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Blu-Ray/HD-DVD Talks End
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Apr 26, 2006 02:22 PM
from the begun-the-format-wars-have dept.
from the begun-the-format-wars-have dept.
Last minute talks to unify the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats have failed. Matsushita, owner of the Panasonic brand, has stated 'the market will decide the winner.' From the article: "The two sides held talks last year in the hopes of avoiding a prolonged format battle similar to the one between Betamax and VHS videotapes in the 1980s, knowing that it could discourage consumers from shifting to the advanced discs and stifle the industry's growth. But the talks soon fizzled out, with each side reluctant to establish a format based on the other's disc structure. At stake is the $24 billion home video market and a slice of the personal computer market as PCs will be equipped with Blu-ray or HD DVD optical drives."
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[+]
News: Retailers Press For Unified HD DVD Format 293 comments
datemenatalie writes "While the war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray continues over who will be the direct successor to DVD, the Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) has issued a strong statement to Hollywood and the consumer electronics industry regarding the looming HD format war. The statement, which supports a single high-definition disc format, also offers advice on dimensions, packaging, features and even how marketing materials should be designed. The statement argues, "two formats, each capable of storing high definition movies on DVD, are planned for release into the market. Retailers uniformly agree that the concurrent distribution of more than one format is likely unsustainable, and that the launch of a single format is preferable to a format war which could confuse the public and lead to reluctance to embrace either format." This comes just weeks after early indications that HD-DVD will only allow playback of full 1080 resolution video signals through HDMI connectors, leaving consumers with older HDTVs (pre-HDMI) out of luck."
[+]
DVD Truce Between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD? 255 comments
An anonymous reader writes " Reuters is reporting that Toshiba and Sony are in talks about reconciling the two next-generation DVD formats. Ideas floated in the article include a unified DVD arch which could use "Blu-ray's disc structure and HD DVD software technology" (Sony's idea) or "HD DVD disc structure and employing Sony's multi-layer data-recording technology" (Toshiba's idea)"
[+]
Technology: Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD Not Over Yet 305 comments
samkass writes "Here is a good summary of the latest technical wheeling-and-dealing between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Among things that were new to me: the addition of a "red" 9GB HD format to Blu-Ray that would make initial Blu-Ray content (that fits) even cheaper than HD-DVD. Also, more discussion about managed copy (AACS, BD Plus, and ROM Mark) and iHD (HD-DVD) vs BD-J/Java (Blu-Ray)."
[+]
Hardware: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Coming Soon to PCs 209 comments
An anonymous reader writes "A Yahoo! news piece has some sales details for the upcoming Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players. They also have some details on disc drives that read the new formats." From the article: "Sony has priced its first desktop computer that will have a Blu-ray Disc burner. The drive will be able to write to 25GB and 50GB BD-RE (rewritable) and BD-R (write once) discs. Sony will start selling 25GB BD-RE and BD-R discs in April for $20 and $25 respectively and 50GB capacity versions of the same discs later in the year for $48 and $60 respectively. The Vaio RC will be launched in 'early summer' and will cost around $2300. At the CeBIT show in Germany last week, Sony announced plans for a Vaio notebook with a Blu-ray Disc drive."
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Just fine (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just fine (Score:5, Insightful)
All you are going to learn is that players are going to cost $LICENSING_FEE more than they would have, and the players will play both.
Parent
Re:Just fine (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Just fine (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Just fine (Score:5, Funny)
Does that mean we can watch in 3D now?
Parent
Re:Just fine (Score:3, Interesting)
The multiple laser approach would be useful for reading game data, though. (I'm not sure it was multiple lasers, if I remember right they used prisms to split a single beam. You would need multiple readers though.)
Re:Just fine (Score:5, Informative)
HD-DVDs are just a minor upgrade to DVDs, so it's not a stretch to have Blu-ray drives reading them.
That means absolutely nothing. It's quite easy to handle various layouts. DVD players handle VCDs, SVCDs, JPEG/MP3/WMA CDs, and DVDs, with no problems. I've never yet seen a disc misdetected.
