Is the HD Format war good for us?

Rich: I believe you have worded the questions to bias the voting towards "Yes" (perhaps not intentionally)?


ie: I think everyone would agree that "Competition helps the consumer...", but I don't think many would necessarily agree that "Confusion will lead to both formats failing".


I vote "No" the format war is not good for us, but I don't think this means both formats will fail.


In terms of competition (to keep pricing fair), I think there are enough manufacturers across both camps to ensure this, whether or not we had a single format.


I think the format war is only delivering confusion to the consumer market, which in turn will ensure slower market penetration and a prolonged wait for optical HD players to reach commodity product status (with the associated pricing benefits that mass market penetration delivers to the consumer!).

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Fair enough. So far, I think it has been beneficial. Draconian Rights Management is the bane of both of these formats. Managed Copy seems to have made it to BD solely because of competition with HD-DVD.


We still do not know if a network connection is required. Will analog output will be permitted for legacy devices?


Personally, I think that TiVo has the opportunity to become a player. The HD TiVo 3 has support for VC1, MPEG4 and has a network connection. This lays the foundation to downloading movies on their release date. Add a burner, and we have a new competitor entering into the mix.


BD is ignoring the PC. That pisses me off. I would much rather put my grand into my PC and use it for HD movies than buy one of these first generation players.


-- Rich

The war will be okay if it is short and decisive (with a clear winner emerging soon - preferably before mass launch).


On the other hand, it will be very bad if it drags on for years and causes both sides to become entrenched and pour immense resources only for insignificant gains used by the high command to save face. As Sun Tzu said in The Art of War , "there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare".


Other nuggets of wisdom applicable to this war:


"The highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities."


"To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself."


"You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended.You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked."


and so on and on...

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DVD-A and SACD failed for a number of reasons:


- The stupidity of making you turn on your TV (DVD-A) to get the disk to play.

- Idiotic restrictions on digital transmit ion.

- Not compatible with current receivers and pre-amps

- Over-priced

- Failed to consider that music has gone mobile

- Two formats


While the format war helped, the music industry has found the ultimate solution for piracy. Economic failure. I bought a new pre-amp with analog inputs that was supposed to be upgradeable when secure digital was in place. Never happened. Since the Panasonic RP82 cannot use its digital output for DVD-A I have to have another dedicated input for the 5 analog channels. Now I am tech-savvy, but this is too much for me and certainly too much for my wife. So guess what, I have two DVD-A discs. The short way of saying it is they forgot to consider the consumer when for HD Audio.


HD Video is a different animal:


- HD Displays are flying off the shelves

- HD Video is plug and play with these displays

- The mobility issues are not a critical, at least in the beginning. Both formats have not addressed the backward compatibility well enough yet. With cars, PC's, and portable players, consumers are going to want to buy one movie and have a flipper or two disks so there is a SD version that can be played on the millions of older DVD only devices.


Of course, there is always downloadable HD. There is a huge opportunity for downloading and watching HD movies on the day of release. Theaters are a too expensive. If the there is no winner, then this may be the dark horse in the race.

Especially, if you can burn your own SD and HD disks.


-- Rich

IMHO, I think the war will not be good for either Blueray or HD-DVD or the earlier adopters in the end.


Ultimately, I think the PC industry will win as the ultimate delivery method for HD content and audio delivery. More living rooms are adopting PC's Microsoft Media Center though not perfect has come a long way.


CinemaNow, MovieLink, Starz are currently delivering movies and HD content to the PC already (quality is improving).


If you are interested do a google search on Samsungs Universal Media Device/Player. Interesting stuff. Also look at Bill Gates keynote address at CES. Even though Microsoft's official position is HD-DVD they don't care because they know that the majority of the HD content deliver is going to be through the internet.


Connectivity, between the PC and and AV receiver is getting easier and the quality of the audio and video since it can remain in the digital domain is superb.


Personal Media devices are already allowing you take your content every where even to your car's.


Ultimately, Blueray and HD-DVD will become the consumers choice as a storage device.

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Hifi Guy,


You beat me to the punch.