Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD (Update)

Microsoft will lose. Sony will win.

Millions of Blu-Ray DVD players will ship with each PS3 which will guarantee Sony's success.

HD-DVD is as good as dead.

Yawn

Not again. You guys don't have anything new to say. Let's spell this out.

XBOX 360 HD. Ballmer was all coy and vague when asked whether we'd see a HD-DVD version of the Xbox 360. Believe me it's coming.

$299 for the Xbox 360
$499 for the Xbox 360 HD

Makes total sense.

Enough with the inferior crap. Neither side has the definitive advantage. PS3 means nothing because out of the 3 million potential buyers what percentage will have HDMI enabled HDTVs? Not even %50 folks.

Both formats are coming and I haven't a clue which format wins because there simply isn't enough info out to make an "informed" opinion on who could/would win.

Summary for all those with thick heads.

Neither format is inherently inferior or superior. Certain aspects of each format are but on a whole it's a dead heat.

Game devices will have little impact because many game players won't have HDMI enabled HDTV which will be required for PS3 and likely Xbox 360 HD. So tack on another $1500 to the purchase for many.

Don't blame Microsoft for anything. They're aligning with Toshiba because Sony could be a threat to their multimedia efforts. It's strictly business.

The format that will win is the one that the Porn industry adopts, unless it moves to internet delivery/download as a standard in which case it will be left to the movie studio's and rental industry to decide.

The consumer's will use the format that they can get content on, not the one that is "Superior." The computer industry will most likely move to the format eventually "Wins" the content "War," unless the content "War" is lost to legal downloads which is unlikely in the short term given bandwith constraints. However in the longer term dowloadable content is the direction that the industry will move to and then it won't matter what format you "store" your backup copy of the movie to as long as the media is large enough to store the content.

JCG

Yes IP/TV is going to factor into things. Also who's going to be the first to align themselves with Netflix/Blockbuster for rentals?

Here's hoping that universal drives show up sooner rather than later. I'm already sick of this war.

I agree, especially how the porn industry will shape standards. This will also impact video production, as turnaround time is quick and if someone can go buy a camera, plug it in to Final Cut, and burn an HD master, that format will have a huge head start.

Meanwhile the video game consoles will be pumping out content long before Hollywood. While I may hold off updating my movie collection until I know which format wins, I'll still go buy titles for my platform of choice. And with XBox being released before PS3, I expect it will surely help the HD-DVD camp.

But for computer use I just want vast and speedy storage. I've never used CD-RW or DVD-RW, just CD-R and DVD-R. With blanks so cheap, why burn at slow speeds when I could just use another disc. I hope for Blueray as I think it is more forward thinking, but we'll see how things end up.

Thank you. That was the best, most direct post I have seen today.

No, making total sense is making Xbox 360 HD ready *without* a $200 add-on. Either they are serious about squashing PS3 or they ain't. PS3 will definitely be blu-ray HD ready at whatever cost it comes in at, you can bet its close to the 360 price.

I do think Sony has this one sewn up, purely on PS2 -> PS3 upgrades.

But quite why everybody is so worked up over new tech that requires a $1500+ TV is beyond me

Hehehe you can

Choose your format in DVD SP 4

You can author Type 1 HD-DVD discs right now for HD-DVD players coming in Q4. I think Blu-Ray has Sonic making some authoring tools. We're almost there.


Sony will take a loss but they won't take a huge loss. I'm not hearing anything about a $300 PS3 more like $500. Microsoft was smart to keep the price down on the Xbox 360. There are plenty of people that assume the PS3 is going to be $299 and I think they are sadly mistaken. We'll see how many people plunk down $400 plus.

Compromise is difficult here because the formats are different enough to make a hybrid difficult but similar enough to make going it alone feasible.

I'm resigned to having both players because I'm not waiting for a victor before signing up. I hope someday to have a nice universal player. DVD-Audio/SACD players are now $119 so costs eventually come down enough.

Marzetta7,

Their first player will be available in November and priced under $1,000. It will feature HD DVD, DVD, and CD playback in either true 720p or 1080i resolution."

My emphasis added. There are a handful of devices that accept a 1080p input. There's no point in offer 1080p output when 2% of sets can receive it. The reports of recording 1080i seem to be bogus as no one has been able to confirm the HD-DVD specification on this. Wouldn't matter anyways because if 1080i is the format then it's recording 50-60 frames per second which easily deinterlace to 1080p 24 if you want to using Faroudja, HQV or the many other deinterlacers.