Completely wrong. They both mandate EXACTLY the same video codecs, and of the same audio codecs as well (audio codecs are trivial next to the complex video codecs anyhow).
"Everything" meaning "Almost Nothing".
Don't let ignorance stop you from spouting off, though.
Parent
Re:Just fine (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just fine (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Just fine (Score:3, Insightful)
the 'market' (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just unfortunate that the market powers are the producers rather than the consumers. History repeating itself again. And again.
Re:the 'market' (Score:5, Interesting)
Just another way of saying, "We're okay if 49.9% of the consumers
get screwed. We'll screw the surviving 50.1% later."
Parent
Re:the 'market' (Score:5, Insightful)
Ditto ditto quadraphonic records, ditto.
Ditto ditto DAT vs DCC, ditto.
I strongly suspect that HD-DVD and Blu-ray will be another ditto.
Parent
Re:the 'market' (Score:3, Informative)
Re:the 'market' (Score:5, Informative)
The first-to-market standards proposal has a good shot at winning, because by the time other competing proposals get to market, the first one has so much market penetration that nobody wants the second for fear of incompatibility.
Licensing models that are less restrictive and more open also tend to find favor among consumers. The less cost and hassle the consumer experiences wins product loyalty in the marketplace.
Consider a few examples:
VHS vs. Betamax: Sony was first-to-market with Betamax in 1975, followed in 1976 by JVC with the VHS format. Based on time, Betamax should have become the standard for magnetic recording of video. However, Sony made a mistake with licensing: only Sony would produce Betamax tapes and devices. JVC opened up their technology to licensed manufacturers, allowing for competition in the marketplace which drove the prices of VHS far enough below that of Betamax (and increased the features) to influence the marketplace to invest in VHS technology. Because at the time Betamax devices were still expensive, there was little market penetration for JVC to overcome. In summary, the open standard won.
DVD vs. Divx (not the codec [divx.com]): Does anyone remember this debate [sfgate.com]? Those who do, remember that these two competing CD-like digital video distribution technologies were in a little war for the consumer's pocketbook. Both technologies came out about the same time, so time-to-market wasn't an issue. The issue was Divx pay-per-view licensing model: instead of buying a video once and wathing it an infinite number of times (as with DVD), the consumer would buy the Divx video fairly cheaply but then pay something every time it is watched. Needless to say, this went over like a fart in church. DVD won based on its superior licensing model.
AM Stereo: I'm not up on the licensing models or time frame of the competing AM stereo technologies, but they were both late-to-market in relation to standard AM radio. There was already HUGE market penetration of standard AM broadcast equipment and receivers; few people saw benefit in replacing that equipment. Had there been just one proposal for AM Stereo, and had it been completely open, it is still doubtful it would have ever caught on.
Microsoft vs. Linux (Gates vs. Torvalds):consumer but it poses problems for developers who, for economic reasons, wish to maintain security over their intellectual property. It is for this reason that many hardware manufacturers do not support Linux: their legal departments cannot confidently say that their intellectual property will be protected if they provide Linux drivers for their products. In this regard, Microsoft's licensing model is superior to Linux's for the developer.
So in the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD debate, who will win? Which proposed standard will be first-to-market? Which will have the less-restrictive licensing model? What about the third factor, technical superiority? What about the fourth factor -- does the public even want it (think DAT or video phones)?
~Jon
Parent
Re:the 'market' (Score:5, Interesting)
The same consumer base had no problem eating up Dolby Pro Logic in the early 90s. DPL required 5 speakers and a sub! Now, one could argue that people purchased DPL systems exclusively for the home theater, but I don't think this is the case. I'd say that the majority of people that adoptered DPL at the peak of its success were mostly enticed by it's ability to matrix stereo music into a surround format, thus gaining a 3d soundfield without need for a format change.
I think the lesson to learn with quadraphonic 8-tracks/cassettes/vinyl, SACD, DVD-Audio, DCC, etc, is the following; People don't readily adopt expensive format quality upgrades that physically look the same and provide the same functionality as their predecessor.
