Evolving Blu-ray Format Will Leave Some Behind

Reservoir Hill writes "Blu-ray may have taken a commanding lead in the next-generation format war, but Betanews is reporting that early supporters of Blu-ray will be left out in the cold when the Blu-ray Disc Association introduces BD Profile 2.0, expected to arrive in October. Unlike HD DVD, which from the very beginning mandated features such as local storage, a second video and audio decoder for picture-in-picture, and a network connection, the companies behind Blu-ray took a different approach to keep costs down. 'We should have waited another year to introduce Blu-ray to the public, but the format war changed the situation,' said one developer. Representatives at the Blu-ray booth at CES said that the PlayStation 3 is currently the only player they would recommend, due to upcoming changes to the platform. Asked if they were concerned about a backlash from early adopters who supported the format from the beginning, one representative said: 'They knew what they were getting into.'"

First...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

... and only post?

WTF is going on here? Where are all the comments?

I guess this is the ultimate statement that BluRay is irrelevant.

Semi-Expected

[gnuman99]

When BlueRay was first unvailed it was already behind HD-DVD. It was few months late and not all glitches were fixed and all features done. Now, they are finally getting all features complete. This is the result. Incompatible upgrade.

Of course, if a player has firmware upgrade capabilities, it may not be obsolete.

Re:

[zonker]

You can't upgrade many of the features the new profiles require with firmware unless the hardware is already there.

Profile 1.1 requires a secondary video and audio processor for PIP support as well as a minimum of 256meg of local storage.

Profile 2.0 requires everything 1.1 has plus an ethernet port and a minimum of 1gig local storage.

Everyone seems to know about the ethernet port but few people seem to know about the storage issue. Profile 2.0 will be an issue with all but a small handful of players on the

I wouldn't be so hasty in predicting HD DVD's end

[wicka]

Warner Bros. biggest reason for switch to BR was that the format war was causing customers to buy fewer movies altogether (not just HD movies). This sort of thing isn't going to help ease the confusion. In addition, HD DVD is going to throw in everything they've got. I would imagine you will see HD DVD players at absurdly low prices, because even if they are losing a hundred bucks on each player, they are still recouping SOME cost. If you get the average consumer to look at it and realize, well this HD DVD

Re:I wouldn't be so hasty in predicting HD DVD's e

[Enahs]

Well, yeah; price and the incomplete BR spec are two factors that went into me buying an Toshiba HD-A3 a mere week before Warner's bombshell. I kept mine rather than opting for an Oppo because I only have Region 1 DVDs, don't play SVCDs (and if I do, I have a SD DVD player that does fine for that) and don't care about JPEG slideshows or Divx playback, so for less than an Oppo I got something that plays DVDs about as well as an Oppo. Now, it might be limited to 1080i but at my TV's size (32") I can't reall

Re:

[ToasterMonkey]

How is Blu-ray more crippled, or incomplete?

OTOH, HD DVD, while inferior, is ready NOW and with good transfers looks FANTASTIC. And before you scoff, I've seen it on larger sets, and it does indeed look fantastic. I couldn't help but notice that my local Best Buy FINALLY put an HD DVD display up, and the content they're playing on both...no contest, whoever authored the Blu content was a monkey, as it looks like ass, and the HD DVD content looks fantastic. Hm...$200 to get in on HD that looks nice, or $400 for theoretically superior but looks like ass...hm...

That has nothing to do with either format. There is nothing in either spec that will give one an advantage, visually.
"and with good transfers looks FANTASTIC" What I don't get, is that you seem to understand how a good DVD could be encoded as a bad HD-DVD, but you watch ONE HD-DVD/Blu-ray comparison, and conclude that Blu-ray has inferior video quality.

Hm...$200 to get in on HD that looks nice, or $400 for theoretically superior but looks like ass...hm...

... and one only plays movies while the other is really a PS3?

