HD-DVD Will Win the Format War! [Archive]

Deepak

22-Jul-2006, 07:08

Only catch is that it was commissioned by Toshiba itself.:lol:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20060721/tc_zd/184073

Ipsos Vantis, a market research firm which predicts consumer trends, released the results of a survey last week which forecast that consumers will overwhelmingly choose HD-DVD as the format of choice in the next-generation DVD wars. The survey reported that, if all studios supported both formats, consumers were more than seven times more likely to buy an HD-DVD player than a competing Blu-ray player.

The survey conducted by Ipsos Vantis, commissioned by Toshiba, predicted consumers would overwhelmingly choose HD-DVD rather than Blu-ray. The survey took a sample of 1,341 U.S. adults and screened them down to 469 people who either owned an HDTV or planned on buying one within a year.

The respondents were then "educated," as if they would be making a purchase decision. Not surprisingly, much of the data Ipsos Vantis provided in the survey was received with guidance from Toshiba, said Stephen Bohnet, senior vice president at Ipsos Vantis.

Bobbler

22-Jul-2006, 09:22

That's sort of silly -- "if all studios supported both formats" sort of makes the entire thing moot... because, well, they aren't. If all studios supported both formats then the story would be different, obviously. Who the hell comes up with this shit?

RobertR1

22-Jul-2006, 09:52

Actually, there's a high chance of both techs becoming niche products for a very long time and might never come out of that. Customer confusion, expensive players, expensive media and a format war don't make for fun times. We're seeing clash of the ego's.

Geo

22-Jul-2006, 14:21

Ghod, that's a hoot. If my Uncle Fred were a woman he'd be my Aunt Frederica too. What they have proved is that consumers are rational, and that they'd rather pay $500 for a player than $1,000, everything else being equal.

Well, duh. The problem being, of course, that Sony isn't just a player maker, they are a content-controller --and a pretty major one at that. The Sony film library is very extensive.

In fact, I'd probably go one step further --the one sure sign that BRD has "lost" would be when Sony starts making HD-DVD discs of all the content they control available to consumers. That would be the incontrovertible white flag of surrender.

I tend to think Disney is the key. If Disney supports HD-DVD as well as BRD, and they have hinted they might, that might tip this war.

At the end of the day, people will buy players to play content (this is even true for PS3, it's just that content includes games), so content availability is going to be a major determiner. Content availability, of course, is going to be driven by 1) Self interest and 2) Installed base to play it. Both of those are going to favor BRD fairly majorily starting in December. Enough to end the battle? Heckifino. See you in March for a status check.

22-Jul-2006, 19:00

I'm guessing that after the launch of the PS3, we'll see the true direction of the format war. If BRD content providers aren't impressed by PS3's consumer adoption, then consider this war over.

Geo

23-Jul-2006, 00:20

I'd modify that slightly --I'd say if they aren't impresssed by the number of PS3 owners buying BRD movie discs. A subtle disctinction, but an important one in my view. It's that one further step. How successful will Sony be in marketing PS3 as a movie player to folks who aren't gamers, and how many gamers and/or their parents/sig-o's will be willing to see it as an HD movie player as well? I don't know that the model is proven; that the numbers exist to point at a similar success or failure of such an attempt to bundle when further $$ purchases by consumers are necesary to make the bundling "work" for the bundler.

It will also be interesting to see if HD-DVD players come down in price by November to cut into the "well, I don't really want to game, but that's the cheap way to get HD movies" crowd that might consider PS3 as primarily an HD movie platform. Will the HD movie enthusiasts be at Best Buy throwing 'bows with the gamers to score the available supply of PS3s during Christmas season? I don't see that, so I tend to doubt the early PS3 adoption crowd is going to be HD movie-heavy in composition (tho obviously there is some overlap anyway).

23-Jul-2006, 01:00

Definitely true though that is even further down the timeline than my suggestion - you have to have the potential before you can have the actual (thank you Aristoles).

Colourless

23-Jul-2006, 01:33

HD-DVD has something that Blu-ray doesn't, a familiar name. I can imagine a clueless consumer going into a store and asking for one of those "High Definition DVD thingies". Think about people calling DVDs CDs. It's going to be worse with the Hi Def formats.

Sonic

23-Jul-2006, 02:50

That's only going to confuse the consumer even more with anaming scheme like HD-DVD. Blu Ray sounds much "cooler" and nicer despite it not being familiar. It will also be on the minds of many parents because their kids will be talking about how the PS3 has a Blu Ray drive, player, or whatever in it and can play movies that look better than DVD's.

I'd say Blu Ray has a chance if players will come down to around $300 - $400 by the time PS3 arrives, that way there is no incentive of purchasing a Blu Ray player that also happens to play video games for around the same price. More bang for the buck, and you know those people going into Best Buy will be clueless on just about everything but once they see the value, it is game over.

And this was a survey paid for by Toshiba, and Toshiba provided data. That doesn't sound too bad, I wonder what would happen if Sony commisioned a similar and also supplied data.

RobertR1

23-Jul-2006, 03:44

I'd say Blu Ray has a chance if players will come down to around $300 - $400 by the time PS3 arrives, that way there is no incentive of purchasing a Blu Ray player that also happens to play video games for around the same price. More bang for the buck, and you know those people going into Best Buy will be clueless on just about everything but once they see the value, it is game over.

Not gonna happen for a while. The tech is too expensive.

Samsung = $1000 (no ethernet port for BD-Live)

Upcoming models due before end of year. Earliest being Sept (prices per avsforum):
Sony = $1300 (ethernet port unknown)
Panasonic = $1500 (no ethernet port for BD-Live)
Pioneer = $1500 (ethernet port confirmed)

One of them either the Panny or the Pionner might be $1800 but I'm too lazy to check :(

The PS3 will be the cheapest way to play BR media but it's features and such are not known.

Geo

23-Jul-2006, 03:47

Do we know what the royalties are like to the standard owners for both BRD and HD-DVD, both players and media?

Guden Oden

25-Jul-2006, 00:27

Everything being equal, BR will will win because of PS3. Since it plays BR natively, people aren't going to buy a separate HDDVD player, they'll buy BR movies instead.

Then again I don't believe everything is equal, I believe BR already has an advantage, so the reason HDDVD is even standing a chance is because MS backing it hard just to screw with sony (and the physical distribution model, since they want everything to go DRM/online instead - and undoubtedly subscription-based as well so people keep paying and paying and PAYING for the same shit).

