Will this end the format war?
- Thread starter cymatty
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this is the way i predicted things going
just as DVD-R and DVD+R have gone
nobody wins, and the manufacturers realise that the way to improve pickup is to allow cross licensing agreements so that people can buy both formats
blu-ray was never going to die like betamax, for the simple reason that some of the big players in film and televsion had been persuaded to release stuff exclusively on blu-ray. Release 1 or 2 top series exclusively on the format, and you create a market just on the strength of those couple of popular releases
Not to mention the whole concept of owning a film at home is much more established now. Back in the VHS v Betamax days, hollywood thought recorders were going to kill the film industry. Nobody was really keen to release stuff on video, so there was no reason to choose one over the other for any reason other than personal preference. Now they clamour to release the next series of Desparate housewives or whatever on DVD boxset.
just as DVD-R and DVD+R have gone
nobody wins, and the manufacturers realise that the way to improve pickup is to allow cross licensing agreements so that people can buy both formats
blu-ray was never going to die like betamax, for the simple reason that some of the big players in film and televsion had been persuaded to release stuff exclusively on blu-ray. Release 1 or 2 top series exclusively on the format, and you create a market just on the strength of those couple of popular releases
Not to mention the whole concept of owning a film at home is much more established now. Back in the VHS v Betamax days, hollywood thought recorders were going to kill the film industry. Nobody was really keen to release stuff on video, so there was no reason to choose one over the other for any reason other than personal preference. Now they clamour to release the next series of Desparate housewives or whatever on DVD boxset.
darreny said:
it would be in there interest to be multiformat
that way they the film studio has a choice as to which format to release on, so they can play one off against the other to get the best deal
having players that play both formats is best for everyone.
the fact that film studios are releasing on both formats speaks volume, they want to maximise uptake by ensuring that nobody gets left out. Which dual format players would help greatly with.
You know I was just about to buy the Toshiba HD-EX1 DVD player. Now Im just going to sit back and wait..... again.
I guess it was only a matter of time before one of the manufacturers released a dual format player. Just hope that in providing both formats in one, that it is not watering either of the formats down in regards to quality, if that makes sense
I guess it was only a matter of time before one of the manufacturers released a dual format player. Just hope that in providing both formats in one, that it is not watering either of the formats down in regards to quality, if that makes sense
As stated above the cost may put it beyond most people's reach for some time , I would say price could be around £600 maybe less its only the different laser that is required and maybe a decoding chip of some kind the rest could be common with a double divet drawer - who knows they could try for 800 or more to start with
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I personally think HD-DVD is going to win.
Try explaining what a Blu-ray is to average joe public.. they'd have a seizure! At least they know what you're talking about, seeing as HD and DVD are both acronyms that are overly-milked nowadays
Blu ray should be kept purely as a storage format.
Try explaining what a Blu-ray is to average joe public.. they'd have a seizure! At least they know what you're talking about, seeing as HD and DVD are both acronyms that are overly-milked nowadays
Blu ray should be kept purely as a storage format.
EVH said:I personally think HD-DVD is going to win.
Try explaining what a Blu-ray is to average joe public.. they'd have a seizure! At least they know what you're talking about, seeing as HD and DVD are both acronyms that are overly-milked nowadays
Blu ray should be kept purely as a storage format.
Very true right now ...............until ps3 marketing really beefs up
Ultimately combi players will probably end up being the standard. I too believe that the "war" will end in stale mate. Both formats will continue and joe-public will end up buying dual-format players once the cost falls below £300.
However.. the first combi players will probably end up costing in excess of £1000, and probably won't be that great. Personally I think the Xbox 360 HD-DVD / PS3 route is probably the most sensible short-medium term solution (for somebody that's even vaguely into gaming anyway).
I'll probably end up getting a PS3 anyway, so for me it'll give me a way of watching any decent Blu-Ray films that appear. Luckily there's none that appeal to me yet, but by March/April i'm sure they'll be a lot more stuff to tempt me.
Quite frankly I don't care which format a movie is released on, as long as the picture and audio quality is top notch I'll buy it!
However.. the first combi players will probably end up costing in excess of £1000, and probably won't be that great. Personally I think the Xbox 360 HD-DVD / PS3 route is probably the most sensible short-medium term solution (for somebody that's even vaguely into gaming anyway).
I'll probably end up getting a PS3 anyway, so for me it'll give me a way of watching any decent Blu-Ray films that appear. Luckily there's none that appeal to me yet, but by March/April i'm sure they'll be a lot more stuff to tempt me.
Quite frankly I don't care which format a movie is released on, as long as the picture and audio quality is top notch I'll buy it!
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This was predictable from the time the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD lobby split, its just taken a while for someone to come up with the hardware. Warner Bros said all along that they were suporting both camps so there is a possiblity of dual format discs.
