HD DVD May Finally Be Dead... Only Three Years Too Late
from the still-time-to-salvage? dept
A few weeks ago, when we noted that it really looked like HD DVD might finally be done for, we were surprised to see the number of folks in the comments insisting that we were crazy, and HD DVD had a long future ahead of it. Well, it appears that future has been cut short. In the past week, Netflix, Best Buy and Wal-Mart all said they would sell exclusively Blu-ray players and discs going forward, squeezing out whatever last minute hope there was of rescuing HD DVD. Now reports are finally coming out that Toshiba has come to terms with the inevitable and will officially kill off HD DVD in the next week or so. The thing is, this is really three years too late. There were three years where a next generation DVD standard had an open market to dominate. Yet, in those three years, the ability to deliver videos online has grown tremendously, meaning that there's even less of a reason today to upgrade than in the past. No, internet delivery of movie content isn't ideal yet. It's still much easier to use a disc -- but the gap has closed quite a bit and it's only going to get narrower -- until internet delivery systems surpass any kind of disc-based system. It's a classic "innovator's dilemma" where internet delivery mechanisms are getting better at a rate much faster than next generation DVD systems. Those three years of fighting over standards is going to come back and bite everyone who spent all this time fighting over a standard only to miss the larger picture.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: blu-ray, dvds, hd-dvd
Companies: best buy, netflix, toshiba, wal-mart
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Amnesia?
When Sony introduced the record button on tape players, it created an issue with adoption with then-popular 8-track.
It happened with the advent of BetaMax, JVC pushed an inferior product with lower royalties to market. (There's a reason why pros in the industry still stand behind formats that have come from the original- BetaCam, BetaCamSP, DigiBeta..) Beta isn't dead, it's used hourly to bring you content. I guarantee if you mutter JVC, VHS, or S-VHS in the presence of true professionals, to this day, they will turn their back on you.
So we saw this again when DVD and content-backed DIVX went to market about a decade ago. Circuit City had invested heavily into the product, and some analysts may say that it nearly bankrupted the company, and that the company hasn't fully recovered from the PR and damage to their brand image.
Then there was MiniDisc, the DVD Recorder, XM Radio.
So it's great to see Sony making it's way back at the helm again.
I read something about Apple possibly buying Sony.
My advice: Go for it.
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Re: Amnesia?
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Re: Amnesia?
Don't assume that a loss for Toshiba/HD-DVD is a win for Sony/Blu-ray. Consumers aren't waiting in line to buy either product (especially with a recession looming). This could still turn out to be like the format battle between Super Audio CD and DVD Audio; a battle that nobody wins because the existing standard is good enough for most consumers.
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Re: Re: Amnesia?
Maybe, but remember, that the real company to woo is Samsung. They've long said that their aspirations are to "Be The Next Sony". When Samsung announced last year that they would support the BluRay standard, it should have been apparent that it was over for HD-DVD.
Then they played the middle field and came to market with a hybrid. DVD really only became mainstream when Samsung came to market with a low-cost player.
Toshiba at its core is a chip manufacturer, who wants to proliferate the standard through creation of design specs. When DVD came about, remember it was a JV between Sony/Toshiba.
I imagine Toshiba learned some things from Denon and went to market with the SD-1001, or whatever the devil they call the first generation DVD player is. I own one, and had to pack it away when I got a Samsung DVD-N501. I was sad to see it go away. I also have a Toshiba SD-5something which I use because it has HDMI.
My baby, however is the Harman Kardon DVD-27 which has depreciated faster than a lead balloon because it doesn't have HDMI... What a great piece of machinery. I'm eyeballing the DVD-47...
So sometimes I feel like I'm talking to myself. Anyone need a Director of Differentiating Strategy?
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Blueray has plenty of time.
But I don't have a DVD player, so it doesn't really matter to me. While DVD was a vast improvement in usability over VHS, Blueray is really just an improvement in quality -- and even that jump isn't nearly as big as the quality jump from VHS to DVD.
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Playstation
I can look at the bright side anyways... At least HD DVD's will go down in price and I can get them dirt cheep before they completely phase out and you can no longer get them...
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I dunno
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Re: I dunno
I think the fear is that instead of dropping the bottom-price for low-usage customers, they will just bump high-users right into the highest tier.
