It's beginning to look like Blu-Rays concrete anti-piracy methods are winning studios over. I can't say that consumers don't deserve this seeing as how "War of the Worlds" is the most downloaded movie right now. I actually look forward to the time where studios stop crowing about piracy.
My question is if you were a electronics manufacturer (like Sharp, Sanyo, etc) who made your money on hardware sales, why would you choose the Blu-Ray format? Knowing that Sony would always be able to sell a Blu-Ray player cheaper then you could since they can subsidize their hardware costs with profits generated by proprietary software/games royalties. The only reason the PS3 will be able to sell for less money then other Blu-Ray or HD-DVD players is that Sony will lose money on each hardware sale but will reap huge profits on game sales and to a lesser degree the small royalties from each Blu-Ray disc thats produced globally.
"Toshiba spokesman Junko Furuta also acknowledged that a unified format did not look likely for the time being. Blu-ray disks would be harder to adopt for use in laptop computers, as well as in car navigation systems that are popular in Japan, Furuta said.
"We have doubts as to whether the Blu-ray format is a viable technology in terms of production cost," she said. "We're also not convinced that consumers would need to store so much data on disks, especially now that internal hard drives are more popular."
Both sides are already developing products that feature their respective DVD formats. Toshiba plans to roll out HD DVD players by the end of this year, while Sony's popular game console PlayStation 3, which will play Blu-ray disks, is due in spring 2006.
Entertainment companies are also split over the two formats. Walt Disney Co. and 20th Century Fox support Blu-ray, while Toshiba has won the backing of companies like Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures
"We have doubts as to whether the Blu-ray format is a viable technology in terms of production cost," she said. "We're also not convinced that consumers would need to store so much data on disks, especially now that internal hard drives are more popular."
Wow...this quote is particularly fucked up. 'We're also not convinced that consumer would need to store so much data on disks?' What is this? Are we back in the '640KB aught to be enough for everyone'-era?
Massive disc storage is very important for backing up HDs. *Now* that *internal hard drives* are more *popular* (haven't they always been?) and are becoming increasingly large (160GB+), I'd much prefer having 25GB discs or 50GB discs over 15GB discs to back it all up.
I now hope the HD-DVD format croaks just because the big shots behind it are twisted fuckers.
Backing up onto any of the HD formats won't be very interesting. How long would it take to fill a disc? Hard discs are also getting cheaper... just buy another drive and use it over and over for backup until it croaks.
Backing up onto any of the HD formats won't be very interesting. How long would it take to fill a disc? Hard discs are also getting cheaper... just buy another drive and use it over and over for backup until it croaks.
Too long. Both formats playback at 36mbps and Blu-Ray has a 2x mode. That's still a paltry 8MBps throughput. Recording would likely be slower. I think recordable media costs will determine how effective HD-DVD or BD-R become. I don't want to spend a lot of money if a 3.5" 120GB hard drive is $60.
h.264 compresses the file to easily fit on a hd-dvd with room to spare.
I personally believe that HD optical drives for the average consumers will be trumped by cheap HD-DVR's provided by cable/satellite co's. Who knows maybe the ipod will become the preferred portable storage medium of the future for h.264 media and optical drives will be relics of the past.
Sure there will be those that must have an HD optical drive for one reason or another, but the average consumer will be swayed by cheap cheap HD DVR's (mostly with cheap $9.99 monthly fees)within the next 5 years.
h.264 compresses the file to easily fit on a hd-dvd with room to spare.
Well h.264 compresses the file with even MORE room to spare on a Blu-Ray disc. A lot of you try do downlplay the capacity advantage that Blu-Ray has, but even today's DVDs have capacity issues when it relates to extras and other goodies you get with movies these days. You'll definitely be in the same boat with HD-DVD discs as far as capacity issues in the future (Probably not with the 45 GB tri-layered HD-DVD discs though, but possibly when you start talking about TV series and Trilogies.). And where the TV series and Trilogies come in Blu-Ray accomodates where HD-DVD can't, 100-200 GB capacity.
And herein lies the big difference between the two formats, Blu-Ray was created with a forward-looking outlook where as HD-DVD was created with a present-day outlook.
My question is if you were a electronics manufacturer (like Sharp, Sanyo, etc) who made your money on hardware sales, why would you choose the Blu-Ray format?
Probably because those other electronics manufacturers will also get royalties off of the format. I believe Philips and Panasonic most definitely will as they were co-developers of the format with Sony. Further more I believe other members of the BDA will also get royalties off of the format.
Moreover, the simple structure of a single-lens optical head that can accommodate both red and blue laser diodes will realize compact systems.
