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You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > MacNN Lounge > Blu-ray/HD DVD... Who is winning?

View Poll Results: Which do you have? (Choose only ONE. Includes stand-alones and game consoles.)
Poll Options:
HD DVD 34 votes (17.09%)
Blu-ray 87 votes (43.72%)
Both 14 votes (7.04%)
Neither 70 votes (35.18%)
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 199. You may not vote on this poll
Blu-ray/HD DVD... Who is winning? (Page 143)
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sek929
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Feb 19, 2008, 06:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES View Post
Eug and GoMac's track recored of REALLY off predictions which has been outlined here.
K, NM, I thought you were talking about me.
     
sek929
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Feb 19, 2008, 06:35 PM
 
Also, if you are going to talk about bad press the 360 has a warehouse more of that than the PS3.
     
goMac
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Feb 19, 2008, 06:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES View Post
Eug and GoMac's track recored of REALLY off predictions which has been outlined here.
I said the 360 would have the highest marketshare, you said the PS3... the Wii has the highest marketshare, and somehow this puts you in a position to criticize?

You were the one who said the Wii wouldn't sell and it would be Nintendo's last console. Where do you get the idea that you're in a position to criticize me about the Wii's success? I was the one who said it would be successful....
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Feb 19, 2008, 06:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by jokell82 View Post
I'm getting ready to do that too, but I'm waiting for the next release of Handbrake that will support 5.1 audio on the new AppleTV.
Is that a fact or something you're hoping will be coming soon?
I was thinking of starting to rip my DVD collection using Handbrake, but I would wait if that's a confirmed feature in the next release.
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Eug
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Feb 19, 2008, 06:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES View Post
Eug and GoMac's track recored of REALLY off predictions which has been outlined here.
Well, which predictions? Feel free to outline them.

My main prediction that I remember that was totally off was my belief that a final HD DVD vs. Blu-ray winner wouldn't likely be apparent until 2009 or late 2008. I freely admit I'm wrong on that one. As for who would win, I've always said Blu-ray had the advantage (but I've preferred if HD DVD would win, because I think the technology as a whole is superior).

OTOH, I also predicted that the PS3 would not have awesome sales, because of its high price, and despite its "free" WiFi and Blu-ray. Last I checked that is completely true.

Originally Posted by cjrivera View Post
Is that a fact or something you're hoping will be coming soon?
I was thinking of starting to rip my DVD collection using Handbrake, but I would wait if that's a confirmed feature in the next release.
I had thought that was something that would not hit Handbrake for quite some time yet.

VisualHub will do it though apparently.
     
ort888
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Feb 19, 2008, 06:52 PM
 
The bottom line is that Sony traded places with Nintendo this generation. Now they get to enjoy fighting Microsoft for a distant second place while Nintendo drives off into the sunset.

Even if they sell more then the 360 next year, or even surpass them, all of their efforts to this point can only be seen as a complete and total failure. You just can't spin it into a positive for Sony.

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goMac
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Feb 19, 2008, 06:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by cjrivera View Post
Is that a fact or something you're hoping will be coming soon?
I was thinking of starting to rip my DVD collection using Handbrake, but I would wait if that's a confirmed feature in the next release.
Handbrake already does 5.1. I have "Big Trouble" ripping with 5.1 right now.

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Eug
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Feb 19, 2008, 06:55 PM
 
Originally Posted by ort888 View Post
The bottom line is that Sony traded places with Nintendo this generation. Now they get to enjoy fighting Microsoft for a distant second place while Nintendo drives off into the sunset.

Even if they sell more then the 360 next year, or even surpass them, all of their efforts to this point can only be seen as a complete and total failure. You just can't spin it into a positive for Sony.
I disagree. With the Blu-ray win, the PS3 will not be a completely and total failure. The sales should be decent, and may even beat the 360 on a monthly basis over the next year on average. It's just that they won't see the stellar comparative sales they saw with the PS2.


Originally Posted by goMac View Post
Handbrake already does 5.1. I have "Big Trouble" ripping with 5.1 right now.

OK, I'm now officially confused. When did this come out?

