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

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the beats-having-to-say-hd-dvd-all-the-time dept.

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.'"

65 of 487 comments (clear)

  1. free market? by timmarhy · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

    --
    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    1. Re:free market? by FauxPasIII · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
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    2. Re:free market? by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    3. Re:free market? by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is why I can't support unregulated capitalism

      Not to worry — there is no such thing.

    4. Re:free market? by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    5. Re:free market? by Sciros · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      I like basketball!!1!
    6. Re:free market? by hal2814 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    7. Re:free market? by mweather · · Score: 3, Funny

      My pot dealer says othwerwise.

    8. Re:free market? by cHiphead · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --

      This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    9. Re:free market? by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    10. Re:free market? by Sancho · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    11. Re:free market? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    12. Re:free market? by DrSkwid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > 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

      --
      There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
    13. Re:free market? by JavaBear · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    14. Re:free market? by DragonWriter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.
    15. Re:free market? by homer_s · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

    16. Re:free market? by That's+Unpossible! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What are they, buildings?

      --
      Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
    17. Re:free market? by DragonWriter · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.
    18. Re:free market? by immcintosh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    19. Re:free market? by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    20. Re:free market? by Aereus · · Score: 3, Informative

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

    21. Re:free market? by Headcase88 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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.
      --
      "When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
    22. Re:free market? by spectecjr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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*

      --
      Coming soon - pyrogyra
  2. Yeah right. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    1. Re:Yeah right. by kerohazel · · Score: 3, Funny

      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.

      --
      Skype is too convoluted... Now I'm reverse-engineering the Kyoto Protocol.
  3. No more HD-DVD? by esocid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!
    --
    Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
  4. Market Isn't Even Ready by milsoRgen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
    1. Re:Market Isn't Even Ready by robizzle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Market Isn't Even Ready by edwardpickman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:Market Isn't Even Ready by morari · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      --
      "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
    4. Re:Market Isn't Even Ready by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

  5. We know step 2... by Overzeetop · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  6. Re:First by esocid · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    --
    Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
  7. Or... by blhack · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
    1. Re:Or... by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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.

    2. Re:Or... by PrvtBurrito · · Score: 4, Informative

      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?

      --
      Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
    3. Re:Or... by powerlord · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.
      --
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    4. Re:Or... by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:Or... by evilviper · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
      --
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    6. Re:Or... by evilviper · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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...

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    7. Re:Or... by Bigboote66 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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

    8. Re:Or... by dreamt · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    9. Re:Or... by mzs · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    10. Re:Or... by mmcguigan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      #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?
  8. Holy rumor mill, Batman by bconway · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
  9. I guess free market means bribes by mlwmohawk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:I guess free market means bribes by eviloverlordx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      (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 /.

      --
      'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
  10. Betamax wasn't better. by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Betamax wasn't better. by provigilman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, that, and VHS had porn.

      --
      "Life's short and hard, like a body building elf." -- The Bloodhound Gang
    2. Re:Betamax wasn't better. by flimflam · · Score: 3, Funny

      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?

      --
      -- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
    3. Re:Betamax wasn't better. by thtrgremlin · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      --
      Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
  11. Even for /., bad summary and headline by DragonWriter · · Score: 5, Informative
    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".
    1. Re:Even for /., bad summary and headline by vux984 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

  12. $ony? by krazycraft · · Score: 5, Funny

    So we should starting calling them $ony?

    1. Re:$ony? by bdcrazy · · Score: 5, Funny

      $on¥

      --
      Tonights forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning
  13. Plus and Minus by TheSync · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  14. Just Sony? by hansamurai · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

    --
    Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
  15. Rehash of rumor from HD-DVD fan blog by guidryp · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  16. I wonder if Nintendo and Microsoft see... by YojimboJango · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  17. Re:Stores more ... per layer by RoboRay · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  18. The PS3 cost Sony even more. by graymocker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  19. I hate that point. by hudsonhawk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  20. Total Speculation by feepness · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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.
  21. A second PC by tepples · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?
  22. Ban corporate gay marriage! by fugue · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

    --
    "The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."