The aftershocks of the VHS-Betamax, CD-Minidisc, CDR+, CDR- etc always meant that in the way that CDR combined the units so that any hardware you get now is multiformat the same would happen for Blu-Ray/HD-DVD.
When you had the different film studios lining up with exclusives on one format consumers would either have to choice not to buy soem of their favorites, buy into both formats or, get a multiformat player and pick and choose what they want to watch. If the price is comparable to a single format these will fly off the shelves as it means i can get one and not worrry about backing the wrong horse.
The aftershocks of the VHS-Betamax, CD-Minidisc, CDR+, CDR- etc always meant that in the way that CDR combined the units so that any hardware you get now is multiformat the same would happen for Blu-Ray/HD-DVD.
When you had the different film studios lining up with exclusives on one format consumers would either have to choice not to buy soem of their favorites, buy into both formats or, get a multiformat player and pick and choose what they want to watch. If the price is comparable to a single format these will fly off the shelves as it means i can get one and not worrry about backing the wrong horse.
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The only problem being that releasing dual format players could cause a repeat situation of the SACD DVD/A debacle.
Where distribution company's refuse to release on both formats due to the extra costs involved & end up not bothering to support either format & it remains a niche market.
People really need to get behind one format in this war to enable 1 winner to emerge. This will work out best for the consumers in the long run. I just wish the powers that be could have agreed on 1 format from the off to have avoided all this. However SONY seem to like trying to push their own proprietary formats on us.
I think HD-DVD has a good chance of emerging victorious. What will help is having some big budget titles & New Line is signed up to release films on HD-DVD so the LOTR Trilogy may well help to swing it.
Where distribution company's refuse to release on both formats due to the extra costs involved & end up not bothering to support either format & it remains a niche market.
People really need to get behind one format in this war to enable 1 winner to emerge. This will work out best for the consumers in the long run. I just wish the powers that be could have agreed on 1 format from the off to have avoided all this. However SONY seem to like trying to push their own proprietary formats on us.
I think HD-DVD has a good chance of emerging victorious. What will help is having some big budget titles & New Line is signed up to release films on HD-DVD so the LOTR Trilogy may well help to swing it.
I think the Fact that; Disney, Viacom (Paramount), 20th Century Fox and obviously Sony Pictures, will help Blu-Ray some what!!..
I'm definatly gonna wait for one of these Combi-players TBH... I'm a bit of a Bly-Ray fanboy but I still want LOTR on true 720/1080i/p
I'm definatly gonna wait for one of these Combi-players TBH... I'm a bit of a Bly-Ray fanboy but I still want LOTR on true 720/1080i/p
YooEntSinMeROYT said:
Just like VHS was propreitary when it was released, not to mention laserdisc a lot later dcc, any many more
I guess at this stage of ANY format its propreitary - and seeing as everyone has benefited in one way or another from CD ( a Sony / Phillips collaboration) ..... surely the competition and innovation that Sony and other electronic companies do is why we have such things to be interested about in the first place
Maybe you want to go back to your atari 2000 games machine with pong and tennis?
You do realise that Sony were one of the first companies to actually put upscaling into their tv's before pixelplus and other later developments - not to mention generally pushing the industry forward to the benefit of the customer - to **** them off willy nilly is rather mindless imho
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FrankJH said:
I'm not slagging them off "willy nilly" as you so succinctly put it. SONY have always been renowned for the quality of their displays. However CD is one of their few real successes (along with their foray into the games console sector).
History speaks for itself as far as SONY is concerned with failed proprietary formats.
Such as: Betamax, Minidisc, ATRAC, SACD, UMD, Memory Stick (in all it's guises)
You think they would have learned from being burnt in the past & would have done their utmost to agree on a single Hi-Def format in order to better their chances of success. Yet here they go again picking a fight with yet another format in Blu-Ray that could end up going the same way as the other formats above.
What's more they are forcing the format on gamers in the shape of the PS3 in order to try & make it a success. Thus inflating the price of the console unnecessarily.
With their recent debacle of their faulty laptop batteries & the money it cost them to rectify, taking such a risk on another format war could cost them dear.
Nothing wrong with the Atari 2000 console. It's gameplay that counts right? & you still can't beat Defender on that classic console. For all the bells & whistles of the latest consoles & PC games, gameplay seems to be taking a back seat. However that's going OT so I digress.
I fully agree here....YooEntSinMeROYT said:
Having two formats is so wrong.....Just causes so much problems like DVD-R- & DVD-R+...
It ok for people like us that are reading up about it on the internet everyday...
But for your average person who just wants to go into a shop and buy a HD TV and HD DVD player to go into a shop and be told "Would you like a blu-ray or a HD-player sir/madam" I think most average people would be very
Just try asking your parents which player they would buy out of a blu-ray or a HD-DVD player as a test...
