite. The red, blue, and green ones labeled Pr, Pb, and Y. Not that red one. That's audio. the other one. I know it looks the same but it's not. The group that's together, outlined by that line. Okay, now plug in the audio. Oh. Your receiver only takes coaxial digital audio and the cable box only has optical. Well, we can get an adapter but it'll cost you a hundred bucks in the store if they even have one. Order it online for $20. We'll hook up the analog audio for now. Okay. Everything's plugged in and it's time to configure the settings. What resolution is your TV? You don't know? Where's the manual? Okay, we'll look it up on the manufacturer's website. Okay. 1366x768. That means you need to set the cable box to 720p. No, there is no 768 setting. Press setup, advanced, output formats, and select 720p. No, not 1080. You don't have a 1080 TV so programs broadcast in 720 will be scaled up to 1080 then back down to 720 and will look really bad. JUST SET THE DAMN THING FOR 720! THE GAME STARTED 10 MINUTES AGO!!!"

Now you're ready to watch some TV.

Of course, that's assuming the audio system was already set up and configured properly. Somebody should build a canonical flowchart of possible AV configurations just to show how complicated it really is.

Re:Market Isn't Even Ready

[TheRaven64]

You're solving the wrong problem. Most people want to listen to the same music over and over again, but few want to watch the same videos more than a couple of times. Having a store of 300 hours is fine, but it's fixed. People pay huge amounts of money every month not just to watch video, but to watch new video. Storing it locally to watch again doesn't give them anything.

We know step 2...

[Overzeetop]

... and it involves a $400M cash payment. No need for question marks for these gnomes.

Re:We know step 2...

[esocid]

Neither side has confirmed the size of any bids or payments.

We may know, but they won't acknowledge it.

Re:First

[esocid]

First to sell my HD-DVD, listed as Blu-Ray, on ebay.

Or...

[blhack]

Has anyone considered the remote possibility that Blu-Ray won out because it was the better of the two formats? It stores more data. From an end user perspective, isn't this pretty much the #1 thing that matters?

Granted, geeks know that the DRM on blu-ray is harsher than that on HD-DVD, but if your just joe Movie Watcher does it really matter?

Just a thought.

Re:Or...

[RightSaidFred99]

No, nobody has considered that because it's meaningless - especially to Joe Movie Watcher. Both HDDVD and BluRay have more than enough space to provide existing movie content. Look at most HDDVDs, there's usually quite a bit of free space even with extras etc...

HDDVD also had a path to higher capacities. From a movie-watcher's perspective, BluRay has absolutely 0 technical advantages. In terms of a storage medium it has some advantage, but not one HDDVD couldn't have matched easily enough.

Re:Or...

[blhack]

No, nobody has considered that because it's meaningless - especially to Joe Movie Watcher. Both HDDVD and BluRay have more than enough space to provide existing movie content. Look at most HDDVDs, there's usually quite a bit of free space even with extras etc... Well, yeah, there is enough space on there for the current model we have for watching, but what if we change the model? What if instead of a season of television spanning 4 DVDs it just spans 1 blu-ray disk and is all in 1080p?
If you're at best buy, and you ask the sales guy the difference between Blu Ray and HD DVD, what is he going to tell you that is relevant to your inerests?
Is the DRM model on each relevant? Well, if you need to talk to a sales guy at best buy, then chances are you don't even know what this is; so no.
Is the capacity relevant? Well, not really (of course they both have enough space to hold a movie), but if you need to decide between two (seemingly equal) players, and you're told that one of them can hold more data, which are you going to choose?

The answer is, obviously, blu ray.

Re:Or...

[PrvtBurrito]

Uh, HD-DVD's are: 1) region free 2) not a rushed to market technology (no customer screwing profile x.x limitations) 3) half the price 4) has more interactive features in contrast blu-ray store more space. Are you guys that obtuse?

Re:Or...

[powerlord]

From a movie-watcher's perspective, BluRay has absolutely 0 technical advantages.

Not entirely true. It had at least ONE major advantage, less market confusion with DVD.

I've seen at least two instances personally (not counting the numerous anecdotes mention here on slashdot :) ) where consumers were confused that they needed a new player to watch HD DVD discs, since they owned a DVD player and an HD TV.

With Blu-Ray, there was much more of an instinctual "This is a new format that needs a new player".