Go do your homework. Durabis is optional and if you got to the AVS forums you'll see that they are looking at spin coat technology that is cheaper than Durabis. So durability claims are moot. I've already debunked your 1080p hype and first generation Blu-Ray only supports up to 50/54GB discs so you're selling me on vapor.


You're likely getting this from some of the recent BDA press release. I take their statements and the HD-DVD Promotion groups press release with a grain of salt. There's much we don't know including replication time and yield numbers. That's why I said there's not enough information and I mean verifiable info on costing and production capability.

Currently I'd sum of some things as :

Production Costs- HD-DVD is probably the leader but the BDA is getting the costing down for Blu-Ray. May be even in a 18 months. It'll depend on the spin coat process.

Capacity- Blu-Ray wins. I don't think HD-DVDs 45GB Triple Layer discs will be supported in first generation HD-DVD.

Authoring- This one is tough. BDA has identified more features of Blu-Ray that their opponents. There is a Java authoring mode, There are two transparent overlays for buttons/graphics and subtitles in Blu-Ray and their is an interface where as hard drives can be added. Blu-Ray sounds superior here however HD-DVD authoring specs are very hard to find.

Price- HD-DVD was designed to provide a small price delta between DVD and HD-DVD. Similar numerical apertures and protection layers make 4layer discs improbably but increase the durabiliy without the need for a spin coat or Durabis like protection layer. This doesn't manifest itself a a cost for consumer but if i'm a studio I might like the potential savings of HD-DVD.

Computer application- Blu-Ray advantage here but I'm not sure that cuts across and helps movie distribution.

We're going to find out what both formats have in 6-9 months. It's still a bit close to call because Blu-Ray has a huge list of supporters but HD-DVD has Microsoft's support and that's not trivial. The battle lines are drawn but we'll soon see defections on both sides.

Hell I'll buy both. With ebay and craigslist available selling stuff is pretty damn easy nowadays. Why should I hold off for some truce that'll never come.

1080i opposed to 1080p is an irrelevance at this time. The source material will all be 1080p24 for film and 720p60 for sports which both formats can handle today. Any other future formats are a way down the probablity tunnel.

As someone who creates DVD's as part of their work, my preference and bet would be on HD-DVD simply for the fact that the transition will be easier and cheaper. Although the BRD spec adds some nice programming possibilities there will be a significant additional investment for authoring and certification, and manufacturing itself will be more expensive.

Microsoft will not release two versions of the Xbox - they will either go all HDVD, all Blueray, or all DVD. Having a non-homogonous mix of hardware in the field would make it harder to write software for the platform.

IMHO, Xbox incorporating HDVD is the only hope for that format. Microsoft will sell enough units to keep competetion alive. I don't buy the argument that few gamers will have HD sets - the gaming demograpics are aging, and getting more wealthy. Gamers are the key to survival for both formats, and the 100+ million PS3s guarentees the survival of Bluray.

For Microsoft, there is considerable risk in any of the three choices.

DVD - may lock them into inferior format, they won't be able to change it up for 4-5 years, because changing it would cause the mixed hardware problem.
HDVD - what if it dies?
Bluray - adopting this means giving Sony a cut of Xbox revenue

-.-

1) xbox 360 comes with a hard drive standard
2) Blue-ray is technecly supprior but is much more expencive and the tools arent as good as HD DVD.
3) HD DVD is cheaper, is going to be for sale sooner, and has better tools for it. Problem is its capacity isnt as good.

Who will win? Sure wont be the consumer.

Xbox Halo edition nuff said. The Xbox specs are already here. DVD player for now but HD options must be coming for the future. Why else would Microsoft announce an alliance with HD-DVD?


No you trivialize a wee bit too much here. Not only do you need a HDTV but to playback HD-DVD or Blu-Ray you will need HDMI or DVI with HDCP protection. That cuts HDTV early adopter right out. Plus Sony hasn't committed topricing yet but somehow I doubt 3 million HDTV owners will suddenly start popping for Blu-Ray movies. That potential "stength" has fallacy written all over it.

DVD - may lock them into inferior format, they won't be able to change it up for 4-5 years, because changing it would cause the mixed hardware problem.

