Blu-ray - The Emperor's New Clothes? - Page 4  

Thank you, Rick. If I can presume that those short term consulting deals have no connection with any format-related issues, then the subject is closed.

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Palladin

Chance favors the prepared mind

I don't think any of us are disputing that except that we don't know when these other lines go functional. And the fact that they will be single layer only.

Well, I guess anything is possible but I can tell you that there are many reasons this won't happen. What Panasonic has is really a lab. You can't produce discs there without signficant new investment in a business that Panasonic wanted to get out of. Imagine what their investors would think of their strategy if they changed their mind this often.

Amir

I think TW is almost as likely to hold out as Sony. And, if HD-DVD turns out to be as popular or more popular, what makes you think BR studios other than Sony won't switch sides?

OK, from that perspective you have a reasonable concern. But, is there an actual competition if BD-ROM manufacturing isn't viable?

If you're right, then HD DVD will win easily. So, why the hold up?

There is a curious lack of concern from the studios and replicators on all this. Why is that?

Gary

They could, but the relatively late decisions point to issues that HD-DVD doesn't satisfy.

Fox pushed for SPDC for so long, it's hard to figure why they'd suddenly shrug their shoulders and start pumping out HD DVDs.

It could very well be that if BD doesn't succeed, companies like Fox will merely do electronic distribution. There is no HD disc market, and won't be a serious one from 2-3 years.

It is possible there is NEVER a physical disc market for HD like DVD. Things are changing.

Gary

If SPDC is cracked in 6 months, and BR is flagging, with HD-DVD support going through the roof, I doubt Fox would hold back for too long.

I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting that this is the way things are going to go. It just seems to me that there are an equal number of reasons why studios could switch from one side to another.

No, no, do tell!!!

Are ya gonna meet me after school behind the bus barn? Is your daddy gonna beat up my daddy?

Could it be there are a large number of folks (consumers) that are SO PUT OFF with either format, as they are today, no one cares, like in a NITCH market that may make D-theater look like it was a big time winner format. Remember only SOME AVS'ers are even interested in MC and/or games. Not that it matters in the long run, both side's insiders can crow all they like, it's STILL NO SALE HERE! YMMV, mine does! :(

If you include unrealistic scenarios, sure anything is possible.

Where would the massive HD-DVD support support coming from?
Why would BD support be flagging?

Gary

More importantly, why did he hit not just AVS yesterday with his piece but also Ars Technica? Any other sites?

Also interesting timing with the MS/Intel announcement.

Looks like an HD-DVD Tet Offensive.

yes, I agree, but what does that have to do with the specific scenario he was talking about.

Many of us think BR will win fast. It is an assumption but one built on an educated guess. The simple truth is whomever gets a big enough lead early on will win it all. At this time I, for one, think it will be BR. why? simple DVD took over one year to get to 1M players. The PS2 did that in almost a month, HD-DVDs delay and the PS3 being pushed up on the date (with Sony saying it will be their first BR player in the spring) this is even more significative. This means there can be over 1M BR players in the market compared to 20-50K HD-DVD HD-DVD players. The thing is if you were a studio would you rather have potentially 1M customers or 20K? The answer is easy and most of the HD-DVD studios will decide to float some BR titles.

so unless the 360 will have an HD-DVD drive from day one, on the # of drives out there and # of people that can buy BR movies out there will way way way outnumber HD-DVD.

1) there is also, even more importantly, the ROM mark. so you need to crack that as well for BR to be equal to HD-DVD from a securiy perspective

2) BR gave Fox what they wanted, I am guessing if it is no better then what was offered by HD-DVD at leas the BDA tryed to build something better

3) for the second if, you would need the PS3 to be a total flop and HD-DVD to do something unprecedent for a new format.

so yes if all your ifs happen your conclusion might happen (don't forget that when Fox anounced it went with BR HD-DVD kind of publicly attacked them)

You may be making the assumption that ROM Mark is mandatory. I don't believe it is. There is liable to be content fees associated with its use. So content owners need to weigh the potential benefit of having the mark, versus direct and definite loss of the bottom line (profit). Sure, Fox will probably use ROM Mark but the jury will be out on the rest. If you don't believe me, then tell me why ROM Mark was not in until Fox came on board with BD+.

And if ROM Mark is not used by majority of studios in BD camp, then it is a non-issue here. Isn't it?

