http://www.projectorcentral.com/blu-ray_2.htm
Excellent article on the current state of things over in AV Enthusiast land.
Excellent article on the current state of things over in AV Enthusiast land.
Blu-Ray: Can it Survive?
- Thread starter Ruined
- Start date
Ruined said:
Damn. And here I thought the "Daily Bucket of Sh*t on Sony's Head" (TM) (why not, I've used it enough!) was the "Internal strife at Sony" thing.
My goodness!
"Gloom, despair and agony on me!
Deep dark depression, excessive misery!
If it weren't for bad luck,
I'd have no luck at all!
Gloom, despair, and agony on me!"
Sony isn't dead yet. Not by a long shot. :smile:
But to be a little more substantive (well, the above isn't unsubstantive actually --consider it commentary on the reaction/attitude in the press right now, which seems very much to me to have gotten to the 'piling on' stage), here's the key point:
And I just don't agree that 2006 is the "critical launch year". The battle will be won and lost in 2007. Is Sony behind at the moment? Unquestionably. But not, in my judgement, to the point where "Will it survive?" should be being opined on with such authority.
Edit: But help me out here, if someone thinks I'm terribly wrong. How many HD-DVD players do we expect to be sold between launch and the end of the year? Because I suspect that Sony is going to sell more BRD players in December than HD-DVD sells for all of 2006. But if I'm way off there, I'll reconsider the above.
Kanyamagufa
Regular
geo said:
I couldn't agree with you more. That entire post was spot on. :smile:
Just to be obnoxious and reiterate; I also believe that 2007 will be the deciding year for these formats, not 2006.
i, too, must sadly agree, that despite its obvious flaws (none more glaring than its production by Sony, whose only enduring aim throught the decades has been to rip you off with proprietary formats!) -- superior quality and pricing may not amount to a lick in the face of hordes of PS ******s. Although, I disagree that the ******s will be so overwhelming outside of Japan. It's hard to call -- I'd say that I wouldn't be surprised if it went either way -- but logic certainly suggests (when was the last time THAT dominated the gaming market tho?) that PS3 may have a hard time outside Japan.
I think the quality point absolutely has to be addressed. I have no reason today to think it won't be before the market gets to critical mass.
I enjoy "horse race" pieces as much as the next guy, but my feeling on HD-DVD vs BRD right now is "let's take a status check in March and see where we are".
I enjoy "horse race" pieces as much as the next guy, but my feeling on HD-DVD vs BRD right now is "let's take a status check in March and see where we are".
geo said:
(to rephrase my comment more tactfully) agreed; if Sony can get Blu-Ray to improve upon the HD-DVD quality, then, as long as there is a reason to buy the hardware, then there's a good chance it will get accepted. That would change everything -- we'll have to see, next year.
geo said:
But as far as I know MPEG2 is the format for Blue Ray disks. It's in the Blue Ray Spec. So they cannot easily switch to another format.
Also 2 layer Blue Ray disks are rather difficult to produce according to a few older articles because the second layer is very thin and so two-layers disks will be rather expensive to produce.
So I think that the difference in quality will stay as it is for the next few years.
In the end, if Sony is "lucky" (read: the PS3 takes the HDTV-market by storm) the lower quality system will dominate. VHS all over again. Sad!
mboeller said:
Bluray discs can use VC1, AVC (think that's what it's called) or MPEG2, exactly the same as HD-DVD. Bluray players must have ALL three codecs.
Discs so far have been MPEG2 for a number of reasons, including; AVC is not yet mature enough and VC1 is Microsofts baby and would probably look bad if they use that, but it IS an option.
mboeller said:
Not true:
WikiPedia said:
It's not quite as bad, and worse at the same time. Right now, they have trouble reliably producing single layer bluray discs so that they've been able to use only 20 of the 25 gb available. But that should be a short term problem. I'm not too worried that the dual layer discs will be there when they're needed.
The reason the first DVDs were released with MPEG2 coding is that there is a lot of material lying around already properly formatted and coded into MPEG2 and then you don't need authoring tools for other codecs.
geo said:
Quality wasn't an issue with VHS and Betamax back then either. Betamax was superior AFAICR, but it lost. HDDVD may (still) have better quality, but it's not like BR looks bad or such. The difference is too small for the masses, it would have to be MUCH better in order to influence the purchasing decision. The prices are still too high for both, these will fall a few more times and then we'll see where it ends.
I think people are still quite happy with their plain DVD players and after the PS3 is out there they'll be buying BluRay solely because of the console having it already built-in so they don't need to buy a new player. And then the snowballing will kick in.
The only thing which could change that would be MS bundling HDDVD with every XB360, but IMHO that won't be enough.
---------------------------------
But why couldn't they coexist? Most drives will be able to read/write both anyway.
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inefficient
Veteran
The authors own conclusion: "If Blu-ray is to survive it needs to drop the price of its entry level players to $500 and increase the quality of its discs"
1) On the price, the PS3 launch effectively solves this problem.
2) On quality, there is no technical reason for BR to have lower quality than HD-DVD. It seems pretty obvious that the current BR discs are rush jobs, and the studios were cutting corners to save money.
