Blu-ray, HD-DVD formats doomed from the start?
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Apr 27, 2006 at 1:37am
If I were going to bet my money on which high-def DVD format would win the battle for next-gen optical storage, I’d probably go with HD-DVD over Blu-ray simply because of its backward compatibility with current DVDs. However, columnist David Morgenstein in a column for eWeek thinks that both formats are doomed though “you won’t hear that from Hollywood or by way of the technology makers.” Why? Environmental concerns, worries about the format war and the future of online storage.
But let’s back up. In case you’ve been vacationing on the moon for the past few months and don’t know Blu-ray from Ray Charles and HD-DVDs from BVDs, here’s the skinny:
Blu-ray (BD) is the name of a next-generation optical disc format jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, a group of leading consumer electronics and PC companies (including Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson). The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. A single-layer Blu-ray Disc can hold 25GB, which can be used to record over two hours of HDTV or more than 13 hours of standard-definition TV. There are also dual-layer versions of the discs that can hold 50GB.
The competing format is HD-DVD format, developed by Toshiba. It’s based in large part on existing DVD technology and could well turn out to be less expensive to produce than the Blu-ray. In fact, Toshiba claims it can make HD-DVDs disks for about the same price as current DVDs. Also, players of disks based on Toshiba’s HD DVD technology would be able to play current DVDs as well as those in high-definition, according to Toshiba. Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, Disney, Warner Brothers and HP have all backed the HD-DVD format.
Morgenstein says that CDs, DVDs and their potential successors are a pending environmental problem, since many millions of discs are consumed annually by content providers and consumers. He expects to see a recycling surcharge added to such media in the months ahead, hiking their prices. Morgenstein also notes that the transition from one installed base to another usually takes a long time.
“Unlike the initial DVD introduction, which faced minimal (nil) competition from VHS tape, consumers already have a well-understood, reliable and inexpensive digital format for content and recording: DVD itself,” he writes. “The adoption rate of DVD was very quick, with sales of 300K units over the first nine months following the introduction of the players in 1997. But that just shows how old and tired the VHS tape format was in its latter days. Will anyone but early adopters purchase (or repurchase) video titles for the high resolution and pay the extra bucks for the privilege? And some content, such as collections of vintage television programs, will benefit only marginally from the extra resolution.”
Finally, Morgenstern feels that downloading will pose more problems for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats. Consumers have gained confidence with the benefits of downloading audio and now video files with TiVo video players and the iPod, he notes.
“Instead of moving to new DVD formats, consumers will purchase licenses to download the high-definition titles to a media server,” Morgenstern surmises. “The files are big but not that big. And storing files on a remote server is the greener alternative! Despite its slim capacity, plain ol’ DVD will exist for a long while. But in a short while, just a couple of years, the network will be the king of high-def. And that adoption curve will put DVDs to shame.”
Another thing that could derail or slow the Blu-ray/HD-DVD plans is an unsung format called VMD. But more on that tomorrow.
Thoughts? write me at daseller@earthlink.net
BiffBop Says:
After having to ‘re-buy’ my entire vinyl collection on CD and having to do the same for my VHS movie collection to DVD, there is no way I could give a rats @ss about either blue ray or HD-DVD.
Posted on April 27, 2006
tundraboy Says:
On my 50” projection LCD with an up-converting DVD player, my DVD’s look fine. No way I’m shelling out again to upgrade my DVD collection.
Besides, somebody should start a boycott of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Let’s not buy anything they sell until they to unify their standards. Is it too much to expect that these multi-billion corporations be run by responsible adults?
Posted on April 27, 2006
hmurchison Says:
No one guaranteed you wouldn’t have to rebuy your media folks. If you want the better quality you’ll migrate over the the new format. If you don’t perceive the value you won’t. I’m not boycotting anything Netflix and Blockbuster will both rent HD-DVD and Blu Ray so you don’t even have to purchase media.
I doubt online downloads will beat a physical disc. I don’t want to have to rely on my broadband connection for my media just yet. HD-DVD is already selling every unit available so I doubt that either format is going to see a quick death.
HD looks damn good even on a 30” screen don’t let anyone tell you that their dvds that are upconverted look like HD. They look better than non upconverted DVD but HD it is not.
Posted on April 27, 2006
guest Says:
Both formats will play your current DVDs but not each others discs, even though they both use the blue laser vs. the red that CD and DVD use. Check out the current issue of Sound & Vision, they break down the differences between both formats and what to expect from both.
