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."

This whole argument is so fucking stupid

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Face it. The results of this pissing match will be the same as the results of the DVD pissing match. Everyone's player will support everyone's format. It won't matter what format a disc is recorded in because it will play anywhere.

This whole argument about "oh which technology is better and which one should we root for?" is crap and a smokescreen. The real argument is about who is building an easier remote control and more attractive cases. These are the things that matter to consumers. Points like which format is supported are moot because the machines will eventually support all the formats.

Re:PS3 is irrelevent

[ChildeRoland]

My (and many people's) first DVD player was a PS2. My first HD VD player will probably be a PS3.

Re:Please enlighten me

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but HD-DVD is the lesser of two evils. Sony's Blu-Ray has the ability to lock itself to one player (to prevent loaning or rentals), and will down-grade to standard NTSC-resolution if your TV doesn't support their DRM scheme - so all the early HDTV adopters can't play high-def Blu-Ray.

Completely Different Scenario

[BoredWolf]

I think it would be premature to say that either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD is going to be a major player in the market. When the PS2 was released, DVD technology was readily available, and DVDs were a vast improvement over VHS without an exorbitant price difference in media. Both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD seem to be targeted toward the high-tech high-dollar crowd. Buying a new TV is a likely scenario for anyone trailblazing into this new media, and very few people might be willing to do that when they bought a HDTV set a only few years ago. Also, if the PS2 is any indicator of Sony's attention to media detail, the blu-ray player in the PS3 will be a poor substitute for a real Blu-Ray player. If either of the two technologies are to catch-on to the mainstream, either players and media will have to be competetively priced with current DVD technology, or many people will be buying new television sets. Both of these options seem to coincide with either technology taking many years to become dominant, which is paradodical, considering that you need a large portion of people to adopt a technology before it becomes dominant. Maybe companies such as LG will save us the hastle with the creation of a joint Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player [gizmodo.com].

Re:PS3 is irrelevent

[WebHostingGuy]

How many extra pixels will you be able to put on the 15" with the High Defination now?

--

Seriously though, I see the market for the High Defination DVDs as something which is better than normal DVD. The makers are going to be charging premium prices for a while. Not having seen either of these two formats I venture a guess and say in order to see a substantial benefit in quality you are also going to have the other componenant which is a very good television. The people who have these don't mind spending the cash for the stand alones and will do so. Whether the PS3 has the player or not won't increase sales for them.

Now, for the rest of the market--if you are saying that they will buy the PS3 and not the stand alone and reasonably save money, you are correct. However, the person saving money this way, on average, will not have the money for the other expensive toy: the television to view the better effects. My take is that people will buy a BR DVD for a premium price and play it in the PS3 on a regular television and not see much of a difference. When that happens they will ask why am I spending a premium on a BR DVD when I can buy the same for less. And from that PS3 might cause a spike in sales but then it will drop.

Don't underestimate the dark horse.

[hal2814]

As much as folks might be up in arms over the superiority of one format or another, don't forget that there may be a third player in this race: on-line distribution. You can get TV shows off of iTunes now and download them in about 10-20 minutes. How long until movies see a similar distribution that actually works well. Sure they'll have to be higher quality than what iTunes offers for TV but I imagine that a happy medium between size and quality could be met, even for the HD crowd. When there's a decent on-line distribution method, a decent user interface to go with it, and a relatively inexpensive and easy way to get that video onto a TV, then this Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war will be largely irrelevant.

Sony Stock

[Borland]

If the outlook is dim, why is my Sony stock going up like mad? They have other businesses to be sure, but a loss in this arena would sting.

Re:Beta all over again

[MMC Monster]

Same here.

I'm 35, have a 1080p display, and watch regular broadcast TV on it. I *buy* 2-3 DVDs a month (I like having them on display). My wife and I watch about 1 a week. Over-the-air HDTV isn't for us since we have sporadic viewing habits and don't want to get a PVR.

I will *not* get either blu-ray or HD-DVD until the format war is over. I also will likely not buy either one unless there is some hope that I can rip the movies to my computer.

My daughter has already destroyed the original copies of a couple of her Walt Disney DVDs. And, remember, Disney puts it's DVDs "back in the vault" after a while, so I can't even find them at MSRP. :-(

Re:yours is an appropriate nick

[iocat]

I agree the whole thing is moot. But mainly because I haven't met *anyone*, even people with 60+ inch home theatres, who gives a shit about either format. Most DVDs look good enough on HDTVs that I think it's going to be an exceptionally slow adoption curve. More like laserdisk than DVD.

NO IT WON'T!

[Anonymous Coward]

HD DVD is already selling players (I have already bought one!) and movies are starting to be available.

HD DVD does have good studio support. Read into it, you'll see that most will release to it (except perhaps Sony). There will be tons of great titles to watch regardless.

Blu-Ray's only real advantage was bigger discs - yet they can't manufacture 2 layer discs yet! Now add a "DVD compatibility layer" and you'd need 3 layers to really have 2 for high def, adn I can't manage to do that anytime soon seeing how much trouble they have already. (Not to mention that using recent codecs like H.264 defeated the whole point of Blu-Ray as the movie would fit on a plain old, regular DVD media)

Blu-Ray uses Java. HD DVD will use iHD. That's a huge difference! Blu-Ray will need some hihgly paid expert programmers, will need to license JVMs - which will most likely end up differering and having compatibility problems and what not [mobile phones anyone?] Creating even trivial stuff becomes a complex endeavour. On the other hand, iHD is simple XML based markup (somewhat like HTML), which is something most people know nowadays. It's simple, and will be standard. There's even some simpleexamples [msdn.com] already available for you to see. So simple and elegant.

Blu-Ray is way overpriced. HD DVD players are already expensive at 500$ (might be even cheaper by xmas time), but Blu-Ray is twice that, putting it out of reach for most people (too much money for a player). Not to mention that the burnable media pricing is even worse - 60$USD for a blank Blu-Ray disc! That's enough to buy 400 blank generic DVDs at BestBuy on special (over 1.5TB worth), or a fair sized HD. And if anything will help one format willing, it'll be sales. And everybody knows sales are directly related to prices (just look how much 20$ Apex DVD players they're selling!)

Blu-Ray is sony. DRM and Rootkits. Failed proprietary formats. overpriced junk electronics (you just pay for the brand name). No thanks! I'll take M$-based stuff over it as the lesser evil(!)

I can't see the heavily delayed PS3 change the situation that much. The people who usually buy those consoles are gamers (that often don't spend too much time watching movies and rather spend their hard earned money on games instead of movie DVDs). And the PS3 will cost at least as much as a HD DVD player (recently announced at 600 euro in EU). And likely a HUGE portion of PS3 buyers don't even have a HDTV in the first place. The real High Def enthusiasts - those who DO have a HDTV and will buy movies - won't wait for that to get a player (especially seeing how Blu-Ray sucks all around). And if you want to include gaming consoles, there will be a HD DVD drive for the Xbox360 (wait for E3), and there's already like 4.5 millions of those sold.

And HD DVD has managed copy too (movies on my video server, using the touchscreen yay!).

I used to really like Blu-Ray, but it's already lost the battle. They don't have a single advantage anymore - much the inverse. Likely more PCs will ship with HD DVD drives too (except perhaps a handful of Sony VAIOs), especially seeing how MS & Intel are pushing for it.

Blu-Ray will go the way of all the Sony junk: BetaMax, MiniDisc, ATRAC, MemoryStick, UMD, etc.