RSSNext Generation DVD War Heats Up
By Ed Oswald | Published September 30, 2005, 12:39 PM
The argument between next-generation DVD formats Blu-ray and HD DVD got even more heated on Thursday. Blu-ray supporters Dell and Hewlett Packard shot back at comments made Tuesday by Microsoft and Intel in an announcement of support for HD DVD, calling the two companies statements on Blu-ray "inaccurate."
At issue were comments made regarding Blu-ray's storage capacity, copyright protection and the format's "backward compatibility."
"It is surprising that Tuesday's announcement is not aligned with that of the vast majority of the computer industry and is contrary to our consumer research," said Maureen Weber, General Manager of Hewlett Packard's Personal Storage Business.
Thursday's statements could be seen as damage control for the Blu-ray side, as the group enjoyed months of positive press coverage while its competitor HD DVD appeared listless, and without direction.
But Tuesday's announcement of the backing of both the biggest operating system vendor and CPU vendor in the world was a huge win for the format that could be hard to counter.
Although Blu-ray claims a disc size advantage with dual-layer capacities of up to 50 GB, it has been disputed by HD DVD supporters who say a method to mass produce that size disk has not been proven outside of a controlled lab.
Blu-ray directly disputed those claims, saying "Blu-ray Disc's capacity is 50GB. This will be available at launch," however it is not clear when the launch will take place.
The organization also took issue with the hybrid DVD claims, saying it had been the first to debut such a disk. Instead of the standard DVD data being on the opposite side of the disk as it is in HD DVD, it remains on the same side in the Blu-ray format.
However, older DVD players may have an issue with single-sided disks, supporters of HD DVD note.
Finally, Blu-ray took issue with Intel and Microsoft's claims that Blu-ray does not allow for the secure transfer of movie data to portable devices, called managed copy. "Managed Copy is not a function of the optical disc format, but a function of the content protection system," the organization said.
But HD DVD supporters say that with their format it is mandatory for some kind of secure transfer support. In Blu-ray it is optional, thus opening the door for some movie studios to prevent copying of discs.
Both formats are expected to launch sometime in the first half of next year.
Blu-ray!
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|I'm actully pulling for Blue-Ray seemd better than HD DVD (thats a horrible name very horrible) with blue ray you can get more capacity with more than 2 layers. and another thing if what i read is true, if HD dvd gets to be the standard you will have to connect your DVD player to an internet connection or phone line just because of the copy protection.
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|Is anybody else enjoying this b****fight?
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|Yes actually I am
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|This is a quote from an article that can be found here:
http://trends.newsforge....01/1548246.shtml?tid=29
"Nestled deep within the jointly-issued MS/Intel HD DVD pronouncement on the subject, was this classic little jewel:
Superior capacity. HD DVD-ROM discs will offer dual-layer 30GB discs at launch, compared with BD-ROM discs, which will be limited to 25GB.
Sounds great. Except for one thing. It's not true. Just as happened ten years ago, someone has stepped up to point that out. This time it's Dell and HP -- both longtime MS partners -- who clarify the situation. In a press release entitled "Microsoft/Intel Announcement Cites Inaccuracies Regarding Blu-ray Disc Format," they point out that:
Capacity: Blu-ray Disc's capacity is 50GB. This will be available at launch for BD-ROM, BD-R, and BD-RE. This is 67% more than HD-DVD's 30GB ROM capacity and 150% more than its recordable storage capacity -- a critical issue for computer users."
Microspud issues the big lie again
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|Ah, the same old same old. You build it, we'll better it! Just ask us, ours is better and yours is junk... Mean while, back at the farm, the consumer gets to spend its hard earned money to upgrade to the latest hightech money grabbing product that at best disappoints greatly until all the bugs and dust settles. Than we can do it all again in 3-5 years. Isn't technology a wonderful thing?
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|What the McStuff?! Forget optical drives. Chip-based memory is already starting to blow optical media away.
10 x 8Gb CompactFlash chips can fit on a credit card. Make that double sided and we're looking at 160Gb credit cards here. The only downfall is that it would be as expensive as #$%&.
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|At first.
With demand, the cost would die down. Remember when CD burners first came out? Now you can get one for like 40$.
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|I do. Single speed and $400 when I got my first one in about 1994. Now you can't give them away.