I personally don't have any trouble with the idea of pay-for-use (like my water and electricity and if I want pay-per-view movies), but without any real competition in most areas, regular market forces can't work properly, and I DO fear that.
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Re: Re: I dunno
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how much did it take?
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Re: how much did it take?
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Re: how much did it take?
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Re: Re: how much did it take?
DRM in BlueRay in the form of BD+ with REVOCATION ability is going to end up screwing people...mark my words.
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Re: Re: how much did it take?
DRM in BlueRay in the form of BD+ with REVOCATION ability is going to end up screwing people...mark my words.
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Re: Re: how much did it take?
DRM in BlueRay in the form of BD+ with REVOCATION ability is going to end up screwing people...mark my words.
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Re: Re: how much did it take?
DRM in BlueRay in the form of BD+ with REVOCATION ability is going to end up screwing people...mark my words.
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Re: Re: how much did it take?
DRM in BlueRay in the form of BD+ with REVOCATION ability is going to end up screwing people...mark my words.
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Re: how much did it take?
I don't think we'll see the day where 1080p in 6.1 comes streaming over the net anytime soon. I have tried netflix's streaming video service, and I use my TV as a monitor (so same screen/sound as the blu-ray player). Three words: NOT EVEN CLOSE.
The online version sounds horrible, looks horrible, and well, is just horrible compared to blu-ray. Maybe on a 15" laptop monitor it would be acceptable, but on a big screen, forget about it!
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Copy lockout again?
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It's All About The DRM
It is this DRM ability of KEY revocation that had the movie companies get on board.
Walmart Just got on board at the end because they see no future for HD DVD.
I will never buy a blue ray machine or disk, for two reasons Sony root kits and Sony root kit corporate arrogance.
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Re: It's All About The DRM
It is this DRM ability of KEY revocation that had the movie companies get on board.
Nope. Both formats have that capability.
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Best Buy has not gone Blu-Ray exclusive. They are simply going to push Blu-Ray as the preferred format for hi-def DVD.
From their press release:
"The company noted that it will continue to carry an assortment of HD-DVD products for customers who desire to purchase these products."
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My Way or NO way
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Re: My Way or NO way
If they let a '3rd party' or a standards committee come up with it, it would still be in the public comment phase and everyone would be arguing about it.
I highly doubt we would be any further ahead.
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Less Reliability
Further, the implementation of these DRM technologies appear to give the content providers the ability to purposely obsolete your equipment at will. Planned obsolescence.
To apply a Murphism, as these anti-piracy measures become more complicated, it will become increasingly more difficult to have a DVD device that will work with every DVD in a reliable manner.
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The real victor is...
Neither Sony nor Microsoft's machines can play each other's proprietary disk formats, but both do a fine job of playing DivX files. The business of buying movies on disk is officially irrelevant.
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For those that think the jump from DVD to HD-DVD/BlueRay is LESS than the jump from VHS to DVD, you need to do your homework. The resolution change is far greater. The capacity is greater. The menuing system is much better - well BlueRay will eventually catch up to HD-DVD now that it "won".
So what did consumers win? A format that is DRM'd to the gills which will inevitably mean crappy experince and has already been hacked. Region coding is back, HD-DVD didn't have it. A shifting standard 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 with no forward compatibility and no 2.0 players out but the PS3. A format owned by a company known for it's high prices. Ya, sounds like a win for consumers.
I have read that Sony paid upwards of $1 billion in total payola to various studios to get them on board.
And yet MS got slammed for it's $150 million payola.. funny.
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Re:
Just as a thought though, as for the format being DRM'd, at least you actually own the disc. I'd be more worried about DRM on a downloaded movie.
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Blu-Ray - not just for movies
People will still want and need to burn plenty of movies and other data to storage. Blu-Ray writers will be cheap and available in the near future.
Blu-Ray is a huge, 10-fold, improvement over regular DVD, and will only get better with multi-layer and such (until holographic is available).
Blu-Ray won the contest for two reasons - because it had more storage and because it had a much cooler name.
