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Gizmodo Declares Blu-Ray Winner 242

Posted by michael from the counting-your-chickens dept.
13.7BillionYears writes "Gizmodo has a special feature covering the many details of the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD battle based on the technical, financial, and commercial merits of the two contenders. They conclude that Blu-Ray is the clear winner on all three fronts. Hopefully the movie industry and electronics manufacturers will see the same logic and avert a format war."
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Gizmodo Declares Blu-Ray Winner More

Gizmodo Declares Blu-Ray Winner

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  • Dial back the bias a little bit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by erick99 ( 743982 ) <homerun@gmail.com> on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:04PM (#10601457)
    Gizmodo probably has it right, with respect to Blu-Ray, but their article is so incredibly biased that it is difficult to lend it any credibility. It's not an objective article at all. They follow a high-school writing class "compare and contrast" format. However, for each feature that they discuss, they trash it for HD-DVD and then argue valiantly and gushingly for Blu-Ray. I would rather read an article written by a dispassionate science writer. They should stick to regurgitating press releases rather than trying to take on serious analysis. I like Gizmodo as a great place to make one stop to learn about new gadgets but I don't go there for any sort of analysis or good editorial content.
    • Indeed. It would have been nice if they said *something* about HD-DVD's strengths and relative design. For example, which format is more resistant to consumer damage? Or at the very least, how about an HD-DVD link next to that bright, blue Blu-Ray link?

      I'm happy to know that Blu-Ray is a great format (and it really does appear to be a good format), but let's be somewhat objective here.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Reading comprehension (Score:5, Interesting)

        by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) * on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:15PM (#10601712)
        Did you read the bit where he said HD-DVD has NO web page yet?

        And resistant to consumer damage - What the hell does that have to do with ANYTHING? It comes down to hardware/media price and avialiablity.

        If 33%+ of the movie libaries are availiable in Blu-Ray, and NONE are availiable in HD-DVD - which would you image might be a more attractive purcahse? Even if HD-DVD discs can be run over by a truck and the Blu-Ray discs have to be kept in nitrogen cannisters between playing, the format that will get consumer marketshare is blindingly obvious.

        Finally, I would say that he did give a numbre of details for technical advantages of the HD-DVD format - which have then been met and worked around by the Blu-Ray companies.

        Sometimes an underdog is really, well, just a dog.

        • Re:Reading comprehension (Score:4, Insightful)

          by smclean ( 521851 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:21PM (#10601860) Homepage
          What does resistance to consumer damage have to do with anything?

          A lot! From a marketing standpoint (as if there were any other when dealing with manufacturers) the last thing they want is to have their brand name associated with discs which are rendered useless as soon as you get a fingerprint on them. (Not saying that Blu-ray is this sensitive, just making a point).

          • Actually that could be OK. (Score:5, Insightful)

            by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) * on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:27PM (#10602001)
            Obviosuly either side is going to make discs that won't die when you sneeze.

            But in fact a funny point sis that durability could be a major strike AGAINST HD-DVD. Did you read the part about Blu-Ray discs printed on paper? That could mean a lot more opportunity for throw-away discs in magazines or cerial boxes or wheverer. That is a huge draw to media types, to be able to push media through more channels.

            So again, I would say the duribility of the format has nothing to do with sucess. Ease of use, yes - to some extent (which is why they aren't giving any cart-based players to the masses). The primary factor will be the one with a majority of media companies getting behind it and making things people want to buy. If there were a split between some media supporting one format, and some another, then there might be more of a fight - but it looks to be an absolute domination the part of Blu-Ray, as they said from any standpoint you care to look that would indicate future sales potential.

            • Re:Actually that could be OK. (Score:2, Funny)

              by Anonymous Coward
              Yeah, just think. You could put one of these 200Gig paper discs in a book and you could fill it with. . . hundreds of thousands of books. Each bookstore will only need one book. This is going to cut costs like mad.
              • I appreciate the humor of what you are saying, but I really see these paper DVD's being in more temporary things like magazines or cerial boxes or in mailings (imagine all AOL CD's on paper instead of what they do now!!!).

