Has Sony dealt a decisive blow to HD DVD?

[Revvin 1]

Dell has started offering selected Inspiron laptops with Blu-Ray disks. Blu-Ray already seemed to have a headstart over HD DVD with some of the larger film companies getting onboard and Blockbuster in the US only stocking Blu-Ray rentals not to mention Sony's trojan horse - the PS3 to get Blu-Ray players into peoples homes and now Dell - a major player jumps into bed with them. It seems like Dell are drifting away from Microsoft a little as they now offer Linux as an OS option and now have chosen Blu-Ray over the Microsoft backed HD DVD format.

 

Link to Dell's Blu-Ray promotion

[FastCargo 412]

It ain't over til it's over...I'm not jumping on the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray thing until it no kidding settles out...or someone makes a drive that plays and writes to both, as well as older DVD tech.

 

FastCargo-HWG

[Revvin 1]

Well I've not even got a HDTV yet lol and I think the overall percentage of HDTV owners in the UK lags places like the US significantly which is why perhaps some of the next gen consoles were slow to take off. I'm sitting on the fence too at the moment but I found this news interesting that a large company like Dell has got behind one of the formats.

Edited November 1, 2007 by Revvin

[Longestpants 1]

FastCargo, you stated it perfectly.

 

By the way, that reminds me; does anyone know if Dell decided to bundle Firefox with its PCs?

Edited November 1, 2007 by Longestpants

[Bravo2009 2]

Pffft, Dell, who cares. Now if Sony backed Porn then we'd have serious competition. As I recall Sony has spurned the porn industry again while HD-DVD is embracing porn. LONG LIVE HI-DEF PORN!!!

[BUFF 8]

or someone makes a drive that plays and writes to both, as well as older DVD tech.

pretty certain that already exists although I'm not sure that it's actually in retail yet (it's coming from someone like Samsung iirc).

[+streakeagle 867]

If we have to pick between HD and Blu-ray, why would anyone pick HD over Blu-ray purely from a storage capacity perspective.

Blu-ray can store uncompressed 1080p movies.

The primary reason for me to buy a new video player is to watch 1080p movies on my 46" 1080p tv.

If this battle continues too much longer, a third-party format is going to come along and beat them both with comparable or better quality at a much lower price.

I am rooting for the third-parties... some of them are becoming available now.

 

I won't buy a thing until there is a winner or the prices are so low that I can afford all competing formats.

[Revvin 1]

LOL I doubt porn will have as big an impact as it did in the BETAMAX vs VHS battle as I would guess more porn is downloaded online these days.

[JediMaster 451]

I actually saw one old-time producer complaining the internet has made things WORSE for them, other than ease of ordering stuff online helping.

Basically, it's super-cheap to start your own site and make your own with low production values and the bigger-budgeted ones aren't making as much!

 

Poor guys...

[Revvin 1]

I actually saw one old-time producer complaining the internet has made things WORSE for them, other than ease of ordering stuff online helping.

Basically, it's super-cheap to start your own site and make your own with low production values and the bigger-budgeted ones aren't making as much!

 

Poor guys...

 

Well ike the music industry they got complacent and didn't embrace the internet like other forms of business, they've had it good for a long time so now they have to compete on merit

[+Fates 63]

It ain't over til it's over...I'm not jumping on the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray thing until it no kidding settles out...or someone makes a drive that plays and writes to both, as well as older DVD tech.

 

FastCargo-HWG

 

 

They do.

 

http://us.lge.com/superblu/?CMP=KNC-BluRay-G

[DWCAce 19]

Excellent find Fates! Now... I just need the price to drop by about $999 :)

[+Gunrunner 314]

So far, in terms of players sold the Blu-Ray is ahead of the game, mainly due to the PS3, in terms of movies sold, the HD-DVD is ahead by a short lead.

In terms of raw capacity and technical merits, the Blu-Ray is a clear winner, in terms of costs the HD-DVD still has the advantage, the quality for both is now equivalent if not identical with some encodings.

 

Sony has recently regretted not cooperating toward a unique standard seeing the competition as hurting both formats, especially the Blu-Ray.

 

In all, there is so little volume, either in players or movies sold, that the figures so far can't really serve to identify a winner of the format war.

The trouble is that as long as there is no clear winner, most people will hesitate before committing themselves to one format, and as long as people don't decide, there will be no clear winner.

If the situation persists they will have to decide on a joint format or risk offering all the profits to multi-standard players manufacturers (and licences are not as interesting financially as having the only winning HD format).

[Revvin 1]

Apple are also now making Macs with Blu-Ray drives in them, not that thats a shock that they would not choose the format backed partly by Microsoft :) But with Dell also building systems with Blu-Ray drives and now Warner Bros announcing they are now going to go Blu-Ray exclusive I don't see where HD DVD can gain any momentum to fight back. Warner Bros are Hollywoods biggest DVD seller and account for 18-20% of sales in the US according to this article at Reuters. This is the official announcement from Warner Bros:

 

"The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers,"

 

There were reports that Bill Gates was to announce something big relating to the 360 at CES and the popular rumour was it was going to be a 360 with a built in HD DVD drive dubbed by those speculating as the '360 Ultimate', perhaps they will be rethinking that now.

[MigBuster 2,884]

Quote "The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers,"

 

I like the bit about "Format confusion" in there - how could there possibly be any confusion with all these straight forward formats:

Bluray, HD-DVD, DVD-RAM, DVD-ROM, DVD+/-R, DVD+/-RW - then theres the great thing of being able to play the different CD formats in most DVD drives also :)

 

Most normal consumers probably wont even know what bluray and HD-DVD are yet - until they accidentally buy the wrong "type of DVD"

 

Its nice that the new formats can hold more in terms of GB to back up with but I am not gonna bother with either till one of the standards actually becomes established - the picture from my standard CRT TV and DVD player really is good enough.

Edited January 5, 2008 by CoolHand29

[column5 63]

The announcement by WB to support BD exclusively seals it for me. I think Sony is going to win this one. And I guess they deserve it...they have a long history of producing better formats that never become standards...Beta, MiniDisc, SACD...

[JediMaster 451]

That's usually because Sony keeps the format to themselves ie you want to play a Beta tape or MD you need a Sony player.

With BD they're not trying to keep it all to themselves and that's helping.

 

As for confusion, here's a story that illustrates it--I was online Saturday at BB holding the Panasonic BD player I was getting. The woman in line behind me sees the box and comments to her son, "Oh, the Bluray player is hi definition just like you said. It says it there on the box." The kid responds with typical pre-teen "I TOLD you! I TOLD you!" So, there are at least some people out there who grasp that HD DVD is "HD" but NOT that Bluray is.

[TX3RN0BILL 3]

That's usually because Sony keeps the format to themselves ie you want to play a Beta tape or MD you need a Sony player.

 

AFAIK there have been more brands that brought out MD players, and as far as Betacam goes, most of the betacam equipment my company works with is from Thompson, and we also have some Ampex Betacam readers, so it's not so closely-held to the chest as you might think... Nowadays, if a brand doesn't try to broaden it's technology through offers of other companies, I don't think it can succeed as expected commercially...