I'd also wonder if Blu-Ray's choice of using Blue for their media vs HD DVD's Red made a difference from a psychological point of view. Most people associate Red with Danger, while Blue is usually associated with Calmness.

Re:Or...

[RightSaidFred99]

Nah, I don't buy it. It was all about politics and business, not technical merit. HDDVD could have scaled capacity easily, and in fact already had. This just came down to Sony being better at playing the game.

Re:Or...

[evilviper]

but Toshiba figured out how to top 50GB using HD-DVD discs as the technology got more mature.

3-layer HD DVDs was just a PR stunt. None were ever produced, and I'm willing to bet that none of the existing HD DVD players could read them, so it might just as well have been a new format that nobody would have adopted.

Sony demonstrated much, much higher numbers of layers on Blu Ray discs as well.

Re:Or...

[evilviper]

It stores more data. From an end user perspective, isn't this pretty much the #1 thing that matters?

No, I'd say capacity was the #2 thing that mattered.

#1 was: Blu-Ray discs don't get scratched.

Granted, geeks know that the DRM on blu-ray is harsher than that on HD-DVD,

"Geeks" here on /. "know" a lot of things that aren't true...

Re:Or...

[Bigboote66]

The model doesn't need changing. The current model is that a disk holds enough content based on the amount of time people are willing to sit on their fat asses. You're going to take a break to stretch your legs or go to the bathroom. You may as well change a disk while you're at it. Content that lasts over 4 hours is so uncommon as to be irrelevant to the issue.

I don't see a real compelling reason for something to be able to play 8 hours of uninterrupted content for the home market. Those that need that kind of play time are a insignificant minority. The only reason for increased capacity would be when the move comes to the next higher resolution format, which will involve new hardware anyway.

-BbT

Re:Or...

[XeresRazor]

Actually there's one very large technical difference between the formats that does come into play when you start getting discs with one or more uncompressed audio tracks on board (which is a good thing by the way since most standalones have independent analog outs and PS3 will transcode on the fly to whatever your sound system supports). Blu-ray has a significantly higher maximum bitrate cap, 48Mbit/s for blu-ray versus only 30.24 for HD-DVD (those are complete audio+video+subtitle streamrates, the video itself is limited to 40mbit on blu-ray and 29.4 on HD-DVD). The biggest reason these are important isn't for higher overall movie bitrates, it's so the overhead's there to allow more bits to be thrown at more complicated scenes or audio segments. Scenes with large amounts of random motion (explosions for both of you Michael Bay fans out there or any of you fans of the matrix lobby shootout) get a definite advantage from being able to throw more bits at the video when needed, as does audio (VBR MP3 is popular for a reason afterall and the lossless codecs supported on the HD formats are true VBR codecs).

Re:Or...

[Sir_Lewk]

Technically, nothing matters but the money, not even technical merit.

Re:Or...

[dreamt]

The price thing was artificial. It was because Toshiba, the only (real) HD-DVD manufacturer cut prices and was taking huge losses on selling the things. The prices on BluRay will come down naturally as technology improves and because of real competition between hardware vendors.

Re:Or...

[The-Bus]

This explains why set-top Blu-ray players were less expensive.

Wait, no it doesn't. Because they were consistently twice the price.

Re:Or...

[blhack]

You assume anybody watching clips on a DVD wants to do so linearly. What if i want episode 1 of family guy from season 6, then episode 8?

Re:Or...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Bluray uses Java, so the menus and scripting can be more more advanced than that of HDDVD

Bullshit thrice over.

1. The Java menus broke when they came out, even on the PS3, so that was a nonstarter (in the future it may work, but they don't now.)
2. It's a damn movie, I don't want content that can crash (see above).
3. The original DVD format had assembly. It had registers. You could (and I have seen individuals) do far more amazing things with menus than studios did. The studios didn't use all that power because it was already overkill.

Re:Or...

[mzs]

No BD-ROM and HD-DVD both use 'blue' (really closer to violet) lasers. BD uses a different data encoding to achieve more data density and uses a more scratch resistant coating on the disk itself to counteract it's lesser ability at handling read errors.

Re:Or...

[BrerBear]

Blu-Ray was different.. I'll give you that much...
Better? No... Won't go that far.
The fact that it uses DRM at all makes it lose at least 90 out of 100 points on scale of usability. Wow, the last 10 years of DVD must have been rough on you, seeing as DVDs have DRM.