This is what HD-DVD supporters have been trying to get across to people. The format structure of HD-DVD means moving from DVD isn't a problem. It's Blu-Ray that breaks tradition with the past. This is why DVD Studio Pro allows you to burn a disc that has Standard Def content and High Def content on the same disc. The HD content will play in the 4.6 version of DVD Player or a HD-DVD set top box. The SD video will play everywhere.

HDVD - what if it dies?

What if Blu-Ray dies?

Bluray - adopting this means giving Sony a cut of Xbox revenue

Yup. Microsoft doesn't want to lose the media player market to the PS3

Don't forget the Wal~Mart factor. Whichever format gets into Wal~Mart quicker and cheaper will have the biggest user base. That means more average Joe's that can buy their porn or discounted movie titles on that format. I think that will be a bigger factor than even porn this time around now that ~20% of all retail sales are from there.

Wal-mart shoppers do not buy $1000 HD-DVD players. For the first 3 years, 99% of these new players will be game consoles.
Wal-mart will stock both the Xbox and the PS3, it is too big a market to leave to others.

Game consoles will flood the market, and they don't need any movies to be available before they are successful. The movies will follow the market share of game consoles, because they will vastly outnumber dedicated HD-DVD players.

That is not going to work for the home theater industry. Most high-end home theaters are run with $50K CRT projectors, and they will find a way to get HDTV VGA out of those boxes to power those projectors.

Maybe we have to get a HDMI->VGA unit sourced from Singapore or something, but it will happen.

Walmart will back HD DVD probebly. It requires minimal change in the production of DVDs and the DVD player. Thats why HD DVD is cheaper and is going to be to market well before Blue-Ray.

Then again DVD+R won the DVD wars even though it was the more expencive format. It just worked better. I suspect its going to be a Betamax vs VCR thing again. The first out, cheapest, and one that has the largest liberary (read allows porn) will win. Doesnt look good for BlueRay in that case.

How can you think that?

How many years until HD-DVD player prices drop down to Walmart prices? The format war will be decided long before then - Walmart will have zero impact, and will just go with whoever wins.

The PS3 is due out early next year - there is only a 6 month difference between HD-DVD and Blue-ray.

Simple, history tells me this.
It only takes a year or two to descide the outcome of a format war. Consumers will want a winner before most buy. It will take 6 to 8 months between technology launches. It will take one to two years by Sony's own admission after Blue-ray's launch for there to be a price parity. By then Sony will have an up hill battle.
PS3 has NOTHING to do with desciding the victor. Sure some people will have a Blue-Ray playing device. This doesnt mean anything.
The HD enthusiasts will have latched onto HD-DVD before then, there will be titles avalible, and it will be cheaper. Sony will have an up hill battle.

6 to 12 months for a technology is a lifetime. This is of course to assume consumers dont rebell against HD formats because of their transition to DVD 5 years ago. The majority of the population is vary upset with this seemingly forced transitions with the term High Def in it.
HD Radio will make your analog radio absolte, HD TV sets will soon replace the tried and true sets most people have, and now people are being forced from DVD to an HD DVD standard.
Bottom line is consumers like the VCR to DVD conversion. They werent forced to change. They got to chose what won with their dollars. Now the MPAA is forcing people to switch, last time this happend it took years to transition people form tapes to CDs because the RIAA forced the format with no consumer regard.

remember, Betamax failed because it didnt have any porn and had less content. VCR was an inferior technolgy, yet it won for those two reasons. PSX won over 3DO because Sony flooded the market with products, even though the PSX hardware was technicly inferior. 8-track, cassett, CD and other music transitions took vary long because the consumers were forced to change and didnt have a choice.
Content is everything. If someone has a head start its hard to make up for it. Also if you restrict what content people can get you will lose support. Most of all the consumer likes to think they are in control. If they feel like you are forcing them to do something they will rebell and your transition will be longer and more costly.

Microsoft moves from crashing computers to crashing DVD's as well. Blue Screen of death on your porno anyone?

In virtually every new home entertainment technology, the first products are geared toward the high end of the market. Joe Sixpack is willing to pay for it. The cheap stuff tends to come in later. If this format war is decided early, then history is on the side of the high end product.

