Betamax Being Edged Out by VHS

Yay...

PS3's too expensive to be just used as a media player this time though, so there's still no chance of me buying one.

This is very bad news for consumers, I fear. As most of you know by now, the Blu-Ray specification beats the HD-DVD specification in terms of storage space, but loses by a huge margin to its rival in terms of costs. Deployment of Blu-Ray technology requires a complete overhaul of manufacturing plants since the technology is so radically different to current disc productions, and this cost will eventually pour down on us, the consumers. An HD-DVD disc is essentially the same as a CD or DVD, but with smaller gaps between pits.

Especially considering the HD-DVD specification is perfectly prepared for HD video storage; 15GB per layer is more than enough to store video of that quality. Blu-Ray's 25GB are just overkill. And it's another case of technology we don't necessarily need, but will be forced to adopt at a higher price than the more cost-friendly alternative which is HD-DVD.

I've seen figures that say costs to produce BD-ROMs will be within 10% of production costs for HD-DVDs. 10% on a disc that costs 50p to produce is only 55p. That's not going to greatly increase the costs of you £20 movie.


And when DVDs came out, CDs were more than enough backup for most people. These disc formats aren't just aimed at movies. The capability for computer data backup is greatly increased by moving to 25-50 GB discs instead of thr 4-9 GB DVDs.

Why is it? One large conglomerate edges out another large conglomerate. How does the consumer lose?

Both systems will play legacy DVD movies. The costs will largely be similar, and if we want to watch HD movies, we'll be forced to buy new hardware WHICHEVER system prevails. In reality, it makes absolutely no difference ot the consumer.


And HD-DVDs can be produced on current manufacturing hardware? No they can't! Re-tooling will be required for both processes - and in the end the difference to the end product will be pennies. It would be MUCH more expensive for companies to manufacture and distribute two copies, on HD-DVD and one Blu-Ray. That would result in higher prices for the consumer.


15Gb is overkill, too.

If either system used XVid/DivX compression, which in my experience can knock out a 600x480 movie in 700k - and could therefore fit a 1200 x 960 movie into about 2.8Gb - they could put HD movies onto a standard single layer DVD. But they don't want to. They want you to buy new equipment.

And they only want you to buy new equipment so that they can install DRM into the system from end to end.

HD is just the way they are going to motivate you into an end-to end digital (and therefore DRM controlled) system. We're all being manipulated by the RIAA and the MPAA again.

They conned people onto DVD with better picture quality and crap additional materials (how many dire "making of" dociumentaries and inane cast commentaries do we need). Now they need something else and HD is what they are trying to use.


That's a white elephant. HD-DVD is not clearly more cost friendly - but they'd rather we were discussing that than the REAL reason they are pushing HD at us.

I agree 100% that we are being screwed mostly by the RIAA and MPAA. You are correct about using advanced codecs for storing higher quality data and how current DVD's are more then suitable to fit the data required for HD if using either DIVX or MS's new codec. I am not a big fan of MS but its codec will likely be the new standard as it is adopted by both Blu-ray and the DVD forum (hd dvd).

I will say that spong seems to be a little over zealous in this article because the fight extends well beyound what this article states and will be a major uphill battle for blu-ray supporters.

First of all i must correct one of the above users in that HD -dvd and blu ray actually are both very different then current DVD. They both use Blue lasers instead of red which is why the pits in the disk can be closer (smaller wavelength for light). Thing is Toshiba created HD-DVD trying to make it as similar to DVD standards as possible, while sony decided to start from scratch when creating blu-ray so as not to lock them into any creative corners.

Because of this, this has allowed the re-tooling of optical media assembly lines to be much more cost effective for HD-DVD then for blu-ray. While 5-10 years into production it may result in only penny's worth of difference, at this point it costs nearly 2 million to upgrade each production line to Blu-ray production which is not backward compatable with creating normal DVD's while the upgrade to HD-DVD is supposed to be very minimal and be fully backward compatable.

This has resulted in all Chinese production facilities (where a large majoritiy of all disks come from) deciding to back HD-DVD. This will be huge problem for Sony, especially when it comes to passing the expense on to the consumer.