RobertR1

25-Jul-2006, 00:41

Then again I don't believe everything is equal, I believe BR already has an advantage, so the reason HDDVD is even standing a chance is because MS backing it hard just to screw with sony (and the physical distribution model, since they want everything to go DRM/online instead - and undoubtedly subscription-based as well so people keep paying and paying and PAYING for the same shit).

Advantage on paper? because of right now that's all it has. Let's wait to see these paper specs materialize into a working product before making such comments, yeah?

25-Jul-2006, 22:01

Advantage on paper? because of right now that's all it has. Let's wait to see these paper specs materialize into a working product before making such comments, yeah?

Yea I have to agree with RobertR1 as right now, HD-DVD seems to have all the cards (cheaper, more movies out, better quailty, higher customer satisfaction, ect)

Rolf N

26-Jul-2006, 00:41

RobertR1

26-Jul-2006, 01:00

Actually the technical difference between HD-DVD and BR is just the drive hardware itself. And it is proven that this works. There are drives, and they can read data off the discs just fine. The remainder of the guts of your typical player is practically identical in both camps. Most importantly the mandatory codecs are the same and the HDCP/ICT issue is the same.

So what part(s) of BR's paper spec must materialize?
Practical studio support/movie selection/choice of codec is poor, yes, but that's not something I'd call "spec".

It's not the drives, it's the media and software that's far behind. When we see 50GB ROM discs in mass production and used on majority of the titles, then it'll have it's advantage. So far, not one 50GB title has been announced.

Also, BD Live is no where close to being ready. Proof of this is that the Samsung and the upcoming Panny BD players do not even have an ethernet port for BD Live capabilities. This is scary because you'd think the IHV's would have a clue as to when they can expect BD Live and Panny releasing a $1500 in a couple of months without an ethernet port tells me they're still quite a ways away.

Also, they do no support PiP/IME currently and no clue when this will happen.

With 25GB discs the higher bandwidth benefit cannot be used because you'd fill up space even faster, especially using Mpeg2 and PCM lossless audio. The one of the reason you don't see any extra's on BR titles.

It's not a very rosy situation for BR right now and a lot has to take place for it to change. You don't just wake up one day and 50GB ROM media is widely avaiable, optical pick up units are cheaper, BD Live and IME is fully fucntional...etc......

Please don't take this as "it's over for BD." It's not, by any means but there is quite a lot they have to do in order to catch up and pass HD DVD. If they want to be considered THE format then they need to produce first and talk second.

Rolf N

26-Jul-2006, 01:14

Ah, okay then. I can agree with basically all of that.
It seems I was misunderstanding what you actually meant.

Even so, you reminded me of the 50GB discs (which is a paper spec aspect yet to materialize ... AFAIK).

Moloch

26-Jul-2006, 01:58

Wow.. I didn't realize that hd-dvd was already on dual layer (30gb) :oops: So 30GB with H.264/VC-1 will obviously look better than mpeg2 on 25GB :cool:

RobertR1

26-Jul-2006, 02:00

Wow.. I didn't realize that hd-dvd was already on dual layer (30gb) :oops: So 30GB with H.264 will obviously look better than mpeg2 on 25GB :cool:

Nah, 30GB with VC-1 :)

Moloch

26-Jul-2006, 03:50

Nah, 30GB with VC-1 :)
I edited ;)

london-boy

26-Jul-2006, 10:02

There will be no format war. Both HDDVD and Bluray will be largely unknowns to the masses, and DVD will keep selling a million times better than both of them put together.

Then PS3 will come out, and on day one the potential userbase of Bluray will be 10 times as much as HDDVD. By the end of month one, it might be 20 times. (that's assuming Toshiba can sell 100k HDDVD players between now and November).

I predict that initially Bluray will enjoy a success that's similar to UMD movies. People will buy them more because they want to try it out than anything else.
In a year or two, with millions of people being able to play Bluray on their PS3, the format will either be successfull or it will crash. As in, if Bluray movies don't sell well even considering they could be played on millions of PS3, then it will never succeed.

In the meantime, people will keep buying DVDs, probably play them on their PS3 too, without knowing they can play titles in high-resolution on Bluray, probably thinking that their DVDs are already in high definition or that PS3 "makes them" high definition simply because of "that upscaling thing" (these are all things happening right now with upscaling players, with people actually thinking like that).

In the end, it's a mess and DVD will come out triumphant for the next 2 or 3 years.

sir doris

26-Jul-2006, 10:32

I hope your wrong but it could well be that both fail to take off like SACD and DVD-A. Of course even if they are a success they won't be getting near DVD sales for many years.

At the moment most people don't know of HD-DVD or Blu-ray, only Geeks and AV freaks really. When these formats are released what will the marketing be like? Will there be any marketing outside specialist press? I only hope that with the PS3s marketing comes greater awareness of bluray.

As for naming, I think Blu-ray is FAR better in that it is clearly differentiated from DVD as long as it's well promoted people will know what it is.

OTOH we have HD-DVD which I think is a nightmare. There is a number of people who have got confussed over it already in the UK (and neither formats are available yet!). Buying DVD recorders with hard disks in them thinking that it will be able to play HD material because the manual/ bloke in shop/ etc. used HD to indicate the hard drive. This along with upscalling DVD players which are being labeled as "HD Ready" because they have HDMI sockets, people are spending HUGE sums on money on Denon and Pioneer upscaling players thinking they will play HD-DVDs. Even Argos are selling upscalling DVD players and labelling them HD-DVD players.

The type of people who are having these problems are clued up enough to find suitable forums on the internet to ask for help. When HD-DVD is properly released over here and you can buy disks in HMV it could get really messey :)

Graham

26-Jul-2006, 13:36

A comment that I read on engadet sums up my feelings:

"how many people do you know who use their PS2 as their primary dvd player?"

By this I don't mean I pronounce doom on blu-ray, however I don't really see the PS3 as being so critical as people make it out to be. It will be great to drive up the marketting number of homes with a player, but will it actually drive disk sales? (this has been mentioned I know).
By the time the average consumer owns an HD set I'd expect bluray/multi-format players will be far more mainstream (especially outside the US). Having the format avaliable to the average consumer early I almost see hurting sales, they will be playing the disk on a player that we can probably assume will make comprimises on price, and on an SD set won't look that much better. Average consumers may well be turned off by the more expensive disk that doesn't seem all that better.
You never should underestimate first impressions and the resulting word of mouth (something we are seeing with the currently avaliable bluray player and it's faulty noise reduction filter blurring the image).