                So for that reason I think it's pretty exciting and is a good reason to support it. I'm assuming the paper discs are relativley biodegradble though I have nothing to back that up with beyond the word "paper" and implications from that.

          • Agreed. Media damage is about the only thing I don't like about current DVDs. I have about 200 Music CDs (and my wife has about as many) and can't really recall any problems with playback. Where as I have an episode of Sex and the City on DVD that I didn't even get to watch because of the smallest scracth that I can barely see. I've also checked out DVDs from the library that were unwatchable. My personal experience leads me to believe that we need media that can handle media damage better.

            • you may need a newer/better DVD player. Don't expect cheap generic dvd players to be as robust as a newer sony/toshiba/panasonic player. Or perhaps your dvd player just needs a cleaning.
            • In my various netflix mailings, I have seen some DVD's that looked like utah seen from space - but they still played. I think if you
              re seeing those kinds of issues it would more likley be the player having problems.

              I still find player oddnesses from time to time that I think are fringe implemntation differences of the DVD menu sysetm. U2's "elevation" is the worst in this regard, I've had problems with portions of it on a number of DVD players. I was kind of hoping with a new standard like Blu-Ray they
          • Well, he didn't mention the weight of the discs either. I'll assume that the omission means that both are within the weight range that you would expect for an optical disc. The fact that he omitted the resistance to damage means that it is likely what you would expect from the normal range of existing discs. Some manufacturers have made tweaky discs, but most formats are fairly resistant to light scratches.

            --
            Evan

        • Re:Reading comprehension (Score:3, Informative)

          by swb ( 14022 )
          And resistant to consumer damage - What the hell does that have to do with ANYTHING? It comes down to hardware/media price and avialiablity.

          Resistant to damage is a legitimate consumer concern and should be taken into account when evaluating a media system.

          Certainly hardware, media pricing, and availability are key items in determining *economic* success, but just because something is widespread and inexpensive doesn't make it "better" than something else, just likely to be adopted by cheapskates.
          • Certainly hardware, media pricing, and availability are key items in determining *economic* success, but just because something is widespread and inexpensive doesn't make it "better" than something else, just likely to be adopted by cheapskates.

            The original question is not trying to determine soley which standard was least likey to break when I step on it. I thought we were trying to decide if the claim of Blu-Ray being the dominant choice for DVD successor is valid.

            I thought the whole point was to note
      • HD-DVD sounds better. It takes two "technical" buzzwordish acronyms and combines them. The name alone tells what the product is.

        Most people (including myself) wouldn't know what Blu-Ray is. Many initial adopters will buy it just because it's the latest and greatest and wouldn't take the time to research their format options. As far as they are concerned, HD-DVD is high definition DVD and you can't get any better then that.
        • The thing is, if that chart is right and there really is no media in anything but BluRay - what would compell you to buy an HD-DVD player even if it were offered? Consumers actually I think are very savvy in that regard and figure out pretty quickly when they are being screwed or have made a bad choice - the people that pay for consumer confusion are retail outlets in terms of returns. Like a number of XBoxes and PS2's I've seen returned in the past while I was standing in return lines because people coul

    • I don't go there for any sort of analysis or good editorial content.

      It sounds like what you're complaining about *IS* the editorial content. I think it's great, personally, as a scientist, to see a writer who's passionate about one party over the other and isn't afraid to let that show. But if it's not objective, well, at least you can view the results of the tests at the site linked above in the article -- that should be enough of the serious analysis you seem to be wanting.

    • Gizmodo, from the makers of Fleshbot and Wonkette. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by markv242 ( 622209 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:11PM (#10601626)
      Seriously, isn't there a bit of a credibility gap? I love Gizmodo and all, but are they really the end-all-be-all of format reviewers? Let's see Tom's or Anandtech's opinions.
      • Battle Over Next DVD Format
        Ko Sasaki for The New York Times
        By KEN BELSON
        Published: December 29, 2003

        TOKYO, Dec. 28 - When Hisashi Yamada pulls back his bow, he thinks of only one thing: Hitting the bull's-eye 92 feet away.