Also a huge development as of late is that MS and Intel have both decided to support HD-dvd exclusivly. These are 2 of US's biggest tech companies and they carry a lot of weight with them when they make decisions like this.

Anyway, if Sony delays their PS3 any later then HD-dvd will definately have the heads up on the market, as PS3 will be the dominating factor when it comes to pushing blu-ray on consumers. So the Format war is far from over despite what movie companies decide to support. Remember Divx players (not the codec), the pay - per - play DVD player that disney and lucas supported exclusively??? Yeah there is a reason why most folks dont remember that.

Christian

Of course you need to re-tool your production plants in order to produce HD-DVDs. The thing is, since HD-DVD is a simple upgrade of the existing format, not all of the disc will have to be produced using new equipment. There are quite a few layers (not data, but polymer) on DVDs today. If I remember correctly, there are still many of those same physical layers in the HD-DVD specification, meaning you wouldn't have to change EVERY piece of equipment in the facility in order to produce an HD-DVD.

Then there's the disc playback issue. It's true that neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray use red lasers, therefore native playback of CDs or DVDs on an HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player needs a different approach from a blue-laser-to-red-laser perspective. But since the Blu-Ray format is so radically different to the CD/DVD format, it'll be far more expensive to develop playback equipment that will accept new and old formats. Legacy playback on HD-DVD equipment is expected to be much easier to pull off.

I hope I'm not sounding like a Toshiba spokesperson, but it's perfectly clear the only reason Blu-Ray is beating HD-DVD in terms of corporate support is the PlayStation 3. If there was something equivalent backing the HD-DVD standard (say the X360 had native HD-DVD support), I'm pretty sure HD-DVD would be the one to support.

You do not state 2,000,000 what. But even if it was UK pounds, this is PEANUTS for plants that press millions of products a day. £2,000,000 over 200,000,000 discs is only 1p a disc.

At this quantity of production, those costs are not prohibitive, not will they add significantly to the unit cost of product.


This is nowhere near as important as it may seem. Neither of these companies actually makes products that use discs. OK, Microsoft makes the Xbox 360. Microsoft may support HD-DVD in its OS, but every Blu-Ray drive will come with drivers - so who cares?

Intel - who cares? It's the manufacturers of domestic electrical products and the software producers who will swing this battle, not Intel and Microsoft.


Possibly, but let's be realistic, HD is not a revolution waiting to happen. Most people don't even have progressive scan DVD players, or display devices that can handle that resolution. PS3 will be in plenty of time to catch the boat.


Both of those were completely irrelevant formats, they did not fulfill a credible need.

This is getting almost as bad as the MS-Sony fanboy wars.

Look, no matter which wins, we all lose. We have to buy all our films again (yes, I know, backwards compatible; your VCR still works, how many films you own on video did you re-buy? I know plenty of people who bought most of them again...), buy new equipment, probably upgrade our TVs (what, you thought they wouldn't require HD TV?) and so on. In the end, you're pretty much having to replace your entire AV setup for whatever format wins.

The cost to production companies is infinitismaly small; they're knocking out billions of disks a year, so like they care how much it will cost. Think of the profit they make back! Judging by previous form, they'll be charging £30+ a disk. They'll make their money back on first day!

What really matters is, which one do we really prefer? The simple step-up that is HD-DVD, or the risky leap to Blu-Ray? Movie companies will of course chase profit...

But that's a false dichotomy.

Both are exactly as risky as one another.

HD-DVD may SOUND like DVD, but in reality it's a completely new format, just like Blu-Ray.

You are right i didnt say what denomination, but it was $2 million US.....per production line. Those companies pumping out thousands to tens of thousands of disks a day can have up to 10 or more production lines so the upfront costs can easily jump up to $20 million or more US and that breaks backwards compatability with normal DVD production. Kind of expensive for unproven technology when retro fitting dvd lines for HD-dvd does not break backwards compatability, nor cost as much. This is why the response from chinese DVD manufacturers have decided to exclusively support HD-dvd at this point and china is the largest exporter of current DVD media.

The market is pretty good about supporting the cheaper option and when you can compare prices for media your pocket book will appreciate saving some change for marginal difference.

