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Even though I’m a Blu ray supporter, I’ve always tried to keep my public comments about the format war as neutral as possible. Even now nothing is 100% certain and ultimately I just want this silly “war” to end, but this calls for an exception to my rules of neutrality… so here we go…. *Yay!* =)

I look at this format war as a replica of what happened during the VHS vs. Beta war decades ago. The argument Mr. Lowe makes seems to be (I can only make assumptions here since there are no direct quotes attributed) is that Blu-Ray is the only possible winner because it’s the better format due to a larger data capacity alone, and that cost-cutting players isn’t going to make any difference.

Looking back, this sounds like the same old argument Sony made against VHS. Beta was a better product, better quality, better everything. But Beta lost, because VHS undercut it in price and the tapes were cheaper. I’d also argue that this is why Windows is more prevalent than Mac - the hardware and software might be better on a Mac, but it’s cheaper on a Windows machine.

When it comes down to it, given two generally equal choices in a technology war, consumers have chosen the cheaper alternative. I don’t think a price differential can be so easily dismissed.

Which ever format get the Star Wars franchise wins.

Lance,
Your statement of, “But Beta lost, because VHS undercut it in price and the tapes were cheaper.” kinda got me goin’ so excuse me while I rant for a bit. =)

I’ll start by saying that I don’t really think the term “replica” best describes a comparison between the war of Betamax vs. VHS and today’s war of Blu ray vs. HD-DVD. I think most people will agree that although VHS’ ability to undercut the competition in pricing provided a huge advantage, it was not the sole determining factor.

Besides pricing advantages, JVC’s VHS had over 3x the support from other companies looking to adopt a format by the early 80’s. Betamax had the drawback of having inferior recording times and heck, some people even argue that the porn industry’s decision to adopt the VHS as its format of choice was actually the most influential aspect of the VHS’ victory.

People then pick and choose which arguments to use for why VHS ended up on top to try to make a direct comparison to what’s happening today. I’ll concede that there are some key similarities between the two wars, but we can’t overlook that that war ended back in 1988 – almost 20 years ago! Too much has changed since then to think that we can make out a clear winner based on the days gone by.

But let’s pretend shall we? Since we will assume the cost cutting factor is still considered just as important as it was back in the 80’s, all the other aspects should still apply as well then, no? In that case we need to acknowledge that Blu Ray now has the superior storage capacity, and is also the format with the greater number of commercial supporters. I’ll get to the porn thing in a second, but in terms of picture quality I think most people will agree that between the two formats, it’s so close it’s not even worth arguing over.

These are things that we take into account, and should, but I truly believe too much has changed to assume that the same variables that affected the outcome of the past will have the same pull in today’s war; including the ability to cut costs. For example, nowadays, when people think of the easiest way to access some porn, they don’t think of going to a shady video store or going to the closest liquor store to browse the magazine section; they go to their home pc. As far as I’m concerned, the home PC negated all the HD DVD fanboys who claimed an early victory when it was rumored that Blu ray would not allow porn.

I’m not particularly good at finding stats on today’s consumer spending on electronics in comparison to the 80s, but I’d bet that even taking inflation into account, consumers today now spend more on high end electronics than ever before. I think people are now more willing to spend a little more for what is perceived to be a higher quality product than to save a buck or two for the “inferior” one – this would be especially true of all the early adopters who are actually taking the gamble with their purchases today. (Please note, someone could do some HW and quickly prove me wrong and make me out to be an a$$. =P)

I guess my point is that, similar to your suggestion of not dismissing the importance of price differentials, I’d like to suggest that we also not overlook how much has changed since the previous war and to continue to recognize that just maybe, consumers priorities may have changed enough for one factor out of many to not be as important as it once was.

Does it matter?

The issue with comparing this little war with VHS vs Beta is that at the time there was no other way to record or view video at home (ok perhaps laserdisc but you couldn’t record). Now we have cable, satellite, iTunes, VOD, over the air HDTV, and the DVD format. DVD, while showing its age, still works for the majority of people.
So really, what is the advantage of Blue-Ray or HDDVD? Quality? I won’t give you that. Going from VHS to DVD resolved the quality question. Going from DVD to these new formats is not that big of leap in quality to get people to move. Its not a smaller format. Its not cheaper. So all you got is space. So Blue-Ray will win because of it. But I contend that this war doesn’t matter one single bit. Portable physical media is dying. The world is moving on.

With Blockbuster being the first to give the nod to BD, expect retailers tp strart doing the same very soon.
BD has always been perceived as the eventual winner, and the sooner we get one new format, the sooner the real war with sd dvd will begin.

Downloads are many years away so there is plenty of time for BD to take over before that.