Posted on April 27, 2006
Mike Evangelist Says:
Tundraboy - a boycott is exactly what’s needed. I’m trying to do my part.
Posted on April 27, 2006
deepkid Says:
It will be very interesting to see how these formats shake out.
Oh by the way, keep up the good work with Neo’s patent aticles. The consistent coverage really sets this site apart from other mac news sites.
Posted on April 27, 2006
DWalla Says:
Upconverted DVD is NOT equal to 1080p HD… not even REMOTELY. 1080p footage is 1920x1080 (2,073,600 pixels) versus standard-def 720x480 (345,600 pixels)… or 1,728,000 more pixels than standard def… 6x the resolution. One thing this article doesn’t lay out is that HD-DVD is only 30GB at dual layer while Blu-Ray is 50GB. Blu-Ray also supports much higher data rates which translates into higher-quality video and more extra features. Also, the article doesn’t lay out the fact that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray support true 7.1 discrete audio output versus DVD 5.1 output. One thing that, in my opinion, makes Blu-Ray the choice of formats (more than just the disc size)… is that Blu-Ray is 1080p (progressive) while HD-DVD takes the inferior and dated 1080i (interlaced) method.
Posted on April 27, 2006
jonmarsh Says:
The environmental issue is something of a red herring, unless you think CD and DVD are also going away soon- you have to have some kind of archival format, which Hard Disks aren’t.
Many widescreen HDTVs (up to half of those tested) don’t deliver HD resolution properly - look at the March Issue of Home Theater Magazine - so you’ll find widely varying reports regarding the comparative quality- from “not that big a deal” to “stunning”. It depends a lot on the display quality, which is much more disparate than most consumers realize.
I’ve done the HTPC thing with upscaling for years, and I have a couple of the best upsacling DVD players- in NO way do they compare with what I’m seeing on my 72” front project CRT setup with the initial releases of HD-DVD from Universal. But for smaller screens and longer viewing distances, the human eye can become the limit.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the initial success of HD-DVD and BD is only on a par with LD, a format I also participated in. (says something about my age, I guess). For many folks, DVD will be fine a while longer, unless they see HiDef properly setup on a friend’s system.
Last, the files ARE that large. True DVD downloads (5-7 GB) are not practical in the USA with broadband available in most locations, unless you do them overnight. HD is 6X that.
Posted on April 27, 2006
jonmarsh Says:
One other point- Both HD-DVD and BD store the info on disk as 1080P/24FS - but the first HD-DVD players can only output 1080i/60.
Very few displays are available with true 1080P inputs, and most have deinterlacing processing that works fine with 1080i input to re-assemble the 1080P frames.
Posted on April 27, 2006
fudgepacker Says:
My shoes hurt!
Posted on April 27, 2006
hmurchison Says:
Dwalla you post is incorrect in some ways that I’ll address.
Blu-Ray also supports much higher data rates which translates into higher-quality video and more extra features.
HD-DVD uses a 36.5 Mbps max bitrate. Blu Ray can go to 54 Mbps the issue I have is with your higher quality statement. Codecs never scale in quality in a linear fashion. There is always a sweet spot and after exceeding said sweet spot you have diminishing returns. With the nextgen codecs of VC-1 and h.264 you have a codec that is comparable at sub 20Mbps to MPEG2 that would require 25Mbs or more. Thus you aren’t going to see studios even coming close to exceeding 25Mbps for VC-1/h.264 titles. There’s no benefit. I’ve seen the demo trailer for King Kong on HD-DVD and it’s phenomenal and it’s only 16-18Mbsp in VC-1.
You’ve also gaffed on 1080p versus 1080i. Both formats record data on the disc at a progressive 1080p/24. Using inverse telecine the 1080i output can be reassembled back into a progressive picture that is indistinguisable from the video if it had been output in 1080p in the first place. JonMarsh I just noticed your post. You speak of the same thing I am here.
Posted on April 27, 2006
jbelkin Says:
The first thing you need to do is seperate out early adaopter sales from the mass market - just like DVd Audio or SACD, there are people who will buy anything or chase any format for fidelity but the mass market - not so much. If you look at the DVD & the CD market from 10 miles away, it looks that way but the reality is that consumers choose CONVENIENCE over fidelity EVERYTIME (at the right price of course), otherwise, we’d be listening to quad-LP’s, SACD’s and laserdiscs - all FAILED formats because they offered fidelity/resolution improvements but NOT more convcenience.