EDIT:

OK, it came out today. That's why I didn't know about it.
     
ort888
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Feb 19, 2008, 07:03 PM
 
Blu-ray may have won... but the problem is that the video game market is a lot more profitable then the home video market.

They traded their HUGE lead in the gaming industry for the next HD format. How much do you think they get for each Blu-ray disc sold? Probably not that much compared to how much they got for every PS2 game sold.

Will Blu-ray ever be that big? I suspect that even at the height of it's popularity, it will still be somewhat of a secondary format. Playing a supporting role to either DVDs or digital downloads.

Was that worth sacrificing the lead in the games sector?

I don't know. My gut says no, but then again, I'm not Sony. I would hope that they would know what they are doing.

We'll see.

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Feb 19, 2008, 07:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by ort888 View Post
Blu-ray may have won... but the problem is that the video game market is a lot more profitable then the home video market.

They traded their HUGE lead in the gaming industry for the next HD format. How much do you think they get for each Blu-ray disc sold? Probably not that much compared to how much they got for every PS2 game sold.

Will Blu-ray ever be that big? I suspect that even at the height of it's popularity, it will still be somewhat of a secondary format. Playing a supporting role to either DVDs or digital downloads.

Was that worth sacrificing the lead in the games sector?

I don't know. My gut says no, but then again, I'm not Sony. I would hope that they would know what they are doing.

We'll see.
The movie disc market is huge. Royalties per disc are smaller, but the whole industry is an order of magnitude larger.

You do bring up a good point though. It's entirely possible that Blu-ray will remain niche. Nonetheless, Sony had already made its bed so it had to lie in it. Sony bet the farm on Blu-ray. And had Sony's original release targets have been achieved (with better price points - even the Sony CEO was shocked at the PS3's costs), there wouldn't have even been a movie disc war, and the PS3 would be firmly ahead of the 360.

However, Blu-ray had technology delays and cost overruns, which allowed the movie disc war to happen, and which allowed the 360 to get a 1 year head-start on the PS3.

Ultimately, Sony still managed to get the Blu-ray win, but it got hit hard along the way. Now it's easy to say all this in retrospect, but at the time I'm sure Sony (probably too confidently) thought they could do it quicker and for less cost.
     
goMac
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Feb 19, 2008, 07:13 PM
 
In a way, Microsoft played it very smart. They let Sony take the initial hit from investing heavily in Bluray, and then when Bluray drive production costs come down, they can include a Bluray drive and maintain their advantage over the PS3.
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cjrivera
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Feb 19, 2008, 07:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by goMac View Post
Handbrake already does 5.1. I have "Big Trouble" ripping with 5.1 right now.


thanks!
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Feb 19, 2008, 07:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by goMac View Post
In a way, Microsoft played it very smart. They let Sony take the initial hit from investing heavily in Bluray, and then when Bluray drive production costs come down, they can include a Bluray drive and maintain their advantage over the PS3.
I don't think that was necessarily the primary driver of MS's path here.

The main reason was time to market, along with cost. If you can shave $50+ off the manufacturing cost of a console, and get it out to your customers a whole year before the competition, that's a huge incentive to leave a piece of technology out, especially when you don't really need it anyway. (The PS3 does have a optical storage advantage, but nonetheless the games are rated inferior to the 360's.)
     
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Feb 19, 2008, 07:19 PM
 
Blu-ray victory means royalties, royalties, royalties | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Looks like DVD royalties started around $15-$20 per player and 7.5 cents per disc.

To put this into perspective, the average royalty on a new game is between $5 and $10.

I'm sure the Sony bean counters have crunched these numbers until their fingers bled, but it doesn't seem like a good trade off to me.

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Feb 19, 2008, 07:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by ort888 View Post
The bottom line is that Sony traded places with Nintendo this generation. Now they get to enjoy fighting Microsoft for a distant second place while Nintendo drives off into the sunset.

Even if they sell more then the 360 next year, or even surpass them, all of their efforts to this point can only be seen as a complete and total failure. You just can't spin it into a positive for Sony.
Sony won the format war almost entirely thanks to the PS3. (Just imagine if the only way you could play a Blu-ray movie was on a standalone that was twice as expensive as an HD-DVD model. If there had been the case, BR wouldn't have been consistently selling more, and Sony wouldn't have been in a position to make the deals with the studios that they did.) That's not a positive?