The fact that early adopters are out however much they spent on players that cannot be upgraded to watch current rev media, drops another 90 out of 100 points. Original profile 1.0 Blu-ray players can watch all movies and all special features on current and future discs, except for picture in picture. Kinda like how original DVD players didn't have access to all current DVD player features, and how my DVD players can't play the "enhanced multimedia content" that requires a PC drive. Curses!

Next we have media costs. blu-ray media costs more to manufacture, therefore raises purchase price. Drop another 50 points. Strange that the extra few pennies per disk (and dropping) hasn't lead to Blu-ray discs costing more than HD-DVDs, seeing how price was supposed to be a big benefit of that format.

Next we have longevity. Downloadable content will soon surpass quality and availability to blu-ray, without the hassles and headaches. Drop another 90 points. You mean the downloadable content with all that horrible DRM? And with even less special feature extras than regular DVD, let alone Blu-ray? And with worse video and audio quality? I suggest you invest heavily in this, right away!

Woo-hoo - we have a winner. Not! Not?! Ummm... ok... "You are the weakest link, goodbye!"

Re:Or...

[Keeper]

It would also explain why BluRay players using BDJ boot much faster than HD-DVD players ...

Wait, no it doesn't. Because BluRay boot times are 2-3 times longer (8 minutes!) than HD-DVD drives.

Re:Or...

[mmcguigan]

#1 was: Blu-Ray discs don't get scratched. Blu-ray discs do scratch and it is debatable whether the harder surface of the Blu-ray disc is a benefit to the consumer.

HD-DVD media is made of the same material used in standard DVD media. It is pretty cheap and easy for the average person to resurface a DVD. When a Blu-ray disc does get scratched, it is far more difficult to fix. If you try to use a DVD-doctor on a Blu-ray disc it doesn't help. The only fix I've heard for a scratched BD is to trash it and purchase a new one.

Does anyone know of a cheap, easy and reliable way for consumers to resurface scratched Blu-ray discs?

Re:Or...

[NothingMore]

Ummm how is BD+ less harsh than just plain AACS (the only thing HD-DVD was capable of doing)??

Holy rumor mill, Batman

[bconway]

What remains a mystery is just how big a push Warner needed to pick sides. Analysts say Sony only prevailed following a heated bidding war against Toshiba, with the reward reaching as much as $400-million (U.S.). Neither side has confirmed the size of any bids or payments.

Other than analysts' speculation of payoffs, there's nothing that could be considered fact in this article. Pass.

Re:Holy rumor mill, Batman

[sponga]

Well when you have an agenda against Sony and want to throw some FUD up, there is nothing like throwing a question mark at the end of your title.

As far as I am concerned I don't think Sony did enough to market the Bluray during the war against HD-DVD; they should have thrown loads of money to get them to switch instead of dicking around.
Sony wanted Microsoft's HDi as part of the BD spec but were outvoted by the rest of the BDA, who chose Java. Stupid MS decided to start developing HD-DVD as Blu-Ray was already being developed and the rest is history.

Since the article is pretty much speculation lets get some real facts rolling, although I am sure that there are a thousand posts below me which re chant the same thing every Sony/BluRay thread.

1. DVD recordables were just as expensive in the beginning. And guess what? Prices fell. BD media started out at around $20, and now it's below $10.
2. It's been posted elsewhere (Google the links yourself, learn to do research and not listen to the FUD) that Sony does not lose money on PS3 production anymore, and Toshiba was bleeding millions on their firesales.
3. BD is THREE regions. DVD is SEVEN. Same, eh? Not to mention that it's OPTIONAL, unlike DVD (example Warner BD discs are region free, Sony & Disney discs catalog titles are as well).

Everything that people claim HD-DVD is good for, Blu-ray can eventually do. If they had wanted to, they could've made it region free, and implement whatever software layer HD-DVD had, and you have a great format. The fact that the goal could be achieved with either format, makes the whole war unnecessary. HD-DVD was unnecessary, simply because Blu-ray was already there. The companies behind HD-DVD should've pushed for Blu-ray to include all those features they wanted, and avoid the war. But HD-DVD was 'juicier' choice for them.

Toshiba and Microsoft have hurt HD media adoption in catastrophic proportions. IMO, Blu-ray was the most future proof, but meh, their half-assed efforts at promoting the format, only prolonged the war and screwed many consumers. And all the FUD being spread now about how upconverting is just fine, it's making me sick.