Also there is the BD-9 'bluray' format which is really just a red-laser disk using blurays codec. I really see some potential PR nightmares with this one. Movie studios pushing this because the space is enough with the better codec, and want to cut costs.

london-boy

26-Jul-2006, 14:54

Also there is the BD-9 'bluray' format which is really just a red-laser disk using blurays codec. I really see some potential PR nightmares with this one. Movie studios pushing this because the space is enough with the better codec, and want to cut costs.

Pardon? Never heard of this. And what is a "bluray codec" anyway? Bluray supports all sorts of codecs which are not "bluray codecs", they're just different video compression codecs used on other formats and used for ages in the PC world.

sir doris

26-Jul-2006, 15:29

I can't imagine any Studio would use that BD-9 of which you speak. They are having problems with the quality on 25Gb disks with MPEG2, 9GB would be a disaster. Bluray need the quality to be at least as good as HD-DVD as the players cost more.

As for Bluray codecs, there are three used for video, the exact same three supported by HD-DVD.

26-Jul-2006, 16:44

london-boy

26-Jul-2006, 16:50

I just am not ready to buy in to the higher rate of PS3 adopition yet. I know that the PS3 will sell very well. And I know it will have more numbers than HD-DVD. But given the fact that the PS3 is over-priced for its market, I don't think we are going to see the sell through that we did in the past (PS2) which will reducde the number of Blu-rays out there.

One thing is for sure, if Bluray doesn't make an impact (compared to HDDVD, not to DVD which will take years) after PS3 is released, then it never will.

26-Jul-2006, 17:13

One thing is for sure, if Bluray doesn't make an impact (compared to HDDVD, not to DVD which will take years) after PS3 is released, then it never will.

Very true. And I am not saying that it will or will not make an impact. If the PS3 was priced at say $200 USD, then it will really really sell well. Which menas more Blu-ray players, more people apt to watch movies. And it sounds like a lot of people are betting on that to carry Blu-ray through based on past history/popularity/ect. Every time you see a Blu-ray thread some one says "yea but wait till the PS3 ships suckars!!!"

The problem I have is that the PS3 is almost tripple that cost..which means everything will change....

Albuquerque

26-Jul-2006, 17:20

Well now wait...

If we speculated that a million, or two million, or even ten million PS3's get sold this year, then we obviously have an installed base of BR players in a huge number of homes. Whether or not that PS3 is ever used as a player can be ignored for the moment...

How does ten million BR players fix the problems with the terrible Mpeg2 quality issues on all the BR discs? The only way you can demonstrate how much better BR is than HD-DVD's to the general populace is to actually have media that shows this. So no matter how my BR players you saturate the market with, until the media quality catches up, it's still going to appear to be less than HD-DVD's offering.

That isn't to say the movie studios putting out these discs will eventually get smart and change their encodings to a better codec, but it isn't happening right now and it isn't apparently on the horizon either. THAT is true underlying current issue with BR in the eyes of the AV-geeky populace, and it's something that will not miraculously fix itself when another million BR players are in homes.

Edited slightly for clarity...

Bobbler

26-Jul-2006, 17:38

"how many people do you know who use their PS2 as their primary dvd player?"

At the release of PS2? I knew a lot of people -- almost everyone I knew who had a PS2, in fact. That slowly started changing as DVD players became cheaper and cheaper.

Now days? Nobody. Now days people use their X360s for that (a couple of my friends do, at least =p)

How does a million BR players fix the problems with the terrible Mpeg2 quality issues on all the BR discs? The only way you can demonstrate how much better BR is than HD-DVD's to the general populace is to actually have media that shows this. So no matter how my BR players you saturate the market with, until the media catches up, it's still going to be worth less than HD-DVD.

That's just the thing... If BR ends up in someones home through a PS3, they likely won't even need to convince a person that BR is better than HD-DVD. It's likely they won't even bother looking at HD-DVD stuff or only see it in stores through a cursory glance -- for HD-DVD to win in this case the person would have to have an HD-DVD player as well as a PS3/BR player (which is actually unlikely). The average person buying a PS3 won't necessarily be a AV nut and likely won't know or care about the PQ advantage of HD-DVD -- certainly not enough to go out and buy HD-DVD after getting a PS3. That's the advantage that BR has (looking like the only real advantage at this point -- theres quite a few paper advantages, but PS3 should be the first real one to show up).

@LB: I think BR and HD-DVD have a bit better chance than UMD (UMD was handled atrociously and doesn't have the backing that BR/HD-DVD does)... BR/HD-DVD prices are much better for their value and will likely go down a bit more compared to UMD -- who knows though. I do agree the biggest fight either of the formats have is against DVD though...

Albuquerque

26-Jul-2006, 18:44

That's just the thing... If BR ends up in someones home through a PS3, they likely won't even need to convince a person that BR is better than HD-DVD. It's likely they won't even bother looking at HD-DVD stuff or only see it in stores through a cursory glance -- for HD-DVD to win in this case the person would have to have an HD-DVD player as well as a PS3/BR player (which is actually unlikely). The average person buying a PS3 won't necessarily be a AV nut and likely won't know or care about the PQ advantage of HD-DVD -- certainly not enough to go out and buy HD-DVD after getting a PS3. That's the advantage that BR has (looking like the only real advantage at this point -- theres quite a few paper advantages, but PS3 should be the first real one to show up).

I disagree on nearly all your points:

Average people who have a PS3 but aren't AV nuts and don't have an HD-capable set. There's an incredibly high chance that these folks will buy one or two BR movies and notice that it's the same visuals as their existing DVD player and DVD collection. As a result of such an epiphany, these folks aren't going to waste their money buying the (likely much more expensive) BR version of their favorite movie -- they'll buy in in DVD instead and play it on their pre-existing and likely much higher quality output DVD player. And still be able to use their single monster all-in-one remote control versus having to use the PS3 controller to navigate their movies -- cause this group is lazy too :)

Average people who have a PS3 but aren't AV nuts and DO have an HD-capable set. Hi def media is being shown everywhere; at stores, on cable, on dish, and now in consoles. People who aren't AV nuts but have purchased an HD set have done so because they saw the difference in picture at a friends house, or at Best Buy, or Circuit City, or some other retailer. And as such, they are going to go to the store to check out their next HD-media purchase. And while they're at Best Buy with their zero percent in-store credit card in-hand, they'll see what HD-DVD's encoded with VC-1 are doing so much better than BR with MPEG2 encoding. These non-AV-Nut people won't know why it looks better, but they'll know that it does. And that's what they'll purchase.