About intel and MS. Well as much as i dont like MS i have to admit that they are pretty coersive when it comes to defining standards...even though they do not provide hardware. If you think its bad now wait till they start enforcing windows Vista standards on the computer market. The tech stocks will have a couple of good years after its release.

Back to the format though...MS is providing what many are considering the primary codec for both formats this time around so they have a pretty big dog in the fight. Intel is devising some new technology based on being able to back up and distribute legally owned media to be used by anyone or anything on a home network. It is being dubbed "mandatory managed copy". This is something that with microsofts help will become a simple standard in almost all aspects of home networking and something that could very well be missing from any aspect of Blu-ray.

Sure this is only a small side product, but i am sure we will be finding out more things that MS and intel have in store for HD-DVD adopters.

My personal opinion on the formats. Well i really dont care at this point. I do not plan on looking beyond DVD any time soon, nor do i think that the market is really ready to support a new video format...with or without HD support. I mean I know a lot of folks that purchased their first DVD player less than a year ago and since then they have been trying to make up on lost time purchasing DVD's.

I actually hope that the format war does not get resolved any time soon because over all the consumer will benifit from both companies trying to make their product more appealing to the customer than the other. Sure early adopters may get burned (i have in the past and am not immune to it in the future), but the majority of folks will benifit from the competition. If it wherent for competition then companies could charge whatever they wanted for whatever products they sold and tell customers that that is the fair market value. With competition we get to see first hand what the fair market value is, and then get to decide on the outcome.

I dislike sony about as much as I dislike MS (and some of my fellow programming friends work for them), so i dont have a dog in this fight but I do like to keep up with what both new technologies have to offer.

Pardon any errors i may have as I have been up almost 18 hours and am pretty close to crashing right here in front of my box. If i made any wierd statements i will try to come back and correct them tomorrow.

Christian

Sorry, I got focussed on the specifics and took my eye off the general. While I seem to be disagreeing with you on specifics, I am, I think, actually agreeing with you on the general points.

I am an anti-monopolist, so I don't WANT to see a single dominant format. But the publishers do, it's far easier for them that way.

And Microsoft doesn't care, because VC-1/VC-9 will be, as you correctly state, the dominant (or a major) codec on either platform, despite H.264's supposed superiority.

But the fact is, the only people who need Blue Laser optical technology are computer users with increasing back-up needs. And AFAIK they haven't even anounced a writer yet, never mind a re-writer.

HD movies would fit easily on existing technology, even on single layer DVD. It's not about what we want, it's about what they want us to have.


This time, everybody (who doesn't own a motion picture or TV studio) is gonna get burnt.

Here is your first Blu ray dvd burner

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/sony/bluray-dvd-burner-122698.php

Note that this drive does not provide CD support.

I have only seen HD-DVD drives and no burners yet for that format, but before either format becomes a viable upgrade for pc consumers and businesses, they will need to support burning to that format. Before that the only benifit will be to watch HD movies on your PC (few companies, and fewer game companies use DVD as a distrubition media even today).

Like i said, i really dont care about who is winning the war, we have seen the best competing technologies in the past win or lose depending on the surrounding situations, so to try to start declaring either format a winner even before they come out is somewhat silly.

Also the only people that will get burned are those that jump on board either platform before one emergers as the accepted format. With flash media and hard drives continuing to increase in size and drop in cost, back up to these external sources is easily becoming the industry standard over the limitations of optical media such as CD and DVD. So even at 50 gig's it is and will continue to be cheaper to purchase an external Hard Drive for backup not to mention that access and read times are hundereds of times faster.

So both technologies will have an uphill battle for several years before widespread adoption begins to take over.

Also is it just me or is Sony spreading the market thin with all of its different media formats. Media sticks, UMD, Mini-disks, Blu-ray? I am willing to be that folks will start to get tired of trying to decide which media sony is going to get serious with supporting.

By the way as a news flash, intel has decided to try to reunite hd-dvd and blu ray by trying to get them to one last time work out the differences. Talk about flip flop.

Christian

Sony loves proprietary format. People have to pay THEM that way.