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.
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.
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.
Quote:
Originally posted by cwestpha
....
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.
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.
Quote:
Originally posted by cwestpha
remember, Betamax failed because it didnt have any porn and had less content.
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.
Quote:
Originally posted by cwestpha
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.
This one has already been shot down.
Quote:
Originally posted by cwestpha
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.
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.
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.
Quote:
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.
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.
Quote:
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.
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.
Quote:
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.
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.
Microsoft moves from crashing computers to crashing DVD's as well.
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.
Holy crap man, VHS buddy, VHS! Not VCR. Man, am I the only one who found that annoying? Also, you mentioned:
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.
First off, I love how many people have made the analogy of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD to the VHS and Beta episode, but I have news for you, history is not going to repeat itself. Some of you sound like the same critics who said Apple wasn't going anywhere with AAC because Microsoft's WMA technology was going to be everywhere and was out before Apple's format. Hmm, and how far has Microsoft gotten trying to push good ol WMA? Not as far as Apple has with AAC I can tell you that much. Moreover, as another poster has previously stated, the distribution of Blu-Ray will be phenomenal, largely in part to the amount of corporations behind the standard. Blu-Ray will undoubtedly be on more shelves in more stores, albeit a few months later. Blu-Ray will defintely have the advantage in market penetration by having a WIDE assortment of Blu-Ray hardware and software...whether it be from Sony, Apple, HP, Dell, Pioneer, Philips, Pansasonic, the majority of the gaming industry, and some of the Hollywood studios.
Also, where are you getting your information that Blu-Ray will have less movie titles upon launch as compared to HD-DVD? From what I understand, there has been no announcement of what titles or how many movies Blu-Ray plans on coming out with upon launch. Unless, that is you are privy to some information that we are not...in that case, link please.
Furthermore, regarding your uphill battle theory, Joe Dirt at Wal-Mart isn't going to shell out $1000 for HD-DVD. Neither will X-box have penetrated the market with a standard HD-DVD player in their console. So, I'm not sure what uphill battle you are talking about. PS3, will, however, penetrate over 80 million homes, guaranteed and with that at a price of at least half of what a comparable HD-DVD player will cost. And what is all this whining about PS3 and HDMI? So it will cost an extra $1500 for early adopters? They sure didn't mind when they decided to drop over $5,000 on an early HD capable TV set, so you think $1500 is going to stop them now?...I think not. Those who can afford it will get it, plain and simple. BTW, 1080p HDTV sets are becoming more and more prevalent. I expect to see a good handful, especially by Christmas time and as we all know the prices keep coming down, so I do see the 1080i resolution being a factor.
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.
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'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's Sony's trump card and they know it. The PS3 is gonna drive BlueRay sales bigtime.
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.
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.
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.
Quote:
People will just opt for the cheaper base model
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.
...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.
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.
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.
Given ~45 million or so consoles have shipped with DVD players in the US compared to 90 million DVD players their numbers are hardly insignificant, especially when Bill Gates and co want to sell even more this time around.
I'd be willing to bet a lot more people will early adopt game machines than DVD players too. If you really don't think Sony packaging it with the PS3 will have an effect then you're crazy. They aren't subsidising that cost at this stage to lose.
As an aside the big loser though in all of this is the Xbox 360 games as its games get larger they are going to whack straight into the constraints of DL DVDs or rely on compression. Sony's partners really have a lot of disc space to play with.
Comments
Originally posted by e1618978
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.
Originally posted by marzetta7
And I don't know about you guys, but I want Microsoft as far away from my movie experience as possible.
[/B]
Microsoft moves from crashing computers to crashing DVD's as well. Blue Screen of death on your porno anyone?
Originally posted by cwestpha
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.
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.
Originally posted by cwestpha
....
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.
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.
Originally posted by cwestpha
remember, Betamax failed because it didnt have any porn and had less content.
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.
Originally posted by cwestpha
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.
This one has already been shot down.
Originally posted by cwestpha
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.
This one too.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Originally posted by mynamehere
Microsoft moves from crashing computers to crashing DVD's as well.
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.
Holy crap man, VHS buddy, VHS! Not VCR. Man, am I the only one who found that annoying? Also, you mentioned:
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.
First off, I love how many people have made the analogy of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD to the VHS and Beta episode, but I have news for you, history is not going to repeat itself. Some of you sound like the same critics who said Apple wasn't going anywhere with AAC because Microsoft's WMA technology was going to be everywhere and was out before Apple's format. Hmm, and how far has Microsoft gotten trying to push good ol WMA? Not as far as Apple has with AAC I can tell you that much. Moreover, as another poster has previously stated, the distribution of Blu-Ray will be phenomenal, largely in part to the amount of corporations behind the standard. Blu-Ray will undoubtedly be on more shelves in more stores, albeit a few months later. Blu-Ray will defintely have the advantage in market penetration by having a WIDE assortment of Blu-Ray hardware and software...whether it be from Sony, Apple, HP, Dell, Pioneer, Philips, Pansasonic, the majority of the gaming industry, and some of the Hollywood studios.
Also, where are you getting your information that Blu-Ray will have less movie titles upon launch as compared to HD-DVD? From what I understand, there has been no announcement of what titles or how many movies Blu-Ray plans on coming out with upon launch. Unless, that is you are privy to some information that we are not...in that case, link please.
Furthermore, regarding your uphill battle theory, Joe Dirt at Wal-Mart isn't going to shell out $1000 for HD-DVD. Neither will X-box have penetrated the market with a standard HD-DVD player in their console. So, I'm not sure what uphill battle you are talking about. PS3, will, however, penetrate over 80 million homes, guaranteed and with that at a price of at least half of what a comparable HD-DVD player will cost. And what is all this whining about PS3 and HDMI? So it will cost an extra $1500 for early adopters? They sure didn't mind when they decided to drop over $5,000 on an early HD capable TV set, so you think $1500 is going to stop them now?...I think not. Those who can afford it will get it, plain and simple. BTW, 1080p HDTV sets are becoming more and more prevalent. I expect to see a good handful, especially by Christmas time and as we all know the prices keep coming down, so I do see the 1080i resolution being a factor.
Give me 1080P or give me death!!!
HDVD - what if it dies?
What if Blu-Ray dies?
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?
Originally posted by e1618978
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.
Originally posted by hmurchison
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.
Originally posted by e1618978
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.
Originally posted by hmurchison
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.
Originally posted by JCG
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.
Any idea where the Porn industry is headed?
Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg
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.
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.
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.
Originally posted by Arty50
It's Sony's trump card and they know it. The PS3 is gonna drive BlueRay sales bigtime.
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.
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.
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.
People will just opt for the cheaper base model
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.
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.
Originally posted by hmurchison
...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.
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.
Originally posted by hmurchison
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.
Given ~45 million or so consoles have shipped with DVD players in the US compared to 90 million DVD players their numbers are hardly insignificant, especially when Bill Gates and co want to sell even more this time around.
I'd be willing to bet a lot more people will early adopt game machines than DVD players too. If you really don't think Sony packaging it with the PS3 will have an effect then you're crazy. They aren't subsidising that cost at this stage to lose.
As an aside the big loser though in all of this is the Xbox 360 games as its games get larger they are going to whack straight into the constraints of DL DVDs or rely on compression. Sony's partners really have a lot of disc space to play with.