With regard there being two formats.
From what I remember of reading about the development of BlueRay, was that it was very nearly agreed with all groups, then Toshiba and co decided not to play ball and developed HD-DVD. So why blame Sony, when it was clearly and obviously Tosh who created the mess we're now all in?
Ref the LG, initial rumours are a price of £900.
What I'm a little confused about is the movie house issue about using more than one format. If the films are always cut to VC1, it'll happily fit on both disks and be decoded by both sets of hardware. After all, when we're talking about BD vs HD-DVD, the only real difference on the medium is the amount of storage space. The manufacturers aren't looking at using vastly different codecs, unlike SACD vs DVD-A.
From what I remember of reading about the development of BlueRay, was that it was very nearly agreed with all groups, then Toshiba and co decided not to play ball and developed HD-DVD. So why blame Sony, when it was clearly and obviously Tosh who created the mess we're now all in?
Ref the LG, initial rumours are a price of £900.
What I'm a little confused about is the movie house issue about using more than one format. If the films are always cut to VC1, it'll happily fit on both disks and be decoded by both sets of hardware. After all, when we're talking about BD vs HD-DVD, the only real difference on the medium is the amount of storage space. The manufacturers aren't looking at using vastly different codecs, unlike SACD vs DVD-A.
YooEntSinMeROYT said:
Actually Betamax wasnt a failure - ask any journalist or broadcaster at the time and it was a huge success (admittedly not in the scale Sony would have liked) but seeing as nearly every broadcaster actually used professional betamax equipment for a decade or more , I wouldnt really call that a "failure"
Minidisc and ATRAC are really one in the same (as ATRAC was developed for minidisc you cant really split them imho
At this moment in time you are knocking SACD which was an advanced version of a system out for ten years+ yet argueing for exactly the same thing on the DVD front? IF HD-DVD is such a good thing at this point (its still propreitary until its a "success" ) then you cant blame Sony for trying to extend SACD the way they did - they are an identical development extension!!!
I fully admit UMD died a painful death from being too expensive (for movies at least) and probably not having enough storage space just at the time usb sticks etc were growing past that 1.7Gb capacity. I still think that the PSP is a great format and for what you are getting its a fabulous system, but its a pity that UMD was bundled with it - thinking about it though what removable memory storage could have been used - anythign to fit in the PSP would have to have been proprietary from the sheer size anyway (even mini cd - which in effect UMD was). I would have loved to have seen a umd recorder though on the market
I would also say that memorystick isnt a failure either as its got various applications from camera's (still and video) and mp3 players on the market with readers being built into tv's and video systems and digital picture frames with current 2006 / 2007 products and in use by other companies not just Sony , why is this a failure?
I dont agree they are forcing it on gamers - you dont HAVE to buy a ps3 at all. My choice is that I will and Im happy that blu-ray is included , I dont want a games console that has added boxes here and there to get full functionality - I want one price tag and get the whole lot in one , no "hidden" charges to get wireless, or hi-def movies or wireless controllers and you get a decent hdd size aswell
Hold on - yes the laptop batteries where a debacle but are you now expecting Sony to look into the future and into another part of the massive corporation (as Playstation part is a completely different entity to the Laptop manufacturer) but PS3 had already been released by the time this happened so been in development 4 years or so!!!!
Nothing wrong with the Atari, but I still would prefer the PS2 (which had numerous fabulous games WITH gameplay and good graphics) and given time the PS3 will improve on that
BTW Sony have been reknowned for a lot more than just their displays for longer than I care to remember, from cameras, laptops, hifi equipment , dvd players and packages to name just a few - their whole culture is about invention and miniturisation (the Walkman, withouth which we may never have had the mp3 player)
Everyone remembers the failures and doesnt give credit for the successes.
chaparral said:I fully agree here....
Having two formats is so wrong.....Just causes so much problems like DVD-R- & DVD-R+...
It ok for people like us that are reading up about it on the internet everyday...
But for your average person who just wants to go into a shop and buy a HD TV and HD DVD player to go into a shop and be told "Would you like a blu-ray or a HD-player sir/madam" I think most average people would be very
Just try asking your parents which player they would buy out of a blu-ray or a HD-DVD player as a test...
" The one that is the best quality, capacity (a lot HATE multi disc films) and wont need reinventing in ten or so years time" was the answer I got over Christmas to that very question - all from people my age (30's) to their sixties.
The quality is roughly the same - (but with added storage capacity there is more growth potential in the future for blu-ray if a better sound or higher res displays come out ) , which also answers part two, - everyone however agreed that ten years was the minimum a format should be around for as none around the table at the time could envisage what would happen and be capable in 2020 (to pick a round number)
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