        "When I concentrate on the target," said Mr. Yamada, a champion archer who demonstrates his skill dressed in the traditional blue-and-white hakama, "I forget about everything else."

        In his regular job, Mr. Yamada, a 60-year-old electrical engineer, is putting that same single-minded focu

    • Re:Dial back the bias a little bit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by (SM) Spacemonkey ( 812689 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:27PM (#10601991)
      Yes, wonderful spin. Lets go through the article shall we.

      Blu Ray Wins (cause we already said so)

      Technical
      Blu Ray has larger capacity
      Blu Ray doesn't have backwards compatability, but thats a feature not a weakness!
      Blu Ray may have a lower production cost, we don't know for sure, but thats still a plus for Blu Ray
      Neither Blu Ray or the other one (we try not to mention the losers name) are going to use catridges. Point for Blu Ray

      Financial
      Blu Ray group has 70 members, the HD DVD forum has 220 members, but we saw this poster somewhere that only had 47 companies in support of HD DVD. So Blu Ray wins!
      The economic size of the Blu Ray members is bigger. Except for Microsoft. But you know. Microsoft may change its mind and support Blu Ray. Blu Ray wins this one as well! Wow go Blu Ray!

      Commerical
      Blu Ray has 30% of the commerical resellers market! HD DVD has 0%! It is quite obvious that the 70% currently undecided will chose Blu Ray, because we said it won already!

      Seriously, this article is not worth slashdot. It isn't worth anything.

      • Re:Dial back the bias a little bit (Score:5, Funny)

        by madprof ( 4723 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:43PM (#10602302)
        Thank you. You have convinced me Blu-Ray is the way forward.

      • I found their reasoning interesting nonetheless.

        The consumer does not need a format war, because the consumer always ends up as collateral damage (think am stereo).

        The higher capacity of 50gb versus 30gb is a compelling argument for blu-ray by itself though.

        What that means is when you buy a blu-ray disc at the store with music or video, you will get more for your money

        Who can argue with that?
        • what about am stereo?
          • AM hardware manufactures attempted to squeeze more life out of their equipment by making a stereo signal over an AM frequency. FM radio is superior in many respects (not just that it can carry stereo data) and eventually won over AM (even with Stereo) these days you will find more FM only radios than FM/AM radios but AM broadcasting hardware is not dead, just dying (we will still live with it though for many years, because it falls in that wonderful tech category called "good enough", sometimes I think tod
            • I don't think so.

              There is a cost of having to choose one format over the other. Even though the DVD writers have glossed over this for now, there is large number of dvd players that can not play both - specifically the ones you set on top of your tv.

              The consumer has to continually buy "more stuff" whenever they want a different service.

              I think this is fair when it comes to cable vs. satellite tv as those require different technologies.

              Open and established equipment standards always favors the consumers.
          • Back in the 70's the FCC thought that AM stereo would help rejuvenate interest in the AM band.

            Rather than mandating one particular standard, they made the fatal decision of "let the marketplace decide."

            So you saw different AM stereo (all incompatible) formats being deployed accross the country.

            Needles to say, am stereo has never caught on.

            And in recent years, AM radio consists mostly of talk radio and sports, which really do not require stereo.

            Who would want to listen to Rush Limbaugh in stereo? -shudd

      • Re:Dial back the bias a little bit (Score:5, Informative)

        by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @03:35PM (#10603074) Homepage Journal
        Blu Ray doesn't have backwards compatability, but thats a feature not a weakness!

        Actually, this is a myth. The players are backward compatible, but the standard doesn't require it. Both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players will play DVDs, the optics are available to take both the blue and red lasers in the same head assembly. Existing Blu-Ray players already play DVDs.
        • I read somewhere awhile ago that this backward compatability gripe pertained more to manufacturing the disks....not the player's functionality.