The psuedo-AV-Nut populace who doesn't have enough money to buy anything but a PS3 to plug into their existing HD-capable set These people are educated enough that, even if they still dont' understand the codec differences, will still do enough research to find out that BR has less PQ with 25gb discs and MPEG2 encoding. Somewhat like the first group, they may purchase a few BR discs that obtain better reviews online, but will likely / ultimately swap in their existing DVD player for a HD-DVD/DVD combo unit that's far cheaper than their PS3.

The hardcore AV-nut populace who has every player, every console and whatnot. These people have every player, and will buy their movies on whatever format has the best look.

OF course, these are all just my opinions and you may not agree with them either :)

Bobbler

26-Jul-2006, 19:25

I think you overestimate the average person who doesn't really care enough to buy stand alone players (the market that PS3 gets to tap that HD-DVD can only dream of atm), certainly not for $500 or more. The difference between the BR setup and the HD-DVD setup in stores is mostly indistinguishable to the average person -- at least every person I've talked to that's seen them (I was curious when the news hit that BR stuff was not as good as HD-DVD stuff - so I started asking friends and family and even a couple random people in my local best buy... most said they both looked fantastic and that was about it). Dare I say, most people don't read reviews online either, certainly not on stuff they don't care enough to purchase a stand-alone unit of (or they'd likely already have an HD-DVD player or would when PS3 arrives -- I'm talking about people who HD-DVD hasn't touched yet, which will be the vast majority of PS3 owners).

In your "Average people who have a PS3 but aren't AV nuts and DO have an HD-capable set" group: what kind of average consumer is going to buy a PS3 and then buy an HD-DVD player at best buy? That seems like the AV-nut crowd to me... no average consumer I know of even can really tell the difference between HD-DVD and BR (none of the same movies on both formats sort of makes it hard for most people) -- certainly not enough that they'd be willing to spend $500 on the difference after already having a competent format in their hands.

In your "The psuedo-AV-Nut populace who doesn't have enough money to buy anything but a PS3 to plug into their existing HD-capable set" group: What makes you think people will resist the urge for what amounts to a small PQ difference when they see a movie they want? (especially considering the complete lack of cross format movies for likely a while)

In all likelihood we're both wrong in some things and right on others. PS3 will help things, no doubt (I think we can agree on that, at least?), but how much of an effect it has is where we seem to be differing. I'd be happy if HD-DVD won, really, but I think dumping millions of BR drives into people's hands is more than a small PQ difference can offset (much like the days of VHS and Betamax). Who knows -- will be interesting to see what happens either way though.

Moloch

26-Jul-2006, 19:29

how bout we stop speculating about who will win and just see what happens?

demonic

26-Jul-2006, 19:31

how bout we stop speculating about who will win and just see what happens?

no, cos speculating is fun and thats what forums are about anyway... discussing what if and how and why.... :grin:

Bobbler

26-Jul-2006, 19:44

how bout we stop speculating about who will win and just see what happens?

That seems like a silly thing to say, considering half the forum's posts are speculation about something. =p

Moloch

26-Jul-2006, 19:51

I'd rather speculate about when sony's gonna bit the bullet and pay for the h264 licensing fees or whatever ;)

pcchen

27-Jul-2006, 04:14

The problem with "speculating" is, very few people (if any) have any concrete data to back up their speculation.

For example, one said "many people used PS2 to watch DVD when PS2 was released," but another may say "very few people did that, they are just special case." There's no way to verify it without concrete statistical data. And it varies between countries (for example, PS2 was a popular DVD player in Japan because DVD players were more expensive than PS2, but it probably wasn't so in other countries).

And of the H.264 vs MPEG-2 things, I doubt that Sony decided to use MPEG-2 just to avoid the license fee. Remember that MPEG-2 also requires license fee and it's not cheaper than H.264. I think it's just the reasons they mentioned about: MPEG-2 encoders are more mature and more efficient than H.264 encoders.

Skrying

27-Jul-2006, 04:28

How many HD DVD players have been sold? The data actually looks pretty good in favor of the Toshiba player selling at least decently for what it is. Any numbers on this?

Moloch

27-Jul-2006, 05:51

pcchen

27-Jul-2006, 07:38

More efficient in what way?
You aren't talking compression wise I hope :wink:

In encoding time, of course :)
Serious coders (although I have no idea how many DVD are encoded this way) tunes the encoding parameter for many important frames (there are MPEG-2 encoders which let you specify encoding parameters for each frame), so encoding speed is quite important for these coders. H.264 encoders are still much slower than MPEG-2 encoders.

RobertR1

27-Jul-2006, 10:19

And of the H.264 vs MPEG-2 things, I doubt that Sony decided to use MPEG-2 just to avoid the license fee. Remember that MPEG-2 also requires license fee and it's not cheaper than H.264. I think it's just the reasons they mentioned about: MPEG-2 encoders are more mature and more efficient than H.264 encoders.

Mpeg2 is used by Sony because Sony are the majority patent holder in the Mpeg2 licensing scheme. It's also the reason that it was mainly pushed for by Sony in the BR camp and actually the ONLY codec in the spec before the studios complained and h.264(avc) and VC-1 were adopted.

VC-1 is much more advanced in it's early stages than Mpeg2 is at it's end of life. Mpeg2 cannot improve to create a transparent to the master pic at Hi Def, at VC-1 bitrates because it needs too high of a bandwidth/bit rate to produce the same picture. This is another reason why the BW specs on Blu Ray were higher as it was clear that high BW would be needed if they were to use Mpeg2 throughout. The extra space 50GB follows the same reasoning as using higher BW codec stream means more data on disc.

The higher bandwidth and disc space (neither possible currently to due to lack or 50GB ROM media) only became an advantage once the other two codecs were apoted. Before that, both were critical just to keep pace using Mpeg2.

Geo

27-Jul-2006, 14:24

Ahhh, I didn't realize that Sony had a long-term financial interest in mpeg-2.

That's bad. I was cuffing them around in my mind for not dealing with a software thing well in advance so it wouldn't be an issue. Thinking to myself, well maybe they didn't have a great deal of choice on the hardware end --these things happen-- but they should have dealt with the software end.

Now I have to wonder if they intend to switch at all based on knowing the internal bean counters will be wailing against it.

sir doris

27-Jul-2006, 15:37

I think there is also a political angle here. VC-1 is mature, MS have put a lot of work into it and it shows with the quality of the US HD-DVD transfers. By contrast AVC is not as advanced and this is demonstrated by the quality of the Jananese HD-DVD transfers (which are not as good as the US HD-DVDs on the same hardware) which are using AVC.