No. The rise of the DVD did not force the abandonment of the VCR. You can't record your soap operas or the NBA finals on your DVD player. I have a DVD recorder. The Tivo and other digital television recorders can replace the VCR. But most viewers still use the VCR for stuff they want to record. For them, the DVD is used exclusively for playing commercially recorded material.

You pulled this out of thin air. The VHS-Beta war was decided before the video rental market developed. People used their VCRs to time shift television broadcasts. Beta had many things going against it. It was supported by fewer manufacturers. The manufacturers that supported it were smaller. And most important, Beta had half the recording time of VHS. All of this talk about Beta having superior technology is just talk. VCRs were used to time shift broadcast TV. The "superior technology" was irrelevant in this application.

The porn industry pioneered the video rental market. For years, porn generated the greatest share of revenue in the industry. Distributers tried to treat Beta and VHS equally. However, they gradually stopped offering titles on Beta because most of the customers had VHS.

This one has already been shot down.

This one too.

I already talked about this. Your statement does not change anything I said in the above paragraph. Bottom line is its the high end people who descide who wins. Vary few companies are in it for the long run and are willing to take a hit to get to better technology if they can avoid it. When they see large sales they support that market.


Again you have not contredicted anything I said. DVD to VHS was a pressed format war. Copying and making your own content had nothing to do with the transition of what was a media playing device. DVD was never suposed to be a recordable format. Another format called DVD-RAM was suposed to take that place. It was only latter when people saw the cost savings and the technology improved that high speed and dependable DVD-R was developed.


You meen before it matured. At this time VHS and Beta was used for selling some content direct to consumers, ala porn, and latter the video rental market, also with porn pioneering. Already Rental was starting just 5 to 6 months, but this was more representitive of sharing among freinds wich the pornography industry then jumped in and offered early quasi-rental services.
VHS had longer recording times at the cost of recording quality. Beta recorded a higher quality sound and auido stream. VCR came back with support for LP with a even greater reduction in the already inferior quality. Also Betamax wasnt happy at how the porn industry was begining to use these products and as such tried to fight and make a "cleaner product." Unfortunetly these restrictions helped VCR win, along with VCR's continued degrading of video and audio quality for longer play times.
For the first few years of both technologies you would see Betamax in higher end systems with VCR being the poor-man's product.


I am not talking about the rental markets. I am talking about the direct to consumer markets. Now I grant to you the Recording aspects of this analogy does not hold since VCR and Beta were both designed to be a non-recordable format for set top box implementations, atleast at first. VCR and Beta were sold for both recording and direct to consumer sales (no-rental). Furthermore there are a few more notes I will point out as I go on.
HD-DVD is the VCR of this analogy. It is a product that has inferior potential audio and video. HD-DVD could always tweek the HD codec a bit for greater storage space at a lower quality. However it is cheaper to produce and make for the next few years. Also it is importent to note that tripple and even quadruple layer HD-DVDs are in development.
Blue Ray is the Betamax of this. Granted it has supperior capacity per layer, it is the more expencive of the two standards for the time being. It has supperior audio and video potential per layer also. However it will deal with less titles avalible at its release then HD-DVD and have an up hill battle before it.
Now these analogies are not 1:1 but their PRO's and CON's about equal those to that of the betamax and VCR debate with some overlap. If I needed to I could actualy do a better analgy between videogame consles, but if I did I would be flamed out of existance because this is a vary anti-Microsoft board (Personaly I dont care about the politics and just go with the one that fits one's needs best).
If you read the white papers, press releases, and format comparisons by those like Anandtech and Arstechnica you will see my analysis of the basics when it comes to the underlaying hardware and economics are backed up.

In exchange for Microsoft using HD-DVD in the XBOX, Toshiba will be using Windows CE in their HD-DVD players. Yet another reason to go with BluRay... as if there weren't enough already.

hmurchison - if Xbox does the expected and ships with regular DVD at launch, then I will bet you $500 that Blue-Ray has at least 90% marketshare (vs HD-DVD, not including regular DVD) on April 31st, 2007.

Are we on?

You're on. I think Blue Laser products will be a niche well into 2008. The game machines will help but their effect on the overall market is being overstated right now. I'll be a second generation buyer most likely. I won't buy until I can rent the HD movies like I rent now with Netflix.

You realise that current projections are around 14 million PS3s in the US by 2007?

