Who Is Drawing Out The High-Def DVD Stalemate?

[coolmilo]

Recommended by The Digital Bits: http://www.internetnews.com/storage/article.php/3671091

This is a very interesting article and a good example of corporate greed. If this "war" does not end soon I fear that the next generation disc format will ultimately suffer the same fate as DVD-A/SACD. Obviously it makes the most sense for Blu-ray to succeed.

[The Don]

Disney and Fox, on the other hand, have said the technical advantages of Blu-ray are just too great, said Hunt. Disney's forthcoming Blu-ray releases of Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest will be on two dual-layer discs, meaning 100GB of content. That's the equivalent of 10 standard DVDs, or four HD DVDs.

this part stood out to me as I did not know this...

good read here..

[Blu Tiger]

Interesting article. Ha, some 8 million people with HDTV's aren't getting HD content, and they don't even know it. Ignorance IS bliss I guess. I hope Rubin isn't right about the war not ending until the end of 2008 though.

[The Big Blue]

I think that 2 BD50s for Pirates at least must be a mistake.

[nhaase]

Originally Posted by The Big Blue

I think that 2 BD50s for Pirates at least must be a mistake.

The second disc is for special features. Disney is supposedly loading them up.

[The Big Blue]

Yes, but all indications so far are that the movies will be on BD50s and the 2nd discs will be BD25s.

[nhaase]

Oh yea, I forgot about that. I forgot the special features disc was single layer.

[bluflu]

I'm a purchaser for a major company. Today I had to make a decision on a half million dollar electronics purchase. The final decision came down to Toshiba and Panasonic. Needless to say, I made sure Panasonic got the deal.

[Maximus]

Well, that article sums it up pretty well, Sony/Phillips lost out on billions when they gave in on the physical structure of DVD, so it is only fair that Toshiba give in this time around.

I do not want MS controlling yet another part of the technology world, whether it is by VC-1 on HD content or PCs via Windows. Enough is enough, I will have no need for MS once UT3/2007 is out for Linux (the wonders of OpenGL and an Nvidia GFX card!) or the PS3, I have no love of other shooters so I won't be bothered about Crysis and other DX10 games. All of that Aero stuff makes no difference to me either as I have been using Beryl in Ubuntu for a while now, and I can tell you this for free, it is pretty pointless (though it does look pretty). MS is a company that is completely bankrupt in the field of innovation, they need to give up or re-invent themselves in a similar way that Apple have done, or look at what Sony are doing now.

I can't stress how much contempt I hold for MS, they have ruined far too many good companies and ideas with their monopolistic practices, it has to stop, and luckily for the world Google, Apple, Sony and Nintendo will do just that on all fronts, it will start with Google releasing their own OS based on a Linux build, funded by AdWords (free for the end-user, i.e. us), all it will take is for one (EA really) major game developer to support the platform and lots of people will lose their one reason for keeping a Windows install around. Apple continuing to eat market-share in the media world with iTunes and the iPod/iPhone combination will hurt the entertainment division, and it will end with Sony and Nintendo doing what they do best, make great games and consoles.

Obviously this is a simplified version of events, but you get the picture, there is too much competition and regardless of how much money that MS has in the bank, it will not be enough as they are spread way too thin. $4bn to shore up the gaming division for another 3 years, $2bn to fix the Zune and Zune marketplace, more R&D spent on combating the virus makers continuing to blight all versions of Windows, fixing Vista, fixing Office 2007, fixing their SQL server software and still keep it competitive with MySQL, and on top of this they still have to finish developing Longhorn (the server oriented version of Vista) and start work on Vienna and Office 14. It all adds up, and the only divisions that actually make money for MS, Windows and Office, that's right, pretty much every other division is struggling to break-even or making a loss, regardless of how they dress it up their whole business strategy of subsidising new ventures with their seemingly infinite cash-pile and profits from Windows and Office hasn't worked yet and isn't showing any signs of succeeding.

Before all of you say that MS will be making profit all-the-while, you forget that their competitors will be making more, and that MS still face a daily fine of 5% of their worldwide revenue and about €500m on top, which might not seem like much, but it will start the alarm bells ringing at the institutional shareholders who will call for unprofitable divisions (Xbox/Zune) to be mothballed. Also Big Bill is leaving soon which will lower morale at the company as he has been a pretty inspirational leader for MS for the last 25 years since OS/2 and DOS before that.

/rant

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Well, that article sums it up pretty well, Sony/Phillips lost out on billions when they gave in on the physical structure of DVD, so it is only fair that Toshiba give in this time around.