Originally Posted by ort888 View Post
Blu-ray may have won... but the problem is that the video game market is a lot more profitable then the home video market.
I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about here. Assuming BR does take the place of DVD and doesn't remain a niche format for HD enthusiasts (and frankly I can't see that happening), Sony is in a position to make a LOT more money than Nintendo is on the Wii.
     
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Feb 19, 2008, 07:33 PM
 
Originally Posted by ort888 View Post
Blu-ray victory means royalties, royalties, royalties | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Looks like DVD royalties started around $15-$20 per player and 7.5 cents per disc.

To put this into perspective, the average royalty on a new game is between $5 and $10.

I'm sure the Sony bean counters have crunched these numbers until their fingers bled, but it doesn't seem like a good trade off to me.
Video games sales in 2007 were $6.6 billion, while home video sales and rentals were $23.4 billion (and that was down 3% from the previous year. Plus with Blu-ray, you have all the ancillary technologies like computer drives, burners, etc.
     
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Feb 19, 2008, 07:39 PM
 
Not to mention Sony has stated many, many times, they are in it for the long term. That's when royalties really pay off.
     
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Feb 19, 2008, 07:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by icruise View Post
Assuming BR does take the place of DVD and doesn't remain a niche format for HD enthusiasts (and frankly I can't see that happening)
Some may use the VHS vs. DVD argument to support the contention that Blu-ray will completely replace DVD.

While that could occur, I wouldn't count my chickens just yet. Remember, VHS and DVD were technologies that were completely incompatible, and technologies that were humungously different. The improvement going from VHS and DVD were absolutely enormous even on basic televisions sets, both in terms of image quality and in terms of ease of use.

This is not true for Blu-ray over DVD. The quality benefit is obvious on large hi-def televisions, but not necessarily on smaller ones (or SD TVs), and it's actually potentially more complicated to use. And of course, many who buy commoditized Blu-ray players in the future will continue to purchase the cheaper DVDs to play in them, even going forward for many years to come, because Blu-ray players have been designed to be backwards compatible with DVD.

I not entirely convinced that Blu-ray will totally oust DVD. I agree though it won't remain a small niche. IOW, it could be somewhere in between, where after several years most new purchases of players are Blu-ray, but DVD remains a significantly larger installed base, and a significant chunk of disc sales remains DVD (which in many ways is more convenient).
     
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Feb 19, 2008, 07:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by icruise View Post
Video games sales in 2007 were $6.6 billion, while home video sales and rentals were $23.4 billion (and that was down 3% from the previous year. Plus with Blu-ray, you have all the ancillary technologies like computer drives, burners, etc.
The big question is what level of penetration does Blu-Ray need to rake in the $. Without knowing the royalty structure and realistic estimates of the market its hard to know. It will be a few years (if ever) before Blu-Ray dominates the $23.4B home video market. And I doubt that Blu-Ray drives will ever be as ubiquitous as DVD drives in computers.
     
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Feb 19, 2008, 08:03 PM
 

I like it.
     
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Feb 19, 2008, 08:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by Montezuma58 View Post
The big question is what level of penetration does Blu-Ray need to rake in the $. Without knowing the royalty structure and realistic estimates of the market its hard to know. It will be a few years (if ever) before Blu-Ray dominates the $23.4B home video market.
True. But my point was that the console game market is not only much smaller than the home video market -- it's also shared between three home platforms and two portable platforms. The home video market at the moment is almost entirely DVD. If Blu-ray can take over, or even get a large percentage of that market, then Sony could stand to make a huge amount of money -- considerably more than if they even had 100% of the game market. Ceding the position of #1 to Nintendo doesn't really seem like such a bad gamble when you consider that.
     
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Feb 19, 2008, 08:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by icruise View Post
Sony is in a position to make a LOT more money than Nintendo is on the Wii.
Highly doubtful. Sony doesn't control much of the hardware royalties, and has no software royalties on Bluray.
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Feb 19, 2008, 08:12 PM
 
It seems some think this is going to just happen overnight.