So Sony had a choice:
1) use MPEG2 which is mature and they have a lot of expertese in optomising.
2) use AVC which isn't mature, is new to the engineers (may take longer to master) and may not end up looking much better than MPEG2 (if at all?).
3) use VC-1 and loose face using a codec developed by one of it's major rivals.

:)

pcchen

27-Jul-2006, 20:15

Actually you can try VC-1 encoders by yourself. Microsoft has already released a beta VC-1 encoder DMO which can be used on Windows XP (with Movie Maker 2 or directly through command line).

Compared to x264 and Nero Digital, I think the VC-1 encoder by MS is quite good, but it's not better than x264. Of course MS's VC-1 encoder is quite complete, supporting interlaced encoding for example.

I'm not very familiar with VC-1 as I have not seen its specification. But in my understanding VC-1 does not have as many features as H.264 does. Of course, quality wise it's all about the implmentations of encoders. I'd say that H.264 has the potential to be more effective than VC-1, but right now VC-1's encoder is slightly better than H.264 encoders.

I have not seen the results from hardware H.264 encoders. Sony just released two AVCHD camcorders which uses H.264 to encode HDTV video (15Mbps 1440x1080i). Maybe when the samples are released we can see how the hardware encoders in these camcorders perform.

Geo

27-Jul-2006, 20:42

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14060550/

BRUSSELS - European Commission antitrust officials are probing the licensing strategies of two rival new generation DVD developers, HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, the EU executive said on Thursday.

I wonder what that's about? I wouldn't mind that leading to public info on what the associated fees and such are. Or do we know that already?

RobertR1

27-Jul-2006, 20:50

No idea Geo. The patent licensing codec info can be found on:

http://www.mpegla.com/index1.cfm

But if this is a hardware licensing issue, that information will likely never be made public.

Bobbler

27-Jul-2006, 20:51

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14060550/

I wonder what that's about? I wouldn't mind that leading to public info on what the associated fees and such are. Or do we know that already?

Is this typical? Neither product has launched in EU yet, so I would imagine the EU commission would want some information on the licensing beforehand in something that is potentially a rather largely licensed thing. It doesn't seem like they are raiding these guy's offices or anything, just requesting information to preemptively make sure it's all legit beforehand. Not sure why this is news worthy really, but it seems it's being reported all over.

Moloch

28-Jul-2006, 22:09

In encoding time, of course :)
Serious coders (although I have no idea how many DVD are encoded this way) tunes the encoding parameter for many important frames (there are MPEG-2 encoders which let you specify encoding parameters for each frame), so encoding speed is quite important for these coders. H.264 encoders are still much slower than MPEG-2 encoders.
Good, you're not insane afterall :lol:
I doubt encoding speed is all that important since they most likely have insane computers to encode with :???:

quest55720

30-Jul-2006, 06:10

I think it will come down to if blue ray group can get thier players to mass market price with in 6 months of when HD-DVD players get there. I still have doubts about the quality of the PS3 blueray player. The makers of stand alone players would be pretty pissed if the PS3 had the same quality for 400-500 dollars less. I can see PS3 being used by gamers 18+ who are single as a blue ray player. I can not see a house of 4 really able to use it as a player with out it being a headace.

If the blue ray group can't get the cost of thier players under controll they will lose. I was pretty gun ho about waiting for a winner then buy. Now soon as someone gets a player under 250 USD that up scales as well as the current toshiba player I am in and will take my chances. I will not buy that many movies till players get near 150 USD that way I can have them on all my TVs in the house.

pcchen

30-Jul-2006, 06:40

Good, you're not insane afterall :lol:
I doubt encoding speed is all that important since they most likely have insane computers to encode with :???:

Well, IMHO most coders don't have "insane computers" to encode :)

Moloch

30-Jul-2006, 19:00

Well, IMHO most coders don't have "insane computers" to encode :)
Have you heard what the studios use for encoding :???:

pcchen

30-Jul-2006, 19:27

Have you heard what the studios use for encoding :???:

Let's put it this way: basically there are two choices, using speical hardwares or using softwares. Special hardwares are expensive and they don't necessarily encode best because they are somewhat less flexible. Softwares are slow. Most encoding softwares (even the "professional" ones) don't support clusters, or only with very large granuity (i.e. you encode different "clips" on different nodes, rather than using all nodes to encode one clip). So all you can do is to use a multi-CPU box. Since most encoding softwares are now x86 based (or PPC based, but as Mac is now x86 based too...) the upper limit of the number of CPUs is, well, quite low :)

Of course this may change, especially when CELL based encoders are out (and of course, CELL itself).

Moloch

30-Jul-2006, 19:36

Let's put it this way: basically there are two choices, using speical hardwares or using softwares. Special hardwares are expensive and they don't necessarily encode best because they are somewhat less flexible. Softwares are slow. Most encoding softwares (even the "professional" ones) don't support clusters, or only with very large granuity (i.e. you encode different "clips" on different nodes, rather than using all nodes to encode one clip). So all you can do is to use a multi-CPU box. Since most encoding softwares are now x86 based (or PPC based, but as Mac is now x86 based too...) the upper limit of the number of CPUs is, well, quite low :)

Of course this may change, especially when CELL based encoders are out (and of course, CELL itself).
Well do most even support 4 way SMP?

pcchen

30-Jul-2006, 20:06

Well do most even support 4 way SMP?

To my understanding, most pro encoders do support unlimited number of CPUs, however I don't know the efficiency of more than 4 CPUs. In my experiences 2 CPUs almost always give you twice performance, ditto to 4 CPUs. Even dual core CPUs do give you twice performance in most cases. So, basically the best you can get is a 4-way dual-core SMP machine, which may give you 8x the performance of a single core desktop machine.

Note that current fast desktop computers (especially the dual core ones) can encode high quality SD MPEG-2 videos faster than real time. Good H.264 encoders are much slower (more than 10 times as slow), though.

Moloch

30-Jul-2006, 20:30

To my understanding, most pro encoders do support unlimited number of CPUs, however I don't know the efficiency of more than 4 CPUs. In my experiences 2 CPUs almost always give you twice performance, ditto to 4 CPUs. Even dual core CPUs do give you twice performance in most cases. So, basically the best you can get is a 4-way dual-core SMP machine, which may give you 8x the performance of a single core desktop machine.