Parent
And the winner is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, my HDTV is always in HD anyway, why would I need HD or ray's blue DVD's? That's just stupid!*
*This comment is a joke, but it is widely believed to be true in the consumer world.
Re:And the winner is... (Score:5, Insightful)
-Rick
Parent
Your sure? (Score:4, Insightful)
To me.
Just because you don't find it worth the money doesn't mean that everyone else agrees with you.
I seen some bittorrent releases in HD formats and the difference is huge. Granted the largest actually have to be scaled down to fit on my screen but you can't deny the difference. It is the difference between an actors face being a blur with darkspots for eyes and mouth and being able to see wether they had a good nights sleep the day before.
Does it matter?
If it didn't we would still be using 8mm film. Black & White.
Everytime a new format comes along you get the same old argument about it being to costly for a minor increase. Yet that never stopped anyone before.
We will see one of these being the winner in a few years time. The early players will be sold out in no time and take up will be a lot faster then you think and then when the next-gen format war starts you will be spouting the same nonsense.
TV is a lot more important to people then you think. A 1000 dollars to have the next best thing is nothing to a lot of people.
Parent
Re:Your sure? (Score:4, Insightful)
Everytime a new format comes along you get the same old argument about it being to costly for a minor increase. Yet that never stopped anyone before.
How many DVD-audio disks do you own?
Parent
Re:Your sure? (Score:4, Interesting)
All of these are possible reasons to buy a large format TV.
"It is the difference between an actors face being a blur with darkspots for eyes and mouth and being able to see wether they had a good nights sleep the day before"
The difference may be stark to you, but unless you've got a CRT or a -good- plasma/lcd, you won't notice the difference anyways. The black color washout is probably the most painful thing I've had to live with since moving to affordable (5k) large format TVs.
I won't even bother debating your B&W issue.
"Everytime a new format comes along you get the same old argument about it being to costly for a minor increase. Yet that never stopped anyone before. "
Did you convert to mp3pro? Oh, me neither. Did you convert to the record sized laser discs? No? Me neither. Troll another issue, please.
IMHO, The format/formats have a chance to survive only if they hitch a ride with the replacement and upgrade DVD player market. They've got a tough fight at this price point though. I can walk into a store and buy a $30 DVD player if I wanted to. Comparing $30 to $1000, I don't care who you are, if you have any financial discipline, you've got to have a better reason to own it besides 'I just want it'.
Parent
Re:Your sure? (Score:3, Insightful)
Interlace is bad, bad, bad.
Too true (Score:3, Insightful)
On any non-HD set, of course, there's no beneift at all.
It's nothing like the VHS-DVD jump. The benefits on ANY set are immense. The picture is better on all but the lowest quality sets and doesn't degrade over time. The sound as leaps and
Re:And the winner is... (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Rational people will wait until one or the other wins.
2) Current DVDs, with proper upscaling, will be close enough to the quality of the native-HD movies that there will be little-to-no incentive to spend extra on HD.
3) People already own the TV, the player, and plenty of other DVD's. And they're generally happy with what they have. Buying new movies in good ol' regular DVD is a 'safe' choice.
This is a case where both sides were saying "If I c
Lift your wallet (Score:4, Funny)
Matsushita plans to launch DVD players later this year with a price tag likely to top $1,000.
Customers will need to workout just so they can lift their wallet up to the counter to pay for it!
Third way (Score:5, Informative)
I also cannot help but wonder, faced with two contradictory and low-uptake standards, how many stores will actually want to stock hddvd or bluray discs? It seems to me that the only chance either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray has of actually getting widely stocked is by making dual-capability DVDs that can be played on either a next-gen dvd player, or a current gen dvd player (both next-gen formats support this; it's done by burning a disc with one layer of DVD and one layer of hddvd-or-bluray).
Re:Third way (Score:4, Informative)
But LG Electric is going to produce a combo, and they decided to challenge those licensing terms in court.
As for Matsushita, fuck them. in both eye sockets.