Being backwards compatible, within a few years of having everyone making players and competition dropping prices, why bother making standalone DVD players in the next two years or so? You can just have Blu-ray players replace them with no effect on DVD movie sales or anyone having to ditch their current libraries of movies. I see the transition being pretty transparent over time without much risk at all to either one.

The HDTV market is still growing as well, Blu-ray is dependent on that. If you are holding onto the 13" black and white with the rabbit ears, its of no use to you. However, as the HDTV market grows, Blu-ray sales should scale along with it.

Now that there is no confusion on hi-def media, I am curious to see the sales figures for the next months. Most people were waiting for a standard before jumping in, which I think was a big factor for neither really taking off as fast as it could have.
     
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Feb 19, 2008, 08:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by goMac View Post
Highly doubtful. Sony doesn't control much of the hardware royalties, and has no software royalties on Bluray.
I take your doubt as proof that I am correct. And you're actually saying that Sony makes no money on pre-recorded movie sales?
     
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Feb 19, 2008, 08:40 PM
 
Originally Posted by goMac View Post
Handbrake already does 5.1. I have "Big Trouble" ripping with 5.1 right now.
Dang, that happened a lot quicker than I thought it would!

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Feb 19, 2008, 10:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by icruise View Post
I take your doubt as proof that I am correct. And you're actually saying that Sony makes no money on pre-recorded movie sales?
Proof was actually posted earlier in the royalties article. Sony has less than 30% of the royalties in the hardware, and they don't earn royalties for either Java or the video/audio codecs.

I'm not sure what Sony making money on movie sales has to do with Bluray winning. They make money off DVD sales, and had HD-DVD won, they would have made money selling HD-DVD's. It's kind of a non issue with regards to Sony's investment in Bluray. It would have actually been cheaper for them to invest in a non Sony format if you just want to take pure movie sales into account. It would let them make money off of movies without putting any money into R&D.

Ironically enough, while Microsoft has to pay Sony licensing to put Bluray into the XBox, every member of the Bluray camp has to pay Microsoft licensing for VC1. I'm sure the VC1 licensing fee is smaller than whatever Sony charges for their hardware royalties, but Microsoft was pretty invested in both camps.
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Feb 19, 2008, 10:18 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
I don't think that was necessarily the primary driver of MS's path here.
I dunno, Microsoft was very paranoid about not putting money into HD-DVD. For example, Warner told Microsoft that if Microsoft gave them a payout, they would ignore Fox and go HD-DVD. Microsoft refused, which kind of tells me they really didn't care about HD-DVD in the long term that much. I think they saw it more as a war of attrition against Sony. By putting limited amounts of support into HD-DVD, they could hinder the PS3 with very limited amounts of investment.
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Feb 19, 2008, 11:18 PM
 
Originally Posted by goMac View Post
Proof was actually posted earlier in the royalties article. Sony has less than 30% of the royalties in the hardware, and they don't earn royalties for either Java or the video/audio codecs.
From the article:

With the competition gone, the Blu-ray consortium now has the opportunity to persuade PC makers and consumer electronics makers to adopt Blu-ray drives as their optical drives of choice. It will also get studios and disc makers to deliver Blu-ray discs to consumers. And every time one of those drives or discs leaves a factory, the Blu-ray Disc Association will get a royalty.
It goes on to say that it's not clear what the royalties will be in the case of Blu-ray, but I think it's pretty clear that Sony will be making money on movies that are sold on BR.

So your position is that Sony had no financial incentive for BR to win? Why on earth would they go to all this trouble, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to promote something that wouldn't add to their bottom line?
     
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Feb 19, 2008, 11:18 PM
 
well, I pulled the trigger and bought a PS3 at Target. I had some gift cards from work and used those, plus I got a $40 gift card to use later. Final price $299+tax. The one bad thing is did not include the "Spiderman" disc. I will hit Sam's Club to buy the remote.
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Feb 19, 2008, 11:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by icruise View Post
From the article:



It goes on to say that it's not clear what the royalties will be in the case of Blu-ray, but I think it's pretty clear that Sony will be making money on movies that are sold on BR.

So your position is that Sony had no financial incentive for BR to win? Why on earth would they go to all this trouble, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to promote something that wouldn't add to their bottom line?
He meant that they will get hardware royalties for the discs themselves, but will make no royalties from the software used on each disc (i.e. the codecs or the java software).

