ZD Net blog: Blu-ray vs. HD DVD - Game Over

[Jeff®]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=149

Robin Harris
Persistence of Memory


June 20th, 2007

Blu-ray vs HD DVD: game over

Posted by Robin Harris @ 12:01 pm Categories: Disk drives, Marketing Tags: Game, Blu-ray Disc, HD-DVD, Robin Harris

Blu-ray won

The sturm und drang over the Blu-ray vs HD DVD battle has come to naught. After a bit of jostling Blu-ray has taken an unassailable lead over HD DVD. Blockbuster’s Matthew Smith, SVP of merchandising, says “The consumers are sending us a message. I can’t ignore what I’m seeing.” This is what he’s seen:

Blockbuster has been renting both Blu-ray and HD DVD titles in 250 stores since late last year and found that consumers were choosing Blu-ray titles more than 70 percent of the time.

Ghost of Betamax laid to rest
Sony has played this game well. They own a movie studio, and got all but one of the major studios to release on Blu-ray. They put a Blu-ray player in every PS3. And they benefit by the rapid growth of HDTV sales.
Despite the disappointing sales of the PS3, the fact that it includes a Blu-ray player also tilted the playing field. A leading indicator: Toshiba recently reduced its US sales goal for HD DVD players by 40%. The rapid uptake of HDTV in the US completes the content-player-display triumvirate.

It is safe to buy that Blu-ray disk player now
The biggest loser in this is Toshiba. They’ve put a lot of time and money behind HD DVD. Microsoft is also a loser, partly as a supporter and partly because their add-on Xbox HD DVD player sales will tank. The folks who bought one can’t be feeling too good about Microsoft’s judgement.
Intel, another backer, loses too, but they seem to have had the least skin in the game. They probably just went along because of Microsoft.

The Storage Bits take
It is all over but the shouting. Expect to see some closeout sales on HD DVD players and burners, but I wouldn’t buy one. Now that the market has shifted you can expect to see Blu-ray burner prices drop faster. I expect that Apple will be adding on on their next gen Mac Pro, and after that, the MacBook Pro.

In time this may also boost Firewire, which is substantially faster than USB. In fact, USB 2.0 probably can’t handle 18x DVD writers at full speed, and 20x DVD writers are starting to make it to market. Once Blu-ray writers get up to 6x speed, Firewire will be the way to go.

The biggest winners though, are us, the consumers. 50 GB optical storage is good for all digital junkies. Now that we don’t have to worry about the format war, we can get back to rip, mix, burn!

Comments welcome, as always. I’m heading up to the Google scalability conference in Seattle today - and avoiding some 100+ degree weather here in Arizona - so my response times may be more distended than usual.

[The Don]

I'm starting to see more and more of these types of articles..

[MrVorhees]

Originally Posted by The Don

I'm starting to see more and more of these types of articles..

its the best thing that can happen, verry good PR for blu-ray.

NOTHING can beat word-of-mouth recommendation, and the most people believe now, blu-ray will win / or allready won! And they keep telling their friends ect.

we are getting the results for blockbusters announcment choosing blu-ray
more to come.

[aaronwt]

In time this may also boost Firewire, which is substantially faster than USB. In fact, USB 2.0 probably can’t handle 18x DVD writers at full speed, and 20x DVD writers are starting to make it to market. Once Blu-ray writers get up to 6x speed, Firewire will be the way to go.
Huh? USB 2.0 has no problem handling this.

[ra1024]

Yep, the dominos are starting to fall. We used to see articles saying BR will win if this or HD DVD needs to do that. Now we're seeing articles saying it's over, BR won.

[GoldenRedux]

Originally Posted by aaronwt

In time this may also boost Firewire, which is substantially faster than USB. In fact, USB 2.0 probably can’t handle 18x DVD writers at full speed, and 20x DVD writers are starting to make it to market. Once Blu-ray writers get up to 6x speed, Firewire will be the way to go.
Huh? USB 2.0 has no problem handling this.

Firewire and Firewire 800 are way faster than USB 2.0. On paper, USB 2.0 may exceed the speeds of Firewire, but in the real world, USB 2.0 is a dog. Do a little research, and you will find this to be true.

I use a professional quality Firewire-based audio interface in my work every day. I do 192/24 recording and mixing in stereo and 5.1. USB 2.0 would never be able to handle this. In fact, there is NO professional high resolution audio interface manufactured today that uses USB 2.0, it is too slow and the latency is horrendous.

[DaDane]

A bit FUD, no?

Originally Posted by Jeff®

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=149
Blu-ray vs HD DVD: game over

Well, it's not over till it's over. As long as Toshiba and friends plays high it's not over.

Originally Posted by Jeff®

“The consumers are sending us a message. I can’t ignore what I’m seeing.” This is what he’s seen:[INDENT] Blockbuster has been renting both Blu-ray and HD DVD titles in 250 stores since late last year and found that consumers were choosing Blu-ray titles more than 70 percent of the time.