I guess free market means bribes

[mlwmohawk]

A couple points:

(1) The betamax people like to claim that betamax was "better" than VHS. This is simply not true. It had some features that were better than VHS, but VHS had features that were better than Betamax. It all came down to the fact that VHS was cheaper and allowed for longer record times.

(2) The amount of money Sony just sent is proof that Blue-Ray sucks.

Re:I guess free market means bribes

[eviloverlordx]

(2) The amount of money Sony just sent is proof that Blue-Ray sucks.

BS.

The HD-DVD camp did the very same thing, yet where is the moral outrage? Hypocrisy is alive and well on /.

Re:I guess free market means bribes

[Malc]

(2) The amount of money Sony just sent is proof that Blue-Ray sucks.

1) It's "Blu-ray".

2) Paramount were paid $150M to switch to HD DVD only. Based on the number of titles being put out (or market share), Paramount were paid far more relatively than this rumoured amount for Warner.

Betamax wasn't better.

[RightSaidFred99]

VHS had longer recording times, and that is what the customers wanted. This is proved by the fact that VHS "won", and ergo VHS was "better". Betamax did have better video quality, but it was not "better" in every dimension.

Re:Betamax wasn't better.

[provigilman]

Well, that, and VHS had porn.

Re:Betamax wasn't better.

[flimflam]

The odd thing is, most of the *cough* porn I've seen in high-def has had the HD-DVD label at the top, not Blu-ray.

And here's me thinking the porn industry was going to decide this battle. What's *cough* porn? Some sort of wierd fetish I don't know about?

Re:Betamax wasn't better.

[thtrgremlin]

This really seems to be the common theory across the web (and theory like theory of gravity). Sony had a great format that was higher quality, and more compact... but they wanted to be big brother. "We got the big movie format, so we're going to 'fix' the morality of the world". Sony with BetaMax, and originally with Blu-Ray, they said "no porn on OUR format"... but they didn't really consider that despite how much people may talk about loving their favorite big screen movie, there is a market for porn flicks 10x the size of "normal" films. So when your format is out sold 10/1 by people that are a little more quiet about their movie buying experiences... well the rest is history. Oddly enough this time, the big players in porn knew Blu-Ray was better, and they wern't going to settle for less (I think this was on slashdot last year). Likely money had something to do with it again, as Sony quietly gave in to the Adult Industries request.
 
As far as disruptive DRM and rootkits, as much as people complain, this has virtually no influence on people's buying habbits. Just look at the number of people that use Windows.

Re:Betamax wasn't better.

[Bigboote66]

The "porn drives the technology" argument was irrelevant to the HD wars anyway. Nobody wants to see their porn in HD, unless they have a fetish for bad skin and razor burn.

-BbT

Re:Betamax wasn't better.

[ashridah]

Looks like i was misinformed anyway. Someone i know has mentioned that many major pornographic studios have switched to blu-ray recently as well.

Re:First

[andphi]

Why even send the HD-DVD? Just send a bobcat.

Even for /., bad summary and headline

[DragonWriter]

The article does not say that Sony paid Warner $400 million. It merely states that there was a bidding war between Sony and Toshiba and that unnamed "analysts" have suggested that payout may have been "as much as $400 million", though no one who knows anything is saying anything. Actually, the summary could have been good with a small change:

Is $400 million too much? Sony didn't think so and this article speculates that's how they won the Hi-Def format war.

Should read:

Is $400 million too much? This article speculates that Sony may not have thought so and goes on to speculate that's how they won the Hi-Def format war.

Really, other than the really obvious things we all know (Sony won the format war), there aren't any facts in the article, just speculation and some rather weird ideas from a variety of sources. Like Professor Xavier Dreze and his suggestion that "PlayStation buyers ... unwittingly embraced Blu-ray and undermined HD DVD." As if PS3 buyers were shelling out the high price of the console without realizing that it was a Blu-ray player, and just started purchasing Blu-ray discs without any consciousness of their actions. To the extent that PS3 owners embraced Blu-ray at all, they didn't do it "unwittingly".

Re:Even for /., bad summary and headline

[vux984]

As if PS3 buyers were shelling out the high price of the console without realizing that it was a Blu-ray player, and just started purchasing Blu-ray discs without any consciousness of their actions. To the extent that PS3 owners embraced Blu-ray at all, they didn't do it "unwittingly".