          Manufacturers supposedly liked the HD-DVD more because they could largely use the same equipment in manufacturing.

          I'd have to google it up to be sure though...so this is just me spreading rumors for now. :)
      • Wow, pitiful counter-spin mr HD-DVD member company president.

        Blu Ray Wins (cause we already said so)

        No, they said they wanted to outline why on three important criteria Blu-Ray did better, and use that conclusion to pick Blu-Ray as a winner. If Blu-Ray were really far ahead in all areas, do you not think that would be a good conclusion?

        Technical
        Blu Ray has larger capacity
        Blu Ray doesn't have backwards compatability, but thats a feature not a weakness!
        Blu Ray may have a lower production cost, we don't
    • If Gizmodo is so biased, how did they get the pretty Excel [gizmodo.com] graphs [gizmodo.com] to prove their point??

  • GOOD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RyuuzakiTetsuya ( 195424 ) <taiki@co x . net> on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:05PM (#10601497)
    I like having my optical media encased in some sort of protective barrier. it saves me from myself.

    As an American Slob(tm), I have a really slack attitude towards my optical media. Mostly due to how I can get away with it with everything else.
    • Unfortunately it will also jack up prices for the media and will take up a lot more space while storing it.

      The article also states "one thing is for sure - neither Blu-Ray nor HD DVD will be using them (cartridges) in the future."

      RTFA, mods.

  • Go beta! (Score:5, Funny)

    by static0verdrive ( 776495 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:06PM (#10601504) Homepage Journal
    Hopefully it turns out just like the VHS vs. Beta war of the late 70's/early 80's. Beta is better quality and deserves the title it so successfully....WAIT A MINUTE!!

    • Re:Go beta! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:24PM (#10601935)
      Advice for savvy high-tech consumers:

      STAY 5 TO 10 YEARS BEHIND TECHNOLOGICALLY

      (less for computers, but same idea)

      That way, when the early adopters are through spending their hard-earned cash on stillborn formats and their latest-and-greatest readers, and a format emerges as the winner, and a couple of clever hackers devise a way to get around the media companies' "niceties" (zoning anybody), then you'll enjoy dirt-cheap players and a great variety of content.

      Of course, the next SuperDuperThingamabobEverybodyNeeds[TM] will already be there, but don't think for one second you need to stress over getting current, that's an artificial feeling created by PR hype from the format pushers. You'll get the shit a lot cheaper than your neighbour in a few years, no worries...

      • Re:Go beta! (Score:2, Interesting)

        by JAgostoni ( 685117 )
        ... which is exactly what I did with DVD. Had I jumped early and got a digital video player I may have been talked into Divx by the pushy salesman. By the time I got a DVD player, Divx was looong gone.

        Same held true for a DVD burner. I waited a VERY long time before getting a burner. It wasn't until last year when I was able to pick up a multi-format RW for real cheap.

        I'll plan on doing the same thing for HD-BlueRay-VD.
      • I do that for videogames. I have realized how many hours of entertainment one can get from old games. On my PC I'm playing a 2 y/o strategy game (Europa Universalis II) that I got from a bargain bin at $15 and that has already provided hours and hours of entertainment to me. Plus all the patches are already available so I'm not a beta-tester. Plus other people have already spent man*years analyzing the game and all the tips and tricks are available on the net.
        I also own a Sega Genesis with ~25 games, $3

  • Who with the what now? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:07PM (#10601536)
    Who are these people and why should I care what they think? At first glance Gizmodo seems like a geek hanging out in EB down at the local mall expounding on why the PS2 is better then the xbox to anyone foolish enough to enter his rant field.
    • That's fairly close. Gizmodo is really really good at exposing you to neat new things and is pretty responsible in distinguishing bad rumors, well sourced rumors and fact. After that, it is most certainly a "geek hanging out" rant site.

      Which, in some cases, isn't bad. Good pictures, good attribution of sources, a keen sense for neat stuff... it's not a terrible site.