And 70 percent is not a clear winner. Remember that the market is still quite small compared to DVD. Lots of things can happend yet!

Originally Posted by Jeff®

It is safe to buy that Blu-ray disk player now

That's what they really want us to believe. It's a go ahead and buy a blu-ray player and remember to rent the movies here message!

Originally Posted by Jeff®

The biggest winners though, are us, the consumers. 50 GB optical storage is good for all digital junkies. Now that we don’t have to worry about the format war, we can get back to [B]rip, mix, burn!

Yep, and 200 GB is even better. But unfortunately the prices of the multiplayer discs are even worse than the single layer discs! And both of the prices are quite high (still).

BUT that said. Things are certainly getting in the right direction! Blu-ray are outselling HD in both movies and players. And Blockbuster going blu-ray only in most of their US stores is a neat sign too!
Prices (on both formats) are dropping too which means that more people are getting a HD format, which means that the market are getting bigger which is also a good sign.

Next big thing would, I guess, be Universal going neutral. That would be a hard punch for HDDVD indeed. Might not be the deathpunch yet, - but if/when they do I thing Toshiba might loose whatever hope they have left.

[GarettP]

I am glad I went with the PS3! Long live Blu! Also, we should cue up the video of Will Ferrell singing Dust in the Wind from Old School, in honor of the late HD-DVD!

[inaz4sun]

70% is a landslide win! Anyway you slice it. When you beat the competitor by more than twice, its a blowout! Maybe MS will make a Blu-ray player add on for XBOX to try and save it. But since the games are limited to DVD, it can't win that battle against the PS3 and the built in Blu-ray

[Shin-Ra]

If you've got a ZD Net account don't forget to thumbs-up the blog entry.

[movies3]

Originally Posted by The Don

I'm starting to see more and more of these types of articles..

yup, and its a good thing for ppl who are just surfing the net and come across this. go blu-ray

[nhaase]

Originally Posted by inaz4sun

70% is a landslide win! Anyway you slice it. When you beat the competitor by more than twice, its a blowout! Maybe MS will make a Blu-ray player add on for XBOX to try and save it. But since the games are limited to DVD, it can't win that battle against the PS3 and the built in Blu-ray

MS already said that they would make a "blu-ray solution" for the 360 if it wins.

[movies3]

Originally Posted by nhaase

MS already said that they would make a "blu-ray solution" for the 360 if it wins.

they should have a while back

[aaronwt]

Originally Posted by GoldenRedux

Firewire and Firewire 800 are way faster than USB 2.0. On paper, USB 2.0 may exceed the speeds of Firewire, but in the real world, USB 2.0 is a dog. Do a little research, and you will find this to be true.

I use a professional quality Firewire-based audio interface in my work every day. I do 192/24 recording and mixing in stereo and 5.1. USB 2.0 would never be able to handle this. In fact, there is NO professional high resolution audio interface manufactured today that uses USB 2.0, it is too slow and the latency is horrendous.

He was talking about burning a DVD at full speed with USB 2.0 not professional recording and mixing. From personal experience I've never had a problem burning DVDs at full speed with USB2.0 or transferring files to a USB 2.0 hard drive. It's always been just as fast as the drives I had internally. Never had a problem with any of my PCs. And I've used over 50 hard drives and 20 burners the last 11 years. Not that I had USB2.0 eleven years ago.

[GasCat]

Too bad it's a blog and therefore meaningless. Oh well, tell him about the forum we could always use more members.

I agree it's nice to see.

[ps3andlovinit]

Originally Posted by GasCat

Too bad it's a blog and therefore meaningless. Oh well, tell him about the forum we could always use more members.

I agree it's nice to see.

Actually it's on the main zdnet blog page..which gets quite a bit of traffic with the geek/influencer crowd..not headline but not just a blog either..

http://blogs.zdnet.com/

[Enkyu]

Super! Now I feel free!!

Great life to Blu-ray

[dialog_gvf]

The Blockbuster story is a snowball down a mountain.

The negativity toward HD DVD from one source compounds and drives another doomsday article, and another ...

[cdblu]

i feel sorry for all the hd-ded supporters.

[GoldenRedux]

Originally Posted by ps3andlovinit

Actually it's on the main zdnet blog page..which gets quite a bit of traffic with the geek/influencer crowd..not headline but not just a blog either..

http://blogs.zdnet.com/

Exactly, it's not like it's some random nobody blog floating around on the internet. It's a ZDNet blog, which is basically a newfangled way of saying 'editorial' by a ZDNet journalist. It carries a lot of weight. Combine this with the Bill Hunt declaration and the Blockbuster announcement and it just may be 'game over' especially if the Target rumour is true.