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|"older DVD players may have an issue with single-sided disks" I seriously hope Microsoft isnt saying this... *cough*vista minimum requirements*cough*
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|Ubiquity, cost, and backwards compatability trump modest technological superiority nearly everytime.
Maybe Sony will be right this time unlike how wrong they were with betamax and minidisc, but I doubt it.
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|Dell and HP are discredited companies with hostile customer support, so why should they trusted with my best interest on an HD-DVD format? I'll gladly go with the format my OS supports 100 times out of 100.
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|betamax vs vhs - intel vs amd - linux vs windows - ati vs nvidia - dvd-r vs dvd+r .... who is next???
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|boxers vs briefs?
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|boxers, unless you want to end up sterile one day... the same could be true for following either M$ or Intel where ever they lead ;)
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|In the end I think HD-DVD will be the winner here. Not because MS and Intel just voiced support although this is huge. But because of manufacturing costs. HD-DVD will cost almost nothing to manufacture, on the other side Blueray requires an overhaul of the manufacturing plants, with new equipment being installed. This means that in the end the consumer will be paying more for BlueRay than for HD-DVD.
Not to mention that if they cant come out with the dual layer Blue Ray, theyre selling point of being higher capacity than HD-DVD is moot.
Its going to be an interesting next few months as far as the race for the new Standard. BETAMAX/VHS here we come.
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|It seems like companies only use whichever technology costs less. This is no different than DVD-Audio vs Super Audio CD (SACD). SACD's Direct Stream Digital audio is still vastly superior to PCM-based DVD-Audio and the new Dual Disc format. But record companies chose DVD-Audio because they could take regular CD quality audio which used 16-bit 44.1 KHz PCM and upmix it to 24-bit 96 KHz sound to save money and avoid buying entirely new equipment.
Blu-Ray is also superior to HD-DVD. It has more capacity, better compatibility, and because of its completely new design you get much greater capacity than HD-DVD.
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|i am creating the first hd-dvd/blueray DVDburner with built in copyprotection decryption :-)
j/k..but somebody will ;-)
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|didn't panasonic make a cd,dvd, hd dvd, blue ray supported drive?
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|think it was samsung...i forget though i read just yesterday :]
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|Just remember the chaos of when DVD+R and DVD-R surfaced... now multiply that chaos by 50.
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|This is going to suck for recordable media. They'll release tons of burners and such, so we'll be left with like 5 different units in our towers. oh gee
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|How do you get 5 different units when there are only two formats? Anyway Samsung already has a drive that handles both, so people who are smart and wait for this to settle down will just need one drive for everything. :)
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|Im going with Blu-ray
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|I'm going with HD-DVD they require mandatory support for secure transport with is stated in the article. If there is any chance that Blue-Ray will not require this and someone can block you from copying it, then I will go for whoever supports copying (even secured). Someone may create a way around it, but they shouldn't have to. Also the standard will be cheaper in the end and easier for people to mirgate to. If people see these big price tags for player's and DVD's and see they need to buy their Fav. Series all over for an even higher amount, people will not be happy. It may cause a backlash in adoption of High Definition.
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|I dont beleive it will cause as much of a backlash as some may think.Considering how many hardware companies(Dell,Apple,HP,etc,etc,etc) are supporting Blu ray instead of the alternative HD. The main reason Ill be supporting Blu ray is because it will have a higher storage Capacity,faster speeds, and seems to be more of a begining of a new era instead of an end to a old one. So in the end Ill be buying Blu ray
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|blu-ray sounds far to deer, and besides i have spent over £1000 on dvd's in the last 4 years, and that is money i have worked for, no easy money about it at all, and if i have to go and buy them films all over again, well all i can say is when are the goverments gonna step in and protect the rights of the citzens, because whilst these companies are playing there who is better game, we're the ones what are paying the price, and if blu ray wins then were not paying just once, but twice,
i think that if blu-ray is so powerful and superior then they should try using it in the military or perhaps develope high end storage systems, but as for the consumer dvd market, i think the upgrade to DVD would be the most advised, and more importantly the most logical way to go,
and to the people what are saying this extra space is needed now are very mistaken because the new format MPEG 4 is now coming into it's own, so this means that the demand for space will actually reduce for a while, as compression is once again the answer.
i feel that HD-dvd actually deserves to win because this is after all a consumer market, meaning me and you are paying for this, and one has to really ask our selves, do we want brand new technologies to always require us to change our hard ware and start again with our material, or do we want to stick with a proven technology but just give it a well deserved upgrade.