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Feb 20, 2008, 12:11 AM
 
OK, but I don't think anyone was talking about that.
     
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Feb 20, 2008, 01:15 AM
 
Originally Posted by exca1ibur View Post
It seems some think this is going to just happen overnight.

Being backwards compatible, within a few years of having everyone making players and competition dropping prices, why bother making standalone DVD players in the next two years or so? You can just have Blu-ray players replace them with no effect on DVD movie sales or anyone having to ditch their current libraries of movies. I see the transition being pretty transparent over time without much risk at all to either one.
Errr... Hardware design, production, and royalties costs are MUCH cheaper on DVD than Blu-ray. This will be true even 2 years from now.

While I'm happy to spend $199 on a player, many others aren't, when half-decent DVD players are available for $49 or less.

It will also be interesting to see how it takes for Blu-ray to hit the $99 price point for a name brand player. At that point will it be too late? I don't think it will be too late, but some in the industry think it could be.


Originally Posted by goMac View Post
For example, Warner told Microsoft that if Microsoft gave them a payout, they would ignore Fox and go HD-DVD. Microsoft refused, which kind of tells me they really didn't care about HD-DVD in the long term that much.
Of course, that's pure supposition. In fact, the rumours don't even agree with you. The main rumours suggest that Warner was looking for a payout... from Toshiba not Microsoft, and that they wanted Fox or some other big studio along for the ride.
( Last edited by Eug; Feb 20, 2008 at 01:23 AM. )
     
Eug
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Feb 20, 2008, 01:44 AM
 
So... When do you think Apple is gonna add Blu-ray support to consumer Macs? I really don't give a frack if they add it to the Mac Pro, cuz I ain't gonna buy a Mac Pro.

I'm hoping for 2008 (now that the war is over), but somehow I'm not optimistic. In the very least I'd like to see hardware support confirmed by Apple for HDCP (preferably with HDMI), but I'm not optimistic about that either for this year. The other question is what minimum hardware is going to be needed for full-fledged Blu-ray support. I'm not convinced a C2D 2.0 with unoptimized drivers for integrated graphics is going to cut it either.

P.S. Does HDMI support 2560 x 1600? It would be interesting to see a 30" Cinema Display with HDMI and HDCP support released this year.
     
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Feb 20, 2008, 02:12 AM
 
I bought an xbox HDDVD add on recently. Don't have an xbox 360.

Anyway, I connected it to my Mac Mini. I pop in Serenity and it showed up on my desktop with an icon that says "HD DVD". I guess Apple was planning some HD DVD support, but haven't gotten the playback implemented yet.

VLC and mplayer does play the .EVO files on the HD DVD disc, well if it is not encrypted.
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Feb 20, 2008, 04:11 AM
 
Originally Posted by icruise View Post
It goes on to say that it's not clear what the royalties will be in the case of Blu-ray, but I think it's pretty clear that Sony will be making money on movies that are sold on BR.
And again, Sony does not have that large of a percentage of the royalties in Bluray hardware. I'm not even sure they would get royalties for every Bluray disc sold, given that they developed stuff like their protective coating independently of companies like TDK (who also creating their own protective coating for Bluray discs).

They certainly get nothing for the software on the discs.

Originally Posted by icruise View Post
So your position is that Sony had no financial incentive for BR to win? Why on earth would they go to all this trouble, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to promote something that wouldn't add to their bottom line?
I think it was pretty much all about the PS3.

I mean, think about it. Can you give me a good reason why Sony would decide to sink millions of dollars designing a format separately from HD-DVD for an extra 20 gigs of disc space?
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Feb 20, 2008, 04:16 AM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
P.S. Does HDMI support 2560 x 1600? It would be interesting to see a 30" Cinema Display with HDMI and HDCP support released this year.
No, HDMI is not dual link AFAIK. This is probably a major reason why Apple has not adopted HDMI.

There is a dual link HDMI standard out there, but so far no one has adopted it.
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icruise
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Feb 20, 2008, 04:17 AM
 
Originally Posted by goMac View Post
I think it was pretty much all about the PS3.