Yes, they supported blu-ray over hddvd incidentally. Ie if the PS3 had been hddvd they would have bought it all the same. The market skew toward blu-ray by way of ps3 sales was NOT on blu-ray's merits over HDDVD, it was simply by virtue of the fact that that is what the PS3 came with.

Everyone picking a stand alone player had to agonize over whether to go bluray or hddvd.

If the PS3 had somehow been available in two flavors ... one blu-ray and one HDDVD and customers were actually selecting the hi-def format they were going to gamble on you could argue they were 'wittingly' involved in the choice, but as it stands, no, they were not.

It came with hidef (which they wanted or at least saw value in), it happened to be bluray which they mostly didn't care about, so that's what they got. People buying a ps3 wanted a ps3 and took whatever hidef player it came with.

Re:Even for /., bad summary and headline

[DragonWriter]

Yes, they supported blu-ray over hddvd incidentally. Ie if the PS3 had been hddvd they would have bought it all the same.

"Incidentally" is not "unwittingly", though. I tend to agree that most probably did so "incidentally" (it may have been important to buyers that it was an HD player, but which format probably wasn't important), but "unwittingly" suggests that not merely unconcerned with the fact that buy buying the PS3 and media to play on it they were supporting Blu-ray, but unaware that they were doing so.

Everyone picking a stand alone player had to agonize over whether to go bluray or hddvd.

And anyone buying a PS3 that was motivated to do so based, in whole or in part, by its HD playback capacity had to consider the prospect of Blu-ray being a dead-end format and how to discount the value of the HD playback capacity based on that--and whether to go with a different gaming console, particularly an Xbox 360 with optional HD-DVD playback, instead. How many posts on Slashdot or anti-PS3 articles various media were there over the last several years (right up until last Christmas) talking about how likely it was that Sony was going to lose the format war as it did with Betamax, and that the PS3 would consequently be a long-term flop for which gaming content would never match its competitors, either?

Sure, PS3 purchasers may have also weighed the current and expected future gaming content of the PS3 in its favor, or the Linux capacity, or other non-Blu-ray features, but to say that PS3 purchasers, particularly those who were likely to be significantly interested in using it as a movie player, were totally insulated from concern over the format war whereas purchasers of standalone players were not is simply wrong.

$ony?

[krazycraft]

So we should starting calling them $ony?

Re:$ony?

[bdcrazy]

$on¥

Umm... no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost no one cares about which format is "better", only which one will become the popular one that everybody supports (network effect). And most people don't even care about that, having no need or desire for higher resolutions than DVD already provides. Face it, HD is still niche technology that fewer than 10% of households are equipped to take advantage of (with multi-thousand-dollar HDTVs and multi-hundred-dollar players, etc).

Most people simply don't care. And the two formats were neck-and-neck for the past year for mindshare (some studios supporting this one, some studios supporting that one) until the Blu-ray camp staged a series of PR stunts to make HD-DVD look bad, and simultaneously did the backroom wheeling-and-dealing and forked over hundreds of millions in cash to certain movie studios, to make them switch sides from HD-DVD to Blu-ray. Perception is reality. Once news outlets started to crow that HD-DVD was dead, in effect it was dead. And the studios were happy to take the money and switch camps, because they see how much the format war is hurting the (small to begin with) market for HD movies.

Sony won by playing dirty, but who really cares -- most of us don't want or need HD anyway, and those who do mostly just want one format to be the clear winner and don't especially care which one it is (unless they were stupid enough to be early adopters of the losing format while the format war was still going on).

Plus and Minus

[TheSync]

VHS won the consumer war over Betamax, but Betacam (that used the same tape cassette) went on to become the dominant professional video format.

Now BluRay won the consumer war, but it is unclear if the professional disk version called XDCAM will win the professional format, as pro video folks moving beyond tapes are also looking at flash-based systems like DVCPRO P2 , and even Sony now offers professional XDCAM EX on SxS flash memory.

Just Sony?

[hansamurai]

A lot of people don't realize that Blu-Ray is more than just Sony, there are three levels of membership in the Blu-Ray Association. Currently there are 18 board members (top level), 65 contributers, and over 200 members. Sony is the obvious front company for the association because of their reliance on the technology for the PlayStation 3, but there are a lot of groups that have a big stake in the project too.