i know what i choose, backward compatibility and billions of ££££ saved in factories not needing to change there entire infastructure.
i don't feel that blu-ray can justify the cost, time, and most important the consumers (our) money on a technollogy that is to superior for the dvd market,
were on 9gb now, they want to shoot straight to 50gb when new compression technologies have found a way of now reducing storage space, to spend billions on a technollogy what just won't be needed as much as people think it is now,
for example nero recode 2 using AVC compression can now compress a film at full res, max quality (1:1 with a dvd) and need only 1.4GB, even if one includes extras then 4.0GB, and as there are not going to be blu-ray burners for a long long time for us consumers, then where is the benefit, and to who.
HD-DVD is going to win because of the market in question, Blu-ray is a nice idea, but can't be justified in the dvd market, but i feel that they should, and will go on to bigger and better things in the future which will be out side of the consumer market.
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|Ive had a simular argument with a man who had 100s VHS and cassette tapes a long time ago.lol He said I was wasting my money buying cds and DVDs, or in his words(that crap).It all becomes a piece of the past at some point. Dont u hate it when that damn technology keeps movng forward. Owell Blu ray is the next era Ill just transfer my old media to the new media type. Or ill cry that blu ray is to good for me and should only be used by the government. lol Thats funny
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|that is not a fare comment, and you clearly do not know enough about DVD technology to criticise what i said before,
VHS:
analogue:
life span:6-8 years
reliability:LOW
Quality:Reasonable but will degrade
DVD:
Digital:
life span:75-100+ years!
reliability:HIGH
Quality:Superior and will never degrade!!
and i was not implying that the technology is to superior for us, i was saying the the technology is to superior for the DVD market,
the technology behind blu-ray is very advance, hell it's still only thoery what the max capacity is, as i've read now that they think they can push the boundry to 65GB is they wished,
this is unbeliveble, and not needed for the DVD market, nor are we gonna see any blu-ray burners for us consumers for at least 5 years, after all were still waiting for dvd -/+ rw media to catch up, as i've only just started seeing x16 speed media about 3 months ago,
i have nothing against blu-ray, in fact hat of to the developers, i just don't think that they can minimize the expenture on what companies and us have to pay for it, upgrading for HD-DVD is gonna cost in the hundred million barrier
but for the factories to not only upgrade for blu-ray whats gonna cost billions, but they also have to retrain there whole staff because blu-ray is completely different and new technology, all the money in the world won't help here, training takes a long time, and this to cost a lot of money.
either blu-ray will go on to bigger and better things,
or what i feel will happen, we will go through the HD-DVD era, but then blu-ray will come back, and with the exra 4-6 years of extra development (whilst were using HD-DVD) on blu-ray they will no doubt be back with a solid blu-ray disk with the capicity of un-imaginable space, but this time hopefully not thoery based, but actual proof.
sorry to go on, but i say what i see, and the world is just not ready for Blu-Ray, like 12 years ago when the console jaguar 64 was made, this was a 64 bit console for god sake, but they failed bad, why, because it was to quick, and far to dear, but now 64 bit is back and ready to stay. and blu-ray will return.
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|To quote myself: "like 5"
It was quick estimate, counting your CD-R, DVD-R, HD-DVD-R, Blu-Ray-R ... There are other "units" that can go in your tower aswell.
Though I agree, a dual-format drive will be extremely usefull.
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|Apperantly u havent done your homework and just talking from ur as
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|we all want state of the art technology now, but can they justify the cost, that is the ultimate question here, because as far as i can see, blu-ray offers 1 and only 1 advantage over current technology (DVD), and that is storage,
to spend all those extra billions, when HD-DVD will offer the same quallity perhaps better reliability (because it's more known, and most problems have been fixed, marking the point you mentioned about chemicle problems they had on certain media at the beginning of the DVD burn era) is beyond me,
now if HD-DVD was not around, then of course blu-ray would be the next step, but as HD-DVD is a upgrade, then i feel that this is the praticle and most logical way to go on the basis that blu-ray does not offer that much more than HD-DVD except for space,
and as for burning mate, my system is s**t hot, with a super fast hard drive and i can barely write at max speed because my hard drive can't feed the dvd burner that quick,
i wonder how blu-ray will resolve this issue?
don't suppose you know, tried looking but blu-rate information is quite scetchy to find, a lot of here say,
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