Jump to content
Washington Football Team Logo
Extremeskins
Forum Rules and Guidelines

A slipped disc? The battle to succeed the DVD has only just begun

Winslowalrob

By Winslowalrob
in The Tailgate

Recommended Posts

Winslowalrob

Winslowalrob

Posted
Posted

http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/techview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9388350

Tech.view

A slipped disc?

Jun 22nd 2007

From Economist.com

The battle to succeed the DVD has only just begun

IS THE war between the two high-definition contenders for the venerable DVD crown over? An announcement on Monday from Blockbuster, a movie-rental giant, led some to declare a victor. Next month, when Blockbuster expands its high-definition movie offerings from 250 stores to 1,450 across America, it will stock only the Blu-ray format, from a camp led by Sony. Titles on the rival HD DVD format, developed by the Toshiba alliance, will still be available at Blockbuster’s original 250 locations as well as online. It was the latest piece of bad news for Toshiba, which last week slashed its sales target for HD DVD players following disappointing results in America.

You can’t blame Blockbuster. Its customers were opting for Blu-ray titles 70% of the time. For that, Sony should be applauded for aligning itself so carefully with Hollywood. Four studios—Disney, Lionsgate and Fox as well as Sony’s own—use Blu-ray discs exclusively. Paramount and Warner support both formats, while Universal is the only big studio to release titles solely on HD DVD. The surge in Blu-ray rentals at Blockbuster was predictable, given such recent box-office hits as “Casino Royale”, “Spider Man” and “Pirates of the Caribbean”, all of which came out only on Blu-ray.

Is history repeating itself? The Blockbuster announcement is remarkably similar to what happened 20 years ago when video-rental stores across America ceased stocking Betamax cassettes to target the more popular VHS version of the video cassette recorder (VCR).

When first introduced, the Betamax VCR may have been technically superior to its VHS rival, but it was a dead-end design. By contrast, the VHS machine had a flexible concept that could be continually refined. Within a couple of years, Sony’s Betamax technology had been trounced—and, shortly thereafter, the machines were collector’s items. The unremarkable Philips/Grundig Video 2000 had died an even earlier death. Meanwhile Matsu****a and its VHS partners went on to make a killing. Thus far the story of VHS mirrors that of Blu-ray, but here the similarities end.

The main difference is that, in its day, the VCR was unique. Unlike the CD-player, which was merely a better record-player, the VCR replaced no other gadget around the home. The only video recorders at the time were huge Ampex reel-to-reel machines used by television stations to rebroadcast live shows in later time zones.

As means for distributing high-definition video, neither Blu-ray nor HD DVD is unique. Both will soon have to compete with other, more convenient ways of delivering high-definition video to television sets. Next month ABC Television will start streaming high-definition episodes of popular shows such as “Lost”, “Desperate Housewives”, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Ugly Betty” to subscribers with broadband connections. Telephone companies, such as Verizon, are rolling out optical fibre to the home to do the same.

When consumers rushed to buy VCRs a couple of decades ago, it was as much for recording television shows off the air (ie, “time-shifting”) as it was for playing videos. A few manufacturers tried selling play-only machines but found few takers. The ability to record was seen as crucial. The Betamax lost out because, unlike the VHS machine, it couldn’t record for the full three hours needed to cover a baseball game.

Unlike VHS, neither the Blu-ray nor HD DVD format is a recordable medium—at least, not in their present guise. True, recordable versions of both have been around for several years, but neither can yet be said to be truly ready for prime-time. When they are, that’s when the format battle will begin in earnest.

The epic battle continues

And when it does, it will take place inside the computer rather than in the living room. That’s because most couch potatoes tuned in to high-definition broadcasting already have the digital equivalent of a VCR hooked up to their television sets. Digital Video Recorders (DVRs), such as the trendsetting TiVo, can be programmed days or weeks ahead to record television broadcasts—high-definition or otherwise—or to store downloaded movies on their hard-drives. With their ability to jump instantly back and forth to bookmarked scenes, as well as perform neat navigational tricks like pausing live broadcasts or skipping commercials, DVRs will remain a far better way of recording video than any slowpoke serial device that relies on chemically changing the reflectance of a disc’s plastic coating.

But what if we could replace the paltry 4.7 gigabytes of a recordable DVD with the 50 gigabytes or more (200 gigabyte discs are in the works) of a high-definition video disc? That would be a handy medium for backing up a personal computer with a hard-drive of 500 gigabytes or greater. Interestingly, it’s the HD DVD crowd, not the Blu-ray group, that has aligned itself with Silicon Valley rather than Tinseltown.

The betting is that, despite Blockbuster’s decision, both video formats—Blu-ray and HD DVD—will coexist for some time. With its arm-lock on the consumer-electronics industry, the Blu-ray alliance (including Philips, Samsung, LG, Pioneer and Matsu****a as well as Sony) is more likely to succeed in the living room. In turn, the HD DVD group, with its extensive background in computing (members include Intel, Microsoft and NEC as well as Toshiba), can expect a greater share of the computer market.

With the gazillions of imaging gigabytes the world continues to generate, there will clearly be more than enough storage demand for both formats once they mature into proper media. Of course, that is only until the next wonder medium arrives on the scene—say, in a year or two.

Wait, so bootlegs are important? Whats next, people will buy the format the plays the most porn :)? It would be interesting if there was no clear cut winner and instead both formats worked for different audiences indefinately.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Winslowalrob

Winslowalrob

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Touche Disco Dave, though the article does not talk about which is better so much as the impossibility of determining a winner now and perhaps two seperate emerging markets. I do not think this article will start a debate about which is better (Oh god I hope it doesn't).

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Xameil

Xameil

Posted
Posted
That's why VHS won out.... The porn industry chose VHS over Betamax.... Interestingly enough, now they've chosen HD-DVD....
That's a myth. You can get porn on blu-ray as well.

Not to mention...porn is available on the internet in plethora now....who needs to buy it ;)

And just look at the movies coming out only in Blu-Ray...Sony did it right this time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Count Blah

Count Blah

Posted
Posted
discs cost mere cents to manufacture, memory sticks will never match them in cost :2cents:
True, but if you show up with your own memory stick, then the cost is FREE. Heck, why even leave the house, stream the movie in H.264 to view. Blockbuster will always want you togo to their store if at all possible because they want to sell you $8 microwaveable bukets of popcorn and $5 boxes of raisenettes that cost them all of10¢ per item.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...