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I have been quietly watching the press, including those from my own group, talk about the seemingly final round of the Blu-ray and HD DVD format war. Having attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) along with the myriad press conferences and now seeing everyone (including electronichouse.com) jump on the bandwagon, I have to share my opinion as well.
Go ahead call me a Pollyanna, but I thought the idea behind the format war was to let the consumer choose—right? Yes, I do think it would have been better to have had both sides in the beginning deliver the one and best format. Yeah, right. So that didn’t happen and they left it to the consumer to choose the winner in the end. Yeah, right. This is politics and money at its best.
Because I am in the industry, I will own both HD DVD and Blu-ray players. I am too close to the subject to know if I would have put down the money for both if I didn’t need to do so. Given that I pay monthly for three HD-DVRs, I probably would have. For better or worse, I have also gotten close to the people behind the development of the products for both formats. They are all really good people.
I wince when I see writers (including those from my own group) doing a dance over HD DVD when the war hasn’t been decided yet. Yes, it makes for a good story. Don’t get me wrong, I am not apologizing for them. They have a job to do and I am respectful of their opinions.
The Toshiba press conference at CES was a tough one to get through. I respect Jodi Sally, Toshiba’s V.P. of marketing for the digital A/V group, for not spinning the news that Warner had dumped the HD DVD format in favor of Blu-ray. She appeared devastated. Jodi started by saying “As you can imagine, this is a tough day for me. I have had better.” Good for her for admitting that. She and her team have worked really hard on this and will continue to support the format with products.
During CES I got together with many other people I have come to know well on the Blu-ray side of the fence as well. Understandably, their joy was hard to contain.
Typo (I should be as specific in my second sentence):
It doesn’t use the same “exact” laser as Blu-Ray either though…
“I stand on my statement. Old DVD used red laser, both BR and HD DVD use blue laser. (even Jeff acknowledged the mistake-so…) The focal length adjusts for the bit layer depth and gives BR some advantage on density.”
I never said anything about laser colors. Where I was incorrect is that HD-DVD doesn’t use the same “exact” laser as SD-DVD. It doesn’t use the same laser as Blu-Ray either though…
I stand on my statement. Old DVD used red laser, both BR and HD DVD use blue laser. (even Jeff acknowledged the mistake-so…) The focal length adjusts for the bit layer depth and gives BR some advantage on density.
For data purposes bigger maybe better (pending analysis of stability). BR may have an advantage - and maybe for whole seasons of TV shows it will be marketable to the entertainment consumers. But, for movies, BR’s capacities have provided no advantage so far as evidenced by multiple reviews.
I have no hate for BR - in fact I like the fact it is supposedly environmentaly cleaner than older technologies. But facts are facts and practical realities do count.
Now, on to holographic terabit disks…
Sorry, stevo, you are actually wrong. Blu-ray does use a different focal length lens on their laser. That is why there are a bunch of dual format PC drives out that will write to Blu-ray but will only read HD-DVD disks.
You should check the facts before telling someone else like Jeff that they are wrong.
Jeff makes a good point on capacity. The HD-DVD group has expanded their single layer capacity to 17 GB per layer in their 51 GB disk being tested. At the same time the Blu-ray group has expanded their single layer capacity to 33 GB per layer in their 200 GB six layer disk being tested. Unfortunately, due to a thicker layer used in HD-DVD, three layers is the max.
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“For data purposes bigger maybe better (pending analysis of stability). BR may have an advantage - and maybe for whole seasons of TV shows it will be marketable to the entertainment consumers. But, for movies, BR’s capacities have provided no advantage so far as evidenced by multiple reviews.”
This is incorrect. It is a huge advantage for anyone storing data to discs.
Perhaps as someone who buys Blu-Ray movies at Blockbuster or on Amazon it doesn’t have a large advantage yet, but for storing home movies in HD and for storing vast amounts of backup data it is already very advantageous to have the extra capacity…