Were you intentionally trying to mislead everyo

Re:

[Enahs]

How is Blu-ray more crippled, or incomplete?

If I go out and pay $400 dollars on a player, I expect it to support the full spectrum of BD features, just like the "doorstop" in my rack right now. But they won't, and never will. To me that's the very definition of crippled; hey, I might not ever use the BD Live features, but I dislike the idea of buying into the format if I know the current players will be that much obsolete before the year is out.

Much as purchasers of higher-end stuff don't like to admit it

Mass return of all BluRay players?

[Christopher_G_Lewis]

So will we now see a mass return of all the recently bought BluRay players?

This is *exactly* friggin' why technology gets such a crappy reputation. Products not ready for mainstream are pushed out because marketing says its time.

I really hope that this does in BluRay - friggin' DRM ridden POS.

BTW - why don't you see a huge backlash against BluRay for region coding? I was just visiting friends that are ex-pats in Spain, and in order to watch their DVD's, they have *3* players hooked up - US, Europe and Australian - to deal with DVD's they have from everywhere they've lived.

None of that crap with HD-DVD - they eliminated regionalization.

Re:

[Anand7]

HD-DVD supports regionalisation. As a tactic, they haven't implemented it yet. This is all Mopar vs Chevy, Mac vs PC, chunky vs smooth rubbish. I bought a PS3 because I have a whack of PS2 games and there were movies I liked on Blu-Ray. I'll likely end up buying an XBox as well...they just better include a reference HD-DVD player. But mark my words, the DRM stuff ain't going away soon, in either format.

Re:

[ToasterMonkey]

There are only 3 for Blu-ray, and the US one includes North America, Central America, South America, Japan, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia.
It's not nearly the same problem DVD region encoding was.

About 2/3's are region free [blu-raystats.com] anyway.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

HD-DVD supports regionalisation. As a tactic, they haven't implemented it yet. This is all Mopar vs Chevy, Mac vs PC, chunky vs smooth rubbish. I bought a PS3 because I have a whack of PS2 games and there were movies I liked on Blu-Ray. I'll likely end up buying an XBox as well...they just better include a reference HD-DVD player. But mark my words, the DRM stuff ain't going away soon, in either format.

Problem is, as a format, HD-DVD may support it, but if it isn't implemented, it's going to be a royal pain

Re:

[dreamchaser]

Most people won't even notice or care until they one day buy a disc that won't work in their player. The vast majority of consumers do not pay attention to this kind of news.

Too Early

[bill_mcgonigle]

This is *exactly* friggin' why technology gets such a crappy reputation. Products not ready for mainstream are pushed out because marketing says its time.

It's OK, 99.44% of people who will eventually own a Blu-Ray player haven't even heard of it yet. By next Christmas, this should be sorted out and there might be a few $200 players for sale.

PC's go to HD-DVD, HD video to hdd, BluRay nowhere

[gregconquest]

Compatibility makes HD-DVD a natural PC component. There are no downsides. I wouldn't get a stand-alone player of any kind now. I'll stay with regular DVD and use my hard drive and HTPC for HD content for the next several years. However, in building a new PC, putting in an HD-DVD is becoming a nice option. You still have the ability to read and burn regular DVD+/-R's, and you can can burn a HD-DVD as well, though these will not be readable till HD-DVD replaces regular DVD on PC's.

Here's to you, Blu-Ray fanboys...

[Enahs]

Here's to you, Blu-Ray fanboys who said 'you knew what you were getting into' when some of us bought HD-DVD players...

"HA-HA!"

Looks like, as I predicted, we're all getting burned, and as usual, the real winners are the hardware manufacturers, who'll be able to sell you yet another player, and the studios, who get even harsher DRM than HD DVD had. The losers are the people who actually believed in a. the future-proof nature of Blu-Ray and b. the people who believed in HD DVD being standardized and cheaper, thus "better."

