I keep reading that Sony went their own direction and started Blu-Ray even tho the DVD forum named HD DVD as its successor. If that's true then why does BD have so much support? I mean they have the majority of the major CE's backing them, they have the majority of studio support, and they have the majority of the PC industry support.

I'm hoping the fanboys don't turn this into a flame war, but I'm just really curious as to why this happened?

I keep reading that Sony went their own direction and started Blu-Ray even tho the DVD forum named HD DVD as its successor. If that's true then why does BD have so much support? I mean they have the majority of the major CE's backing them, they have the majority of studio support, and they have the majority of the PC industry support.

I'm hoping the fanboys don't turn this into a flame war, but I'm just really curious as to why this happened?


Aaah, been reading the BDA press releases lately haven't you.

Did you that the word Gullible is not in the dictionary? Look it up.

Try the insider thread.

I'm hoping the fanboys don't turn this into a flame war, but I'm just really curious as to why this happened?



$$$

Don't forget DRM.

Promises?

Wanted to be different - someone already said money.:D

Sony made a lot of outrageous promises that they haven’t lived up to. Mainly, they overestimated PS3 sales by a wide margin. That’s why you see studios and hardware manufactures starting to come back to HD DVD.

I think things are going to get even worse for Sony. Xbox 360 is still outselling PS3, Blu-ray still has the issue of new profiles and incompatible hardware to deal with, and manufacturing 50 GB discs has been anything but smooth.

When you see something like Paramount and DreamWorks going HD DVD exclusive, Fox holding back on releasing new movies (I know they are back now) and you compare it to HD DVD, which has a completed spec and lower-priced hardware ready to go, it starts becoming clear (to me at least) that this thing is starting to break in HD DVD’s direction.

This is a matter of misunderstanding as to the nature of the DVD Forum; the DVD Forum exists to promote and support DVD, not act as the equivalent of the ISO for optical media. When BD was introduced to the scene years and years ago, that's when a lot of the present CE companies coalesced around it - note that a lot of the companies are the major Japanese CE contenders, and also that BD set-top burners have been out in Japan for a long long time.

Anyway in terms of the format war, for the DVD Forum nod of approval, the spec was required to conform to the DVD physical structuring for consideration; thus, BD was never even brought to a vote in the forum, because it was not eligible to begin with. The CE companies behind BD had decided to go a different route long ago, and the official declaration of HD DVD as the official format of the DVD Forum was simply formalities coinciding with its own specs being finalized. The DVD Forum itself people view as way too illustrious a body - it's just an organization like any other dedicated to a single purpose... in this case, the format and infrastructure proliferation directly associated with DVD. The majority of its major members split off (used loosely since they retain DVD Forum seats of course) to pursue their own course because they were tired of the status quo playing second to Toshiba (which chairs, controls, and is the primary beneficiary of the DVD Forum).

Ultimately it just comes down to who wants to be holding the bag of royalties any given gen, and what companies feel their risk/rewards are to fight vs compromise.

oops

$$$ and good corporate salesmanship. It does have nearly twice the capacity. I own and enjoy both formats:). I am pretty sure a lot of it has to do will BR subsidizing manufacturing cost of discs.

2 reasons I think

1. $

2. The fear that the PS3 would be the spearhead that crushes HD DVD before the war even started.


Sadly we'll never know any word on what studios' incentives were to switch and the PS3 isn't the spearhead as expected.

The PS3 has nothing to do with CE support (although it WAS very important in securing studio support). CE manufacturers had little interest in the original 720p red-laser HD DVD spec, since it was designed to basically be as cheap to produce as current DVD players.

CE manufacturers wanted a format that would start the CE cycle over, with higher margins. It's the same thing retailers want too, actually. There's simply more money to be made by everyone if BD wins, hence it has more industry support (again, excepting the studios, where my understanding is the profits are essentially even, unless you got paid $150 million recently).

The exception of course is Toshiba, who makes royalties off of DVD sales (and has essentially no IP in BD). And Microsoft, when HDi was not selected for use in BD...which may ned up being a very bad call by the BDA.