Maybe Sony did pay Warner the big bucks for the commitment, but I'd be surprised if they're the only ones making deals like this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association

Rehash of rumor from HD-DVD fan blog

[guidryp]

Ummm old and unsubstantiated/busted rumor:

The Original source is Dan Lindich, he has since edited the story to remove all references to money changing hands. Read some of his blog, he hates Blu-Ray with a passion and has always recommended HD-DVD, still doesn't recommend Blu-ray, even it won the format war, here is his now eidited story:
http://www.soundadviceblog.com/?p=758

From Digital bits:
"As it happens, I've actually spoken about this today with Fox's senior VP of corporate and marketing communications, Steve Feldstein, who echoed something Warner's Ron Sanders has also said in recent days: "The kind of money they're talking about [in these stories] isn't worth jeopardizing a multi-billion dollar business." In other words, payoffs would not have impacted Fox and Warner's decisions. Feldstein also told me that when The Pittsburgh Post Gazette piece broke, he contacted Lindich immediately to let him know that he was being misled by someone. When Don posted the same piece on his own blog, it was edited to reflect this. Specifically, the references to $120 million and $500 million payoffs were gone - something that's worthy of note."
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsa149.html

Basically bitter Fan can't see writing on wall, sees conspiracy instead.

The facts were Blu Ray disks outsold HD-DVD disks for every single week of 2007, by the last weeks of 2007 there were more standalone Blu Ray players sold than HD-DVD players sold, despite HD-DVD being massively cheaper. HD-DVD was toast before Warner announced.

Slashdot, all the quality of Digg, without the quantity.

I wonder if Nintendo and Microsoft see...

[YojimboJango]

I wonder if Nintendo and Microsoft see the opportunity for a semi-proprietary disc format here. They've got a stable and cheap format that's already gone through all it's development phases and is proven to hold 50 gigs. Five years from now getting a hold of a consumer level HD-DVD burner will be a real rarity, so piracy would be really hard. Blue-Ray may have won the movie format war, but there's still a lot of potential in this format by virtue of it's soon to be obscurity.

Re:Stores more ... per layer

[RoboRay]

Actually, 200GB EIGHT layer BluRay discs have been produced in the testing lab (which is the only place where those 3-layer HD-DVDs ever existed. The 8-layer BDs wasn't in response to competition, either. BR was designed from the beginning to support that many layers, which is why the first data layer is close to the surface instead of being sandwiched in the middle like HD-DVD.

Of course, neither the 3-layer HD-DVDs or the 8-layer BDs are relevant to the format war, because there were never any plans to use either for movies and set-top players can't read them, anyway.

The PS3 cost Sony even more.

[graymocker]

Even if this specific rumor turns out to be false, the broader implication that Sony was willing to sacrifice to ensure the success of Blu-Ray is undeniable. For a while Sony's use of a Blu-Ray player in PS3s was considered a blunder. The fact is, Blu-Ray is more important to Sony than the PS3 was. If coming in behind their competitors in this video game generation is what it cost to make Blu-Ray the HD standard, Sony is perfectly happy with that. Of course, there remains the possibility that Blu-Ray will turn out to be a competitive advantage for the PS3, in which case it would be so much the better. The point is, from Sony's perspective, it didn't matter if the Blu-Ray turns out to be good for the PS3 or not, because they consider it a win either way. If it is, they're obviously happy, but even if it isn't, they're still happy because they still win by massively inflating Blu-Ray's install base. For Sony, Blu Ray>PS3.

In contrast, to MS the 360 was a much higher priority than Toshiba's HD-DVD. MS has been trying to get into our living rooms for over 10 years now. (Bill Gates was already obsessing about it in The Road Ahead and that book was written 13 years ago.) All things being equal they'd prefer Toshiba to win and Sony to lose, of course, but it wasn't important enough to them for them to risk 360's success on.

Welcome to Sony

[nsanders]

I used to work for an unnamed Pro Audio company that was licensed by Sony to push DSD/SACD & A-TRAC products out the door. Sony pays vendors to create products for their technology so that the end consumer will make the assumption that if the vendors are making product, it must be a good technology. I can't say I'm surprised one bit by this move from Sony.

I hate that point.

[hudsonhawk]

Every time there's an article about Blu-Ray someone always trots out the point that Blu-ray is not, in fact, Sony's, but is actually from a larger group of manufacturers and media companies.