Note that current fast desktop computers (especially the dual core ones) can encode high quality SD MPEG-2 videos faster than real time. Good H.264 encoders are much slower (more than 10 times as slow), though.
I'm not sure I like h.264 since it's harder to decode, and now you say it's much slower to encode.

willardjuice

30-Jul-2006, 21:23

I'm not sure I like h.264 since it's harder to decode, and now you say it's much slower to encode.

Anyone know how hard it is to encode/decode VC-1 vs mpeg2 and mpeg4?

Moloch

30-Jul-2006, 21:53

Anyone know how hard it is to encode/decode VC-1 vs mpeg2 and mpeg4?
It's supposedly harder than vc-1 IIRC.

ERP

30-Jul-2006, 22:17

Anyone know how hard it is to encode/decode VC-1 vs mpeg2 and mpeg4?

H264 is Mpeg4 technically (Part 10 of the spec), although what people usually refer to is Mpeg4 part 2, which is mostly the same as Mpeg 2 but with some restrictions relaxed.

The simple answer is it's a lot more expensive than any of the other options.

Where H264 extends Mpeg2/4 style coding to include things like references accross frames, variable sized macroblocks and an additional processing step on the DCT values. VC1 as I understand it, is quite different, but I'm basing that on comments I've heard about some of the properties of the codec since I've never seen a description of the algorithm.

MistaPi

08-Aug-2006, 12:03

Mpeg2 is used by Sony because Sony are the majority patent holder in the Mpeg2 licensing scheme. It's also the reason that it was mainly pushed for by Sony in the BR camp and actually the ONLY codec in the spec before the studios complained and h.264(avc) and VC-1 were adopted.
So for a layman's explanation, why are the studios using Mpeg2 with Blueray when they can use VC-1 and get better quailty and more materials on the disc?

london-boy

08-Aug-2006, 15:45

So for a layman's explanation, why are the studios using Mpeg2 with Blueray when they can use VC-1 and get better quailty and more materials on the disc?

A lot of movies are already stored in HD resolutions in MPEG2, and that includes Sony movies as much as other studios. It is therefore cheaper to release these movies in MPEG2 as there is little to no re-encoding needed. Converting these movies to another format would take time and money, and obviously the bulk of initial releases are all about releasing early to get some cash pronto, not about quality at all.

Don't ask me why this is happening with Bluray and not HDDVD cause that will be a mystery for a while, execpt for the fact that the initial Bluray movies were Sony's movies, and we all know why Sony wants to push MPEG2 more than other studios.

SPM

08-Aug-2006, 16:54

A lot of movies are already stored in HD resolutions in MPEG2, and that includes Sony movies as much as other studios. It is therefore cheaper to release these movies in MPEG2 as there is little to no re-encoding needed. Converting these movies to another format would take time and money, and obviously the bulk of initial releases are all about releasing early to get some cash pronto, not about quality at all.

Don't ask me why this is happening with Bluray and not HDDVD cause that will be a mystery for a while, execpt for the fact that the initial Bluray movies were Sony's movies, and we all know why Sony wants to push MPEG2 more than other studios.

This makes sense. Digital TV movies are encoded in MPEG2 so releasing them cheaply in this format would make sense. I think that either the studios were waiting for MPEG2 on the dual layer 50GB BD disks (which have been delayed slightly) or they have all paid up for H.264 licenses and don't want to spend more licensing VC1. Of course with HD-DVD the capacity is lower, so you can't get decent HD with MPEG2, so they would have to license VC-1 or not release until H.264 gets going.

For some reason media companies seem very reluctant to go with VC1. Perhaps it has something to do with the mess in Windows Media formats, with Microsoft, Apple and Realmedia chopping and changing formats to lock each other out of their players. There seems little doubt that if VC1 is adopted, then Microsoft will create a new and improved VC2 which will only play on Windows PCs and media centers, thereby putting standalone media players at a competitive disadvantage compared to Microsoft's offerings. MPEG4/H.264 on the other hand is a committee standard which can't easily be changed or extended in a proprietary way to benefit one member.

I think pretty well all media companies will standardise on H.264 and not VC1. VC1 will be a Windows Media Format. In UK. Sky BSB, the dominant UK HD broadcaster was in discussion with Microsoft for two years about using the VC1 codec, but announced recently that it was dumping VC1 and going with H.264.

http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?section=distribution&id=1978

london-boy

08-Aug-2006, 17:01

I think pretty well all media companies will standardise on H.264 and not VC1. VC1 will be a Windows Media Format. In UK. Sky BSB, the dominant UK HD broadcaster was in discussion with Microsoft for two years about using the VC1 codec, but announced recently that it was dumping VC1 and going with H.264.

http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?section=distribution&id=1978

That's right, but - and i can be wrong - i think SkyHD is still using MPEG2 for most of its programs. Also, most of its programs are still just upscaled SD material so it's all a mess really. The imprtant thing is that the SkyHD box can take MPEG4 HD broadcasts so it's just a matter of time till it's all on MPEG4.

Telewest HD material is MPEG2 and will stay like that for a while, as they really have no problems at all with bandwidth, and obviously it's cheaper for them to keep their HD material on MPEG2 without re-converting it... :smile:

Mariner

08-Aug-2006, 17:41

I think you may be right about Sky using MPEG2. However, the BBC and ITV HD trials over digital are using h.264!

Moloch

08-Aug-2006, 22:24

... Of course with HD-DVD the capacity is lower, so you can't get decent HD with MPEG2, so they would have to license VC-1 or not release until H.264 gets going.

http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?section=distribution&id=1978
Er ATM hd-dvd has 5 more GB since they're on dual layer ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD-DVD#Released_titles

SPM

09-Aug-2006, 01:04

Er ATM hd-dvd has 5 more GB since they're on dual layer ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD-DVD#Released_titles

Yes, and the film studios were probably counting on dual layer BD disks with 50GB for their initial MPEG2 offerings on BD disks, but dual layer BD media production was delayed forcing them to publish at lower picture quality. On the other hand HD-DVD publishers always knew high quality MPEG2 movies wouldn't fit on dual layer HD-DVDs and so they went for VC1 from the onset.

RobertR1

09-Aug-2006, 01:56

Yes, and the film studios were probably counting on dual layer BD disks with 50GB for their initial MPEG2 offerings on BD disks, but dual layer BD media production was delayed forcing them to publish at lower picture quality. On the other hand HD-DVD publishers always knew high quality MPEG2 movies wouldn't fit on dual layer HD-DVDs and so they went for VC1 from the onset.