I do not want MS controlling yet another part of the technology world, whether it is by VC-1 on HD content or PCs via Windows. Enough is enough, I will have no need for MS once UT3/2007 is out for Linux (the wonders of OpenGL and an Nvidia GFX card!) or the PS3, I have no love of other shooters so I won't be bothered about Crysis and other DX10 games. All of that Aero stuff makes no difference to me either as I have been using Beryl in Ubuntu for a while now, and I can tell you this for free, it is pretty pointless (though it does look pretty). MS is a company that is completely bankrupt in the field of innovation, they need to give up or re-invent themselves in a similar way that Apple have done, or look at what Sony are doing now.

I can't stress how much contempt I hold for MS, they have ruined far too many good companies and ideas with their monopolistic practices, it has to stop, and luckily for the world Google, Apple, Sony and Nintendo will do just that on all fronts, it will start with Google releasing their own OS based on a Linux build, funded by AdWords (free for the end-user, i.e. us), all it will take is for one (EA really) major game developer to support the platform and lots of people will lose their one reason for keeping a Windows install around. Apple continuing to eat market-share in the media world with iTunes and the iPod/iPhone combination will hurt the entertainment division, and it will end with Sony and Nintendo doing what they do best, make great games and consoles.

Obviously this is a simplified version of events, but you get the picture, there is too much competition and regardless of how much money that MS has in the bank, it will not be enough as they are spread way too thin. $4bn to shore up the gaming division for another 3 years, $2bn to fix the Zune and Zune marketplace, more R&D spent on combating the virus makers continuing to blight all versions of Windows, fixing Vista, fixing Office 2007, fixing their SQL server software and still keep it competitive with MySQL, and on top of this they still have to finish developing Longhorn (the server oriented version of Vista) and start work on Vienna and Office 14. It all adds up, and the only divisions that actually make money for MS, Windows and Office, that's right, pretty much every other division is struggling to break-even or making a loss, regardless of how they dress it up their whole business strategy of subsidising new ventures with their seemingly infinite cash-pile and profits from Windows and Office hasn't worked yet and isn't showing any signs of succeeding.

Before all of you say that MS will be making profit all-the-while, you forget that their competitors will be making more, and that MS still face a daily fine of 5% of their worldwide revenue and about €500m on top, which might not seem like much, but it will start the alarm bells ringing at the institutional shareholders who will call for unprofitable divisions (Xbox/Zune) to be mothballed. Also Big Bill is leaving soon which will lower morale at the company as he has been a pretty inspirational leader for MS for the last 25 years since OS/2 and DOS before that.

/rant

I don't hate MS, but I dislike some of their practices.

Your post was an interesting read. It's funny because I see a lot of what you said coming to past in the future. You have pretty good foresight!

[nhaase]

Originally Posted by bluflu

I'm a purchaser for a major company. Today I had to make a decision on a half million dollar electronics purchase. The final decision came down to Toshiba and Panasonic. Needless to say, I made sure Panasonic got the deal.

Great choice.

[ra1024]

It's kinda funny but Max's take on MS is very close to my own. I've been in the PC world long enough to be screwed over by them on numerous times. From what I've seen, they've attempted to force people to buy their OS instead of make them want to buy it for great features and reliability. From what I've seen, Google does things right and I would love for them to unseat MS. They've (MS) had so many chances to do the right thing but have chosen time after time to go for max profit without regard for their customers.

[marzetta7]

Am I the only one who thinks this article is riddled with inaccuracies? First, the summation of Blu-ray/HD DVD basics in terms of how both came about was completely off, as there was no mention of how the DVD Forum came to champion the HD DVD format by having the HD DVD proponents change the way votes were counted in the forum. Or when he started quoting player prices and didn't even mention the cheaper $499 PS3 model or even mention the Samsung Blu-ray player you can get for $460 on Amazon. Nor did I like the mention of HP who is in both camps but yet he claimed they're HD DVD--and they were Blu-ray exclusively until Microsoft started crying. Also, I surely didn't think the mention of how poorly the PS3 has sold in his opinion was warranted in that the PS3 has outsold the Xbox360 by a large margin given the same time frame in their respective launches.

Anyway, I'll stop my rant here, but holy crap, if you're going to write an article, state the facts, and knock of the editorializing that clearly has an HD DVD slant.

[HDTV1080P]

The article is full of errors. It has wrong list prices for the Pioneer and Samsung players plus various other errors in the article.