Well, I've linked to them before, but here they are again:
And these are like a year old mind you, so I'm under the assumption that they have improved this process as well as the size considerably since then. And, that is why I truly don't understand the statement:
"Blu-ray disks would be harder to adopt for use in laptop computers, as well as in car navigation systems that are popular in Japan, Furuta said."
How so? What is his reasoning? Is there any fact behind this statement? Or just BS?
You do realize the conundrum with offering series on too few discs. At first reflection it sounds wonderful, Wow the whole Lord of the Rings Trilogy on one disc!! Go Blu-Ray!!! But think about that now...if I'm playing a series disc in my player that contains a whole or half season then I'm basically prevented from watching portions of that series on another player. Thus I cannot loan out say the last 6 episodes of 24 or CSI if they aren't on seperate discs.
Even if a 200GB disc could hold a whole series I wouldn't want it to for this very reason. Tying all the content up on one disc simply isn't going to fly with consumers.
Media needs to stay as unconsolidated as possible for flexibility. With 400 disc changers I don't think there is that much of a problem with having a series span multiple discs.
You do realize the conundrum with offering series on too few discs. At first reflection it sounds wonderful, Wow the whole Lord of the Rings Trilogy on one disc!! Go Blu-Ray!!! But think about that now...if I'm playing a series disc in my player that contains a whole or half season then I'm basically prevented from watching portions of that series on another player. Thus I cannot loan out say the last 6 episodes of 24 or CSI if they aren't on seperate discs.
Even if a 200GB disc could hold a whole series I wouldn't want it to for this very reason. Tying all the content up on one disc simply isn't going to fly with consumers.
Media needs to stay as unconsolidated as possible for flexibility. With 400 disc changers I don't think there is that much of a problem with having a series span multiple discs.
I have never loaned a portion of a collection out to anybody. I don't think that anyone I know would find consolidation inconvienient.
Too long. Both formats playback at 36mbps and Blu-Ray has a 2x mode. That's still a paltry 8MBps throughput. Recording would likely be slower. I think recordable media costs will determine how effective HD-DVD or BD-R become. I don't want to spend a lot of money if a 3.5" 120GB hard drive is $60.
The 100GB 4-layer Blu-Ray discs by TDK are 6x for recording.
consolidation isn't going to happen. When you pay $300 for a box set of something consumers expect to find more than one disc in the package. The studios are afraid to ship 1 disc, for $300 and will find a way to continue shipping extra discs for a long time to come.
Thats the thing about HD-DVD...it's backwards compatible to DVDs, and capable of reading that media as well.
People see the DVD in HD-DVD and assume it's backwards compatible and Blu-Ray isn't. I think many people will assume their current DVD players will play HD-DVD discs too.
Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray use blue lasers to read HD media but require red lasers to read DVDs and CDs. HD-DVD has no advantage over Blu-Ray here. HD-DVD has a similar disc structure to DVD which makes it slightly cheaper to produce (this is diminishing every day) but this also limits the technology.
Being able to fit more on a single disc not only saves money over multiple discs (and we know what penny-pinchers they are) but also time. Getting your product out on time is critical. Efficiency is very important. Hell, it even means more space on store shelves. I don't know if they have even thought of that one.
Fortunately the studios are now seeing that in the long run it is cheaper to just go with Blu-Ray. They are finally seeing the big picture.
consolidation isn't going to happen. When you pay $300 for a box set of something consumers expect to find more than one disc in the package. The studios are afraid to ship 1 disc, for $300 and will find a way to continue shipping extra discs for a long time to come.
Beta had better video quality then VHS and Macs are superior to PCs , so its rather obvious that having the best product doesnt always translate to having the best sales.
I dont think anyone will argue the blu-ray technology isn't better then HD-DVD but honestly the name "Blu-Ray" sux. It doesn't translate to anything the average consumer understands and getting all-Techy on them about "blue" vs red lasers means nothing and won't translate to mass sales.
The best marriage of the two technologies would be to have the Blu-Ray technology with the HD-DVD name.
You do realize the conundrum with offering series on too few discs. At first reflection it sounds wonderful, Wow the whole Lord of the Rings Trilogy on one disc!! Go Blu-Ray!!! But think about that now...if I'm playing a series disc in my player that contains a whole or half season then I'm basically prevented from watching portions of that series on another player. Thus I cannot loan out say the last 6 episodes of 24 or CSI if they aren't on seperate discs.
Even if a 200GB disc could hold a whole series I wouldn't want it to for this very reason. Tying all the content up on one disc simply isn't going to fly with consumers.