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Owning the Mdia vs Streaming
With physical ownership, it's you & your equipment, with streaming media as the method of content delivery an ISP is introduced into the loop along with whatever company or companys are delivering the product, then there's possibly an OS to consider, the MPAA/RIAA, entertainment tax....
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Maybe I missed your point Mike...
But I guess what I didn't understand is why you think Toshiba and the HD-DVD crowd should have rolled over right out of the gate to Sony and Blue-ray? Sure I understand that one single format would have solidified the delivery medium for HD quality movies, but I guess I don't see why you assume that it should have been Toshiba and not Sony that gave up the race.
In a lot of regards the HD-DVD format from a technical and market position had some advantages to it. While it lacked the total storage space of Blue-ray, it did however support more high end audio setups ( which to me is part of why you buy a premium video format ) and more importantly it provided disc players at a price that the average consumer could more easily cope with. The cheapest Blue-ray player is to no ones surprise the Sony Playstation 3.
It seemed to me that Toshiba focused its dollars on getting affordable players to the consumer, while Sony focused its dollars on contracts with studios and incentives to retailers. I realize that's just capitalism, but for someone who normally plays the part of "defender of the consumer" I was a bit surprised to see you beating the dead horse of HD-DVD.
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Re: Maybe I missed your point Mike...
Reports of Blu-Ray disc association offering money to the studios that chose to switch to that format were debunked.
There were no payoffs it was all rumors. The studios backed it primarily due to the larger storage capacity, leaving room for more features in the future.
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Re: Re: Maybe I missed your point Mike...
The issue of larger capacity has been quite hased out on many sites. The jist of it is, HD-DVD used more recent higher quality and better compressing codec's and so had more than enough space for extras and features. BlueRay used alot of MPEG2 and so NEEDED that extra storage space, and still didn't put a lot of extras out there compared to HD-DVD. Web enabled content? Oh, ya... coming....some day for BlueRay...
The deciding factor other than the payola which isn't called that of course, is the fear of piracy and the BD+ BlueRay offers. Natrually that's been hacked and is pretty useless, but since when has that mattered to big companies who are always 10 pages back asking what book they were reading again.... (and lets not forget region coding too, I'm sure stuidos love that)
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Re: Re: Maybe I missed your point Mike...
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Okay, now let's get down to business
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Most attractive entertainment media
Kind of disappointing that the /. crowd is responding to this matter like Tim Taylor in a Star Wars t-shirt.
Until the battle to determine who will own the DRM-laden media that promises to let me count the hairs on Will Farrell's flabby body is fought to the death of the last media conglomerate lawyer, the real winning format, for me, is going to be....books.
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Re: Most attractive entertainment media
I know for the moment this technology is not for everyone, but as prices go down these will find their way into more and more homes.
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Re: Re: Most attractive entertainment media
What Mr. Troll may not realise is that some TVs out there won't play 1080p properly. Just because it says 1080 on the box doesn't mean crap. Look at the manual. There are TVs out there that say "Native resolution 1280x720". How is that TV to do 1080? Isn't 720 just an up-scaled DVD? How is the common person to know this?
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rootkits for everyone
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Fault
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And if you have a 1080p tv of a decent size, play a DVD and blu-ray on it and you will see there is a diference. Agreed it's not for everyone right now but when people get 1080p hdtv's they will want movies that can output 1080p.
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And if you have a 1080p tv of a decent size, play a DVD and blu-ray on it and you will see there is a diference. Agreed it's not for everyone right now but when people get 1080p hdtv's they will want movies that can output 1080p.
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And if you have a 1080p tv of a decent size, play a DVD and blu-ray on it and you will see there is a diference. Agreed it's not for everyone right now but when people get 1080p hdtv's they will want movies that can output 1080p.
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And if you have a 1080p tv of a decent size, play a DVD and blu-ray on it and you will see there is a diference. Agreed it's not for everyone right now but when people get 1080p hdtv's they will want movies that can output 1080p.
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DRM
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And it's been known for a long time that Universal got $150 million to go HD-DVD exclusive, but this was back when the format war began.
Neither side bribed anyone to change sides. Universal stuck with HD-DVD till it tanked so they wouldnt have to repay the $150 million. On another note Universal just announced they will begin making Blu-Ray as quick as possible following Toshiba's announcement this morning that they have abandoned HD-DVD
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