Amir

no, if you actually stopped trying to counter everything I write and actually read it, you would see what you just said makes no sense because you contradict yourself

so the discussion was about FOX so if you think that Fox will use it, and you said then you must admit that SPDC being cracked is not enough and the ROM mark needs to be cracked as well


PS as for the rest (i.e. ROM being mandatoy) I don't know, but like all tools, it is better to have it for when you want it and not use it then not have it at all

True, but if Paramount and Universal suddenly announce tomorrow that they will support Blu-ray than most likely HD-DVD would fail. I think that neither event is likely to happen though.


Everything that I heard about it suggests that ROM Mark is required on all pre-recorded discs. Wouldn't be much good as a method to prevent mass piracy if it was optional. Also a few added pennies doesn't matter much if pirated movies are selling well, which is a definite problem is countries such as China.

A short time back in another thread I reminded amirm that all of this sounds like a replay of Laser Video Disc vs the RCA CED Video Disc. The CED proponents sole drumbeat was CED could use existing LP pressing plants for disk production and therefore was cheaper. In the end, we, the video files, chose the Laser Video Disc and CED soon faded away.

It would appear right now that the PS3 is indeed the best potential kingmaker in this battle. As with UMD it seems likely that content makers will follow the market and since Sony can seed the market with both their own players and their own content, game over..... maybe...

There are still is a few unknowns there:

1) How much will PS3 Blu-Ray sell for? PS3's impact could be marginal unless the price is compelling.

2) WHEN will PS3 actually be available to the world markets? (not just a *possible* Spring Debut in Japan) PS3's impact can't be felt till it' actually out.

3) Now that MS has taken a side, what about the 360?

HD DVD has no counter punch to the PS3 BRD unless it's the 360. Is that idea dead because 360 will not launch with HD DVD? Not necessarily.

IF 360 introduced an HD DVD add on, and IF the price were cheap enough, that would be a counter punch and IF a future 360 'deluxe' model actually rolled out with HD/DVD alongside the PS3 that would be another counter punch.

The MS/Intel annoucement was still pretty mum on the role of the 360 in this battle though, so short of some scenario like that, PS3 would seem to be kingmaker in this battle.

No, no, no, no, no...You're missing my point all together. Let me reiterate...I am not suggesting this is the way things will go. The arguement was made that if HD-DVD camps decide to start publishing titles for both BR and HD-DVD Blu-Ray will have the advantage. My point is that the same would be true if the tables were turned.

true, but the only issue is that the PS3 must do extremely badly (at any price) for it not to have an effect in BR’s favour. If you look here http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...advdsales.html
you can see that in the first month there were only around 35K players available (bought by retailers, not necessarily customers) and it took 4 months to reach 100k and 14M for 1M. Now in this case there is also a format war, so imagine what it means for HD-DVD sales. Now look at PS2, Xbox, PSP….. how long before they hit 1M? The thing is that when ever the PS3 comes out it will most likely outperform HD-DVD sales 10x or 20x. So it would need to be a big blunder not to have an effect.

my guess spring or summer, it should affect the outcome, but again look at DVD sales numbers even if it is much later it should still have a major effect. Even if you assume it is 1y later but BR came out on time and at the same time as HD-DVD in one month the numbers of PS3s should be more then both combined

who knows

True but not the same thing. You need to consider: will HD-DVD in the 360 be for games or movies. If it is games some people might buy the HD-DVD drive for that but some people might also be PO –“look MS is forcing us to buy an HD-DVD drive to play the games we want†if it is for movies then only someone that wants HD-DVD will buy it. In either case it won’t have the same impact as having it in all consoles

I think you need more then that, I think you need MS to say every 360 from day one (or free upgrade) to make it interesting.

This is not anti MS or Intel but I think them joining was more about getting concession from HD-DVD then anything else and we will most likely see that a bit later on. Something like studios agreeing that the first managed copy is free, or be more lenient with streaming…. (no idea what it is but something that will help with networked media servers)

I guess that's the main difference between me and most of the people on this forum (especially people who are looking for every reason to anoint BR king). I think the PS3 gives BR a huge weapon - a potentially insurmountable weapon. However, until we know with certainty that the PS3 will play BR movies, and until we know with certainty that the PS3 will release on time, I'm not willing to make too many assumptions based on that. What happens if the PS3 doesn't hit the us market until early 2007? Or, what if it hits the US market right when they said it would, but won't be able to play BR movies. What if a firmware or drive update isn't available until sometime in 2007 that allows BR movies playback?

My point isn't that Blu-Ray is going to flag and HD-DVD is going to win the game. My point is that there are far fewer givens than many people are accepting. If Blu-Ray and PS3 launch on schedule (or should I say our assumed schedule, since I've seen nothing concrete here), and the PS3 can play Blu-Ray movies from the get go, HD-DVD is going to have a very hard time given their scheduling slip. However, if Blu-Ray has similar problems with keeping their schedule, HD-DVDs head start could be fairly significant.

