BLU-RAY WIN!

[Spidermate]

The cost was also on hd-dvd side. The discs themselves would have been cheaper and would have only required a retooling of the current plants . Also the drives themselves may have been cheaper though not sure .

Anyway i would wait for an offical announcment or at least a link to where this got started before we jump for joy

It really doesn't make much of a difference software wise since a Blu Ray disc only costed 10% more than the DVDs we are currently using. The hardware for the drives are what really mattered most. I say bring it on.

 

[jvd]

Translation

On may 16th if sony can prove that thier disc structure can be mass-produced at a low cost things might happen. But chances of them combining the formats seem low .

No no, it reads, the chances of them NOT combining the formats seems low. As in, the chances of a combined format are high.

ah yes , thanks for correcting me read it to fast

 

[jvd]

The cost was also on hd-dvd side. The discs themselves would have been cheaper and would have only required a retooling of the current plants . Also the drives themselves may have been cheaper though not sure .

Anyway i would wait for an offical announcment or at least a link to where this got started before we jump for joy

It really doesn't make much of a difference software wise since a Blu Ray disc only costed 10% more than the DVDs we are currently using. The hardware for the drives are what really mattered most. I say bring it on.

thats discs alone , not counting the new plants or the cost to reonvate the old ones to produce these discs

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The way I see it, not common to an agreement means one company loses out. Coming to an agreement means both companies win (though maybe a smaller taking per disc). Using Toshiba software on Sony discs, both companies get their cut of the licensing fees.

As for some companies having reservations because they've already bought into HD-DVD, one might dare say 'tough'! What they gonna do? If there's only one consolidated HD disc format, they either bare the cost of retooling and go with it, or don't produce HD discs.

 

[Devourer]

Translation

On may 16th if sony can prove that thier disc structure can be mass-produced at a low cost things might happen. But chances of them combining the formats seem low .

No no, it reads, the chances of them NOT combining the formats seems low. As in, the chances of a combined format are high.

JVD can't help reading everything related to Sony in a negative perspective, even when clearly stated otherwise

 

[Inane_Dork]

I'm just glad that a single standard is still possible. I don't really care how they mix-n-match between the two formats as long as they leave the bargaining table with one format everyone will use.

 

[jvd]

JVD can't help reading everything related to Sony in a negative perspective, even when clearly stated otherwise

Who is to say this is postive . The merging may delay the hybrid disc drive by months for all we know

Aside from that a next gen player in the ps3 will just add costs and lower system performance. None of which are good things to me as a gamer

 

[Natoma]

Whatever next-gen DVD standard is adopted better have backward compatibility or it's going to be DOA.

 

[London Geezer]

Whatever next-gen DVD standard is adopted better have backward compatibility or it's going to be DOA.

Noth the "old" BDROM and HDDVD drives were going to be backwards compatible anyway, the new drives for the hybrid format won't be any difference.

 

[Titanio]

Who is to say this is postive . The merging may delay the hybrid disc drive by months for all we know

If it's a clear cut between the physical aspects of one and the software of the other, as this article suggests, there should be little to no delay.

Trying to spin this outcome as anything but positive is desperate, imo I just hope it all pans out accordingly..

 

[London Geezer]

The title should be "HD-DVD WINS!" Sony and the initial Blu-ray collaborators originally left negotiations for a next-generation format at the DVD group, and they're now working with them again after independently funding a lot of R&D that the rest of the group will get to use.

Errr... no.

But if that's the way you want to see things, cool by me...

To be honest, i think they both win.

 

[Phil]

thats discs alone , not counting the new plants or the cost to reonvate the old ones to produce these discs

If blue-laser is coming either way, those plants will have to be upgraded in the future anyway. The question IMO is when, not if - which is why we might actually find the physical blu-ray disk being used as the basis for a next gen format.

 

[Farid]

thats discs alone , not counting the new plants or the cost to reonvate the old ones to produce these discs

The DVD/CD Duplication business is really lucrative, most of the big players are still in an expansion state, adding some new presses to the existing plants, or building some new plants for the, premium, next-gen DVD format has never been a crucial, infrastructural, problem for the DVD/CD Manufacturers anyway.

 

[TTP]

Sony, Toshiba to agree on new DVD format -paper
Mon May 9, 2005 5:25 PM ET

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Japan's Sony Corp. (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research)
and Toshiba Corp. (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research) are close to finalizing
a plan to develop a common standard for next-generation DVDs to resolve a
three-year-long battle over formats that threatened the industry's growth, a
Japanese newspaper reported on Monday.

A detailed plan could be unveiled ahead of a key meeting of manufacturers
involved in the manufacture of next-generation DVDs scheduled for May 16,
the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

Sony, along with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (6752.T: Quote,
Profile, Research), maker of Panasonic brand products, had been pushing for
the standard it calls Blu-ray, while Toshiba, with NEC Corp. (6701.T: Quote,
Profile, Research) and Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. (6764.T: Quote, Profile,
Research), has been promoting a technology called HD DVD.

Both sides have indicated that a new, unified format will use Sony's
technology for recording information onto an optical disk while Toshiba will
supply software that will handle efficient data transfer and copyright
protection.

(Reuters)

 

[Lazy8s]

london-boy:

Errr... no.

Sony did not want to work with the DVD forum for the next format, so they simply left without even trying to submit Blu-ray as a candidate for the specification. Now they're working together with the DVD group again out of admitted necessity. That's a concession on their end no matter how it's seen.

 

[Ty]

We've known for weeks now that concessions of a sort were going to happen. Whether or not the physical disc structure is 'more important' or a bigger win for one side than the software technology I can't say. I just remember some guessing it would be the reverse, BR software and HD-DVD physical structure.

 

[Titanio]

We've known for weeks now that concessions of a sort were going to happen. Whether or not the physical disc structure is 'more important' or a bigger win for one side than the software technology I can't say. I just remember some guessing it would be the reverse, BR software and HD-DVD physical structure.

Just my opinion, but the retention of the Bluray physical format would be a win for both them and us. From a technical perspective, it's the best outcome we could hope for.

The reuters article seems to suggest it may be announced before May 16 (?)

 

[DuckThor Evil]

So are they going to call it Blu-Ray or something else?.

 

[Ty]

Just my opinion, but the retention of the Bluray physical format would be a win for both them and us. From a technical perspective, it's the best outcome we could hope for.

The reuters article seems to suggest it may be announced before May 16 (?)

And by "us" you mean, consumers, right? My (albeit limited) understanding of the two formats led me to believe that BR was better for consumers simply because it could deliver more. Which is why I couldn't fathom why some here were Anti-BR, Pro HD-DVD - so I was left thinking that at this point, it had more to do with their bias against Sony and less with technical appreciation.

 

[wco81]

The "copyright protection" is meaningless because both formats were going to adopt AACS.

"Efficient data transfer" is also vague.

But the rumors were that they were going to adopt the interactive layer HD-DVD was developing, rather than the Java-based interactive layer which BR was going to use. The HD-DVD layer may be MS software (incidentally, what about that press release a few weeks back about how Warners was going to use VC-1 in their initial HD-DVD releases?).

It's interesting that this unification and E3 are merging on or about the same date. So while MS didn't want to incur some risk by putting in a blue-laser drive which might not have won the format war, there would no longer be that risk if this unification happens.

It'll be interesting to see how they explain (if they explain at all without being asked first) a DVD drive in an HDTV device, especially when there will be some coverage and hype about the unification of the formats just as E3 opens.