The Blu-ray vs. HD DVD format war is over…
…as if there ever was a real war in between these two formats. The Blu-ray camp had a much better offering to begin with, but Toshiba decided to challenge them anyway with the HD DVD. Toshiba had one edge over Blu-ray, and that was the production and/or transition cost from DVD to high definition technology, which is supposed to be significantly cheaper with HD DVD. But if Toshiba and HD DVD camp had an ace in their sleeve, unfortunately for them the Blu-ray camp and Sony had the remaining three.
In terms of technology, the offering of Blu-ray is simply better. Most importantly it offers more capacity than HD DVD, which will come to good use with the 1080p full HD resolution material. If you look at the corporations behind these two formats, you’ll notice that support for Blu-ray was significantly stronger on the manufacturer side. Sony, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Panasonic (Matsushita), Hitatchi, Thomson, DELL, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi, Apple…Toshiba and HD DVD didn’t have much chance.
Game consoles are another interesting story. Sony’s PlayStation 3 shipped with Blu-ray drive integrated, while Microsoft decided to launch Xbox 360 early with previous generation DVD technology. Microsoft did support HD DVD to some extent and produced the HD DVD expansion drive for the 360, but that was more of a bluff and response to PS3 rather than real commitment for the HD DVD format. Microsoft’s high definition strategy is quite possibly a download service based solution, rather than physical media.
So actually when you consider the facts, war is an overstatement. Toshiba and HD DVD tried to challenge, but it was more like a David vs. Goliath deathmatch and as we know the latter wins nine out of ten times. And the media always loves the David. For the last couple of years we have been forced to read all kinds of crap about BetaMax vs VHS, or how PS3 will fail and kill Blu-ray in the process. Overall it became fashionable to bash Sony, PlayStation 3 and Blu-ray. But now, with the announcements from the recent CES expo, we can finally conclude that this battle is over.
Actually a dead cheap HD DVD player (the prices seem to be sinking towards US$100) with an interesting movie bundle might still be a good buy – you would get a nice DVD player with up-scaling features, some bundled movies, and perhaps you can buy a few more HD DVD titles cheap in the near future. And as a result you will have a piece consumer electronics history in your collection. Wait a few years and it’s vintage – kinda like owning a Laser Disc player!
But as the saying goes, the battle may be over but the war ain’t for Blu-ray. The real challenge is to convince the market and the vendors that a 12cm diameter plastic disc is still the way to go. After all the physical format of the disc is decades old, and not too practical. It is rather large and easily scratched and damaged. Will download services or solid state technology be ready in time compete with Blu-ray as the first generation high definition consumer format?
February 18th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
“apparently Toshiba is going to announce”…
it sounds like “bla bla bla…” LOL!!
February 18th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Geez, alot of your “comments” are longer than the actual article.
As said above apparently Toshiba is going to announce this week they will stop production of HD-DVD. This shouldnt be a surprise to anyone who has looked at sales figures in the past few months.
I never bought anything HD-DVD but really feel bad for the peoplpe who got tricked by the low price of the players. Toshiba slashed the price after it became obvious they lost, they wanted to squeeze that last bit of money out of consumers by selling a soon to be obsolete product.
February 17th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
[...] said it some time ago: The format war is over and now according to a Reuters Toshiba is throwing in the towel. One has to wonder how much money [...]
January 20th, 2008 at 12:02 am
For anyone who is reading these comments, let me just point out before I continue that LJPP and I have been friends for a number of years, and most of these comments just mirror the cat fights we have on IM every now and then, but there is a lot of respect, and I think I speak for LJPP too in saying that we’re just doing this to entertain ourselves because we obviously have quite opposite views on many of the subject we mention here…
Anyway, I think I set out to prove that your “presentation” of the format war was misleading and I said (maybe on IM, can’t remember) that you should rename the site to BiasBurners (joking of course) as a result. Later when we locked horns on consoles, I pointed out in my last comment that your insinuations about the PS3 and Xbox 360 were false, invalid and again, the result of what I think is blind bias.
However, you’ve done the work for me as your last reply was the most revealing of all, so let’s take a loom shall we :-)
“”And Jobs may well be right. He is not the first however, as many have already speculated for one or two years that both of the formats will lose (=will not gain DVD-like market dominance). I think I brought this up in the conclusion of my article as well.”"
It was, I didn’t say it to counter any claim you made, I just wanted to back up how I said any win for Blu-ray or HD DVD doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
“”Your debate strategy is quantity over quality, so it is very difficult to find the actual punchlines from all that (I think I must fine tune the site layout for you). And you have not been able to undo any of the original staments I’ve made.”"
Well, first of all I don’t see how it is quantity over quality, I mean what exactly does Blu-ray offer that HD DVD doesn’t besides 20GB extra space? Look at the video and audio in the specs for both, they are mirror images. HD DVD won the early quality tests, now its pretty much broken even between the two, especially when it comes to consumers who aren’t going to take screenshots and count artifacts, and those who do will come to the same conclusion; win some, lose some: on a title by title basis.
As for quantity, I think it’s fair as you brought up the PS3 as if it is actually a Blu-ray stand-alone and nothing more. Then you also made little of Microsoft’s contribution to HD DVD in the form of the external drive, so I said the 270,000 figure simply because it proved demand. By DVD scale, it’s a low figure, by next gen Blu-ray / HD DVD players sales, it’s quite good.
Finally, I already mentioned what I set out to achieve after reading your article. But it is worth pointing out that a lot of what I address appears to be the favoritism of Blu-ray and Sony in general, and I’ve done that. Maybe I left some stuff unaddressed, but it’s not like we both didn’t do that ;-) But as I said, I think what I said out to do, I’ve done!