Most of the guys in BDA are actually contributors in the DVD Forum... They contribute to the development of the HD DVD and DVD specs... and they are still in the DVD Forum with equal access to the HD DVD spec.

To get the BD spec, you need to join the BDA and have your logo up there. And the Blu-ray specs on paper do look good..., does make sense for non format-owners to jump on the bandwagon.

The safety net for these BD-exclusive companies: Should Blu-ray fail, these companies who are "BD-exclusive" can still go back and develop products based on HD DVD technology easily since they are already members of the DVD Forum. I personally speculate that this is the reason why BD "have more support" in terms of products released.

That's why HD DVD Promotional Group and DVD Forum are seperate entities... DVD Forum sets standards for the next-generation DVD while HD DVD Promotional Group puts the spec into commercial products.

Aaah, been reading the BDA press releases lately haven't you.

Did you that the word Gullible is not in the dictionary? Look it up.

Umm, no. But I did go to the HD and BD's official site and check to see which companies backed which format and Blu-Ray had the most support listed. Now if you can give me a list of supporters for HD DVD and Blu-Ray that show HD DVD has more industry support (instead of your fanboy rantings) I'd appreciate it.

This is a matter of misunderstanding as to the nature of the DVD Forum; the DVD Forum exists to promote and support DVD, not act as the equivalent of the ISO for optical media. When BD was introduced to the scene years and years ago, that's when a lot of the present CE companies coalesced around it - note that a lot of the companies are the major Japanese CE contenders, and also that BD set-top burners have been out in Japan for a long long time.

Anyway in terms of the format war, for the DVD Forum nod of approval, the spec was required to conform to the DVD physical structuring for consideration; thus, BD was never even brought to a vote in the forum, because it was not eligible to begin with. The CE companies behind BD had decided to go a different route long ago, and the official declaration of HD DVD as the official format of the DVD Forum was simply formalities coinciding with its own specs being finalized. The DVD Forum itself people view as way too illustrious a body - it's just an organization like any other dedicated to a single purpose... in this case, the format and infrastructure proliferation directly associated with DVD. The majority of its major members split off (used loosely since they retain DVD Forum seats of course) to pursue their own course because they were tired of the status quo playing second to Toshiba (which chairs, controls, and is the primary beneficiary of the DVD Forum).

Ultimately it just comes down to who wants to be holding the bag of royalties any given gen, and what companies feel their risk/rewards are to fight vs compromise.

Thanks for your post. I assumed that the DVD forum was like the ISO standard for optical movies. I assumed that they were the end all be all when it came to disk based movies.

Mods please close this thread now. I don't know why the ps3 and the xbox 360 were mentioned at all in some of the replies. You can't even ask a simple question anymore w/o fanboys bringing up BS in every thread.

I keep reading that Sony went their own direction and started Blu-Ray even tho the DVD forum named HD DVD as its successor. If that's true then why does BD have so much support? I mean they have the majority of the major CE's backing them, they have the majority of studio support, and they have the majority of the PC industry support.

I'm hoping the fanboys don't turn this into a flame war, but I'm just really curious as to why this happened?

Sony put dollar signs in their eyes when they told them blu ray was going to be in the PS3, that's why.

Sony made a lot of outrageous promises that they haven’t lived up to. Mainly, they overestimated PS3 sales by a wide margin. That’s why you see studios and hardware manufactures starting to come back to HD DVD.

I think things are going to get even worse for Sony. Xbox 360 is still outselling PS3, Blu-ray still has the issue of new profiles and incompatible hardware to deal with, and manufacturing 50 GB discs has been anything but smooth.

When you see something like Paramount and DreamWorks going HD DVD exclusive, Fox holding back on releasing new movies (I know they are back now) and you compare it to HD DVD, which has a completed spec and lower-priced hardware ready to go, it starts becoming clear (to me at least) that this thing is starting to break in HD DVD’s direction.