And it's not a "bizarre phenomenon" as the author puts it that the Toshiba player is cheaper than the BR player. Samsung could not care less about the outcome of the format war, they make their player to make money. Every sales of the BD-P1000 covers the manufactoring cost + profit margin. Every sale of Toshiba's HD-A1 results in Toshiba losing money.
There is a reason Toshiba is risking so much by subsidizing the cost of their HD-DVD players. HD-DVD is in a world of trouble in the form of the PS3. They know that if they can't get even a small foot print of an installed base down before the PS3 launches it's all over.
But even with their best efforts, does anyone even exoect then to sell 200,000 HD-DVD players before the end of the year?
The PS3 could easily increase the BR install base to 2,000,000+ before the year is over.
On the number of titles out right now. If you were a movie studio, would you release your BR title now when there are at best only a few thousand players? Or wait till after the PS3 launches when there will all of a sudden be hundreds of thousands of players being sold every month.
BR real weakness is that is that the disc itself is more expensive to manufacture. Studios will make slightly less profit, at least initially with BR. But as long as the discs cost the same as HD-DVD, the consumer wins.
The weaknesses the author mentioned are temporary and will be solved when it actually matters.
1) On the price, the PS3 launch effectively solves this problem.
2) On quality, there is no technical reason for BR to have lower quality than HD-DVD. It seems pretty obvious that the current BR discs are rush jobs, and the studios were cutting corners to save money.
And it's not a "bizarre phenomenon" as the author puts it that the Toshiba player is cheaper than the BR player. Samsung could not care less about the outcome of the format war, they make their player to make money. Every sales of the BD-P1000 covers the manufactoring cost + profit margin. Every sale of Toshiba's HD-A1 results in Toshiba losing money.
There is a reason Toshiba is risking so much by subsidizing the cost of their HD-DVD players. HD-DVD is in a world of trouble in the form of the PS3. They know that if they can't get even a small foot print of an installed base down before the PS3 launches it's all over.
But even with their best efforts, does anyone even exoect then to sell 200,000 HD-DVD players before the end of the year?
The PS3 could easily increase the BR install base to 2,000,000+ before the year is over.
On the number of titles out right now. If you were a movie studio, would you release your BR title now when there are at best only a few thousand players? Or wait till after the PS3 launches when there will all of a sudden be hundreds of thousands of players being sold every month.
BR real weakness is that is that the disc itself is more expensive to manufacture. Studios will make slightly less profit, at least initially with BR. But as long as the discs cost the same as HD-DVD, the consumer wins.
The weaknesses the author mentioned are temporary and will be solved when it actually matters.
Angelcurio
Regular
You cant predict who will be the winner of those formats battle before the wild card has been released. How the ps3 affects the Blu-ray market will be interesting to watch. To put a simple example, i plan on getting a ps3 since i am a gamer, but i do not have interest in spending cash on a next gen dvd player, be it HD-DVD or Blu-ray, but since the ps3 comes with a free Blu-ray player, guess wich movies i am going to buy (and also which are more cheaper between those two formats).
A lot of people are in the same situation as me, they are not videophiles but just gamers that buy the movies they enjoy the most. Since the console we plan on buying has a Blu-ray player, there is no point in getting a standalone player. (Of course, if you are a videophile, thats a totally different case).
A lot of people are in the same situation as me, they are not videophiles but just gamers that buy the movies they enjoy the most. Since the console we plan on buying has a Blu-ray player, there is no point in getting a standalone player. (Of course, if you are a videophile, thats a totally different case).
It would certainly be very helpful if they could get their codec issues resolved before December. The real danger is that the first BRD disc that goes in all those shiny new PS3s causes a "meh!" reaction that is then, in many cases, not revisited. You know what they say, "You only get one chance to make a first impression." The first impressions being received today, while interesting, will not be decisive. The ones in December might me.
As for the PS3, the studios will easily be able to determine it's impact by looking at the sales numbers of the content.
The number of PS3's sold does not necessarily mean that the content will be purchased also. You have to look no further than UMD to learn from this. The 360 also has a HD DVD add on coming but to the studios it follows the same principle. We still have not actually seen the PQ of either the PS3 or the 360 in regards to Hi Def DVD playback so let's not get too excited until both actually show the goods.
Sony needs to get 50GB discs going if they're going to stick with Mpeg2 (which they will due to roylaties). Other wise, Mpeg2 and 25GB discs simply does not work. I won't even get started on how BD-J is nothing more than a checklist and studios like Disney will do their own thing or how $1000-$1500 players won't even come with an ethernet port which is obviously necessary for online interactivity BR had been boasting about for quite some time
The number of PS3's sold does not necessarily mean that the content will be purchased also. You have to look no further than UMD to learn from this. The 360 also has a HD DVD add on coming but to the studios it follows the same principle. We still have not actually seen the PQ of either the PS3 or the 360 in regards to Hi Def DVD playback so let's not get too excited until both actually show the goods.
Sony needs to get 50GB discs going if they're going to stick with Mpeg2 (which they will due to roylaties). Other wise, Mpeg2 and 25GB discs simply does not work. I won't even get started on how BD-J is nothing more than a checklist and studios like Disney will do their own thing or how $1000-$1500 players won't even come with an ethernet port which is obviously necessary for online interactivity BR had been boasting about for quite some time
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