Parent
Re:Third way (Score:3, Insightful)
IF either format has any h
Should have picked a better name then. (Score:5, Insightful)
Blu-Ray? What's that?
Exactly HD-DVD's problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Blu-Ray? What's that?
Yes, so people will "know" they have an HD TV, and "know" they have a DVD player - and so will not purchase HD-DVD players, just the discs - which they will then return in droves (or alternatley they will be buying dual format discs, which will lead them to wonder what the big deal is since those discs look just like DVDs - again leading many to not purchase HD-DVD players).
Meanwhile amidst the consumer con
Yes, add-on being key word (Score:3, Insightful)
How many other console add-ons like this have been successful? It will add only marginally to the HD-DVD install base, unless some really popular games require it (I still think the next version of Halo may do so in a last move by Microsoft to drive adoption of the format).
I'ts no surprise Microsoft is not adding on a Blu-Ray player since Microsoft is one of the main players in the HD-DVD consortium. However in the end it is what c
Re:Should have picked a better name then. (Score:4, Insightful)
You my friend, are a clueless consumer (sarcasm, bear with me).
Today, the average consumer knows all of the TV jargon and terminology. To test your skills and those of a random friend, you must know all of the following:
LDTV 240p30, 288p25 (CIF)
SDTV 480i60 (NTSC), 480p30, 576i50 (PAL, SÉCAM), 576p25
EDTV 480p60, 576p50, 720i50, 720i60, 720p24, 720p25, 720p30
HDTV 720p50, 720p60, 1080i50, 1080i60, 1080p24, 1080p25, 1080p30
DVI, HDMI, coax, optical, RCA, component, composite, Svideo, VGA, XVGA, WXVGA, SVGA, BNC
DD, DTS, SDDS, Dolby Pro Logic, mono, 2.0, 2.1, 5.0, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1
4x3 vs 16x9 (You MUST know this better than your equipment, because they will fuck it up).
Oxygen free copper, binding posts, spades, banana plugs
Not to mention the newcomers on the block like:
Macrovision, DRM, DCMA, FBI, and bubba who will love you despite your crimes for watching TV.
Forgive me, I may have missed one or two or hundreds of other letters or terms.
Apple needs to get into the TV market. Remember when your options for a TV were what kind of wood finish you wanted, when you wanted it delivered, and did you want to spend extra for color?
Parent
Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, right now the high def dvds are looking a lot like lazerdisk, in the sense that it will be too expensive for anyone to buy it, and by the time it becomes cheap there will be a better standard out. There's just too much competition in the storage space for this dumbass strategy to work. Just because DVD was a success doesn't mean that the successor to DVD will be.
My bet is that what we will end up doing for hi def movies, is using the existing DVD media, but changing the format from mpeg-2, to something that compresses better like mpeg-4 or windows media. Extra processing power to do decompression may get a lot cheaper a lot faster than these lazers are.
You have to consider that at this point, PVRs already have the power to do streaming video decompression, and compression of video. It's not hard to imagine increasing the processing power there and adding additional functionality like a divx dvd player, and some basic video games (roms anyone?). You could probably do something equivalent with a modded first gen xbox.
DVDs were essentially high tech VCRs, which made sense at the time, but these days if people are going to spend more than $50 on some piece of electronics, they expect it to do a lot more than just play videos on their tv.
I can see them becoming a little bit more successful on the PCs and on consoles. PCs need a way to back up more and more massive data, and consoles need lots of space for more content. That's the primary reason that I'm pretty optimistic about the PS3. Video games are becoming enourmous in terms of space. These disks are on the order of 50 GB, which not that long ago was the size of an entire harddrive. Can game makers fill up all that space with artwork and video? Probably not yet, but I suspect we will start to see some extremely high resolution textures on the 2nd generation PS3 games. Maybe there's just not that much need to expand in that direction... but I suspect that game makers will find some interesting way to make use of the extra space. The main problem I see is lack of exclusive titles these days, game makers need to make their games generic so they can port them from system to system. Thus, the limitations of the xbox 360 will probably keep game makers from taking too much advantage of special things the PS3 can do that can't be ported.