Does Sigma Designs produce media chips for HD-DVD players? If not then it is natural for a Sigma rep to side with Blu-ray. Sigma wouldn’t want HD-DVD to win and for Broadcom to snatch the profits away from them.

This speculation is a bit premature. And I’m sorry but HD-DVD has the better pricing and that goes miles and miles. It certainly helped me make my choice because I couldn’t see any difference in quality in the demos I looked at.

Honestly, I don’t like either format for the simple fact that these companies couldn’t come to a standard HD format. Leave it to Sony to try and do their own thing bucking the trend. And that is why Blu-Ray will fail. Look at Sony’s track record of proprietary formats - BETA, MiniDisc, PSP Movies, ALL FAILURES.

Lance, Beta didn’t lose to VHS because it was more expensive, it lost because Sony refused to license the technology widely, preferring to be the only marketer of Beta players. JVC took the opposite approach and licensed VHS to anyone who would pony up the cash. Market penetration always decides these things. That’s why the Blockbuster announcement was so important - it helps tip the market toward Blu-ray.

I don’t know why anyone cares. I think it is great that the format wars are going on, the prices have come way down way fast because of it. At least in the HD DVD hardware side of things. I bought HD DVD early on and love it. I won’t be going to Disney until the release HD DVD. This summer (next week in fact) its Universal and Sea World Orlando. Blockbuster, Disney and the others are ignorant for not supporting both formats and letting the consumer decide. It is true that the Christmas season will decide. When Walmart gets their large shipment of HD DVD which was rumored the squashed. I think that was accidental and never to have been leaked. Surprise Surprise Surprise is around the courner.

Microsoft said this week that gamers are using approximately 2.8 percent of the nearly 5.5 million Xbox consoles for watching movies. I can’t be that much different for the competition.

…VHS was basically saved by adult films, which is interesting because I feel myself leaning towards blue-ray, but I believe they initially were trying to block some of the large adult-film companies from developing on that medium. At the end of the day, though, money matters, and nothing sells like sex (look at the first couple products printed with movable type - the bible and erotica).

Pricing is key for mass adoption. The first format to get a $199 player in Wal-Mart will win the war.

Blockbuster came to the Blu-ray decision because they had twice the number of Blu-ray DVD sales verses HD DVD. So someone must like the better quality it provides. A Panasonic VP recently stated he felt the format war was over and Blu-ray won. Also, I believe the “adult” industry has moved to Blu-ray.

We’ll see a lot of changes over the next 6 months. But I personally won’t buy either until there’s only one format and prices have fallen.

Sigma has been favoring BD all this while. Even their insider at AVS forum speaks for BD. Why we all know know that HD DVD has been in bed with Sigma’s competitor - Broadcom. Microsoft has been working with Broadband to promote their SOC HD DVD economic reference design.

As for the Blockbuster announcement, that was obvious that they are paid to make the announcment. No retailer made press release to announce items that they dont sell/have. Its like telling Hidef lovers who want HD DVD not to go to Blockbuster. There is no harm for them to put plenty of BD in the stores. But announcing it is just stupid, business wise.

From what I can see, HD DVD is improving their format and at the same time reducing the cost of players. We have firstly, HD DVD, then HD DVD/DVD flipper combo. Now we have HD DVD/DVD single sided twin disk. Microsoft and the gang is working closely to bring in manufacturers of players and HD DVD media. Their already matured interactivity feature is further improved. The consumers are already wowed by this feature, yet, they keep improving it with web feature and the latest, Warner is going to do magic on the The 300 title. This is how HD DVD move forward.

BD on the other hand, try to win the war by spreading words. Did they improve since June 2006. Interactivity is still …. and yeah.. they announced BD+ is ready. meaning possibly more expensive disks with bugs. and they work like Sony’s rootkit too. They disk would interupt the player’s software. If you do anything on the player (you own that player, u paid money for it yet it feels like its not yours), BD+ titles would not play on it.

When HD DVD exclusive supporters get behind HD DVD, we see commitment of these corps to the format. Where as BD exclusives are just strong exclusive supporters when it comes to making press releases and and speeches at tradeshows. Compare Universal with FOX + LG + MGM + Disney and you would know what I mean.

And i have a feeling that Blockbuster would be the same as the exclusive studios.

and on the PC front, Sony is day dreaming if they think they can beat DVD. If consumers need larger media storage, single layer DVDRs would be dead by now and double layer DVDRs would reign the street. Yet we still see 4g single layer DVDR defeating double layer8 DVDR. and the price - 1L DVDRs are more than 10x cheaper than 2L DVDRs. Hell even CDRs with 700mb is more than sufficient for corporate labtop users.

How many softwares out there in the world currently using DVD? most of them are still using CD. If Microsoft sells their system and program softwares in HD DVD that would boost HD DVD. But i dont see that coming as DVD is more than enough. So why do the whole world need a 25g BDR? because sony says so and they put the drive in PS3?