CD’s & DVD’s won out because they were much more convenient, you could cue then up, no flipping after 30 minutes, etc ... remember DVD’s were a nice market until players dropped below $100 and DVD’s at Costco hit $13 - that’s when DVD’s became mass market ... people who are watching DVD’s on $29 players and people who bought $49 Cd players (10 years ago) are not fidelity fanatics ...
So, the argument is right that HD & Blu Ray will be a nice business but not a mass market yet. Blu Ray has a slight leg up in greater capacity so the Blu-Ray DVD-R market will boost it some and with PS3 including it - there will be a slight advantage - presumably Sony is going to sell 60 million PS3’s ... but does that mean people will buy PS3’s solely to watch movies? no. So, there’s no compelling reason to switch from DVD’s. Sure, all of us who are here will be buying one or the other but as for the rest of America? HD penetration is only at 20% and half of those people didn’t realize you needed Hd programming to actually be watching HD ... and in 4-5 years, I’m sure another format will come along ...
Posted on April 27, 2006
DWalla Says:
Next format = FMD… Fluorescent Media Discs
Posted on April 27, 2006
hmurchison Says:
I doubt the next format will be physical at all. We have the codecs now that are efficient enough for broadband distribution. What’s needed now is the ability to encapsulate the codecs and control layer into a nice downloadable format that just works. In another decade broadband will be 50+ Mbps and we’lll have swarm technology that makes downloading gigs of data fairly trivial. That’s when things really take off.
Posted on April 27, 2006
They will be primarily storage media Says:
I doubt that many consumers are going to pony up the $ to replace their DVD collections, especially at high prices in the coming recession (yes, I called It). As a large scale data storage device it will replace DVDs, MODs and other storage media.
I think online distribution of HD content will undercut both formats. Without a format war, it might have a rapid roll-out. Enough people remember the VHS-Beta mess and don’t want to go down that road again. If Apple can deliver HD video over broadband with a reasonable DRM arrangement, it will hinder both formats in the marketplace.
At the Apple Annual Meeting, Steve Jobs said ‘we hear you loud and clear’ when asked about Media Center type computers. You can guess what that means.
Posted on April 27, 2006
Martin Hill Says:
Draconian Copy Protection is the biggest problem with both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray standards and is what will quite likely cause both formats to be stillborn.
Would you want to buy a new HD movie disc player that degrades the picture quality to a quarter of full HD quality because your expensive HD TV doesn’t support the HDCP AACS copy protection scheme even though it is capable of displaying the full HD signal? So you say stuff that and plug your HD disc into your computer planning to play the disk on your beautiful new expensive 24” or 30” Dell or Apple LCD monitor. Guess what – no HDMI connector with HDCP so your video image gets downgraded to a lower signal quality. No HD for you bucko.
And think your expensive new “HD-ready” video card will work if you get a new compliant monitor? Ha! The AACS copy protection scheme was only finally ratified a few weeks ago and can only be installed at the factory so no firmware updates for you.
This may sound unbelievable, but both Blu-ray and HD-DVD suffer from these brain-dead restrictions (and others) that will cause a consumer revolt when Joe Consumer discovers how he has been stiffed by the DRM-happy content lobby.
http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/early_hdtv_adopters_screwed_by_hddisc_rules.html
Perhaps you want to copy your HD disc to your widescreen HD laptop computer’s hard drive so you can watch the movie on the plane without draining that battery running the optical disc drive. Nope, sorry, no can do. Blu-ray discs also don’t have to support Mandatory Managed Copy to allow even a lower res copy to be downloaded to your portable MP3/Video player either. If you’re lucky, Apple may get it’s way and have an iPod version of the movie on some Blu-ray discs, but good luck trying to copy anything off an HD-DVD disc onto a Video iPod.
I use a data projector to watch digital terrestrial TV broadcasts and when sitting back on the couch can’t tell the difference between a digital Standard Definition (SD) or HD signal on the big screen or on my high res widescreen computer apart from the fact that the HD signal consumes 3-4 times the amount of space on disc.
My feeling is both high definition DVD standards are going to follow Betamax, DVD-audio, SACD, UMD etc into oblivion.
I’m with the boycott myself.
http://writersblocklive.com/part-156
-Mart
Posted on April 27, 2006
b Says:
Just wanted to piggy back on what jbelkin said, which I totally agree with and why I think the future of HD movies is download. Nothing more convenient with that, and I’m hopping that will help drive greater bandwidth in homes. Also, as some anecdotal evidence supporting the statement that the average user doesn’t care about quality: only 2 people in my large family have HD TVs and they care so much about quality that they watch 4:3 television stretched to wide screen.
