HD format war, who cares?
Posted on Aug 20, 07 01:48 PM PDT
I’m surprised that so many writers still care about the HD-DVD & Blu-Ray format. Several manufacturers such as Samsung and LG are preparing, or already have, dual-format drives. It is only a matter of time before dual-technology players flood the market and prices will go down dramatically (just look at the DVD player market today).
That’s what happens to any “fixed-function” technology. Once you have a device that can play a movie with a decent image quality, there are not a lot of things that can be improved - at least not a lot of things that consumers are willing to pay premium money for.
What do you think?
Update (8/21):
In a recent Business Week article, Andy Parson from Pioneer (pro Blu-Ray) says: "Either a single format wins, or nobody wins".
That can’t be farther from reality. Right now, we have many DVD formats (DVD, DVD-R, DVD+, DVD RW, DVD DL) and quite frankly it’s a little confusing, but not to the point that users can’t deal with it. Multi-format drives are fulfilling their roles perfectly: users don’t really care about formats if they can read/write all of them.
Of course, having multiple standards makes adoption slower, but it will eventually catch on. And who’s complaining? It’s the very people who can’t agree on a single standard, because they want to keep all the licensing royalties for themselves.
Check out the business week article from Catherine Holahan to get more details on everyone’s stance in the industry.
Your Comments
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Legacy Comments
By Eh , 11/10/07 1:59 PM (CommentID #331306)
I finally got to watch HD-DVD or whichever high resolution format that was at a friend's house. Since I really don't watch television that often I was curious. Was the quality better..well yes. Did I really care? Eh not really, I was surprised certain movie starts/television had so many wrinkles that I couldn't see on regular tv. Wow I thought they were hot until I saw those pores close up! I would rather stay blind and ignorant for now!
By cc , 22/08/07 1:43 PM (CommentID #278680)
I think this format war is much worse for the consumer than the DVD (-R,+,RW,etc.) because this time each side has aligned with film studios. No, nobody cares now which DVD format you use because it just has to play on your hardware. Now, we also have to look through a list of "exclusive" titles to chose which Format/studio "bundle" we like. And hope the one you didn't choose doesn't release a film you like in the near future.
By Hubert , 22/08/07 11:21 AM (CommentID #278624)
Or... wait a little longer and buy a dual-format player!
By Anonymous , 22/08/07 9:53 AM (CommentID #278564)
For consumers, the answer is obvious. Stay away until the battle plays out!
By Hubert , 21/08/07 10:40 PM (CommentID #277941)
To MB: It's true that there are tremendous financial rewards for the winner – in the short term, that’s the whole point of the war. But the CD war has taught us that eventually, both formats will stay and that players will eventually support both. If that’s a year or so away, what’s the big deal for consumers? Someone who bought a $600 player this year will have to shell $80 a couple of years from now. It’s no great, but I can’t say that it is a catastrophe either.
By MB , 21/08/07 10:16 PM (CommentID #277911)
I think it will be a while before the pipes are big enough to make downloading such as large file simple. That means the battle over formats could still pay off for the winner. Unless Broadcom comes up with a cheap encoding chip.
By Hubert , 21/08/07 10:04 AM (CommentID #277395)
to right: First of all, I would not say “invest” when talking about consumer electronics, prices only go down. Secondly, by the time the “war is over”, a player will cost around $50. It’s not like you have to choose one format for life.
By right , 20/08/07 7:00 PM (CommentID #276748)
other than the fact that these mediums in general are obsolete anyways, regardless of how much storage they hold:
who really cares are the consumers! What happens when the format war is over, and one prevails? Those who invested money into the loser are pretty much out of luck.
By dH , 20/08/07 4:16 PM (CommentID #276635)
You've absolutely right. Also it's getting pointless to ever store information on these kind of optical discs since the network evolving...
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