The reality is that VHS beat Beta because of Porn. I am close friends (he’s a mentor) of a dude who was a lead engineer at Sony at the time. Porn chose VHS (or was forced to by selective rejection) and it took off.

Last I heard, Porn was looking at HD DVD. So I think this is FAR from over.

This is very very sad portrait of this industry but its very very true… help us all!!!

Johnal,

Good points, all. Sony has made several missteps over the years with their decisions to keep things proprietary, and an open environment certainly helps proliferate one choice over another (again, there’s a Mac v. Windows parallel there, I think).

I’m also unsure about whether people are more willing to spend more money for better perceived technology today than 30 years ago. I tend to be an early adopter myself, but it takes a lot of headaches to make me decide that I’d rather spend $600 for TiVo s3 than $9/mo for the dreadful and problem-plagued Comcast solution — not a parallel there, more of a personal illustration.

I think you’re also right on target with the porn angle. It’s enormously easier to come by it (no pun intended) now than it was during the birth of home video, and I think downloadable nudity will be leagues more prevalent than any hi-def disks of either type. Porn, in this war, is a non-starter.

I will say, speaking just for myself, that price would be the number one reason to choose one over the other. Available content would be second, but it’s a close race. I’m in the ‘wait and see’ audience for now, and in no rush to start replacing my library of 300+ DVDs with another set of silver disks.

This is the weirdest and least valuable posting I’ve seen on Crunchgear for many a moon.

I’ve been following the Hi-def “wars” for years now and I can’t possibly see how this would be an advantage one way or the other for Blu-Ray.

I’ve picked HD DVD based on what I’ve found to be superior performance and a far better selection of titles that I like. I’m positive it will succeed and be around for many years. I don’t really care if Blu-Ray fails, and don’t know that anyone can possibly know if it will or not because the sales volumes for all hi-def discs is so microscopic right now.

Both formats have their share of excellent and poor quality releases, no one can claim there is any advantage there.

It is way, way too soon to tell and I predict that the sales volume numbers will flip-flop many times between the two formats before if it is “over”, if it ever will be over.

By the way, I was commenting on the original article, not any subsequent reply points.

Well, it would be nice to see ONE format emerge the winner with the inherent feature set of both formats, no? Blue-Ray HD, HD-DVD was supposed to have more flexibility in interactive content on discs.. while blue ray was the bigger disc format with fewer bells and whistles. I guess two death nails for HD-DVD were: 1. Block Buster choosing sides — going with Blue Ray as the future of HD disc format of choice. 2. HD-DVD security cracked with the captain crunch hex decoder ring (/sarcasm) The movie industry will never trust HD-DVD anymore because the format is security hole ridden.. much will be the same on Blue Ray but at least the industry will buy themselves more time… IF they choose blue ray? Of course this leave a troubling question for Microsoft.. can they partner fast enough with a blue ray supporter to put Blue Ray compatibility (while obviously making it backwards compatible to HD-DVD, the horse they backed) into the XBOX 360 for 2008? Which begs the question: If blue-ray becomes THE FORMAT, how long can XBOX 360 sales top PS3 sales without the format war winner?
I don’t care… because all I’m concerned about is blue-ray security to be broken like a rag-doll in 2008 “Just in time” for the format war winner to celebrate.. and for the mpaa to think “whew, we dodged a bullet with HD-DVD security”

This is probably the single worse Pro Blu-ray article I’ve ever read. It was expecting to hear some real concrete evidence. Instead it sounds like someone who bought a PS3 and is angry because there are no games and starting buying movies instead. Please give me back the time it took to read this article and the memory it took up in my web browser. Thanks.

One of the reasons why Blockbuster choose Blu-ray is because Disney is only on Blu-ray. Their most popular rentals are Disney films, which are not on HD DVD, and other family oriented G and PG rated movies. Their desicion seems one sided renting out more Disney flicks on Blu-ray than HD DVD movies and came too soon as well not giving HD DVD a fair chance. Yes Blockbuster is ignorant in their decision, but at least you can rent HD DVD at blockbuster online site and the original test sites at coorporate store level.

This article really doesn’t add any new information, or even indicate why exactly this Ken Lowe character supports BluRay (besides his obvious bias by being financially invested in the format). Its true, BR is looking good after the BB announcement, but one [Sony sponsored] press-release is not going to end the war that easily. There are so many other factors involved, such as mass-market prices, attach rates, the whole porn angle, etc. that are not addressed.

