HD-DVD's Temporary Edge

kukyfrope writes to mention a GameDailyBiz article speculating on the edge HD-DVD will have on Blu-ray in the near future. From the article: "Although Toshiba may take round one, in the long run 'complicating factors may shift the balance.' ABI predicts that by the end of 2006, only about 30 percent of the global hi-def movie player market will be controlled by Blu-ray, but that could quickly change as Sony launches its PlayStation 3 (which has a Blu-ray drive) worldwide this November. '...its large expected sales figures could change the market dominance picture dramatically,' notes ABI."

The Sony effect...

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Well, we've seen how the adoption of UMD on the Sony PSP console did wonders for that media format. 8-)

Enough speculation already!

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez, yet another "hd-dvd has the lead now, but who knows what will happen in the future, here are my guesses pulled out of my butt" article. Enough, all these stupid articles have absolutely nothing new to add. It's stop for the speculation to stop and time for the players and the consumers to start deciding. It's a waiting game now. Unless anyone actually chimes in with some interesting information (I'll repeat that, INFORMATION), not speculation, not wild-a** guesses, not yet another link to my blog to rack up adsense $$, I think that /. should declare a moritorium on these idiotic articles (not that I expect this to actually occur :( )

News flash...

[mkswap-notwar]

Nobody cares.

Re:Please enlighten me

[Anonymous Coward]

DVD has DRM and that single factor didn't slow it's widespread adoption.

And what kind of DRM are we talking about anyway?

if it's calling home, thats not going to happen because a hell of a lot of people don't even have net connection. that would kill any format from becoming the defacto standard

if it's multi region locks, some countries deem it anti competitive and make it legal to work around them.

if it's encryption of the video then you only need something to grab the outputted image and transfer to another medium. There might be image quality loss but the resulting image only has to be better than DVD to still be worth it.

~Kalinga Valkyrie

UMD was too pricey

[aplusjimages]

UMDs for the PSP did good, but the problem was that the movie companies were putting out old movies that weren't worth paying $20-30 for. Most people would pay that much for a new movie, but the majority of movies that came out were old ones that you could get on DVD for $6-10 on the sales racks. The Blu-Ray feature is just icing on the cake.

Re:PS3 is irrelevent

[Scyber]

I'd say the PS2 was the first DVD player for most of my friends. I know its anecdotal, but we were fresh out of college when the PS2 was released, so money was tight, but everyone picked up a PS2. It wasn't till a few years later that people started picking up standalone DVD players.

Re:Blu-Ray Will Win

[SpinJaunt]

Besides, Microsoft really likes HD-DVD...what more reason do you need to root for Blu-Ray? ;-)

A Pre-installed SONY Rootkit??

Re:PS3 is irrelevent

[cthellis]

How many people seriously watched DVDs on a PS2 instead of a real standalone player?

Plenty. Besides, how many people had a DVD player before the PS2 launched? (1997 vs 2000) Now how many will have an HD DVD player before the PS3 launches...?

or will they both lose to plain old DVD?

[bzipitidoo]

Does anyone use Super Audio CD? Or DVD-audio, Video CD, or Super Video CD? Video CD was kind of cool for a while when blank DVD-Rs were much more expensive than CD-Rs but now who needs it?

HDTV quality would be great, but not if we have to pay $1000s for an HDTV that might not be "compatible" (read, DRM capable), and another premium for a special player. Especially annoying when a $100 computer monitor is more than capable of displaying content at HDTV resolution. Then we get to pay lots more money to "upgrade" our libraries from DVD to a format we may not be able to back up or play at full resolution thanks to all the DRM crap. And we won't be able to skip the commercials. Is any ordinary Joe not going to see these problems? Not after the first ones to try it get burned and word spreads. The studios think we're all that stupid? DVD is good enough. I bet the negatives of DRM and price will more than offset the positives of higher quality video, and this will lose out the way Laserdisc did to VHS.

Re:Blu-ray is walking dead

[Anonymous Coward]

(1)
Blu-Ray is NOT a Sony format ... It might be the driving force, but the format is based on a number of patents divided between the members of the Blu-Ray consortium.

(2)
Sony never launched a successful media format? What about the 3.5" disk? Betamax for the professional scene. MemoryStick is the second largest flash memory format. Sony are also a member of DVD Forum owning several key patents of the DVD format just as they did for CD and now Blu-Ray.

(3)
MiniDisc was actually quite successful ... They still produce new players today - some 15 years later! UMD is a success for games on the PSP, no piracy of disks and cheap and easy to produce (everyone knew audio and video UMD's would fail as long as they kept pricing them higher than CD and DVD's).

(4)
The BD can store 66% more data than HD DVD and have higher read and write speeds - that's the key to success for computer use. Who wants too buy a costly HD DVD burner with a lousy 15 gb space when DL DVD burners with 9 GB on them are common today?

Re:Blu-Ray Will Win

[westlake]

Blu-Ray has two big advantages.
First, the PS3 absolutely will drive adoption. PS3 will probably sell 10 million units within two years.

The game console as media player makes sense only if you have very limited space and budget. That is not the American HD market.

HD-DVD still has three or four studios to convince to support its format.

But even Disney is wavering. 15 GB HD-DVD disks are marketable now. Cheaper players and a 45 GB disk are serious threat to Blu-Ray.

Microsoft really likes HD-DVD...what more reason do you need to root for Blu-Ray? ;-)

That Microsoft's take on DRM is less restrictive than Blu-Ray? That iHD support will be integrated into Vista's home distributions?

I'll buy the 1st one that...

[cttforsale]

- has burner available for my PC $100 & - [HD||BluRay]shrink/decrypter/fab is available for & - [insert chinese company] makes a player for

UMD only had the PSP

[Nazmun]

The UMD would be a valid comparison if the ONLY way to view blu-ray's would have been through ps3's and nothing else.

Sony is aiming for the blu-ray being much more universal and maintream. Not only will blu-ray run on the ps3 but it will also run on standard setup blu-ray machines made by sony and other companies.

The UMD's weren't supported by other portable viewing machines by Sony or any other companies.

Re:The Sony effect...

[Kenshin]

Of course. The topic is "Sony". Let the bashing begin...

Note: My family had a PS2 before we had a DVD player. We bought DVDs to play on the PS2. Same with other people I knew, both local and on the net.

People who say "PS2 didn't push DVD forward" are the kinda people who went out and bought a DVD player the moment they hit the market.