Serve them Right... (Score:3, Insightful)
It would serve them right to both lose. Then we might get some format everyone agreed on from the beginning.
Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
That's okay, both sides know they can just blame any of their failures on piracy.
Good Article on the state of Managed Copy (Score:3, Informative)
Summary:
* Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray use the same AACS standard for copy protection (and thus managed copy protection)
* Players out now cannot do managed copy because the standard is not done - it's hoped the ability can be added later in a firmware update.
* Managed copies will likley require an internet connection so it can "ask" to make a copy, and possibly also involve payment for the right to copy.
Some good technical details there on how the system might end up working.
Consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
In the broadcast TV/advertising business, the advertisers who pay $$ to place commercials on television are the customers, because they are the ones who are providing a source of income for the networks and they are the ones to whom the programming is catered; that is, a show makes it to television because it was successfully sold to enough advertisers who were convinced that it was a viable money-maker. The viewers at home who watch the shows and (as the marketers hope) the advertisements that go with them are the consumers. They provide eyeballs so that the networks can sell advertisements, but they themselves do not make payments towards the broadcast and thus are not customers but merely tools to be used as a selling point by the networks. As such, as long as they tune in, no one in control of the network gives a damn what they do or what they think of the product. This is why controversy sells and often, there is no such thing as bad publicity.
However, if I want to have a Blu-ray drive or a HD-DVD drive (or whatever new format may emerge), I am making a purchasing decision and am giving $$ to the company in exchange for a product. If I do not like the product, the company, their business practices, their marketing tactics, their use of DRM, or the pricing, I may choose not to make this purchase and as a result, the company does not receive my money. I am voting with my feet, I have some control over the transaction, and I do not simply accept whatever is handed to me which is what a consumer does. Customers must be satisfied; consumers must simply be enticed.
I cannot help but think that when, overnight, everyone started calling those who vote with their feet "consumers" that this is nothing more than marketing Newspeak designed to de-emphasize the fact that our wants and desires matter.
Re:Games?? (Score:3, Informative)
Its not a unknown fact that for many people, the PS2 was their first DVD player.
Re:It's all a waste of time. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's all a waste of time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It's all a waste of time. (Score:3, Insightful)
I have been hearing this for the past... what... 10 years now? The cold, hard truth is that there are ENORMOUS markets (asia, russia, many countries in south america and africa) which WILL NOT have the bandwidth required for this for many years to come. As long as this is the case, hard media will continue to exist and drive big business. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray mov
Re:It's all a waste of time. (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently you've never used a portable DVD player.
Nor have you ever had kids who watch the same movie a LOT of times (and I'd rather not pay for each view).
Re:It's all a waste of time. (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember the Qwest commercial set in a motel from around 2000? "We have every movie ever made, in every language, any time, night or day."
When do I expect to see streaming 1080p 48Mbps video over a "content-neutral" Internet? Not during the lifetime of Blu-Ray/HD-DVD.
Re:It's all a waste of time. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:blu-ray all the way! (Score:5, Insightful)
HD-DVD [wikipedia.org] Blu Ray [wikipedia.org]
As you can see the difference is quite a bit.
Parent
Re:blu-ray all the way! (Score:3, Informative)
Metaposting by moderation? (Score:4, Interesting)
If a Slashdot reader can think that BluRay is the size of HD-DVD, and HD-DVD is the size of regular DVD, then what hope has the average consumer?
Parent
HD-DVD no friendlier in terms of copying (Score:3, Informative)
I wish people would stop propogating the myth that HD-DVD has "better" copyright abilities. Both formats use the exact same DRM scheme. Both allow managed copy (HOWEVER please read up on what managed copy really means, it's not like a REAL copy ability).
Heck, Blu-Ray discs from Sony (at least at first) will let you have full res video over analog connections, have any HD-DVD studios followed suit? That would seem to tilt the
Re:should read... (Score:3, Insightful)