“”I’ll comments one of your comments, regarding the strategy to attract Audio/Video segment. In this sense the two (360, PS3) are not at all similar. PS3 looks and feels like a device you can put next to you 40″ flat panel and Bang & Olufsen home theatre set.”"
Since you have put the word kitchen and Xbox 360 in the same argument (later on), I’m sorry, but I have to do it….
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2026/2157291078_000775f720_o.jpg
Wow, it’s a nice setup, but what’s with the George Foreman grill? ;-) Come on man!! You have got to be kidding, your defense now is about the design? Both consoles don’t look very well at all, they are too big for starters, might have something to do with them being out only a year and 2 years…. you know FAT PS2 looks like crap, so does original Xbox. I’m not sure where you were going with that…
“”It has been designed for AV-playback from the start, AND has native support for the current leading high definition format. I think there is a DVB-tuner add-on coming as well?”"
Again, I was never doubting the PS3’s multimedia capabilities, I was telling you that its goal is not at all exclusive or original to Sony. The Xbox 360 was also designed for AV-playback from the start… it is one of the few Windows Media Extender v2 devices available…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Center_Extender#Version_2_Extenders
Of course I have beefs with Microsoft’s strategy by tying it originally to Windows Media Center, but the dashboard update over the holidays has been a remarkable improvement for multimedia and a sign that MS knows where its faults are, now u have excellent multimedia without MCE or Vista. Go check the reviews of the multimedia capabilities from serious tech sites and blogs after the holiday 2007 dashboard update… but that’s neither here nor there, I am only saying that AV intentions are definitely not exclusive to PS3.
“”360 looks like cheap crap unfortunately. It is a device that matches your toaster in the kitchen. HD DVD as an external drive is a joke, if you think about installing one conveniently to your home A/V rack/shelf.”"
How can you say 360 looks like crap and not say the PS3 looks like crap? That’s a bit revealing mate! HD DVD as an external drive is an accessory created by the company for whoever wants it and 270,000 didn’t find it a joke, but you can stand alone and shout from the rooftops if you want to ;-) And it’s not like it takes up amazingly large amounts of space at all… have you ever even seen or used one… or an Xbox 360 even?
“”The add-on drive has been sold fairly well due to the low price – for some time it was the cheapest alternative to HD video”"
It was low priced because it was an accessory, an external drive that relied on the Xbox 360 console. I wouldn’t call it a cheap piece of hardware for that reason, it relies on the Xbox 360 or Cyberlink software on Windows to function properly, it’s not a stand-alone drive, just an option to add HD DVD functionality to a piece of hardware you already own.
But hey… “cheapest alternative to HD video”…. look up definition for high definition video! but that’s exactly my point, you don’t give an inch to anything other than Sony’s console and Sony’s format. You want me to talk nicely about PS3? no problem, I see its merits and they are many, but I always… you know this from IM… have had problems with Sony’s strategy for it and generally I was correct, look at its entire first year, but I won’t say its crap or anything like that because thats misinformation.
“”Will Microsoft release a Blu-ray add-on?”"
A comment at CES basically said that if consumers wanted it, then it would be an option to be explored. Then a press release confirmed there are no plans for Blu-ray on Xbox 360 and that Microsoft is still solely backing the HD DVD format. If the remaining major studios drop HD DVD which they might do, then I’d assume the Xbox 360 would get a Blu-ray peripheral too… sure.
January 19th, 2008 at 5:37 am
And Jobs may well be right. He is not the first however, as many have already speculated for one or two years that both of the formats will lose (=will not gain DVD-like market dominance). I think I brought this up in the conclusion of my article as well. HD DVD is beaten, but the real challenge for Blu-ray are the other distribution methods/formats/channels.
Your debate strategy is quantity over quality, so it is very difficult to find the actual punchlines from all that (I think I must fine tune the site layout for you). And you have not been able to undo any of the original staments I’ve made.
I’ll comments one of your comments, regarding the strategy to attract Audio/Video segment. In this sense the two (360, PS3) are not at all similar. PS3 looks and feels like a device you can put next to you 40″ flat panel and Bang & Olufsen home theatre set. It has been designed for AV-playback from the start, AND has native support for the current leading high definition format. I think there is a DVB-tuner add-on coming as well?
360 looks like cheap crap unfortunately. It is a device that matches your toaster in the kitchen. HD DVD as an external drive is a joke, if you think about installing one conveniently to your home A/V rack/shelf. The add-on drive has been sold fairly well due to the low price – for some time it was the cheapest alternative to HD video, and since media made people think HD DVD had chance, it was an interesting offer. A cheap trial to the next generation.
Will Microsoft release a Blu-ray add-on?
January 18th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
It’s not over until the fat lady sings, even Steve Jobs of Apple Inc., an important member of BDA, referred to Blu-ray as a failure. He said that while Blu-ray may beat HD DVD in the so called format war, it has lost the battle to dominate HD content distribution, and that’s true for many reasons, including the expensive nature of Blu-ray, its anti-consumer limitations and the bullshit politics in how it may “win” in the first place.
Anyway, I think I’ll leave it at that because I think I’ve said some very good points which were validated by not being challenged at all ;-)
P.S. It doesn’t matter who wins in the grand scheme of things anyway. This is not the second coming of DVD, and it will never be.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Blu-ray sales now represent 85% of the market share according to this report, so as said – it is all over for HD DVD.
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Industry_Trends/Disc_Sales/Blu-ray_Dominates_Disc_Sales_Chart_Post-Warner_Announcement/1383
January 18th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Well, HD-DVD Won, that’s all dude!
Maybe not the best choice, but it’s the winner…
And you know, Winner takes it All… lol
Best Regards!