Oh, well. At least us early HD adopters know we got decent upscaling DVD players, right? LOL

At least the people who bought Toshiba units at Christmas time got Oppo-comparable quality at an Oppo-comparable price. Not that I'm trolling for flames or anything.

Maybe the real losers will be the studios, when people decide that they're still confused and see Blu constantly trashed in the press. It's a great format, don't get me wrong, but hearing stuff like this really does kill consumer confidence, and coming out with the format early just to fight off HD DVD, then having studios cut support for the finalized, cheaper format right as the price gets into interesting range, is, I predict, going to have the effect which Warner was seeking to avoid by dropping HD DVD.

Or maybe none of this will matter at all when the global economic depression hits.

Re:

[Vampyre_Dark]

No one needs to buy a new anything. I did some reading on this last week at random, and all BD discs will have to support profile 1.0 on the main feature.

This is no different then DVDs that were evolving, and the old players were left in the dust. None of my early players could handle the advanced special features on my new discs 2 or 3 years into the DVD age, and I just didn't watch them until I got some new players down the line. There is usually a disclaimer on the box of discs with advanced features tha

Re:

[ToasterMonkey]

Here's to you, Blu-Ray fanboys who said 'you knew what you were getting into' when some of us bought HD-DVD players...

You knew what you were getting into when you bought a HD-DVD player... now you're just pissed off it's not winning.

Looks like, as I predicted, we're all getting burned, and as usual, the real winners are the hardware manufacturers, who'll be able to sell you yet another player,

So, the customers would somehow "win" if HD-DVD were to succeed? *cough* BS *cough*
Oh, you meant HD-DVD customers are getting burned because it went the other way.

It's a win for hardware manufacturers in general, and nothing is stopping Toshiba from selling BD players when they're ready. There is ALWAYS another device to buy. DVD players got better, cheaper, disc changers, component output

Re:

[Enahs]

So, the customers would somehow "win" if HD-DVD were to succeed? *cough* BS *cough*
Oh, you meant HD-DVD customers are getting burned because it went the other way.

Have you tried the things? Take most those features the early Blu players won't have, plus many of the interesting features you'll find in BD players this coming October, and you can purchase such a player at Amazon.com for a very low price.

I love how you managed to get a bitter rant out of arguing with someone who picked the "losing" format. He

And is it safe now?

[Graftweed]

Asked if they were concerned about a backlash from early adopters who supported the format from the beginning, one representative said: 'They knew what they were getting into.'"

What about people who buy profile 2.0 players, do they know what they are getting themselves into? I'd be a bit cautious of buying hardware whose specification is controlled by people who have already shown they're not averse to making obsolete players that were bought less than a year ago.

To be clear: as I understand it the chan

WalMart, PostChristmas Sale and BluRay

[Anonymous Coward]

The local WalMart has a stack of BluRay media in a prominent location with leading movies on at a very good price. The stack is neat, tidy and hardly touched. Asked a checkout person in the electronics area how sales were. She said she has seen them but personally has not sold one since before Christmas.

Or as one potential sale said "BluRay must be some kind of game system"

Still waiting for the critical mass of buyers I guess.

Blu-Ray: Benefits?

[pcsourcepoint]

Maybe the public needs to be convinced how significant Blu-ray is compared to dvd format; Possibly the dvd format itself, or dvd players (and components) could be improved to produce quality and other benefits comparable to any perceived value of the Blu-Ray format...

Betanews article is FUD 1.1 discs play on 1.0

[aristotle-dude]

I have tested a Profile 1.1 title on a Profile 1.0 blu-ray player (PS3 prior to 2.10 firmware update) and it played back fine. The menu gracefully omitted the 1.1 profile features and playback of the main feature was not affected. Once I upgraded to 2.10, the 1.1 profile features were available.

As for region codes, the lack of region codes on the HD DVD delayed several New Line releases for HD DVD behind the DVD and blu-ray release because HD DVD lacked region locking. None of that matters now that New Li