Media needs to stay as unconsolidated as possible for flexibility. With 400 disc changers I don't think there is that much of a problem with having a series span multiple discs.
Oops... that's just too far a stretch 'murch. I don't think anybody ever considers this when buying a set. Nice try though.
Oops... that's just too far a stretch 'murch. I don't think anybody ever considers this when buying a set. Nice try though.
Not really the only reason why you don't hear about it is because most series like the Sopranos, 24, CSI ext come about 4 episodes per disc. Now the typical household has multiple dvd players in the home. I'm not saying it's a pain point now but really the advantage of having everything on one disc is also equally a disadvantage.
I have a very simple reason for wanting HD-DVD eradicated, it's name it too long. HD-DVD = 5 syllables, Blu-Ray is 2. I know which one I want to be saying. Who needs technical merit?
I have a very simple reason for wanting HD-DVD eradicated, it's name it too long. HD-DVD = 5 syllables, Blu-Ray is 2. I know which one I want to be saying. Who needs technical merit?
**To the average consumer the term "DVD" = "a Movie on a disc that has a good quality picture, great sound, cool extra features, and sells for $19.95 or below)."
So the term "HD-DVD" is a simple extension which most consumers would easily understand since its just adding a Hi-def picture and a higher price to the mix.
The term "Blu-Ray" based soley on a pure marketing strategy (not a technical one) would be more expensive to advertise. It would cost more to market since they would need to develope an entirely new "Blu-Ray" brand which would cause confusion since it looks like a "DVD"** to most people but it wouldnt be called a DVD.
While techy people like to call the average computer/electronics consumer stupid to make themselves feel superior, but in reality alot of people just do care enough about electronics or computers (they might be into sports, cars, and etc) and will buy whatever has the best name recognition or is the most popular with their friends or family.
While techy people like to call the average computer/electronics consumer stupid to make themselves feel superior, but in reality alot of people just do care enough about electronics or computers (they might be into sports, cars, and etc) and will buy whatever has the best name recognition or is the most popular with their friends or family.
My post was meant to be light hearted but again the point stands when all, Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer and Philips really dominate CE in terms of brand name and quality products, your top consumer electronics manufacturers are pushing Blu-Ray and have no HD-DVD offering what do you think the consumer will think? Will they go for the "cheap" brands and remain unsure of their products future because clearly there is something "wrong" with it? Or will they take the safe route and go with what the companies with the best brand name recognition are pushing as a solution? And the minute you walk into a store it is going to become apparent Blu-Ray does HD video. Promotional materials will make that very clear the manufacturers will make sure of it.
HD-DVD doesn't do it as a name when it doesn't have the manufacturers to back it up.
Comments
Originally posted by Hawkeye_a
DVD playback:
Thats the thing about HD-DVD...it's backwards compatible to DVDs, and capable of reading that media as well.
This isn't actually correct and hasn't been in a very long time. It uses a separate laser to get backwards compatibility, the same way Blu-Ray does.
Originally posted by Telomar
This isn't actually correct and hasn't been in a very long time. It uses a separate laser to get backwards compatibility, the same way Blu-Ray does.
Naturally two lasers are required for both formats however HD-DVD using the same format should make for a more simple lens assembly.
Moreover, the simple structure of a single-lens optical head that can accommodate both red and blue laser diodes will realize compact systems.
HD-DVD facts
It's beginning to look like Blu-Rays concrete anti-piracy methods are winning studios over. I can't say that consumers don't deserve this seeing as how "War of the Worlds" is the most downloaded movie right now. I actually look forward to the time where studios stop crowing about piracy.
Related news from http://businessweek.com/ap/financial...e_down&chan=db
"Toshiba spokesman Junko Furuta also acknowledged that a unified format did not look likely for the time being. Blu-ray disks would be harder to adopt for use in laptop computers, as well as in car navigation systems that are popular in Japan, Furuta said.
"We have doubts as to whether the Blu-ray format is a viable technology in terms of production cost," she said. "We're also not convinced that consumers would need to store so much data on disks, especially now that internal hard drives are more popular."
Both sides are already developing products that feature their respective DVD formats. Toshiba plans to roll out HD DVD players by the end of this year, while Sony's popular game console PlayStation 3, which will play Blu-ray disks, is due in spring 2006.
Entertainment companies are also split over the two formats. Walt Disney Co. and 20th Century Fox support Blu-ray, while Toshiba has won the backing of companies like Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures
"We have doubts as to whether the Blu-ray format is a viable technology in terms of production cost," she said. "We're also not convinced that consumers would need to store so much data on disks, especially now that internal hard drives are more popular."
