A Toshiba insider claims that the company will abandon its HD-DVD format, yielding the next-generation DVD format war to Sony’s competing Blu-ray technology. So now that the war is over you should run out and buy a new Blu-ray player, right? Not so fast.
The first generation Blu-ray players currently on shelves, profile 1.0, don’t offer many nice perks like picture-in-picture, local storage, or internet connectivity. Those features will arrive with second generation players, called BD Live or profile 2.0, which should hit stores by the end of the year. Once prices fall, those are the players to buy.
As for HD-DVD…
Japanese public broadcaster NHK had earlier reported that Toshiba would suffer losses in the tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of dollars) as it scrapped production of HD DVD players and recorders and took other steps to exit the business.
An official eulogy is expected early next week.
Toshiba to give up on HD DVD, end format war: source [Reuters]
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@PotKettleBlack:
There might be more PS2 and PS3s out there than N64 (wow, that’s going wayyy back) Gamecube and Wii’s, but Sony continually loses money in the “console war”.
Nintendo has found a niche market (younger kids) and is the format of choice for many parents. That’s not even talking about their domination in the hand-held gaming devices.
So what if they don’t have the best titles… Since many nintendo titles are licenced by nintendo, they reap the benefits…
When was the last time sony video games produced a profit?
Man, I haven’t even replaced my VHS collection yet.
I acknowledge the technical superiority of high-definition TVs and next-gen DVDs, but here’s the thing: the movies I watch wouldn’t really gain anything. Either they’re dramas, which don’t need super-advanced graphics, or they’re older action/scifi/horror movies with old special effects that would probably show all the wires and seams in HD, and who wants to see that?
@jfischer: why do you think vinyl albums need upgrading? surely not because of inferior sound.
@Kia: blu-ray prices will drop radically since everyone will now be cranking them out and blu-ray is superior for computer data storage to HD. There is no upside to HD for data storage but the sky’s the limit with blu-ray.
@CumaeanSibyl: unless they are filmed in HD or at minimum, digitally remastered, that is correct. however newer movies have a much better chance of meeting that criteria, especially animation.
I’m glad Blu-ray won. It was pretty obvious (to me) from the start. They* really put a lot of effort into getting Blu-ray out to market. The PS3 was a BD player in addition to being a gaming maching. The Xbox 360 only offered a DVD drive, and the HD-DVD add on came a little later. At launch, there were at least 3 different stand-alone BD players (Sony, Samsung, LG) to choose from. HD-DVD only had 1 from Toshiba. Within the first year, Sony offered a BD burner and blank BD media for your computer. HD-DVD none. And Blu-ray has better marketing. The “Blu-ray” name itself is more memorable and easier to say than “HD-DVD”. Joe Sixpack doesn’t want to be bombarded with acronyms that confuse him. “Blu-ray” stands out, it has a cool blue logo, it’s spelled different, and it’s only 2 syllables. “HD-DVD” sounds more or less the same as “DVD”, and it’s got 5 syllables! Yes, folks.. marketing works. We’ve seen it with Apple and now we’ve seen it with Blu-ray.
But with all of this mind, the format war isn’t over. Plain old DVD is still king. BD players and movies are still on the expensive side, and a very small percentage of TV owners have upgraded to an HDTV set anyways. Sure economies of scale will kick in and hardware/movie prices will drop. But it might take some time. I think the sweet spot for most consumers would be under $150 for a BD player, and under $15 for the movies. It’s all a matter of time.
* I think people tend to forget or don’t know that Blu-ray is NOT a Sony proprietary format. It’s a format that is jointly developed and promoted by several hardware manufactures and content providers. Sony is in the spotlight because they are both a hardware manufacture and a content provider. They have the resources to heavily promote Blu-ray. To say that you hate Blu-ray because you hate Sony, would also mean you hate all the companies on the list.
@vr4z06gt: Thanks for the tip, vr4z06gt. Millions of Americans that want to watch Disney movies with their kids were all concerned about the underutilization of their own multi-terabyte media servers, gigabit ether net and htpcs.
And I personally was also impressed with the amount of money (such a provider you are!) you have to spend on nerd toys.
There’s no way I’m buying a Blu-Ray player. I bought a $150 HDD media player, and I am thrilled with it. I have access to all my PC’s media files (2+ terabytes), and while the files aren’t HD quality, they ARE in DVD quality. And if I was inclined I could have video in HD, I just don’t want to dedicate that much space to any given file. Hard media will be dead in 6 or 8 years anyway — downloads are the future — so I see no point in playing violins on the Titanic.
I really find it hard to believe we’re on the brink of recession when people are willing to pay at least twice as much for a blu-ray rather than a regular DVD.