Well, yes, there are a lot of members, but Blu-ray is still Sony's. They not only have the most invested in Blu-ray, they have the most to gain:

1) They developed the hardware platform entirely on their own and gain royalties from the format's sales
2) The success or failure of their gaming console is tied inexorably to the success or failure of the format
3) The decision to splinter off from the DVD Consortium, following the DVD Consortium's choice of HD-DVD as the next format (supposedly chosen because it would be ready sooner), was entirely theirs. Broader industry support came after that decision, and was reportedly driven by studio fear of Microsoft. Without Sony, there's no format war.

There's a very very good reason that people associate this format with Sony - it's their format, it's just supported by other people. Lots of people support the CD format but that doesn't make it any less Sony / Phillips' format.

Total Speculation

[feepness]

From the article:

Neither side has confirmed the size of any bids or payments. It's not like Warner or Sony would be able to keep the payment off their books. These are completely unsubstantiated sour-grapes rumors.

re: irrelevant comment ... but thanks for playing

[King_TJ]

These "format wars" aren't even really about competition, in the traditional sense of "multiple companies battling it out to see who has the product offering most favored by the consumer".
The fact is, the general public barely bought into EITHER HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc. They're still buying regular old DVDs!

This was merely a case of some businesses getting behind a potential future "standard" for a media format, while others went with another concept. 95%+ of the public rejected BOTH options as too costly and unnecessary at this time (or simply out of ignorance of what "value" such a thing would add for them).

The only way EITHER of these DVD replacements would get off the ground was with enough of a financial backing, coupled with a continuing trend of the consumer purchasing new HD-compatible television sets (which is underway, but nowhere near "mass adoption" yet). Quite a few people out there made a big investment in a large-screen projection TV that wasn't HD capable, not all THAT long ago. Those are the ones who will hesitate to buy again, until their existing set dies.

It's only common sense that to become a worthwhile "standard" for the general public, the vast majority of manufacturers have to AGREE on implementing it. I see nothing wrong with Sony's "let's just pay someone to go with the one we'd like" approach. The public will STILL be able to buy Blu-Ray players AND discs from a number of manufacturers. It's not like we're ALL stuck with Sony as our only option now. Standards adoption is ALWAYS a lengthy, expensive process for manufacturers to undergo. The money is going to either be spent on A) flooding the market with low-cost product using the standard, to encourage widespread adoption, B) advertising campaigns educating the consumer that the product exists. and then convincing them that they really do want it, or C) working deals with the competition to get everyone on the same page. Looks to me like choice "C" made a lot of sense here -- since there simply weren't a lot of differentiating factors between the 2 formats that the general consumer would care about. (Either way they go, they get to watch their movies in high-definition in a device that works just like their old DVD player did.)

Re:That's the second payoff.

[DragonWriter]

If you were an early buyer of blu-ray your player won't have all the features needed to perform even the most basic functions that all hd-dvd units had.

Unless, of course, like most early buyers of Blu-ray, your Blu-ray player happens to be a PS3.

$400 million isn't much

[heroine]

Only 4 Euros.

A second PC

[tepples]

Why have [pirated] video downloads still not penetrated to the average household nearly as much as DVDs? For one thing, most people prefer not to sit back and watch a movie on a 17 inch screen, and they can't afford to buy a second PC for the room with a larger TV.

All at the reach of a mouse from my lounge. Who else do you know who has a lounge with a mouse?

Why would anybody see it as "convenient" to "only" change the disc every two hours or so? Because people have moved on from chamber pots to indoor plumbing, and this indoor plumbing is generally kept in a separate room from the home theater. People are getting up anyway to go drain their waste water; why not change the DVD at the same time?

Re:A second PC

[ckaminski]

I think the big reason is that the difference in quality between a CD and an AAC from iTunes is FAR more subjective than a compressed MP4/Divx and an HD movie.

Significantly.

Ban corporate gay marriage!

[fugue]

I'm sick of same-sex corporations mating with each other. It's wrong, it's paganism, it's not what we believe in!

Hmmm. From now on, no more corporations telling each other to "bend over"?

Dunno.

HD DVD in circles?

[tepples]

HD-DVD uses concentric circles where as Blu-Ray uses an outward spiral CD uses a spiral track. DVD uses a spiral track. Citation needed that HD DVD uses circular tracks.