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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.
“That implies Red Vs. Blue. I could give a rat’s behind on the nit-picks.”
Of course you don’t care. Your argument falls apart if you do… The lasers used are different, I wasn’t incorrect in that part of my statement. I also never mentioned colors. Your statement that the lasers are the same was incorrect…
“Aaron…how is Blu-ray winning in gaming (now)? Statistically it would appear Xbox has the lead. (this is not a rhetorical question - I have no clue.).”
Xbox360 doesn’t use HD-DVDs for gaming. It only has an add-on disc drive that plays HD-DVD movies. Playstation 3 games are actually on Blu-Ray discs.
I think the sharpie comment may have to do with TDKs two layer process. The first layer applied is primarily hard for scratch resistance and the second layer is supposed to resist fingerprints, smudges, etc…
Yep, I’m sure I could scratch a disk with a screwdriver - probably a light rubbing in the test. Unfortunately, standard DVDs seem to be scratched by everything including trying to clean them with a cotton cloth.
steveo, X-box has sold more gaming systems than PS3 but they have sold very few HD-DVD add-ons. The number of gaming systems sold with a Blu-ray player outnumbers the number sold with a HD-DVD player greatly - now Microsoft is talking about having an add-on blu-ray player.
The latest claim I have seen was as of November Microsoft claims to have sold over 150,000 X-box HD-DVD add ons worldwide with 92,000 of those sales in the US. A big problem now is that stand-alone Toshiba HD-DVD players are now the same price or cheaper than the X-box add on.
To Jeff: you implied the laser in HD DVD was the same as DVD. That implies Red Vs. Blue. I could give a rat’s behind on the nit-picks. As for my maybe on BR and data storage - no maybe on the size, I’ve just not heard about stability analysis. It was a real kick in the butt to find out a lot of CD’s lasted random times - weeks to maybe years - but it was impossible to know. If BR is proven stable (even if with specific player/media) then I’d remove the maybe. I mean, really would anyone argue capacity is good. Still, in consumer (as in Retail sold movies) BR vendors are not yet using full capacities to advantage over HD DVD. I’d be quite glad to see it when it does happen though.
Aaron…how is Blu-ray winning in gaming (now)? Statistically it would appear Xbox has the lead. (this is not a rhetorical question - I have no clue.).
About that screwdriver and sharpie comment. Give me a real screwdriver with a good tip…and your disc is toast! And sharpies…it’s just a felt marker??? What’s that mean?
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(If anyone cares what I think…) I understand that Xbox is only HD-DVD (always did). And with the explanation of how gaming is wining in BR, I clearly understand, but I do not buy into the rationale. Xbox has virtually no games in HD (if any). There is not a comparison here. PS3, has BR and has BR games so it clearly wins in a comparison with itself. If the PS3 makes good use of the BR in games and improves the genre, I’d agree they are creating a market that Xbox does not address, and thus has an advantage and leadership.
As for my comment on the comment on the comment about mistating DVD capacity vs. Blue Lasers, my appologies. Bottom line is 4.7GB/layer vs 15 vs 25. Red vs. Blu(ish). Done, okay.