How is this Hi-Def format catching on? Is there really that big of a difference? I always felt the biggest appeal of DVDs from VHS was that they were more compact and didn’t degrade in quality. Blu-Ray hasn’t improved in this area, so what’s the big deal?
@EBounding:
Random access is also a big advantage of discs over tapes.
@penarestel: Maybe we care because we don’t need an insider to tell us this. Toshiba made the announcement officially in Japan last week.
@AcidReign: There’s a different between stop working and stop receiving signals. If it was receiving no signals, it could still be working just peachy.
@CumaeanSibyl:
the old stuff would look good too. You wouldn’t ‘see’ more as you can’t pull more definition out of the film that has already been shot. meaning – if you didn’t see it in the theater (not tv) it probably ain’t there.
correct me if i’m wrong, but film (depending on format ie 16mm, 35mm, etc) is ‘higher def’, than hi def.
@mikelotus: Blu-Ray prices had better drop dramatically or that format will stall as well.
Unlike the move from tape to DVD, there is no clear advantage to switch for 90% of the consumers out there. So until players are sub $200 and discs are comparable in price to DVD, I can’t see this format making any kind of dent in DVD sales.
@pastabatman: Film vs. HD is an ongoing discussion all over the web.
In raw data, HD (1080 lines) beats 16mm and most typical 35mm prints that would be shown in theaters (the original and ‘answer’ prints have been determined by some to have up to 1400 lines of resolution.
Perception wise is another problem. Film artifacts such as grain (the film grains are not regularly dispersed as are the pixels in a digital medium) will show a different image than will digital, and people’s perceptions will differ.
However, 4K capture [www.silicongraphics.net] would seem to bury the entire argument once it becomes more widely used.
And 4k archiving is currently being used to remaster and preserve film (as digital storage is considered more ‘permanent’). The remasters of the James Bond library were scanned at 4K.
@doctor_cos:
I agree with the price drops. This format move has got to be the worst one yet.
The irony is that when they/we switched to DVD they purposely created a single standard first thus leading to one of if not the fastest technology adoption of all time. I think this was in response to the vhs/beta-max wars.
Why they would not learn from their success and repeat the idea of an industry standard is beyond me.
Additionally I agree that the bump to hi def is lost on a majority of users. the bump from VHS to DVD was a HUGE improvement that anyone with eyeballs could see WITHOUT having to truly upgrade anything else like a $1500 tv.
Thanks for the HD vs Film explanation.
Meh, I only have Blu Ray because I bought a PS3 but beyond that, I think this generation is going to go the way of the LaserDisk because it doesn’t really offer anything significant unless you have serious components and a high end audio receiver.
If you need to upgrade now, buy a update-able PS3.
VHS vs. DVD: way better picture, small, no rewinding DVD vs. Blu-Ray: I guess maybe it’s a little clearer but I feel like it’s an eyetest -
Doctor: “Screen A or screen B?”
Me: “…um…ah…B, I guess”
Me (mentally): “Is this a placebo test?”
My mom bought a 1.0 Blu-Ray player and hooked it up with A/V cables. D’oh! Sometimes it really is a placebo test.
Sony can’t be trusted. Just because they have more money and more influence doesn’t mean that their platform is better.
Now I may buy my next gen player. I sat watching some Harry Potter flick at a box store yesterday…wow. So much prettier than DVD. I am so glad that I ceased buying DVDs of eye candy movie serveral years ago so there is nothing to replace.
Until my internet connection is 95% reliable, I think I will still favor movies on disc. Plus, I am the geek who watches ever second of extras and then rewatches the movies with the commentaries by the actors third cousin once removed who actually things the actor is a bit of a twit…
As to HD DVD v. Blu, the new and better technology seems to have won. Isn’t the name of the game volume? (speed too).
LONG LIVE BLU!
I am glad this 3 year old war is finally over! I don’t see why they couldn’t sit down at a table and discuss how to make a new HD player standard. But at least it is over. Now, Blue Ray won’t be a viable option unitl next year. Still too expensive. DVD is the way to go for now.
Honestly, with the escalating reports of its demise, consumer confidence in its longevity is certain to kill HD-DVD in spite of a corporate resistance to admitting defeat. If they don’t do so soon, it’ll take down a large chunk of the company, rather than just the format.
But I’m certain that HD-DVD will survive as the pirate’s choice for HD playback. The format supports 1080p, it’s more robust for media and burners (same depth for the data layer, just smaller track pitch and pit size….is the reactive dye layer of different chemical composition than a standard DVD+/-R?). Reports state that writable media are lower priced than BD-R. It could do so to such a degree that it re-emerges in a way much like the DivX name, but with hardware/firmware/software standards.