I mean, think about it. Can you give me a good reason why Sony would decide to sink millions of dollars designing a format separately from HD-DVD for an extra 20 gigs of disc space?
You never fail to amaze me. You are saying that rather than the PS3 being used as a vehicle for adoption of Blu-ray, that Sony developed an entire optical format just to help sell the PS3?
     
Eug
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Feb 20, 2008, 08:33 AM
 
Originally Posted by hyteckit View Post
I bought an xbox HDDVD add on recently. Don't have an xbox 360.

Anyway, I connected it to my Mac Mini. I pop in Serenity and it showed up on my desktop with an icon that says "HD DVD". I guess Apple was planning some HD DVD support, but haven't gotten the playback implemented yet.

VLC and mplayer does play the .EVO files on the HD DVD disc, well if it is not encrypted.
Commercial HD DVD just uses a standards-body-approved but very recent version of the Universal Disk Format, and support of that format is included in OS X 10.5 Leopard (and not Tiger). I believe the same version is used on Blu-ray as well.

Apple already does have some HD DVD support though. DVD Player.app will play back a very specific form of HD DVD, which is one that uses H.264 and has no DRM. These discs can be created by 3rd party software like DVD Studio Pro. These discs also work fine in standalone HD DVD players.

ie. DVD Studio Pro can produce a restricted form of HD DVD that already works on Macs and standalone HD DVD players, but commercial encrypted HD DVDs work on only standalone HD DVD players and not Macs. However, the fact that Leopard can read the disc file directories is not surprising at all, and does not necessarily indicate that Apple planned to incorporate full-fledged HD DVD support any time soon.



Originally Posted by goMac View Post
No, HDMI is not dual link AFAIK. This is probably a major reason why Apple has not adopted HDMI.
OK that sucks.

There is a dual link HDMI standard out there, but so far no one has adopted it.
There's always hope then. That is if the standard is backwards compatible.
( Last edited by Eug; Feb 20, 2008 at 08:41 AM. )
     
TETENAL
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Feb 20, 2008, 08:53 AM
 
Originally Posted by goMac View Post
I mean, think about it. Can you give me a good reason why Sony would decide to sink millions of dollars designing a format separately from HD-DVD for an extra 20 gigs of disc space?
When BluRay was developed there was no HD DVD yet.
     
Eug
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Feb 20, 2008, 09:00 AM
 
Originally Posted by TETENAL View Post
When BluRay was developed there was no HD DVD yet.
Well, yes and no. Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is work started first on Blu-ray, but completion of development was much faster for HD DVD. In other words, when HD DVD was fully "developed", Blu-ray wasn't finished yet. (This is a big reason why HD DVD was able to launch when it did in 2006, with a mature spec, and Blu-ray launched much later with a spec still in flux.)
     
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Feb 20, 2008, 09:03 AM
 
Originally Posted by TETENAL View Post
When BluRay was developed there was no HD DVD yet.
That was my thinking too. Damn, his "logic" makes my head hurt.
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Chongo
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Feb 20, 2008, 10:14 AM
 
Originally Posted by hyteckit View Post
I bought an xbox HDDVD add on recently. Don't have an xbox 360.

Anyway, I connected it to my Mac Mini. I pop in Serenity and it showed up on my desktop with an icon that says "HD DVD". I guess Apple was planning some HD DVD support, but haven't gotten the playback implemented yet.

VLC and mplayer does play the .EVO files on the HD DVD disc, well if it is not encrypted.
at work we use Mac minis for CIM. For sh ts and giggles I hit the software update and one of them was a Quicktime update for HD DVD support. Could not install it anyway 'cause it asked for admin password.
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Eug
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Feb 20, 2008, 10:18 AM
 
Originally Posted by Chongo View Post
at work we use Mac minis for CIM. For sh ts and giggles I hit the software update and one of them was a Quicktime update for HD DVD support. Could not install it anyway 'cause it asked for admin password.
What is CIM?

Are you sure it was an HD DVD update for Quicktime? Or was it a Quicktime HD update, or else an HD DVD update for DVD Player?
     
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Feb 20, 2008, 10:20 AM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
What is CIM?
Computer Integrated Manufacturing

We use them to track lots (wafers) into the processing equipment
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Eug
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Feb 20, 2008, 11:52 AM
 
Not surprising: Amazon Names Blu-ray 'Digital Format of Choice'

Interesting that it was a little over 1/2 for Blu-ray in 2007, but in 2008 (after the Warner announcement) it was over 3/4.