I think Microsoft is downplaying Blu-Ray and supporting HD-DVD for one reason and one reason alone: PS3 vs. 360. I've read numerous reports that Bill Gates was not happy with Sony selling more PS2 than MS with the Xbox. Very similar to the iPod sales issue that's near and dear to his heart. Mr. Gates doesn't want that to happen again. So, in order for Microsoft to embed their technology into the home theater market (ie "computer sales" go up) and Xbox sales to go up, HD-DVD is their only option.

Here's another problem they face: If they release an X-Box 360 without HD-DVD (which is their current plan) potential buyers may "hold-out" on them to wait for the version that includes HD-DVD. In the mean time, consumers are buying PS3s left and right and watching Blu-Ray movies. Thus Microsoft's need to down-talk Blu-Ray.

I wish Mr. Gates would get over his ego and just conduct ethical business instead of thinking he controls the market and his company has the final say in what happens. Maybe he can take me on a trip on his yacht to try and convince me otherwise. :rolleyes:

And I replied to that thread that history is not your friend because Philips/Sony wanted to soup up CD instead of adopting current DVD format :). Their motivation was clearly to build on top of their IP/patent position in CD format as opposed to building a great A/V format. Had they prevailed, we would have been stuck with MMCD at just 3.6 Gigabytes. How is that for a scary thought!

The bottom line is that this kind of analogy is not useful. I could turn around and ask you if you think fuel injection was a bad idea even though it built on exiting engine technology to get you more horsepower. And I am sure you can counter with something else that counters this.

So I leave you with one thought which I post a while back. Namely, we could say all we want against Toshiba. But one thing is clear. These guys are some of the smartest people around, able to take a manufacturing plant that spits out 9 Gigabytes DVDs and for just $150K, have it produce 30 gigabyte discs! Now tell me why the engineer in you doesn't just love this. Because the one in me, certain does!

Amir

Why would HD DVD need to be in 360 from Day 1 when currently the devices or content are not even on the Market and PS3 is also not on the Market? It's almost like saying 360 needs to match the price point of the PS3 at a time when niether the price point nor the PS3 exist yet.

HD DVD needs to offer an alternative option to PS3 Blu Ray by the time the PS3 actually is an option.

This is true no doubt, and the PS3 will not blunder to that degree, it will sell in the millions. My point was that the combination of those 3 factors could greatly impact how much of a kingmaker the PS3 turns out to be.

In other words for example if PS3 doesn't ship to the USA before say FALL of 2006 and by that time 360 has added an HD DVD option that equals or betters the Blu Ray PS3 pricepoint, then PS3's role as kingmaker could be greatly blunted since HD DVD could also potentially sell in the millions right alongside it.

So the 360's role or non-role could be pivotal.

Did they really develop AOD with the goal of using current manufacturing infrastructure?

Or was their main goal to maintain their stranglehold on the DVD IP and carry it forward to the next-gen format? And in so doing, not push the envelope as much as they might have vis a vis the capacity?

Oh and the way the MMCD/DVD story is depicted, Sony and Philips backed off the fight in the interest of a unified format. Or did Gerstner who brokered the deal really screw them over?

MMCD was dual layer too: 7.2GB.

Wasn't some of the Sony/Philips tech for dual layer ultimately adopted in the compromise that turned SD into DVD?

Gary

If I remember correctly, it was Toshiba who first demo a SL 30GB blue laser disc which was 0.1mm structure back in 2001. Of course, they finally gave up the 0.1mm.

I think that Sony is hoping that enough of a demand for BD movies will be generated by PS3 (ala PSP UMD) to cause Paramount and Universal will jump ship to Blu-Ray before HD-DVD has enough time to get cheap HD-DVD players from China into the market. Let face it, the only hope for HD-DVD now is hybrid discs and cheap players. Two major studios quickly defecting to the other side will kill HD-DVD faster than anything. Without any studio defections I think Sony is prepared to match HD-DVD with their own low cost Blu-Ray (China) player-only devices too. They have invested too much time and money to fail. If they do, it could be almost fatal to their business.

b2b

LOL

You're probably right.

I guess that is the same Toshiba engineer that admitted Blu-Ray was an "Engineering Masterpiece" in the same breath saying that HD-DVD was a "practical compromise" ;) HD-DVD is DVD with a face lift, with the same problems with recordable media (it's crap)... :)

b2b