What's the Word on an Agreement on the HD-DVD Format?

[g90man]

I thought an agreement on HD-DVD format was completed. This is not the case?

[iceman]

Dvd forums decided to postpone hd-dvd to sometime in the future. Since they voted no to AOD it looks like Blu-ray is the only "advanced dvd option" available.

[mmmhome]

@Iceman

It is not yet decided who becomes the successor,

The votings did not end yet.

[iceman]

I'm pretty sure I heard they voted no to aod, but you should ask Marwin, he knows a lot more than me in this area.

[Marwin]

Actually, you're both right in a way

While it is true that they haven't decided which will become the successor, they have already voted against using AOD for now. This doesn't stop Toshiba/NEC from continuing their work on the format and resubmitting it, but as the DVD Forum is still split in the HD-DVD issue it will probably take quite some time before we see a final decision. They needed 13 yes votes, but only got 6 yes, 3 no while 9 forum members abstained. Out of the 17 steering committee members I count 11 companies with Blu-ray Disc recorder prototypes and 10 of which are members of the Blu-ray Disc Founders (BDF), so the odds don't look too good for AOD. Something to note is that Blu-ray has never even been submitted to the DVD forum for review and it might never be.

http://www.videostoremag.com/news/ht...rticle_id=4969
http://db.widescreenreview.com/weekn...d=40646&-find=

[mmmhome]

The dvdforum has 212 members.
and most of them want the Aod.
Because the production is very cheap.

Long time has the BDF problems to burn blurays with their own recordes.
But the Blurays cannot be manufactured yet in mass production. Because the write lasers yet do not work so exactly.
And BDF has a lot problems to solve this problem.
Aod hasn´t this problem.
And later it will always be higher costs as the prduction of the Aod makes.

And most of the Big moviemakers like WB want therefore the Aod.

And what happens when you want to buy e.g. play CONSOLE.
You will go to the next shop an take a look howmany games you can buy for these Console.

You don´t buy it when it´s only give a few games.
Then you choose a nother console.

Or?

[mmmhome]

And Please explain me this

Maxell support the aod, but maxell is a part of Hitachi and Hitatchi is bluray.

And Samsung cooperate with Toshiba in the dvdplayer recorder production.

[mmmhome]

http://www.maxellcanada.com/francais...ptical_fr.html

here is the link

[Marwin]

Where did you get the idea that most of the members of the DVD Forum want AOD? The DVD Forum has about 220 members and I haven't heard of any news articles discussing what the majority wants. What I do know is that out of those members only 17 are part of the steering committee, which serves as the executive council of the DVD Forum and basically they make all the final decisions. They voted to not adopt AOD or any other HD-DVD format for the time being. Instead they are working on enhancing the current DVD format by adding support to DVD-players for connecting to the Internet to access movie extras stored online. You will most likely start seeing this feature in DVD-players next year.

To my knowledge the BDF has worked out most of the blue laser problems and they still got a lot of time for research and development before these products will go into mass production. From what I've read, I don't expect to see any products outside of the Japanese market until 2005 when the HDTV market has started to take off. Anyway, the main thing that will hold back mass production of both Blu-ray and AOD is the costs of producing the blue-laser components and as both formats need those it really isn't an issue. Until the blue-laser components are cheap we will still be using DVD and red-lasers.

Where did you get the idea that most of the movie studios want AOD? From what I've read the only movie studio that has publically supported AOD to some degree is Warner Bros, and it was part of a deal where they would start out with their own format HD-DVD9 (red-laser format) and later move on to using AOD. Warner Bros has a lot of money invested in red-laser technology including patents that makes them money from every DVD produced, so the longer consumers keep using red-lasers the better it is for Warner Bros. They have been pushing for their own red-laser alternative HD-DVD9 which would utilize better video compression to fit more video, but they haven't really gotten any support from anyone else. I know that Columbia Tristar is in favor of Blu-ray Disc, but that isn't too much of a surprise as their parent company is Sony. I would say it's still too early to predict what format the movie studios will use for pre-recorded movies in the future. From what I've read you'll probably have to wait until 2006-2007 before the movie studios starting releasing movies in high-definition as many movie studios are worried it could effect DVD sales negatively if introduced too soon.

Finally, lets just look at some quick facts. From what I've seen you got at least 10+ companies (Hitachi, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Zenith) working on prototype Blu-ray Disc recorders and 6 companies (JVC, Maxell, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, TDK) that are working on Blu-ray Disc media. I know that Toshiba and NEC are working on AOD recorders, and you posted a link to Maxell working on AOD media, but can you list any other outspoken AOD supporters? I haven't really focused on looking for AOD news articles, so I might have missed some, but to me it looks like Blu-ray is more popular among the consumer electronics companies.

P.S. What I'm trying to say is not that Blu-ray has the support of all the major movie studios and consumer electronics companies, but simply that the support you are talking about for AOD seems more like speculation than anything based on facts.

[Marwin]

As for your post about Maxell, just because they have an prototype AOD disc doesn't mean that they are in favor of AOD compared to Blu-ray. If you look at our prototype gallery you will see that Maxell has Blu-ray media in development as well and Hitachi got a Blu-ray Disc recorder in the works.

[mmmhome]

new aod news

http://www.twice.com/index.asp?layou...y=breakingNews

[Marwin]

Yeah, I already read that article a few days ago. It will be interesting to see if they can gather more support in the new steering committee meeting in early 2004. Also notice that the format isn't called AOD anymore, but HD-DVD

[iceman]

Wahahaahahaa, mmmhome was just wftpwned! :twisted:

<3

[mmmhome]

no Problem only the url must be changed from aodforum.com into blurayforum.com

[iceman]

lol :lol:

[mmmhome]

You must only be flexible in the life :mrgreen:

[Marwin]

Just thought I'd post a link to a well-written news article which seems quite interesting for the future of HD-DVD. I guess they are having the next vote very soon

http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20031113S0028

[iceman]

Just read the article. Imho Blu-ray looks better on the paper and it has very strong supporters. The only thing that speaks against it, is that it's easier to change from dvd to hd-dvd and it's more cost effective. But once they start mass producing Blu-ray players/discs the cost shouldn't be a problem.

Next week will be interesting :?

[mmmhome]

why?

[thunderhawk]

People always want to get the cheapest