“The war over the next-generation DVD standard is playing out full force at a sprawling electronics exhibition opening near Tokyo on Tuesday with Japanese electronics companies on both sides expressing confidence for victory,” Yuri Kageyama reports for The Associated Press. “The CEATEC 2005 exhibition in Chiba, Japan, is opening as the battle escalated a notch after Paramount Pictures, which had previously supported the HD DVD backed by Toshiba, became the first major movie studio to support both rival formats. Matsushita Electric Industrial, which backs Blu-ray Disc, the other technology, is openly gloating. ‘The format war is coming to a close,’ says Matsushita Executive Officer Kazuhiro Tsuga, adding that he is hopeful other Hollywood studios will follow suit. ‘That’s our current scenario.'”
“Until Paramount’s decision, the six major studios had been evenly split between HD DVD and Blu-ray, also backed by Sony… Analysts say it’s way too early to say which side has the advantage in the format wars. ‘There is no decisive lead for either side,’ says Koya Tabata, consumer electronics analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston in Tokyo. Not everyone is going to rush out to buy next-generation DVD products, and the situation is changing every day, although Paramount’s decision seems to be putting Blu-ray slightly ahead, at least for the moment, Tabata says. Complicating the issue is that the consortium backing HD DVD includes chipmaker Intel and software giant Microsoft, but PC makers such as Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard and Dell are backing Blu-ray,” Kageyama reports.
Full article here.
Related articles:
Record set straight on Blu-ray Disc Association’s superior high definition format – September 29, 2005
Microsoft backs cheaper, less sophisticated, lower capacity HD DVD over Apple-backed Blu-ray format – September 27, 2005
Twentieth Century Fox joins Apple, Dell, HP, others to support Blu-ray Disc format – July 29, 2005
Poll shows Apple-backed Blu-ray preferred by consumers over HD DVD for next-gen DVD standard – July 14, 2005
Microsoft allies with Toshiba on HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray Disc backers Apple and Sony – June 27, 2005
Apple joins Blu-ray Disc Association Board of Directors – March 10, 2005
It’s all about VC-1 for Microsoft. It’ll back whatever format includes their codec. This has ramifications beyond disc formats. It includes what MSOs will use beyond MPEG-2 for compression to their STBs, too.
It is fun seeing HP & Dell on opposite sides of an issue from Intel and MS. More fun is seeing Dell & Apple on the same side.
I find it funny that all these PC hardware manufacturers are supporting blu-ray, yet the operating system that they run will support HD-DVD. Talk about a conflict of interest!
I’m o.k. with either format if they can bring the cost of DVDs down. Oh yes, and as long as no one decides to try to bring back “smell-o-vision” either (a scene from Blazing Saddles and one from The Shawshank Redemption come to mind).
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HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray is a war that will not be won by any computer industry.
Which ever format the Porn industry decides on will win. Simple as that. So unless Blu-ray gets in line on cost HD-DVD has already won. Time will tell what the porn industry will do. But since I don’t watch I don’t really care as long as my superdrive will work I don’t care.
to apaterso:
What are you smoking?
Porn has no dictation of where the technology goes… It’s a billion dollar business, but has no say. They’ll follow with whatevers in at the time.
Nice1, but I think the computer industry does hold a lot of clout here. I mean, I bet there are almost as many computers as their are dvd players out there, and computers will lead the charge here. If computers have blu-ray first, then why shouldn’t blu-ray players for television follow suit?
Perhaps if Dell and HP want Blu-ray support in their machines, they will have to choose another OS than MS Vista.
maybe Jobs would cave in and license OSX to them and Apple will move further into the Entertainment arena and start a music label.
It’s all about porn. The porn industry will determine who the winner is.
MW: “looked” as in I looked up and saw some Hi-Def punanny on my screen.
Like it or not the porn industry had a lot to do with VHS “beating” Beta. Circumstances are different now in that mainstream movies are widely distributed by DVD whereas when porn picked VHS we didn’t have Blockbuster. But, porn might be slow to adopt new DVD standards if it doesn’t help their “bottom” line.
apaterso & JJ-
apaterso has a valid point.
The porn industry has, in fact, been an early adopter and leader in many technological adoptions.
Look at the history:
– The Internet companies that had porn were some of the first to be profitable. In addition, it is quite a cottage industry for smaller content players.
– Laserdiscs & DVDs: yup… porn was a pioneer for this media.
