Does anyone blame the studios for the format wars? (1 Viewer)

[Jerome Grate]

Studio's certainly play a big role in regards to the format wars, but it's the manufacturers of hardware that is causing and fueling the war. IMHO Sony saw a format that could revolutionize the DVD world, costly but could. Now we need to remember that BD has been out in Japan for a while now (2 years I believe). Two years ago Sony USA should have pushed BD then but instead they remained dormant and allowed HD-DVD to come into play. Cheaper to make, and now a product half the price. My point, if Sony had pushed BD at the same time or shortly after it's break through in Japan, this may not have been an issue. Please understand I'm not an expert as so many members are or claim to be, but Sony had the perfect opportunity when it released BD in Japan and mostly all the studios jumped on board at it's inception here in the US. Bad decisions made here has now caused this format war, and bad decisions will finish it.

 

[PeterTHX]

No, quite the opposite. They did everything correctly.

One: BD recorders were too expensive. The Japanese & US have different views on the values of electronics. Issuing a $2K recorder in Japan and issuing a $2K recorder in the US has very different results.
Two: propietarty formats. People would have viewed BD as yet another Sony format being pushed. Instead Sony lined up the support of nearly ever CE maker. The biggest being Panasonic (Matsushita).
Three: they didn't exactly "wait" for HD DVD. You need to remember at this point HD DVD was Toshiba/Warner's plan to push a red laser with MPEG4 encoding. No blue laser, no VC-1.
Four: expanding BD to include technologies from the other members of the BDA, enhancing disc structure, including VC-1, AVC, and allowing DHD + DTS MA to be optional codecs.
Five: Sony did approach Toshiba on many occasions to try to get them to join the BDA. No dice.

The only bad decisions were to launch BD before it was completely ready, using transfers that are no longer state of the art.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

January 2006 CES:
"By late summer, all facilities will be able to manufacture both 25GB and 50GB Blu-ray Discs. The initial lines will use a sheet-type process. The spin process will be implemented when second-generation lines are developed."

So,
as long as "all" facilities produce BD 50's by "late" summer which is NOW, and get them to market by Oct., they will indeed have met Sony's & Peter's promises.
However, they did break the promise on the protective coating being apart of the initial BD. Wonder if the second gen will have it?

Good thing nobody cares if the first releases get scratched to heck or not. ;-)

Peter,
FYI, summer ends this month. As summer is officially over in August.
(Time for Fall & Football!!!)
&
FYI, 25 does NOT "equal" 30.
However, if you wish to say;
45 "equals" 50
I will NOT argue with you!

PTHX,
I still think you have a chance.
At BD 50
&
winning!

Butt, Sony hasn't done much right, as you've posted before, with titles released with inferior mastering & codec!

Congrat's to all BD fans with GN&GL, LUCKily (ha, ha) a great looking disc!

 

[PeterTHX]

Um, no. We're talking the Japanese electronics industry. Sep 23, 2006 is the official start of fall. Q4 starts in October. We still have a month left.

 

[Rob_Walton]

Say what? Every indication is that the BD discs on the market are well protected. I'm not aware of any "promise" made to use Durabis II on every disc, just for a similar level of protective coating to be applied. Is there some indication that this degree of protection is not being implemented?

 

[Ed St. Clair]

I was under the impression that Sony dropped the caddy & promised super protection. This was like, what, six months ago?
The BIG fuss I remember, was that Sony was having a problem with spin (had to go there) coating.

Edit:
Here's 'something' I found;
From www.durabis.com (http://www.durabis.com/en/con00100.htm):

DURABIS: Making Bare Blu-ray Discs a Reality

Because Blu-ray Disc media offers considerably higher density recording on a disc with same physical dimensions as a DVD, precise laser operation is especially critical. This makes it essential to protect the recording surface of Blu-ray Disc media against scratches and smudges.

To protect the disc surface, the Blu-ray Disc media that's currently marketed in Japan is encased in a protective cartridge. DURABIS recording surface technology is an essentially component in realizing bare, cartridge-free Blu-ray Disc media.

An original TDK technology, DURABIS is the result of TDK's unyielding conviction that irreplaceable data and content must be safeguarded. DURABIS is certain to continue facilitating the evolution of optical discs with unprecedented capacities.

Rob,
do you remember reading that?

When combined with 1.10;
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_cartridge
"No, the development of new low cost hard-coating technologies has made the cartridge obsolete. Blu-ray will instead rely on hard-coating for protection, which when applied will make the discs even more resistant to scratches and fingerprints than today's DVDs, while still preserving the same look and feel. Blu-ray also adopts a new error correction system which is more robust and efficient than the one used for DVDs."
You can see that Sony did indeed promise to use a coating "which is more robust and efficient than the one used for DVD's".
Which, if I'm not mistaken, they are using, right?

 

[Rob_Walton]

a certain level of protection is part of the spec. if discs aren't able to conform to specifcations then they can't carry the relevant lable - in this case bd. i've not seen any comments that the blu-rays currently on the market are anything less than robust. of course it's early in the game to judge this, but you seemed to have new information so i was wondering what that was. the caddy thing is old hat. spin coat or film coat, the only thing that maters is if it works practically and economically. so far the practical aspect appears to be holding up, while the economic angle is a closed book to us, though there's certainly no end of inuendo in that direction.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Well stated, Rob.
Just it does look like they fell short, of their mission statement.
Looks like they may still "catchup", however!

 

[Cees Alons]

Back to the original question:Mmmm, no I don't. Not particularly.

But if the format "war" lasts for another 6 or 7 months, then I will blame any studio releasing on one of the formats exclusively (or with too much a time gap).

(Although there are a few signs that the European Committe wil help preventing that in my part of the world.)


Cees

 

[todd s]

Thanks Cees for bringing the thread back to my original question. And well its 4 months into your 6 or 7 month gap. And it still seems to be a stalemate. I just think that if the studios would have gotten together and actually thought about the consumer and even themselves. This could have mostly been avoided. And how it can hurt the studios. If for some reason one of the formats does die. Then the studio will have lots of movies pressed for that format that will have to be dumped out.

 

[dpippel]

Blame the studios? Who else WOULD you blame?

 

[Dave Moritz]

If all the studios would have lined up behind one format this format war might have not have happened. But I do not blame the studios for this war. If Tohsiba and Sony would have actually gotten together and settled there differences and made an agreement. We would not have a format war and the studios would not be torn between two formats just like the average consumer is. And just like some consumers there are a studio or two that are waiting to see how this format war pans out before comitting to a format.

And unlike the past VHS vs Beta war where Beta was just superior. Today we have two very good quality formats with one of the biggest differences is storage space. And while Blu-ray may technically be the better format. Just like in the past we can not assume that the better format will win. During the last big format war the better format did not win!

Past Format Wars:
VHS vs Beta : Better format lost
SACD vs DVD-A : Both lost
HD-DVD vs Blu-ray : ????