Wow...this quote is particularly fucked up. 'We're also not convinced that consumer would need to store so much data on disks?' What is this? Are we back in the '640KB aught to be enough for everyone'-era?
Massive disc storage is very important for backing up HDs. *Now* that *internal hard drives* are more *popular* (haven't they always been?) and are becoming increasingly large (160GB+), I'd much prefer having 25GB discs or 50GB discs over 15GB discs to back it all up.
I now hope the HD-DVD format croaks just because the big shots behind it are twisted fuckers.
Originally posted by nowayout11
Backing up onto any of the HD formats won't be very interesting. How long would it take to fill a disc? Hard discs are also getting cheaper... just buy another drive and use it over and over for backup until it croaks.
Too long. Both formats playback at 36mbps and Blu-Ray has a 2x mode. That's still a paltry 8MBps throughput. Recording would likely be slower. I think recordable media costs will determine how effective HD-DVD or BD-R become. I don't want to spend a lot of money if a 3.5" 120GB hard drive is $60.
I personally believe that HD optical drives for the average consumers will be trumped by cheap HD-DVR's provided by cable/satellite co's. Who knows maybe the ipod will become the preferred portable storage medium of the future for h.264 media and optical drives will be relics of the past.
Sure there will be those that must have an HD optical drive for one reason or another, but the average consumer will be swayed by cheap cheap HD DVR's (mostly with cheap $9.99 monthly fees)within the next 5 years.
Well h.264 compresses the file with even MORE room to spare on a Blu-Ray disc. A lot of you try do downlplay the capacity advantage that Blu-Ray has, but even today's DVDs have capacity issues when it relates to extras and other goodies you get with movies these days. You'll definitely be in the same boat with HD-DVD discs as far as capacity issues in the future (Probably not with the 45 GB tri-layered HD-DVD discs though, but possibly when you start talking about TV series and Trilogies.). And where the TV series and Trilogies come in Blu-Ray accomodates where HD-DVD can't, 100-200 GB capacity.
And herein lies the big difference between the two formats, Blu-Ray was created with a forward-looking outlook where as HD-DVD was created with a present-day outlook.
My question is if you were a electronics manufacturer (like Sharp, Sanyo, etc) who made your money on hardware sales, why would you choose the Blu-Ray format?
Probably because those other electronics manufacturers will also get royalties off of the format. I believe Philips and Panasonic most definitely will as they were co-developers of the format with Sony. Further more I believe other members of the BDA will also get royalties off of the format.
Moreover, the simple structure of a single-lens optical head that can accommodate both red and blue laser diodes will realize compact systems.
Well, I've linked to them before, but here they are again:
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Pr...0411/04-1116E/
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200405/04-026E/
And these are like a year old mind you, so I'm under the assumption that they have improved this process as well as the size considerably since then. And, that is why I truly don't understand the statement:
"Blu-ray disks would be harder to adopt for use in laptop computers, as well as in car navigation systems that are popular in Japan, Furuta said."
How so? What is his reasoning? Is there any fact behind this statement? Or just BS?
Even if a 200GB disc could hold a whole series I wouldn't want it to for this very reason. Tying all the content up on one disc simply isn't going to fly with consumers.
Media needs to stay as unconsolidated as possible for flexibility. With 400 disc changers I don't think there is that much of a problem with having a series span multiple discs.
Originally posted by hmurchison
You do realize the conundrum with offering series on too few discs. At first reflection it sounds wonderful, Wow the whole Lord of the Rings Trilogy on one disc!! Go Blu-Ray!!! But think about that now...if I'm playing a series disc in my player that contains a whole or half season then I'm basically prevented from watching portions of that series on another player. Thus I cannot loan out say the last 6 episodes of 24 or CSI if they aren't on seperate discs.
Even if a 200GB disc could hold a whole series I wouldn't want it to for this very reason. Tying all the content up on one disc simply isn't going to fly with consumers.
Media needs to stay as unconsolidated as possible for flexibility. With 400 disc changers I don't think there is that much of a problem with having a series span multiple discs.
I have never loaned a portion of a collection out to anybody. I don't think that anyone I know would find consolidation inconvienient.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Too long. Both formats playback at 36mbps and Blu-Ray has a 2x mode. That's still a paltry 8MBps throughput. Recording would likely be slower. I think recordable media costs will determine how effective HD-DVD or BD-R become. I don't want to spend a lot of money if a 3.5" 120GB hard drive is $60.
The 100GB 4-layer Blu-Ray discs by TDK are 6x for recording.