So they knowingly put out inferior quality? Sony and others were simply hoping that HD DVD would not come out the way it did. Remember the worse looking titles have come from Sony. They were hoping to simply get by with SL25/MPEG2 and no one would complain. Then they could take their sweet time with BD50 as there would be no competition.

HD DVD came out and became the benchmark. This became a huge problem for Blu Ray as it's precisely why we're seeing the backlash. For majority of the titles they're stuck with SL25 until BD50 becomes mainstream reality but no one has any idea when that maybe. Hell, we wanted the R520 to be a 24 pipe monster but it didn't work out that way did it? What we want and what is economically feasible can vary greatly. Getting stuff running under lab conditions vs. high yields of hundreds of million discs is very different. There is a chance that BD50 is a bit more than they can chew and it might take a few years to get to an acceptable level. BR didn't start up recently. They have been working on it for a few years now. To have 0 BD50 titles out is quite alarming and clearly demonstartes a problem with the media.

I'm seriously hoping it's not long term because it would be cool to see majority of the titles on BD50 from studios that don't support HD DVD. That way I'm not limited in my selection but I certainly will not buy a BD25 Mpeg2 title as it tells studios to we're willing to accept that.

Shape up or ship out, that's my message to the BR camp. My money is to be earned, not taken. And I'm easy to please!

pcchen

09-Aug-2006, 04:51

RobertR1

09-Aug-2006, 05:22

Actually I think 25GB is not that bad for MPEG-2: you can get 25Mbps for more than 2 hours. The bitrate is higher than many HDTV broadcasting. It's probably those "special features" which eat up the space and forced the bitrate down. If they can't get dual-layer discs out sooner, maybe they should consider making a dual disc package.

Actually some of the BR titles are missing extra's all together. For some reason though they feel the need to stick with lossless PCM which just eats up space. They could have used a lossy audio codec, reclaimed space and used it towards video. How much would it help? who knows? but perhaps there are certain issues with the Samsung when it comes to decoding advanced audio formats as they are not mandatory in the BR specs. If I remember, I'll post a link to the audio spec chart for both in this thread the next time I see it.

Putting out dual discs would be PR suicide. Not only would it make them look silly as they had been claiming disk space advantage all along but it'd be a clear indication that BD50 is a hoop dream.

pcchen

09-Aug-2006, 06:56

Using lossless PCM is actually quite common even on DVD, but of course they are for stereo audio. Using lossless PCM for 5.1 multi-channel audio would be very crazy (it takes 4.6Mbps for audio alone). Of course, in the context of HD video, 4.6Mbps doesn't seem to be much compared to 20Mbps for video. But if you have only 20Mbps for video+audio, then a 4Mbps savings from using AC-3 or AAC instead of lossless PCM would be quite significant.

SPM

09-Aug-2006, 08:29

So they knowingly put out inferior quality? Sony and others were simply hoping that HD DVD would not come out the way it did. Remember the worse looking titles have come from Sony. They were hoping to simply get by with SL25/MPEG2 and no one would complain. Then they could take their sweet time with BD50 as there would be no competition. HD DVD came out and became the benchmark. This became a huge problem for Blu Ray as it's precisely why we're seeing the backlash. For majority of the titles they're stuck with SL25 until BD50 becomes mainstream reality but no one has any idea when that maybe. Hell, we wanted the R520 to be a 24 pipe monster but it didn't work out that way did it? What we want and what is economically feasible can vary greatly. Getting stuff running under lab conditions vs. high yields of hundreds of million discs is very different. There is a chance that BD50 is a bit more than they can chew and it might take a few years to get to an acceptable level. BR didn't start up recently. They have been working on it for a few years now. To have 0 BD50 titles out is quite alarming and clearly demonstartes a problem with the media. I'm seriously hoping it's not long term because it would be cool to see majority of the titles on BD50 from studios that don't support HD DVD. That way I'm not limited in my selection but I certainly will not buy a BD25 Mpeg2 title as it tells studios to we're willing to accept that. Shape up or ship out, that's my message to the BR camp. My money is to be earned, not taken. And I'm easy to please!

It is not an issue of having difficulty in getting BD50 to work out of the lab, the issue is that BD media manufacture requires complete retooling whereas HD-DVD media manufacture can make use of HD-DVD manufacturing plant since it is based on DVD technology. This is the one and only advantage that HD-DVD has over BR. As for multiple layers, BD can do more than HD-DVD because of it's thinner cover layer, 200GB disks have been tested and demonstrated, so technically dual layer BD is not a problem.

What you have not is a shortage of BD50 media because media manufacturers have tooled up for BD25 first. This disadvantage will disappear for good in a few months.

The media companies know this. H.264 is a superior format to VC1 in terms of fidelity, and also standards compliance, and the media companies know this. The media companies certainly know a lot more about these issues than you or me, and I would suggest that this is why the media companies are prepared to wait a little and go for BD25 and MPEG2 in the interim.

Despite the rather emphatic title of this thread, I think this latest push by the HD-DVD camp to claim that they are winning is a desperate attempt to get in the FUD while it still can. HD-DVD has already lost the HD war in my opinion. Toshiba needed to get more than NEC and Sanyo on board to even have a slight chance of remaining in the game.

Millions of PS3s will have BD drives in them.

In UK anyway, some Sony Vaio high end laptops with BD drives have already appeared on sale - Misco is a major UK IT retailer: http://www.misco.co.uk/productinformation/~Q73894~/Sony%20VGN-AR11S%20%2F%20Intel%20Core%20Duo%20Processor%20T25 00%2F%2017%20%20WUXGA%2F%201024MB%2F%20200GB%2F%20 Win%20Media%20Center%2F%20Notebook%20PC.htm

Some PC component suppliers are already selling Bluray bare drives and media. http://www.cclonline.com/product-categories.asp?category_id=351 It is more difficult to get hold of HD-DVD add on drives.

Few big IT retailers outlets seem to sell the HD-DVD equipped Toshiba equipped Qosmio G30-163 (this is a non-IT store that does). http://www.johnlewis.com/Shopping/Product.aspx?Type=SKU&ID=230306723&source=14798 So there you have it.

The retailers seem to have already decided that Bluray has won and the big outlets seem be reluctant to sell HD-DVD equipment, and with every day that passes, HD-DVD's early advantages are being whittled away.

RobertR1

09-Aug-2006, 09:14

BD50 can be done on the same lines as BD25. The "retooling" is horrible yields. Once a BD replicator is setup (1.5mil) it can produce BD media. Yields are another story. There's no special "BD50" setup and nothing I've read even hints anything like that. If you have some evidence, I'd love to see it.