– Pay-per-view programming: the giggest hotel chains and cable companies both can claim that adult entertainment count for the lion’s share of revenue.
We may not be proud of it… but there is a great deal of validitity to the arguement.
“the giggest hotel chains”
should read “the biggest hotel chains”
Sorry.
Though I agree the porn argument is definitely a factor I think backwards compatibility may be even more of a factor. Back in the Beta/VHS wars that wasn’t an issue as they was no legacy products i.e. video tape
People have their DVD collections and they’ve spent a lot of money on them. No one’s going to want their whole Simpsons or Sopranos or whatever collection to become obsolete.
From what I understand that’s the real problem with BluRay. The machines won’t be able to play old DVDs. If they can get around that, then BluRay is the obvious choice. If not…
One point should be made about Microsoft’s “support” of HD-DVD. So far that “support” consists of them making a statement along the lines of “HD-DVD all the way! That’s the format we like!” There’s no action behind the words. They’re not even including HD-DVD in the XBox360, at least not at first.
Microsoft’s HD-DVD “support” is little more than a no-risk political play.
To me. it was obvious that Apple would adopt Blu-Ray because Apple has had a past of forcing it customer base to buy new computers by forcing new technology. If the industry goes Blu-ray, your superdrive WILL NOT Work and you will have to buy a new G6 or whatever. HD DVD works with DVD players now, and you don’t have to build whole new factories to manufacture them.
HD DVD is cheaper, has about the same storage space, and requires relatively little modification to existing manufacturing processes.
Check your facts Wil, HD DVD doesn’t hold as much info as Blu-ray
BluRay players will be backwards compatible with old DVDs though, and that’s where the issue is. After all, did anyone care that their CD-ROMs couldn’t take DVDs?
30 GB compared to 50 GB. I stand corrected.
Peter J says:
“Though I agree the porn argument is definitely a factor I think backwards compatibility may be even more of a factor. Back in the Beta/VHS wars that wasn’t an issue … People have their DVD collections and they’ve spent a lot of money on them. No one’s going to want their whole … collection to become obsolete. … From what I understand that’s the real problem with BluRay. The machines won’t be able to play old DVDs. If they can get around that, then BluRay is the obvious choice. If not…”
No – BluRay machines will play DVDs just as easily as HD-DVD machines will. Both have to add a red laser to the box, since thet are both based on blue laser tech. There’s only 2 incompatibiity issues: First is in manufacturing – HD-DVD disks can be made on relatively unaltered DVD lines. Second is hybrid disks – HD-DVD has deomstrated pilot examples of manufacurable disks with a DVD layer, ensuring a pretty secure ‘future upgrade’ path for buyers. BluRay dual format disks are, on the other hand, still in the lab example stage.
The biggest weakness of ‘going BluRay’ is that the costs for converting the lines was going to be astronomical. This story says that BluRay has lowered the start up costs of actually making these disks, and I’ve seen other stories saying the same thing, but no one seems to be saying exactly how they managed that, or what the savings are. Until some hard numbers start getting out there, I have to wonder just how much of that bit of news – which would be huge for BluRay if true – is actually marketing damage control by their side.
Wil says:
“30 GB compared to 50 GB. I stand corrected.”
Actually, Peter J jumped the gun on that. Keeping in mind that there are pilot (i.e. manufacturable) versions of these disks, and lab (i.e. possible, but not yet cost effective) versions; The 15GB single layer and 30GB dual layer versions of HD-DVD are pilots. The 25GB single layer version of BluRay is pilot. The 50GB dual layer version of BluRay is lab. And HD-DVD has a triple layer 45GB version that is also lab.
The problem with getting this stuff up to pilot standard for BluRay appears to be with how much thinner the substrates are with their disks. It’s also why they needed to come up with a hardened ‘candy coating’ to keep them from getting scratched all to hell in mild usage conditions. HD-DVDs are made with the realtively hardier thicknesses found in the DVD spec (which is the main reason they are going to be cheaper to make).
Like I said above, I’d like to know how BluRay is reducing the costs of conversting these manufacturing lines, because their disks aren’t going to get magically thicker – they’d simply be HD-DVD disks then.
Anyone got a link?
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Vidcasting will emerge as the leader of the next technological shift. First, society views the Porn Vidcasts and Music Vidcasts and then all shall see the emergence of Church Vidcasts & Business Vidcasts. Vidcasting will revolutionize all industries!