@pastabatman: Yeah, but if you haven’t seen a movie in the theatre, seeing it for the first time in DVD quality can be a bit of a surprise. Just as an example, I love the movie Jaws, but ol’ Bruce the shark looks a little more fake on DVD than he does on VHS. And, if 35mm is higher-def than, say, Blu-ray, then that extra detail does exist, and it’ll show up more clearly when they print the movie in the new format.
So either Bruce ends up looking like he’s made of papier-mache, or Spielberg goes in with the cinematic Photoshop and overdoes it like they always do, and everybody goes home sad.
@BayStateDarren:
I second that. DVD’s at Blockbuster or GameStop used are so cheap. I rarely buy DVD’s at full price. I wait until a 4 for $20 or buy 2 get 1 free sale pops up. BluRay is just to high priced for me right now, but like all things, they will soon have BluRays of old movies for $1 in the checkout line at Wal-Mart.
I would love to see Versatile Multilayer Disks catch on. It boosts similar results of Blue Ray & HDDVD – but since it uses the old red laser, the disks should only cost $1-5 more then regular DVD’s instead of $10+
[en.wikipedia.org]
I, for one, will wait for the Microsoft XBox 360 BluRay player.
They’ve already publicly stated that if HD-DVD were to fail, they would introduce a BluRay add-on. They even spewed out some marketing crap about how their choice to make the HD-DVD drive external meant that they could do this without any major issues.
@coan_net: VMD doesn’t interest me. They’ve essentially taken DVD and doubled the number of layers. This alone increases disc manufacturing costs. They also say that 10 or 20 layer discs will be possible in the future, which would probably be pretty expensive.
By comparison, BluRay discs hold 50GB on two layers (versus 10 layers for VMD), and 100GB on four layers (versus 20 for VMD).
One of the major reasons why BluRay costs more to manufacture is because the manufacturing process is different, requiring them to ramp up production. Eventually, the costs to do that will come down, negating any advantage VMD has (HD-DVD’s lower cost didn’t save it). And who knows, perhaps we’ll one day see a 10 or 20 layer BluRay disc, holding 250-500 gigs.
the war has just begun:
50 Pack TDK Blu-ray (BD-R) Single Layer Write-once Discs White Inkjet Hub printable 25GB 1-2X In Cake Box (BD-R25PWX25CB) – $999.99
i think ill stick to dvd and dvd-r. personally i think with this monopoly on hd format is to combat piracy, who would want to buy a 25-50 dollar disc to burn a movie. that leaves you with the option of actually BUYING a bluray disc instead of pirating or making backups.
my 22″ widescreen computer monitor suits me fine. i don’t need to spend 3K on a home system when barely a monthly $10 trip to the movie theatre will suffice. my real anticipation lies with netflix (or another company just as good) making all their inventory available online. that will be the DVD killer, regardless of format.
once there is an easy, “computer illiterate” way for the masses to download movies on their existing computer… and watch then it on their big fat TV …. the final war is won…. still a challenge, because we all know that computers and TVs still have very different karmas….
Well, with HD-DVD out of the way, Blu-Ray still has one competitor to overcome, standard DVD. I don’t think BD is going to overcome DVD, but both will co-exist.
How quickly we forget! I actually REMEMBER when cake boxes of DVD-Rs cost hundreds of dollars. And I remember when a single DVD-R was packaged much like the BD-Rs are now (in a security sleeve big enough to hold a copy of Vista). No one bought them except for people with more money than sense and businesses that needed large bulk archival space. But the cost of DVD…everything dropped by an order of magnitude in about 18-24 months so that burners were in the $80-range.
The one hitch in this is….Sony. they have a penchant for price fixing and price elevation. They had a wonderful product in the minidisc player/recorder, but it never caught on because they clutched the licensing so tightly. I believe they did the same with the Betamax format. They also developed a dual-density CD before the DVD explosion (about 1.4GB capacity, but needed Sony’s own proprietary discs, rather than a modified standard CD-R like Sanyo’s HD Burn), and it never caught on because they kept everything so tightly clutched in their greedy little fingers.
Because they’re part of a consortium in Blu-ray development, anything can happen. But I just worry about them screwing it up.
if DVDs are any indication (and they are a historical precedent), multi-layer BD-Rs will never be as cost effective as multiple single-layered discs. So expect price trends to roughly mirror DVDs.
@ClayS: “Random access is also a big advantage of discs over tapes.”
ah, but don’t forget that the company that makes the discs controls what you see. Want to skip past 10 minutes of garbage promos on a standard DVD player the first time you watch a movie (or every. single. time. on one without playback memory)? Forget about it.
@doctor_cos: if you have an HD TV there is a clear advantage. You want to watch in HD or not? And more than 10% of the country has HD TVs now. People are not going to want to watch non-HD content on an HD TV.