Originally posted by Hawkeye_a
Thats the thing about HD-DVD...it's backwards compatible to DVDs, and capable of reading that media as well.
People see the DVD in HD-DVD and assume it's backwards compatible and Blu-Ray isn't. I think many people will assume their current DVD players will play HD-DVD discs too.
Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray use blue lasers to read HD media but require red lasers to read DVDs and CDs. HD-DVD has no advantage over Blu-Ray here. HD-DVD has a similar disc structure to DVD which makes it slightly cheaper to produce (this is diminishing every day) but this also limits the technology.
Being able to fit more on a single disc not only saves money over multiple discs (and we know what penny-pinchers they are) but also time. Getting your product out on time is critical. Efficiency is very important. Hell, it even means more space on store shelves. I don't know if they have even thought of that one.
Fortunately the studios are now seeing that in the long run it is cheaper to just go with Blu-Ray. They are finally seeing the big picture.
Originally posted by webmail
consolidation isn't going to happen. When you pay $300 for a box set of something consumers expect to find more than one disc in the package. The studios are afraid to ship 1 disc, for $300 and will find a way to continue shipping extra discs for a long time to come.
What box sets are you buying that cost that much?
I dont think anyone will argue the blu-ray technology isn't better then HD-DVD but honestly the name "Blu-Ray" sux. It doesn't translate to anything the average consumer understands and getting all-Techy on them about "blue" vs red lasers means nothing and won't translate to mass sales.
The best marriage of the two technologies would be to have the Blu-Ray technology with the HD-DVD name.
Originally posted by hmurchison
You do realize the conundrum with offering series on too few discs. At first reflection it sounds wonderful, Wow the whole Lord of the Rings Trilogy on one disc!! Go Blu-Ray!!! But think about that now...if I'm playing a series disc in my player that contains a whole or half season then I'm basically prevented from watching portions of that series on another player. Thus I cannot loan out say the last 6 episodes of 24 or CSI if they aren't on seperate discs.
Even if a 200GB disc could hold a whole series I wouldn't want it to for this very reason. Tying all the content up on one disc simply isn't going to fly with consumers.
Media needs to stay as unconsolidated as possible for flexibility. With 400 disc changers I don't think there is that much of a problem with having a series span multiple discs.
Oops... that's just too far a stretch 'murch. I don't think anybody ever considers this when buying a set. Nice try though.
Oops... that's just too far a stretch 'murch. I don't think anybody ever considers this when buying a set. Nice try though.
Not really the only reason why you don't hear about it is because most series like the Sopranos, 24, CSI ext come about 4 episodes per disc. Now the typical household has multiple dvd players in the home. I'm not saying it's a pain point now but really the advantage of having everything on one disc is also equally a disadvantage.
Originally posted by Telomar
I have a very simple reason for wanting HD-DVD eradicated, it's name it too long. HD-DVD = 5 syllables, Blu-Ray is 2. I know which one I want to be saying. Who needs technical merit?
**To the average consumer the term "DVD" = "a Movie on a disc that has a good quality picture, great sound, cool extra features, and sells for $19.95 or below)."
So the term "HD-DVD" is a simple extension which most consumers would easily understand since its just adding a Hi-def picture and a higher price to the mix.
The term "Blu-Ray" based soley on a pure marketing strategy (not a technical one) would be more expensive to advertise. It would cost more to market since they would need to develope an entirely new "Blu-Ray" brand which would cause confusion since it looks like a "DVD"** to most people but it wouldnt be called a DVD.
While techy people like to call the average computer/electronics consumer stupid to make themselves feel superior, but in reality alot of people just do care enough about electronics or computers (they might be into sports, cars, and etc) and will buy whatever has the best name recognition or is the most popular with their friends or family.
Originally posted by johnsocal
While techy people like to call the average computer/electronics consumer stupid to make themselves feel superior, but in reality alot of people just do care enough about electronics or computers (they might be into sports, cars, and etc) and will buy whatever has the best name recognition or is the most popular with their friends or family.
My post was meant to be light hearted but again the point stands when all, Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer and Philips really dominate CE in terms of brand name and quality products, your top consumer electronics manufacturers are pushing Blu-Ray and have no HD-DVD offering what do you think the consumer will think? Will they go for the "cheap" brands and remain unsure of their products future because clearly there is something "wrong" with it? Or will they take the safe route and go with what the companies with the best brand name recognition are pushing as a solution? And the minute you walk into a store it is going to become apparent Blu-Ray does HD video. Promotional materials will make that very clear the manufacturers will make sure of it.
HD-DVD doesn't do it as a name when it doesn't have the manufacturers to back it up.