Blu-ray Pretty Much Wins Format War
The past few days have proved to be noteworthy for those following the Blu-ray and HD DVD format war. On Friday, Warner Bros Entertainment announced that it would release its high-definition titles exclusively on Blu-ray discs beginning mid-2008. Warner Bros was one of the last movie studios to decide which format to go with and previously offered movies in both formats. This announcement means the ball will stay in Blu-ray’s possession for good.
Speculation: Since most of the major film studios are releasing movies exclusively to the Blu-ray format, consumers will naturally purchase Blu-ray players rather than HD DVD players. That will cause HD DVD sales to suffer and force the studios still releasing movies exclusively to HD DVD to reevaluate their strategy and move over to Blu-ray. By this time next year I think Blu-ray players will have started selling like Asus Eee PCs.
I’m interested in seeing how Microsoft will deal with this news. Their Xbox 360 console supports HD DVD (via an add-on). Will the next Xbox move to Blu-ray? Rumor has it that Bill Gates will be having an “important” Xbox 360 announcement at CES this week. Perhaps the Xbox 360 will be updated to include an HD DVD player as standard for one last attempt at unseating Blu-ray from its shiny throne. Even if that were too happen, it’s too little too late. It’s out of Microsoft’s hands to change the industry. Ex-Microsoftie Robert Scoble believes Blu-ray is the way to go too.
So should I buy Sony stock?
While I kind of wish HD-DVD would have won, I’m just happy the format war is pretty much over.
Sad to see that the least consumer-friendly format has effectively won the “war”. No region coding and no mandatory copy-protection (good luck playing home-made HD movies on your Blu-Ray player) were two reasons to favour HD-DVD.
Hi Ronald, can you tell us why you wanted the HD-DVD format to win?
Well, most of these reason are pretty minor, but when the two formats are so closely related, you have to look at the minor details:
- I already have a 360, so buying an HD-DVD player would have been an easy and cheap upgrade for me.
- HD-DVDs can be made in existing DVD plants, allowing for potential cost-reduction. However, Sony is heavily subsidizing the building of Blu-ray plants, so this point is kind of moot.
- Blu-ray players need a second laser to read old DVDs (sometime mechanically switched), meaning one more possible thing to break.
And as Stu said above:
- HD-DVD has no mandatory copy-protection
- HD-DVD has no region encoding
Oh course the Blu-ray camp easily has some advantages as well:
- Scratch-resistant coating on the bottom of the disc
- Larger storage capacity
So, yeah, very minor things, so overall I’m just happy somebody won.
I’m glad I waited.
@Paul: Where is Disney on the graph above? I think they are in the Blu-Ray camp.
@Kevin - you’re right, I don’t see it on there unless it’s “other”. Disney is in fact a blu-ray supporter. The chart was from wikipedia btw.
Good stuff. Looks like sony has it made since they practically own BluRay and if the 360 ever turns into a 720 then they will most likely be switching to BD format for their games since DVD disks can only hold 17 gigs (dual layer) which is quite less then the single layer, but 4 layer compatible, BD Disks. Games are getting large. Only other thing I could see is the Microsoft corporation itself do an entire 360 and revert back to cartridges (ie Hard Drives) Flash Drives just don’t hold enough memory so selling their games as mini external HDDs seems to be the only other answer then XBox to give into the Sony owned BD pool.
I’m happy with the move. As a PS3 owner I’m totally happy with this news. All we need is Universal to get the same idea (some of those Universal Movies are awesome, ie. Bourne Series)
Good thing I sold my hd-dvd add-on for the Xbox 360.
Wow… good thing I don’t have a blog, that’s some terrible english I just posted.
@Ronald, the HD-DVD uses the blue/violet laser as well (according to Wiki, I always thought that it still used the red, oh well) so therefore it too would have to mechanically switch the lasers as well.
That and only some of the BD Disks have region coding. I searched on google and came up with this list. ( http://bluray.lindsite.dk/ )
On one hand I am glad that a format won, but on the other I agree with the comments already posted: It is disappointing that the non-consumer-friendly format did win. This will only encourage Sony to completely abandon its industry to do its own thing and in the end we as the consumers we will suffer.
Though I own an HD-DVD player I only had a semi-allegiance to it. As I have mentioned on this site before, I will buy a dual-format player once I graduate. I wonder how the HD-DVD camp will respond to this Warner news.
Well I’m glad I didn’t buy the HD DVD add-on for my xbox 360. Does this also mean that playstation 3 will beat xbox 360? If you’re going to buy a Blu-ray player then you’re going to buy ps3. It’s cheaper than most standalone blu-ray players and obviously does a lot more.
something i can debate on is that games dont even “need” that much space to store all of its data/sounds/videos/etc. Blueray would be overkill as for dvd disc are doing great. I havnt heard of any rumors about halo, gta, or any top selling game having problems due to storage limitations.. even then, dvd/hd dvd disc are continuing improving on increasing storage amount as technology evolves.
blueray is all good n everything, but it just seems as a proof of concept that one can put that much data on a disc even though it past that stage, im just saying. Why does their even have to be a winner? The disc format isnt going to be here very long with xbox live’s ability to download last gen titles and apple with iTunes movie rentals.. There’s alot of companies/start-ups already developing this stuff. this is just the beginning.
having that said… I’m rooting for HD DVD! lol
Red and Blue were apt colors to choose for this chart. Reminds me a lot of the Republican/Democrat colors.
Which is exactly where I think Blu-Ray/HD-DVD will end up, regardless of studio deals. I can’t see either side winning, ever.
While I was hoping HD-DVD would win, it looks unlikely. Lame — but glad the end is in sight. Of course, this will delay next-gen video adoption, as Blu-ray players are more expensive, and we won’t see massive consumer adoption until they’re $100-$200 for a capable model.
Ping me when there are cheap HDCP-circumventing players (or a go-between box).
I thought that Disney and Buena Vista were the same.
@Mark - Sony just announced a $200 Blu-ray drive for computers and I hear that SlySoft’s AnyDVD supports Blu-ray for making, um, personal backups of legally purchased Blu-ray discs. I think that’s all you really need.
@Ptah Dunbar:
I don’t exactly agree with you saying that BR would be overkill for games, yes games don’t take as much space as HD movies but I saw some interviews with game developing studios and they where glad a new format came out (PS3) because they alwas had to work with concessions… they could never release the full potential of the game they wanted to make because the computers and consoles wheren’t porwerfull enough.
The PS3 is built to be too fast for games being made today, keeping in mind that will chanse over the next 10 years or so. So logically capacaty will grow with that too.
They can now render all the elements they want and keep sound in full quality etc. etc.
… and also, if a new format is chosen, the one with the greater capacaty would simply be better since we all need more storage these days. It would be kind of ignorant to choose a thing when you know you could have something that has twice the capacity for the same money
Hey, I’m not a vulgar person so please don’t take this the wrong way, but I heard from somebody that the winner would surely be the format that the pornography industry inclined to. I find that to make a lot of sense, due to its large embrace on society. What are your thoughts on that, and do you in fact know which format the industry went with?
@ Ptah about games and blu-ray disc storage. As of my knowledge it is reported that for the up and coming game Killzone 2 for the PS3 they already have a full level completed and used 2GB to make it. I have seen the level and the attention to detail is impeccable. I would not at all mind seeing more games like this put out, it’s just a matter of time before people put the technology to good use. Understandable that at first it may seem a little much but in the end it just pushes people to put out better products. And will some one tell me why blu-ray isn’t consumer-friendly? I own a PS3 and don’t have any problem with blu-rays.