Posted on April 27, 2006
Hector Says:
I can understand that in America, the quality is somewhat increased by the use of HD, but that’s largely due to the low quality of the NTSC system when compared to PAL systems in Europe and Australia. Since the colours are improved on American sets it’s percieved as a higher quality picture. This reflects more that the Americans have had low quality colour in the past than that there is any inherant benefit in HD technology.
In the UK, the strangest thing has happened - everyone has gone on about quality and then bought LCD and plasma TVs, which quite plainly give a lower quality picture than cheaper CRT technology. HD is the way that these flat screens will finally catch up in quality with the products that come at 1% of the price. It’s kinda sad, really.
I shall be boycotting HD-DVD AND Blu-Ray, myself
Hector
Posted on April 28, 2006
Mike Pitts Says:
This guy is off his rocker. Wanna know the real deal. Cnet has you all fooled. So does Microsoft. Let me explain why Sony cant loose.
Ill tell you the real deal of what going on! Sony has sold a sh^& load of units on the PS2s.
Now a close estimate is they have sold maybe 40 million in the US. And another 80 to 90 million outside the US overseas. Now do you think Microsoft can beat Sony on Sonys own ground? Because if they cant. Than that’s like 70 to 85% of the sales of gaming. Meaning Sales in the US don’t mean sh^&.
In fact the PS2 could have sold 0! ZERO units in the US. And still would have won the last gen war. That was my backbone. That was my little Ace up the sleeve so to speak. Knowing that No American machine can really sell overseas. I put all my weight on that, but never mentioned it.
So it was not really, is Sony that good or is Microsoft that bad. It was more so the raw fact that, If Microsoft cant get that edge around the world in the first year its over. And thus they have not. So now the new machines will come out, and its now a race between Nintendo and Sony.
Once the developers are forced to go with making their best for the more dominating machines. Sony starts to win, or Nintendo, in the US also. Because of the better games than or latter on.
Thats all it ever was, and the basics of it. I cant see how so many people looked that over. Or how STUPID can you be not to see this!! Are % in this systems war, Is not big. Meaning America does not play a major roll, in the gaming wars.
You have to win this on the other fronts. Or you cant win. Also you have to add in “and im not sure if this is really true, this is what I hear.” That the 360 and PS3 are much closer in price over in Ero.
We get so sucked in to the E3 stuff, and BS. And we get this feeling that were all that, were this big!!! Truth being, is all we are to gamming is a port of what happens around the rest of the world, more so what happens In Japan.
Znet and Cnet have a lot to do with the Smoke Screen that has been brought over you eyes. They try to cover good posts on the PS3 as fast as they can. They try everything. But No one is gonna read these things. Its not gonna matter. The PS3 only has to be decent in the US. And as you can see their are enough of us smart ones. .That will be no problem.
I mean think about what you just read really well. No mater what you post or do the war is over already. Its a two horse race between Nintendo and Sony. Now that being said the 360 will still be a machine. Much like the Xbox, Its just not gonna be the best selling machine or number 1 machine. In fact it will probably finsih last again. So If your one of tose anoying Microsoft fans. Your still gonna get your fix.
But if you really think after really thinking about the odds! That Microsoft can win this war. You a complete fing Idiot. You can cover as many posts as you want, write all the BS in the world. And it wont change a thing. If anything it makes people hate Microsoft more!! In fact a lot of Americans would not know of the PS3 if it were not for PS3 big time NEWS ALL THE TIME! And if it does do its thing well, then all the better. But like I said, I dont know who will win. But I know who for sure is gonna loose.
A Western “US” made Machine will NEVER win in a Eastern World powered area. Think about it. The 360 cant sell now in the east. How is it going to sell once the PS3 and Wii come out in the East. Ive seen pics of full loads of 360 on Shelves over their that just cant sell. Their out!!!!! game over for them! And most know its true. Some just wont except it. And it has nothing to do with Sony being great, Microsoft just su^&s;that bad overseas.
Posted on July 24, 2006
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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btw Says:
Please don’t fall for Toshiba’s promo garbage: HD DVD is a blue laser based technology just as Blu-ray and thus is *not* inherently more backwards compatible to DVD than Blu-ray. *Both* format’s players need a second (red) laser to read DVDs, and this will be a feature of *every single* Blu-ray (or HD DVD) player ever released. There is no advantage there for HD DVD. As for being “less expensive”: go to amazon and check what HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs (up for preorder) cost – it’s basically *exactly* the same (around 20 bucks).
Posted on April 27, 2006