      --
      Evan

  • Logic? (Score:5, Funny)

    by aborchers ( 471342 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:07PM (#10601543) Homepage Journal
    movie industry and electronics manufacturers will see ... logic


    You're new to this business aren't you?

  • Dual Compatability? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How feasable would it be to have devices support both formats, the same way most DVD-writers now are +/- R. Are blu-ray and hd dvd too different or could we end up seeing the same kind of thing where both formats are supported by most devices.

    • Re:Dual Compatability? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:25PM (#10601952) Journal
      "How feasable would it be to have devices support both formats, the same way most DVD-writers now are +/- R. Are blu-ray and hd dvd too different or could we end up seeing the same kind of thing where both formats are supported by most devices."

      This multiple format business is a mess. Look at the problems with SACD and DVD-A. Nobody is buying them (and if the music industry stopped suing people and promoted those formats that are so much better than downloaded music they would actually make more money because there is new value there.)

      But back to the topic at hand: The industry would benefit more from having ONE SINGLE TRUE UNIFIED STANDARD as opposed to a couple of standards, which would confuse people. The public at large (Joe Sixpack) gets all confused with this 2-format thing. They want to buy a movie and play it, not worry about if this disc will play on their type of player. When we have one unified standard, confusion is reduced, people cam just buy buy buy and made the industry happy. The the industry focus can be put on actually releasing content and worthwhile stuff, as opposed to teaching consumers that they need a different player for their Fox releases versus some other studio and then wondering why people don't buy any of these confusing and conflicting products.

      Dear next-gen disc industry: ONE STANDARD PLEASE!

      • I wouldn't mind if they left off the region codes while they were at it.
      • i don't think the lousy performance of DVD-A and SACD have anything to do with format competition. even if there were only one format it wouldn't be going anywhere. DVD-A/SACD is no different from DAT- a solution in search of a problem. from the consumer point of view, neither one offers any benefit over CD. of course the record industry want the consumer base to adopt an encrypted format to help curb "rampant piracy" but the consumer doesn't care. all they see is a higher priced disk offering special
      • Let's see :

        VHS vs. Beta was a war created by Sony.

        DVD-R/W vs. DVD+R/W was a war backed by Sony.

        DVD-Audio vs. SACD was a war created by Sony.

        Zip vs. HiFD was a war created by Sony.

        HD-DVD vs. Bluray is a current war created by Sony.

        Correlation IMPLIES causation in this case!!
    • It sounds possible considering that both formats are compatible with DVD.

      So it might not be a stretch of the imagination that you could get these two to work together, but you would only want to if they actually had a full on format war, and in which case I would pick the one that has more storage.

      -Derek

    • I was going to say the same thing. Having drives be able to read both formats would increase the costs a little, but there's no reason why it couldn't be done.

      If all drives were able to read both formats (just like all DVD drives can read CDs as well), then the consumer wouldn't have to care about the format issue. The consumer would just buy a disc, and it would work. The disc manufacturers could be free to choose the optimal format given the content they wish to market (and the manufacturing tools ava

  • The masses will ultimately decicde who wins (Score:3, Insightful)

    by very ( 241808 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:08PM (#10601556) Journal
    The masses will ultimately decicde who wins But then again, the masses could easily be persuaded and influenced. Most of the time, there will be a winner by default, not necessarily by it's own merrit or quality, etc. I can only hope that the better system wins. Be it Blu-Ray or HD-DVD Then again, I'm leaning against any camps that blindly adopts technology, such as Microsft's. notice the word "blindly" didn't see it? well blindness might be a factor.
    • The masses will ultimately decicde who wins

      VHS vs. Beta, anyone?

      (oh God, here we go again...)
      • Not only are BetaMax and BetaCam different, but BetaCam itself has undergone several changes since the late '70s when it was introduced. (Yes, there was an Alpha system as well, but AFAIK, it never left the R&D stage).

        However, BetaCam has now run its useful life and almost nobody purchases new BetaCam systems anymore, preferring to go with either a digital tape-based system, or, increasingly, solid-state or disk-based systems.