Just one question for you Mr.Peter Ha. In the last sentence you claim victory for BluRay and also claim HD-DVD is dead. But then immediately afterwards you state you own neither format and will wait till one wins before plunking down the cash. So which is it? If BluRay already “won”, as you put it, how come you are afraid to buy a BluRay player? Clearly the war is far from over. How many times can you Sony-shills cry wolf before the public doesn’t listen anymore?

“Alexander Hamilton

June 27th, 2007 at 4:17 pm

Which ever format get the Star Wars franchise wins.”

Then it’s Blu-Ray. Fox is a Blu-Ray backer.

Price matters a lot. I’m leaning toward HD-DVD because it is a more open format and has more titles available that I’m interested in owning. Sure BluRay has more studios, but Universal covers about 1/3 of the movie market. As for Blockbuster, don’t have on in my town and I wouldn’t go there anyways. With HD-DVD talking about 100GB disks, I think the disk space issue is invalidated. When the two technologies were first discussed, I leaned toward BluRay, but I like what I’ve been hearing about HD-DVD lots more than BluRay, so I switched sides. I’m planning to buy an HD-DVD player before the end of the month.

What role i would like to know is the pc market playing, it cant be games theyre about to get smaller as processing power increases and procedural techniques like those used on Kkrieger come into larger play.

Applications rarely use more than 2gigs of a DVD , in fact most PC is moving more towards the downloadable medium.

The only reason PC’s would matter is that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drives will be much cheaper on their own just like the 360’s standalone is, but thered allready be a buzz about this if those drives were wdely available since the world and his wife (everyone who bought a PC in the last two years will have a 720p eqivalent monitor)

Also Blu ray is a lot slower in Drive speeds for backups and why spent and no one uses disks for additional storage anymore anyone serious about backup uses external hard drives.

Most importantly the blockbuster deal isnt that important because it affects only 20% of their stores hardly a major coup when most people are close enough to two of them.

And Finally wed have seen big sales of PS3 if Blu ray was nearly winning because its the cheapest player on the market- about the same as HD-DVD players cost in England

First of all I do not think Sigma makes anything for any of the six Toshiba second generation or upcoming third generation HD DVD players.

Second I am a pro-active retailer who displays all current BD and HD DVD players in our beautiful B&M NY HDTV store. We demo HD DVD and BD through a 8×8 matrix HDMI switch and always pair a optical HD player with every HDTV sold. We carefully explain the differences of studio support and all technical aspects to our customers.

In our store HD DVD players outsell BD 15 to 1. I believe the much lower cost of HD DVD players drives customers to select the HD DVD format.

These are actual facts so think what you want but I can tell you that if the buying public had a honest side-by-side demonstration and presentation they would clearly pick HD DVD. Same picture and audio quality at less than 1/2 the price.

-Robert Zohn
ValueElectronics

I went back and forth on BluRay and HDDVD, and finally settled on HDDVD last month. The main reason? Price. I could buy the Toshiba for $200.00 less than Blu Ray, so it was no brainer.

I’m not much of a “videophile” or whatever, I just like to have the latest goodies when they get affordable for me. I just bought a plasma TV, so I decided I wanted to watch the best quality DVD’s on it. With that in mind I knew that I had to get a player that was HD. Again, price, price and price.

As others have said, I believe Christmas and Wal-Mart could push HDDVD in a huge way. To victory? Maybe. But you know how folks love to get the latest electronic gadgets for Christmas and since HD TV’s have been SO popular the last 3 years, it would be a wise marketing campaign for Toshiba and Universal to start working on HD TV buyers. Show them how much they can get out of their TV’s.

I have no paticular allegiance to HDDVD, other than I own a player. If it loses….I’ll buy a Blu Ray player….when they come down to $200.00.

FREDDY

You sir are an idiot. Really. You just go on hoping that your PS3 will save Blu-Ray, because that’s the only thing left for Blu-Ray to hold onto. No individual stand-alone player sales, no, but just PS3. And the only thing KEEPING Blu-Ray alive is exactly that..PS3. Once games start coming out the numbers in software sales for hi-def will get smaller and smaller and hi-def with sub $200 players will end this war once and for all and shut all of your brainless fanboys lips.

Paramount/Dreamworks minus Speilberg now on HD-DVD exclusively….not dead yet.

Adult video might have saved VHS but it might not work with Either HD-DVD or Bluray anymore. Most poeple just download it or rent it online. When VHS and Beta came into the scene, internet was pretty much for rich hightech guy with money. Now almost every household own a PC sometimes two with broadband. And capacity does play an important role in PC and that’s one thing Bluray has over HD-DVD. Maybe the two format will Co-exist like DVD plus and minus may be not. I’m kind of glad in a way that’s there’s two formats. I don’t think the price will drop as low and as fast as it is right now if there’s only one format.

The war is now over:WB has gone exclusively with Blue Ray for its HD discs. That now gives Blue ray 70% of the HD movie market.