The talks over the merger of the two formats of the new high definition DVD’s failed a little while back between the main parties Sony and Toshiba. Sony is running with BluRay DVD and Toshiba with HD-DVD. According to IMDB Toshiba blame Sony:
A spokesman for Toshiba has accused Sony of taking an intransigent position on high-definition DVDs…Mark Knox told Red Herring magazine on Friday, “The picture has been painted that Sony is open to discussions and it’s Toshiba that’s shutting the door. … It is Sony that is not willing to negotiate evenly.” Toshiba heads a group of manufacturers and studios favoring the HD-DVD standard, while Sony heads a larger group favoring the Blu-ray system. “Blu-ray said they won’t compromise on the disc structure,” said Knox. “In effect they are saying ‘my way or the highway’ and that is not the way to come to a compromise.”
Worth noting that the group on the side of Blu-Ray is quite a large group indeed, and with Sony implanting the technology in every Playstation 3, they may be the clear winner. However, does it mean that they should be taking a Microsoft style position like this, or have they gained enough ground to say “tough luck” to Toshiba?
We don’t have EXACT specs on what the players are going to do, BUT I believe the early word is that HD content is ONLY going to be available via HDMI and that SD content will be outputted thru the Video out and Component jacks. This is for DRM reasons.
I believe that there is a good chacne that the killer app may be cramming huge amounts of SD content onto a Blurry or HDDVD disc. With 40GB or so to work with (and potentially more as i believe an early spec on Blurray said potentially 8layers), that’s an entire season of XFILES.
The First BluRAY internal burner is out (or at least out in publication) in the far east; i think it’s a pioneer.
In any case, I’m normally an early adopter, but i’m sitting this one out. And i think that most US consumers are going to also.
-goro-
I still don’t think that’s going to stop it taking off. I remember buying my DVD Player when they were trickling out, the ground was thin with them and it cost me √Ǭ£800. I didn’t have the equipment then to see it’s quality (did soon after though) and it didn’t stop me.
I also know plenty of people who watch DVD on a small style TV in stereo right now. I mean we’re talking sizes of 13 inches to 22 inches and they aren’t widescreen (that’s the TV not the people). You can’t say that’s taking advantage of DVD right now, yet people use them.
Personally I can’t stand that, but people do it. It’ll be the same with the new technology.
The other thing we have to remember is that the Studios will release only on the new technology. They have stated they will do so and convert all the back catalogue. We will have no choice.
I know what yo’re saying and I agree that it’s just as much about quantity as it is about quality. Quantity – becuase HD disks (be they BluRay or HD-DVD) can fit significatly more information that standard DVD’s. Quality – because of the quantity of information stored, 720p or 1080i (or p) quality movies can then be stored on the disks.
The only problem is you will need a “HD Ready” set to properly appreciate the higher resolution that they can offer.
My main point is that the vast majority of consumers, don’t have “HD Ready” displays and won’t have them for some time. Also, most people are perfectly happy with the quality of DVD… Therefore at present, I don’t see either format taking off very quickly. Maybe 5 years down the line this will be different, but at present only a very small minority that care at all about HD-DVD and BluRay.
Just because the two formats of DVD are higher density than the current DVD formats and one uses the letters HD in the title does not mean you need a HDTV to view them on.
The quality upgrade will be noticed on a lot of current mid and upper range TV’s.
However that’s not the bonus that is being brought with these new technologies, it’s not quality, it’s quantity. The amount of information that can be stored on one disc has radically increased.
The DVD isn’t any higher in quality, just means it stores a hell of a lot more and needs a new player to use it.
I agree with Lee, on top of the fact that few people have hd-ready TV’s, the average consumer can easily be confused between what kind of HDTV they want: plasma, lcd, projection, crt. Then pile this on top of convincing the average consumer they actually need to switch to the next format when most are fine with the picture quality of DVDs. A good number still can’t understand the differences and advantages between widescreen and fullscreen. The people who read this site are probably at least casually aware of all the aforementioned issues, but man, I’ve had to explain the wide vs full argument to so many people already, and a lot they’re still left scratching their heads.
I have been keeping a close eye on this “format war” for a little while now.
My honest conclusion is that the consumer is not ready for HD DVD of either kind as of now. DVD’s have only just established themselves above VHS and your average consumer will have only just replaced their collection of VHS copies of their favourite films with DVD’s. It’s unlikely that they will be willing to spend out yet more on HD DVD copies.
There is also the fact that only a small percentage (in Europe at least – not so sure about the States) of people own HD capable TV’s. I myself own a HD Philips plasma, but only via component (not HDMI) so I’m not fully prepared for the HD era and I’m sure that I’m not the only one who is reluctant to spend further money to replace this to obtain a “HD Ready” set.
Playstation 3will probably help with the introduction of Blu ray disk, but I still do not believe that SD DVD will be replaced for a long time to come.