        The basic problem for media formats is that Sony and Matsushita (Panasonic)
        • The fear with Blu-Ray is that it is a Sony product, and Sony will do what it always does (Beta, MiniDisc, IMX) and require the purchase of Sony equipment and/or charge massive licensing fees to use the technology. There is much speculation that the reason Blu-Ray didn't come out four or five years ago -- when, according to rumor, it was technologically feasible to do so -- was because Sony didn't have the support of anyone else in the industry, and management knew that to bring a Sony-proprietary video medi

  • My worry is... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MonsieurPiedlourde ( 594399 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:11PM (#10601617)
    It seems that the more data that you throw onto a 5" disc the less resilience to scratches there are. I understand that a lot of these discs will use redundancy to counteract the increased sensitivity to scratches. I would assume that would cut into the amount of data that can be stored on the disc. Am I wrong in assuming that being that the discs are 72x the capacity of a CD ROM that the information density is 72X more. If the discs have 72x the amount of information in a given area, wouldn't the disc be 72x more susceptible to scratches. I've noticed this when comparing CD to DVD's.

    So why dump the cartridges?
    • So what, with 72x more data, you can afford to put 36x more information on the disc twice.

      I also don't see you arguing against your hard drive becoming more and more dense. The same problem exists there.

      Just use multiple lasers to read the data, that should be able to correct for many scratches, and movie/music data is less critical than computer data, error correction is built in, and a good CD/DVD player should be able to either find, extrapolate, or simply skip over the data that's missing without us n

      • So what, with 72x more data, you can afford to put 36x more information on the disc twice.
        The point is that it's now 1/2 the size...

        I also don't see you arguing against your hard drive becoming more and more dense. The same problem exists there.
        But you don't handle the platter of the hard drive directly as you do with a disc. Apples and oranges.

        Just use multiple lasers to read the data, that should be able to correct for many scratches, and movie/music data is less critical than computer data, error

    • Actually, the disc isn't 72x suceptible to scratches because the the data on the disc takes 72x less physical space. In other words, although a 1 inch scratch will damage more documents, the odds are that it affected the particular document you are looking for are proportionally reduced.
    • understand that a lot of these discs will use redundancy to counteract the increased sensitivity to scratches.

      This is stupid. I've had the same glasses, with plastic lenses, on my face for the last three years. In the past, I've always replaced glasses because of broken frames, never because of scratched lenses. If I can carry a pair of glasses around with me for that long, taking them off, throwing them around, dropping them on the ground, fighting to get them away from my two year old. And no scrat

    • Re:My worry is... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Rew190 ( 138940 )
      It's amazing how this canned argument always ends up getting modded up.

      The canned response is that the discs are actually "safer" because there's a whole lot more room for error correction and redundancy. It's that simple.

  • given that (Score:5, Funny)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:12PM (#10601641)
    gizmodo.com and fleshbot.com are run by the same people, and written in the same style, it's no surprise that these guys vote for whatever gives them an erection.
  • Will it be the new h.264 or something else?
    And does anyone with a preview release of Tiger have any information on how fast it codecs a file?

  • Here's the Trick (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ObligatoryUserName ( 126027 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:16PM (#10601742) Journal
    Ok, I know this sounds naive, but get this: If we all decide right now that Blu-Ray is the winner, and we cling to that idea in spite of any future arguments then it will be the winner. The masses have spoken. We don't have to go through another period of format instability. It's a wonder of the Internet, a snap decision by millions.

    The only people who won't like this are the people who are supporting the other standard, you know DVD-whats_its_name, you know- the losers.

    • Re:Here's the Trick (Score:5, Insightful)

      by eggoeater ( 704775 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:30PM (#10602061) Journal
      Well, that sounds kind of ...naive.

      Instead of just blindly going with one format over another, how about we see how these maturing technology standards develop and then make an INFORMED DECISION based on how they actually work. Agreed, consumers don't want to go through VHS/Beta again and neither do the manufacturers. There's more to it than jumping on the nearest bandwagon.