Sony wouldn't have had one movie out on BD50 by now seeing they have the replicators and mastering services for BR at this time? The BR camp has been working on BD50 for quite some time. Its' not like it was added tot he specs yesterday. Surely, atleast ONE title would have been launched using BD50 media. I'll bring this thread up in 2 months and we can compare how many titles are on BD50 and how many on BD25. That should be fun : )

You must have not been paying attention when AVC encoded HD DVD movies from Japan were compared directly to their VC-1 counter parts and lost out. VC-1 has matured a lot since then also. AVC, not so much.

You're hoping for BR to win simply due to your Sony loyality and disregarding it's need to advance and get on par first. Things don't just happen because you wish them to be. Are you really going to use lab resutls to make you 200GB case? Hell, I'm sure Ati can produce a 32pipe 64 shader card in the lab. Does it mean we'll see in masses anytime soon? and at yeilds of hundreds of millions? not so much. You're confusing "techincally" with "reality."

As I've stated before, Blu Ray has a lot of work to do. They need to catch up on both price and quality. Once they do, they'll earn my money. You might have different criteria for a CE earning your money but that's up to you. I simply will not pay 2x for lesser quality. Once they deliver on their promises, I'll happily have a BR player in my home theater. In the mean time, I'm enjoying the best HD picture I've ever seen, coupled with great audio and one of the best upscaling players on the market for SD media. All for $400. I'm not too stressed.

london-boy

09-Aug-2006, 10:47

I think the current mentality wrt Sony is that people who have already been watching HD movies in the form of broadcasts (mainly the US) are used to a certain quality which is more or less the same as Bluray movies at the moment. I think that because BD50 is having a few issues and delays, Sony decided to release movies which were "good enough" considering people have been used to HD broadcasts (which aren't exactly perfect), then with time things will obviously get better. It's almost like they fully expect Bluray to make a big impact when PS3 is released, so they haven't really pushed anything too hard.
HDDVD was the format that needed to prove itself, and Toshiba hit it hard and released a player that actually works (if i were Sony, i would have tried to stop Samsung from releasing a faulty player, maybe they did try too) and the movies released were all better quality than most HD programming you can find at the moment.

Does anyone remember the state of DVD movies when it first came out? The DVD released in the first few months were all single layer and with horrible picture quality, people wondering why exactly they should buy new players which were VERY expensive, not really seeing the difference from the best broadcasts at the time... Sounding familiar? I don't see why things would change now. These things always take some time to get right.

09-Aug-2006, 15:26

...and with every day that passes, HD-DVD's early advantages are being whittled away.

Actually with each day that passed, HD-DVD grows stronger (Better IQ, More movies out, cheaper players, ect). Not that it means much....

thatdude90210

09-Aug-2006, 21:18

Each new release getting better... and then Robocop (http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=23110).

Lol at the "Yes, it's really that bad! This is VCD-quality hackwork. "

Geo

10-Aug-2006, 00:33

Holy crap in a can, this disc looks horrible! I've written a couple of previous Blu-ray reviews where I'd called certain discs the worst High Definition image I'd ever seen, thinking HD couldn't possibly get any worse, but here Sony just keeps lowering the bar for the format. The Robocop Blu-ray is U-G-L-Y. And before you write in to chastise me that, "The movie is 20 years old. What'd you expect?" or "It was a low-budget movie. It can't look much better", save your breath. Those are bullsh*t excuses and dead wrong. The problems with this disc all stem from the video transfer and the Blu-ray authoring. Robocop is not supposed to look like this. No movie is supposed to look like this.

Ouch. Nevertheless, anecdotal. Not good, certainly, but they still have some time. This particular fellow has clearly Had Enough of BRD tho. Clear evidence of cumulative ire bursting out there.

Skrying

10-Aug-2006, 01:35

The Blu Ray camp really needs to start cutting prices. Its one thing to just be worse looking, but a whole new mountain if you look worse and cost more.

I'm personally looking out for those $30 players!

RobertR1

10-Aug-2006, 01:56

BR owners should be happy to know that the next release of Warner batch on BR will be using VC-1 and should identical to their HD DVD counterparts (the same encode can be transfered between the two).

This will also let everyone know if the Samsung really does have an issue or it was just smoke and mirrors :smile:

Geo

10-Aug-2006, 02:07

Do we have a release date for that batch? Looking forward to something a little more apples-to-apples on that point!

demonic

10-Aug-2006, 08:56

demonic

10-Aug-2006, 09:04

Some PC component suppliers are already selling Bluray bare drives and media. http://www.cclonline.com/product-categories.asp?category_id=351 It is more difficult to get hold of HD-DVD add on drives.

Wow, £15inc vat for 25GB blu-ray.

For a 100tub of DVD-R single sided. £14.69 from overclockers.co.uk

Blu-ray needs to come down by alot, to be competitive! As in price per GB.

10-Aug-2006, 13:55

Malo

10-Aug-2006, 18:13

Wow, £15inc vat for 25GB blu-ray.

For a 100tub of DVD-R single sided. £14.69 from overclockers.co.uk

Blu-ray needs to come down by alot, to be competitive! As in price per GB.

Thatts always the way with the new formats. The same thing happened when DVD-R and then DL-DVD came out. They started fairly expensive in single and low volume packages at like $10 each then slowly came down in price as people bought the burners and market demand went up. The DL are still relatively expensive but a lot less than when they were first released.

Once the tech has been around awhile and there are lots of BR or HD-DVD burners on the market for a decent price, the disc price will come soaring down.

RobertR1

10-Aug-2006, 18:35

Wow, £15inc vat for 25GB blu-ray.

For a 100tub of DVD-R single sided. £14.69 from overclockers.co.uk

Blu-ray needs to come down by alot, to be competitive! As in price per GB.

I honestly dont' think either format will do well for burning purposes.

Music burning is pretty much dead with MP3 players.
Unless AACS and BD+ get hacked, you won't be making "backup" copies of your Hi Def DVD's.
This leave us with data store. By the time either formats optical recordable media comes down in price, portable hard drives and flash will rule.
I'm an IT Director for a company thus dealing with various vendors and consultants. Flash drives are king. For big transfers, portable HDD's or FTP. No one burns CD/DVD's anymore. Tape backup solutions for small to medium sized businesses are being phased out by Live backups/electronic vaults. I don't see a strong future for either optical medium when it comes write/rewrite.

There will always be a niche that will want to take the trouble of ripping old DVD's converting them and what not but they will certainly not be the masses. It's already too much of a pain to burn DVD's for most people.