Format Wars: Viva la Spin

June 27, 2006

Blu-rayYou know, the whole format war thing is a boon for tech writers; Anne Rice couldn’t invent this kind of fiction. I have to say as unfortunate as the whole sorted mess is, it sure makes for great post fodder.

For example, just one week after Sony delays their Blu-ray player (Until Late October), and on the very same day stories like ‘Fox announces their Blu-ray titles wont appear until the 4th quarter of this year’ and ‘Blu-ray player sales off to a slow start’ appear.

Sony’s (CEO) Howard Stringer announces ‘The Pendulum is swinging towards Blu-ray’

Really? I think they need to re-calibrate that pendulum. Stringer seems to have the benefit of a crystal ball here; I wonder if he’ll let me borrow it, I could really use it at the race track.

One quote from Mr. Stringer in particular, really caught my attention. Addressing a group of reporters in Tokyo, Stringer stated:

“when you bring in new technology, do you go for cheaper, transitional [technology] or do you take a chance on future-proof, high technology that will keep you going for many, many years to come?”

Uh hmm, take a chance on new future-proof technology versus cheaper transitional technology, is this a trick question?

The keyword here is transitional; we all know that neither of these formats are final in any sense of the word. The whole term ‘future-proof’ is a bit of an insult in my opinion, and at the very least a bit disingenuous.

Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD will eventually be surpassed by some form of hard-drive storage or higher storage optical medium. Oh yeah, we’re in for an interesting year ahead.



Posted by B.Greenway | | Filed Under Blu-ray


Comments

  • B.Greenway
    Greg, thanks for that, not bad at all.
  • Greg Pecknold
    Thought you might like to see this comparison video of the difference between DVD and HD DVD.

    It's on You Tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S5CZpNd904
  • Paul_A/V
    "Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD will eventually be surpassed by some form of hard-drive storage or higher storage optical medium."

    I agree. In 5 years holographic storage will be a viable consumer product that can support lossless VIDEO and audio compression.

    Hitachi is already investing in this technology.
  • westcott
    I think we are missing another piece to this puzzle and that is the failure to release any real Blockbusters by either camp. Not only a failure to release them, but to discuss why or when! I am confident there are several people like me who do not want to invest in either technology, no matter what the video capacity or video quality superiority, until we can all be assured that we can get all our favorite titles for our HD player, no matter the player.

    My own theory is that until ICT tokens are enforced via HDCP compliant connections, we will not see any movie titles of any monetary significance to the studios. This possible explanation for the lack of noteworthy title releases hurts both the consumers and the launch of these two technologies. I do not know too many people that rushed out to get an HD player to watch Charlies Angels!

    I think many more of us would be tempted to buy a US$500 HD player if I could get the LOTR HD collection or any other personal favorite to go with it.

    Trying to completly safeguard content is a senseless waste of money by the mfgs and the studios and is only hampering the adoption of new technologies.
  • Ben Hobbs
    Wonder how long it is until one of the big hollywood movie firms bang a satellite into orbit, we can't be that far away from the technology to have any movie we want beamed to us from outer space.

    I still dont think VOD or streaming is an option for the near future, people tend to watch movies as an instant gratifaction rather than planning what they want to watch tommorow night. Also the speeds needed to do this are still practically out of our reach, especially if all of a sudden everyon in your state was downloading movies overnight.

    Movies on USB Flash drives with movie's stored on them would be a good one, I mean there probably isn't a computer, portable media player or other viewing device which can't interact with USB.
  • B.Greenway
    Possibly Kevin, but I wasn’t so much thinking of physical delivery as much as VOD or downloaded content.
  • Kevin
    Good point - HDD prices have dropped to $0.33 - $0.50 per GB recently. Maybe I could get my movie delivered to me on a 50GB hard drive that I plugged into the USB port on an HTPC. Hmmm...
  • PhillyRampage
    FYI, They've been throwing around that word to describe PS3 also.
  • Kevin
    Good point - HDD prices have dropped to $0.33 - $0.50 per GB recently. Maybe I could get my movie delivered to me on a 50GB hard drive that I plugged into the USB port on an HTPC. Hmmm...
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