      I lost my sig.
      • I forgot to mention, I used to be the chief technical advisor to the head of a medium-sized video distribution and television production company. Momentum of adaption is far more important than technical merits.

        I know it hurts eveyone who understands technology, but techical merits don't matter compared to the direction the market is already moving. To me, this looks like the symptom of a shift of market thinking. (Gizmodo does have a degree of influence, even if you haven't heard of it before.) Remember,

  • pat (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wikinerd ( 809585 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:19PM (#10601803) Journal
    which standard has the less patents attached? I would chose that.

  • Which will win...pirates may decide (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FerretFrottage ( 714136 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:20PM (#10601839)
    ...just a random thought, but I would suspect that the one whose copy protection is the easiest to break may end up "winning" as that is the one many people would find to have the most "freedom" to use how they wish without all the tacked on restrictions (warranted or otherwise).

  • Why Blu Ray Will Win (Score:5, Funny)

    by jetkust ( 596906 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:21PM (#10601850)
    Because "HD DVD" is too hard to say. Blu-Ray is easy and quick to say. 2 syllables: Blu, Ray. It's even easier to say that DVD, which is 3. Blu-Ray is a pronounciation dream. HD DVD is an acronym nightmare. Nobody wants to deal with that mess.

  • What is in a name? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by clusterix ( 606570 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:25PM (#10601942)
    HD-DVD could be lower quality than regular DVD and have a fighting chance against something called Blu-Ray.

    Since most people will recognize HD-DVD must be somehow better than DVD while Blu-Ray could be anything from enhanced color laundry detergent to insecticide. Without a ton of marketing and consumer education Blu-Ray will simple lose when the average couch potato goes to buy a new player from the local electronics megabarn.

    While this has little to do with why BetaMax (nor why every other Sony proprietary standard has failed), Blu-Ray has some serious marketing problems to over come.

    • Early adopters are techno-savy and will determine the winner. Unlike Beta, Blu-Ray is inviting everyone in.

      VHS was able to unseat the BETA early adopters only because:
      1. The Tapes where 6 hr vs 4.5 (3 on early BETA) in EP mode.
      2. VHS players were priced about 100 dollars cheaper than BETA players when low-end players cost 500-600 dollars.

      BETA still managed to hang on for over a 2 decades because 1. It was slightly higher quality (very slight) and had HI-FI Stereo about 2-3 years earlier.

      In this cas

  • Porn industry will decide the winner (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:28PM (#10602022)
    I think whichever standard the porn industry decides to use will be the winner.

    50GB of Jenna Jameson...WOW!!

  • It's simple, really... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 14erCleaner ( 745600 ) <FourteenerCleaner@yahoo.com> on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:36PM (#10602166) Homepage Journal
    Just find out which format Sony is backing, and pick the other one.
    • In this circumstance, it would be the wrong way. Unfortunately, only three hardware companies are behind HD-DVD, and they are Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo. I think there are like 12 to 15 hardware companies commited to Blu-Ray, inlcuding Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Mitsui, Hitachi, Philips, Panasonic, LG, nVidia, Canon, Sigma Designs, Lite-ON, Kenwood, Sharp, Thompson (RCA), etc.

      Not that bandwagon means it will necessarily win, but I think it is a strong indicator. Add to that the fact that three major studios have

    • Re:It's simple, really... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Which is why the Dreamcast is king today.

      Seriously folks, the format war ended when Sony announced the PS3 would support it. With many millions of Blu-Ray capable players already virtually guaranteed to be sold in the U.S. and Japan, no content producer has to worry about the installed base of players. It'll happen. The fact that Blu-Ray happens to hold far more than HD-DVD at this point is little more than a huge bonus for us geeks.

      A similar thing happened in Japan when the PS2 came out. DVDs were ha

  • Which one's cheaper to produce (Score:3, Insightful)

    by raider_red ( 156642 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:41PM (#10602277) Journal
    Hate to say that it won't be decided on technical merit, but businesses have a history of choosing an inferior standard if it benefits their bottom line. (Think VHS vs. Beta.)