I agree that the claims of the PS3 would sway studios, but what about CEs? Why would you produce a BD player that was supposed to be flooded with PS3 eliminating the need for your product. It is very confusing to me.

I keep hearing things like Toshiba has been raking in royalties on DVD. With the low prices of DVD content and hardware, is Toshiba really demanding very much?

If the BDA had won, would Sony have kept royalties low enough that we ever saw prices as low? I doubt it.

I keep reading that Sony went their own direction and started Blu-Ray even tho the DVD forum named HD DVD as its successor. If that's true then why does BD have so much support? I mean they have the majority of the major CE's backing them, they have the majority of studio support, and they have the majority of the PC industry support.

I'm hoping the fanboys don't turn this into a flame war, but I'm just really curious as to why this happened?

If your so curious....why don't you LOOK IT UP! Tell you what...your assignment for today is to do just that--than write a report about what you found than start another thread. And,btw, I think you are hoping this turns into "a flame war" as you put it. But if you do the research you will find that it's all about $$$$$$$$$$ as someone above me put so eliquently.

Most of the guys in BDA are actually contributors in the DVD Forum... They contribute to the development of the HD DVD and DVD specs... and they are still in the DVD Forum with equal access to the HD DVD spec.

To get the BD spec, you need to join the BDA and have your logo up there. And the Blu-ray specs on paper do look good..., does make sense for non format-owners to jump on the bandwagon.

The safety net for these BD-exclusive companies: Should Blu-ray fail, these companies who are "BD-exclusive" can still go back and develop products based on HD DVD technology easily since they are already members of the DVD Forum. I personally speculate that this is the reason why BD "have more support" in terms of products released.

That's why HD DVD Promotional Group and DVD Forum are seperate entities... DVD Forum sets standards for the next-generation DVD while HD DVD Promotional Group puts the spec into commercial products.

Problem is that the trademark Blu Ray is owned by Sony, as are the blu-ray.info sites.

So to join Sony and MS would be giving fees to Sony (for the right to use their TM), which would in turn be used against HD DVD.

You can look up the TM here. http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=fts019.1.1

I was actually surprised that Sony owned the TM, not the BDA.

Well here are some facts as to why Disney chose Blu-ray. They have some amazing transfers for PQ and AQ :D


http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22230788-5006023,00.html


...
But is Blu-ray winning the battle?

"We believe so and have put our support with Blu-ray at this time and that's because largely it has the better specifications. It can deliver a better picture because of the bit rate, beyond the fact that the disc has more capacity. So there's two different discs - Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Blu-ray, the dual layer, holds 50 gigabytes of data. The dual layer HD-DVD holds 30. So when you want the best picture, would you rather have 50 gigabytes of information or 30?

"So we found this meant Blu-ray had the room for the best picture and sound. The other thing it has is what we call a peak bit rate. What this is is how much data can you send over a pipe in a given second. Blu-ray can send 40Gb of information per second. HD-DVD can only do 29. So when you have an action scene and you have all this information on the screen - you've got fire, you've got people running about - you need to use so much bit rate. You have all this stuff happening and you suddenly need all this information to be sent through. Blu-ray has less limitations, so that's another benefit. It has space and it has space in the pipes.

"So that's why we threw our weight around Blu-ray. To your point about what will happen and will there eventually be a single best format? We believe so and we believe it will be Blu-ray. The sales suggest it. If you look at the sales in Australia, Blu-ray is clearly outselling HD-DVD by far and the number of manufacturers is a lot larger for Blu-ray. So we think over time Blu-ray will emerge as the single format. And we think that's best for consumers. Consumers have said that, too.

"Blu-ray offers the better technology for us to deliver the best high-definition experience. We chose this because of these merits.

"Of course, beyond the picture and sound, we believe there are a lot of interactive features that people will like with regards to Blu-ray DVDs."

"We have so many ideas ... basically Blu-ray has an input and output interface like a computer and normal DVDs can't do things like the Liar's Dice game in the special features of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, for example. We still love DVD of course, but clearly Blu-ray is the future."
...

closed: OP request