New DVD format causes big battle

The great fight returns, remember VHS vs Betamax? What a mess that turned out ot be, Betamax being the superior format but falling by the wayside by aggresive marketing, cheaper production costs, etc.

Well here we are again with DVD. It seemed easy first time round when the DVD format was accepted, the various companies agreed the formats before it went to the studios and hit the general public, great, no wasted investment from the Studios or the Consumer, almost perfect.

Not so now. There are two rivals emerging for the next generation of DVD players and recorders, and this next generation is by no means a small step.

Current DVD systems use red laser light to access the DVD, and simply put, it has a wide beam when compared to blue lasers which have a much narrower beam providing around six times the capacity of the current DVD. This reason alone means that much more can be crammed onto a DVD now, but it does mean a change of hardware and the inevitable incompatibility.

The two current rivals are HD DVD and Blu-ray. HD DVD is from Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo whereas the Blu-ray systems come from primarily Sony.

Sony already has a huge deal cut, not only supplying it’s own catalogue but also supplying Dell, HP, Samsung, Philips and Matsushita (makers of Panasonic) as well as incorporating it in the next generation Playstation.

HD DVD, however, has signed up some major studios in the form of Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures. This looks more promising, yet it isn’t the decider. There are a further four major players who are yet to decide, Disney, Fox, DreamWorks and Lions Gate.

The stories from Yahoo and Reuters provide much insite around these decisions:

Warner’s announcement came as little surprise, since Time Warner holds some of the patents and copyrights behind the HD DVD format, along with Toshiba and others. In addition, the format was championed by former Warner Home Video president Warren Lieberfarb, now a consultant to Toshiba.

It’s widely believed that Par and U were seeking cash and other incentives from both groups and that at least one of the uncommitted studios is still holding out for a more lucrative incentive. Insiders suggested that more than one studio was offered as much as $30 million, but the three studios involved in the announcements Monday say they did not receive any cash incentives.

One studio exec suggested that his studio did, however, receive a break on royalty fees. And according to one player close to the negotiations, Par and U almost certainly won either financial consideration or a change in the technology to their liking in order to make an early commitment.

The undecided studios seem to be holding out to get the best out of the technology from both camps, and ensure that what they want out of the technology is in there.

“Fox and Disney don’t want to endorse a format until they have used up all of their political capital to influence it coming out the way they want,” observed Paul Kocher, prexy of content protection company Cryptography Research.

Sony has announced that when it does start producing the new DVDs, it will only produce for Blu-ray, likewise Universal announced that it has no plans to release on Blu-ray, but would concentrate on HD DVD.

The reasons for the early lead of HD DVD? Well that’s quite simple, according to Paramount they are less expensive to replicate.

Sony back this up but with a different spin:

“The difference is that we rely on a whole new manufacturing process, and the (licensing) standards are going to be much stricter in the beginning,” said Sony homevid prexy Ben Feingold. “You’re not going to have every replicator in the world selling pirated product out the back door.”

There we have another reason the studios are pushing this so fast, the new formats, especially Blu-ray, restrict the abilities of pirateers to continue their illegal trade.

Toshiba is ready to go, both they and Universal claim, with hardware and DVDs hitting the market by the fourth quarter next year. Sony has some ways to go looking at 2006.

Still, it doesn’t look like the killer for Blu-ray as if pirating is a major concern from the studios then Sony seems in with the better chance, and if the undecided studios are still wanting to influence development, a system delivered later would be more attractive to them.

So what does it mean to us? Well investment in new hardware and a restocking of the old DVD catalogue perhaps. The hardship of the new DVD equipment is that you will definitely need a digital television to take advantage of the new, higher definition DVD’s, because current definition on analogue TV’s is stunning. So a lot of investment is required. Would we be willing to do this while there’s still an ongoing battle? Not me, I’ll sit and wait until it’s decided which format everyone will stick with, just remember VHS and Betamax.

What about the DVD’s though, increased storage, better quality, what are the studios going to do with that? Not much it appears, the only discussions so far are about getting entire series on one DVD. Brilliant.

So, for this major investment required from me as a consumer, I’m not happy about the rivalry in Hollywood on which format to choose. I will not help them decide by purchasing a new TV and DVD player, and beginning to invest in a catalogue restock just to fund their fight.

No, I’ll wait, let them battle it out, find out the better system, and watch as the other dies. At that point I’ll by the winning system and hope that the prices have dropped from the, currently quoted, $1000 (USD) and that they’ve started to produce a decent catalogue with some titles worthy of being on this new format.