  • Wildest optimism (Score:3, Insightful)

    by abb3w ( 696381 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:43PM (#10602306) Journal
    Hopefully the movie industry and electronics manufacturers will see the same logic and avert a format war."

    What makes you think the movie industry will see logic? They haven't been too hot on it before...

  • why are they all the CD-sized? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by X_Caffeine ( 451624 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:57PM (#10602557)
    I bet someone here can answer this question for me. Why are all these optical discs (aside from the venerable Laserdisc) manufactured with the same dimensions as the Compact Disc?

    Soon we'll have three or four 120mm discs. Why not make the Blu-Rays a little wider, so there's no chance of them being inserted into a non-Blu-Ray device? (and the side benefit of a few more tracks == more space) Backward compatibility would be maintained, of course.

    Is it just because it's cheaper to reuse some of the manufacturing equipment from the CD assembly lines?

    • Re:why are they all the CD-sized? (Score:4, Informative)

      by WuphonsReach ( 684551 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @03:55PM (#10603321)
      1) Because it's cheaper to reuse manuf equipment that can move / stack / sort 120mm discs.

      2) Stores have acres and acres of shelf space dedicated to storing and displaying 120mm sized packaging.

      3) Consumers have hundreds of millions of cases and other storage furniture dedicated to storing and displaying 120mm packaging.

      (Anyone remember what a PITA it was when the new DVD packaging came out because they made it larger then CD jewel cases?)
    • Why are all these optical discs (aside from the venerable Laserdisc) manufactured with the same dimensions as the Compact Disc?

      One obvious advantage is that the BluRay drives will be able to play CD's and regular DVD's using the same tray and drive mechanism.

      Now, you could have an 'inner' tray like the current one for 3" CDs but those never really took off. I think it's probably a perception-problem, people aren't comfortable placing a smaller disc into a large player.

      Secondly, everyone retains their

  • Why not a war? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by slapout ( 93640 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @03:14PM (#10602774)
    "Hopefully the movie industry and electronics manufacturers will see the same logic and avert a format war."

    Why?

    Look what happened with DVDs. Computer DVDs were pushed back for a long time while we waited for the movie industry to work out their copyright stuff. What if the computer industry and movie industry chose different standards this time? Wouldn't that allow the computer industry to move ahead with new technologies instead of waiting for the movie industry to catch up?

  • For the uninitiated (Score:2, Informative)

    by rmadhuram ( 525803 )
    Here is a good intro: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/blu-ray.htm/ [howstuffworks.com]

  • The movie industry (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jonatanw ( 667696 )
    The movie industry beleives people won't buy their discs if "DVD" isn't in the name. That's why. Quality is irrelevant in this case.. ;)
  • Media sellers love format wars. Sure, there's a retooling cost when they lose one, but they get another chance to sell you another copy of the content in the winning medium when they come around to it. They ain't giving you any money back for betting on the wrong horse. All those "wasted" dollars sunk into obsolete media objects went right to their bottom line. The only way for consumers to win the format wars is to do what they do: use the discs (or whatever's next) as merely a transfer medium, and keep th
  • It's an honest question. If you've noticed, laptops these days have become thin enough to the point where they're already as wide as these carts that the Blu-Ray discs sit in .. I cant imagine a format that requires the disc to sit in a cart to be used these days when everything depends on size.
  • Talking about Blu-Ray & HD-DVD, didn't Steve Jobs say that Tiger (OS 10.4) is going to have QT with H.264 which is compatible with HD-DVD and how you can resize the window without any loss of resolution and other cool features. Now I donot know much about H.264 but if they can do that and cannot do with Blu-Ray than Blu-Ray has a disadvantage there.
    And another thing, nice to see another fight between MS & Apple with BR & HD-DVD.
  • ...for the simple reason that they can probably spell.

    'BLUE' HAS AN 'E' IN IT!!!

    Thank you. I feel better now.

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