Blu-Ray The Flavour of The Moment 358
News from all over seems to indicate that Blu-Ray has been accepted by entertainment media groups. wingman358 writes "The technology research group 'Forrester Research' has declared the Sony-led next generation Blu-Ray format the winner over HD-DVD, led by Microsoft. Forrester Research analyst Ted Schadler says, 'After a long and tedious run up to launch, it is now clear to Forrester that the Sony-led Blu-Ray format will win.'" Meanwhile, the format continues to improve. mimio writes "Hewlett-Packard Co. on Wednesday raised the stakes in a battle between high-definition DVD formats by urging a group led by Sony Corp. to include features important to PC makers and users." Finally, Tibor the Hun writes "Apparently Warner has switched from backing HD-DVD to Blu-Ray. What impact might this have on Microsoft's decision to use HD-DVD on the Xbox 360?"
Warner has not switched, supporting both (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.homemediaretailing.com/news/html/break
Re:Is XBOX 360 & HD DVD a sure thing? (Score:5, Informative)
What's more, Gates has been quoted saying he thinks the whole format war is pointless anyway and that digital delivery will be whats really important (i.e. downloading movies you buy). In fact the XBox 360 will be able to play a movie that is streaming from your PC over your home network. This is also kind of why they support HD-DVD as opposed to Blu-ray, apparently the Blu-Ray copy protection prevents streaming video like this.
Re:Blue Ray? (Score:2, Informative)
Someone who understands that the media's name is Blu-Ray, which is a (some may say) clever moniker because it uses "Blue Rays" when reading the disc.</rant>
Deep Impact Armageddon OMG!!!!11 (Score:3, Informative)
Blu-Ray, for all it's "industry support" is going to cost 10x more to implement for the industry than HD-DVD to retool all the DVD production lines in the world to make the new format. HD-DVD works, it's cheap to produce, there really IS no major advantage to the higher capacity of Blu-Ray that any consumer would notice, and the crazy content protection devices have no fair-use workarounds on Blu-Ray to compare to HD-DVD's right to "at least one managed copy".
It's just this way because the companies involved are too scared to slap their dicks on the table and get a tape measure, right? Because the cheaper, Just-Works, proven-technology evolutionary thing really should be the way to go, and not the expensive, convoluted, confusing, "OMG MORE GIGABYTESSSS!!!" still-improving-antiscratch-coating format?
Neko
Fact checking (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A God Has Fallen? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A God Has Fallen? (Score:3, Informative)
yes, you are off base (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A God Has Fallen? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is XBOX 360 & HD DVD a sure thing? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, not quite. "Managed Copy", which allows streaming, ripping to hard drives, and limited duplication, is a part of both HD-DVD and BluRay specs. However, in HD-DVD, "Managed Copy" is a mandatory feature of every disk, while in BluRay it is (as of right now) merely optional. MS & Intel claim their support for HD-DVD is primarily because of this feature.
Hopefully, BluRay will make Managed Copy mandatory as well -- and there seems to be some movement in that direction [arstechnica.com].
Re:A God Has Fallen? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The Format That I Want to Win... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:A God Has Fallen? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Is XBOX 360 & HD DVD a sure thing? (Score:4, Informative)
Gates: Well, the key issue here is that the protection scheme under Blu-ray is very anti-consumer and there's not much visibility of that. The inconvenience is that the [movie] studios got too much protection at the expense consumers [sic] and it won't work well on PCs. You won't be able to play movies and do software in a flexible way.
And there it is. As simple as it can be. Microsoft wants the PC to be the center of everything. All your movies, email, music... the motherbrain of entertainment. But the only way to get HD content to the PC is through the XBox 360, because HD-content drives won't be available for the PC for quite awhile, and 'downloadable' just isn't an option for Hollywood (not to mention bandwidth constraints). So in Bill's mind, the Xbox 360 is just a content delivery service to keep the PC in power.
Sony, meanwhile, has no real interest in the PC. In fact, there's absolutely no reason why the PS3 can't be leveraged to take care of the main PC services. Miyamoto has already announced that Linux will ship pre-installed on every PS3 hard drive, just attach a USB keyboard and mouse. IBM is already on board with the Cell, so you see the triumverate forming... with the PC in the corner gathering dust.
I'm not saying that's the future, I'm just pointing out the battle lines. If Microsoft can't guarantee that content will find its way on to the PC, its plans are very much in disarray.
Not entirely accurate (Score:3, Informative)
Though I understand why the submitter said this---because the article is unclear on this point---but Warner has only agreed to "nonexclusive" support for Blu-ray, meaning it could theoretically produce films in both formats, though it will initially produce movies for Blue-Ray. Not as ringing an endorsement as Walt Disney and Fox, both of whom have exclusive support agreements with the Blue-Ray tech consortium.
I know it's splitting hairs, but in this case, those are important hairs to split.
Blue-Ray has won already (Score:2, Informative)
When even Dell who has notoriously bowed to pressure (and incentives) from the all powerful Intel/MS conglomerate chooses Blue-Ray and is standing firm in direct opposition to MS and Intel both... something about Blue-Ray must be pretty good.
I am not intending to start a discussion regarding the merits of one console over another here, so I will only mention that the x360 will NOT have HD-DVD out of the box, it will be an add-on later... maybe. That means the HD-DVD camp will miss out on some valuable install base numbers, whereas PS3 will have Blue-Ray out of the box due to the fact that an install base within the gamer demographic will allow for early adopters and casual users both to get used to the idea of Blue-Ray which will gave a push (however small or large you might choose to believe) to Blue-Ray.
While HD-DVD is trumpeting their "first" release as being before Blue-Ray, it will be in the spring (granted, with $500 + price tags)... interestingly PS3 with Blue-Ray (and an unknown but no doubt expensive price tag as well) will also launch in the Spring, even if it only ships in Japan (unknown at this time). Thus the first-to market advantage is effectively answered, if not negated.
Membership & Support:
When you go to their "members" pages, you will find, in general more, larger, powerful companies (outside of MS) on the side of Blue-Ray. Let me give you an example:
Retail Computer Market:
Blue-Ray has Apple, Dell, HP, and Sun Microsystems
HD-DVD has... Acer?
(this is noted with the caveat that Windows will be loaded on the majority of systems, but that does not preclude the PC companies themselves loading Blue-Ray drives and drivers before shipping)
Movie Companies:
Blue-Ray has Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Sony/Tristar/Colimbia, Warner Home Video
HD-DVD has Universal Pictures
Here is the HD_DVD Association Member Page:
www.hddvdprg.com/about/member.html
Compare their list with the Blue-Ray Assc. Member List here:
www.blu-raydisc.com/Section-13469/Index.html
Blue Ray has stronger support across the board from stronger "better" companies.
In all the above points and especially the member lists lead me to believe that the Blue-Ray will win.
No BD movie players! (Score:3, Informative)
No mass-produced ROM titles.
No movie titles.
No players with movie playback capacity.