BTW - if HD-DVD and Blue-Ray merge, then the bet is off - you can't compare market share with yourself.

Yes but a %90 marketshare is going to be nigh impossible if Sony doesn't have all the studio support. Just having Paramount, Universal and New Line alone would prevent Blu-Ray domination unless those studios decided to ship BD-ROM movies.

They do have studio support, and movies are irrelivent to Blue-Ray dominance for the first 2 years.

Any idea where the Porn industry is headed?

I am surprised that the porn industry is not bankrupt, because of the huge volume of P2P porn available.

Ironically, most people don't even hook up their current DVD players via the best available interconnect. Instead, they typcally use an old rca cable rather than s-video or component. Obviously, there is something else at play here other than "choosing the best format".

People, by and large, are into convenience. It doesn't really matter which format is technically more appealing. The picture can be marginally worse and the disc contain fewer extras... so long as purchasing and playback headaches are eliminated.

I consider myself a gadget guru and yet... would settle for the inferior format (on purpose) if it leads to a quicker and smoother roll-out.

People just don't appreciate the impact of the Playstation franchise. If you thought the US launch was crazy, the Japanese lauch made it look like a walk in the park. If you remember, at the time of the PS2s launch DVD players were very expensive. Especially in Japan. So here was a machine that had full DVD/CD capability, was a next gen game console, and was cheaper than almost every DVD player on the market.

The format war does put a slight damper on that and so does the fact that people won't be rushing to BR or HD yet. But, nothing can discount the fact that the PS3 is the next must have console. Sony won the last console war on marketing alone. Pure hype killed the Dreamcast and the "supply problems" during it's introduction served to create almost irrational demand for the unit. Early indications are that Sony is doing it again. They've hyped the hell out of Cell, and made a big splash at E3. And despite the fact we still don't have a release date, people are clamboring for this thing.

So just imagine this: You have a huge installed base of consumers with PS3s (this is inevitable even if the XBox does well), and once they start shopping for the next gen DVDs they're going to buy what works with their machines...BlueRay. It's Sony's trump card and they know it. The PS3 is gonna drive BlueRay sales bigtime.

As for the XBox 360HD or whatever, it's still mythical. The official XBox 360 specs call for a standard DVD drive. If a separate HD model comes out later at a higher price, I wish them the best of luck. The console market is driven by price. People are willing to make a large investment $300-400 for a console, but they aren't willing to shell out much for extras. Most every console add-on or extra has been a failure. And remember, BR and HD aren't necessarily selling points. In this case you have hardware driving media sales, not the other way around. If the XBox 360 isn't HD-DVD from the start, then it won't have this effect. People will just opt for the cheaper base model.

Sony has a long history, nay, tradition, of supporting non-standard formats. Mini-discs, memory sticks, atrac, betamax...

Not that I'm saying sony won't succeed in pushing this particular standard. Only that we've been down this road before so let history be a lesson.

My money is on content owners. Consumers will buy movies and tv seasons in the format found at BestBuy and Blockbuster. If the major studios settle on a format, that format will succeed no matter what.

Gaming is big. But the standards war will be nearly over by the time the installed base of console DVD players is smaller than the installed base of console blu-ray or HDDVD players.

1. Not all movies will be in Blu-Ray format
2. Again a modern HDTV with HDMI/DVI HDCP is "required" for HD resolutions. No component out at HD rez.


Then wouldn't someone deciding between PS3 and Xbox360 opt for the cheaper Xbox? I doubt it's all that cut and dry. Microsoft would design a Xbox with more multimedia functionality with the HD enabled version. Note the deal with Toshiba includes using WinCE.

We're all speculating and no one is going to be right. The market is going to be fragmented and no winner will be evident for 3-4 years.

This subject, with very little available in hard facts, sure has generated a lot of posts.

From a computer storage perceptive, one thing I haven't see mentioned is recording speed for the two formats. Will it be 1X, 2X, 4X or... ? Given the amount of capacity in these formats, if it's a slow speed recording anything large can be a very long-term project.

And in 4-5 years (if not sooner) the market will be moving toward IP delivery of content, and the content providers will have another format to make money off of as the HD-DVD/Blue Ray disks become obsolete and MPEG-5/iMovie Store fronts become all the rage. And 4-5 years after that the content providers will be aching for another format/technology advance to sell that same content to the consumers yet again.