Weird: LG to Continue HD DVD Support

In a strange move, LG has said it will continue to back, develop and offer HD DVD players.

I guess they think they can milk the dual-format crowd for a while. There's no way I'm buying one of those overpriced units though.
     
exca1ibur
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Feb 20, 2008, 12:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
Errr...
Back at you. Of course they are cheaper, it's a saturated market. Over time as there are more movies in the marketplace you can serve both markets with one device, like your combo player that everyone was banking on. 2 years from now who the hell knows what manufacturing costs will be.
     
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Feb 20, 2008, 12:19 PM
 
Originally Posted by exca1ibur View Post
Back at you. Of course they are cheaper, it's a saturated market. Over time as there are more movies in the marketplace you can serve both markets with one device, like your combo player that everyone was banking on. 2 years from now who the hell knows what manufacturing costs will be.
My point was that 2 years is rather optimistic to expect most companies to drop DVD player manufacturing. Remember how long it took for DVD to replace VHS? And people actually had much more incentive to replace VHS than they do for DVD.

I agree that many will buy Blu-ray for NEW players (because it can play and upscale DVD), but many won't. In fact, I expect even Sony will still be making DVD players in 2010. And that's still excluding all those bazillions of people out there who won't need a new player at all and will stick with DVD for the foreseeable future.

This is precisely why the analysts don't see the Blu-ray win as a slam dunk for optical media. The problem is that within 4-5 years, downloads may actually be more viable, and DVD will be fine for a good chunk of the population too. I personally am not convinced that digital downloads will as ubiquitous as some think it may be, but it's a real possibility that downloads will get a significant share of the market, meaning that Blu-ray will be less important in 2012 than DVD was in 2003.
( Last edited by Eug; Feb 20, 2008 at 12:28 PM. )
     
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Feb 20, 2008, 12:26 PM
 
Key word: MAY. Downloads MAY be viable. Downloads MAY be a niche. DRM and lack of portability, not to mention studios putting movies out of print could be serious problems with downloads.

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Eug
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Feb 20, 2008, 12:30 PM
 
Originally Posted by starman View Post
Key word: MAY. Downloads MAY be viable. Downloads MAY be a niche. DRM and lack of portability
Yes, the key word is MAY. Blu-ray MAY be as important as DVD, but then again it MAY not. The question though is how much traction it gets. I don't think it will be a small niche, but I don't it will replace DVD any time soon either, and it MAY not ever replace it. I think it will be somewhere in between, more than a small niche, but less than DVD's ubiquitousness, for the various reasons already mentioned in this thread.

not to mention studios putting movies out of print could be serious problems with downloads.
Actually, out-of-print is a big advantage of downloads. It's much easier to keep an out-of-print title on the download servers than it is to have it on store shelves. ie. A disc can be out-of-print, but there's often little reason to keep the same title out-of-download, as it were.
     
exca1ibur
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Feb 20, 2008, 01:03 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
I agree that many will buy Blu-ray for NEW players (because it can play and upscale DVD), but many won't. In fact, I expect even Sony will still be making DVD players in 2010. And that's still excluding all those bazillions of people out there who won't need a new player at all and will stick with DVD for the foreseeable future..
This is my whole point. Moving forward. They don't have to replace the DVD format in a few years. My point is a transition. If every manufacture sold Blu-ray only players right now, that is still can hit 100% of the DVD media market. There is no difference compared to people running out now and picking up an HD-DVD device now to play only DVDs. My point is If the price is right in the next few years, are you saying you would buy an upscaled DVD player, instead of a Blu-ray player? This is more or less what I see happing, this has nothing to do with the optical media itself as it won't affect it at all. You can still buy DVDs, plus Blu-ray movies. Once the hardware is there the transition would be of no risk to the consumer for either format. At that point it's up to the studios on which way they want to go. At that point it wouldn't screw over the consumer at all. You can still keep your 150+ plus DVD collection and, can moving forward to Blu-ray by doing nothing more than buying the media at this point.
     
 
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