Isn't Blu-ray launched too early? (1 Viewer)

[Timber]

All,
Is the general consensus that Blu-Ray was prematurely launched? I mean, all the issues everyone is having, seems like it's not yet ready for primetime. I don't recall this kind of misstep with DVD's launch. The first titles weren't the best, but at least it was a real launch with plenty of hardware and software. I think with the exception of the Playstation platforms, Sony has done a horrible job of bringing in new formats - Minidisc, SACD and a bad taste left by Beta. Anyway, you'd think the immense success that came from making DVD a unified format would have made them think harder about doing the same with the new formats. Either everyone at the competing companies has a short memory or really big egos. But, so far, this seems like a bad start. It's going to make me sit the fence for quite some time. And that's a damn shame.

Tim

 

[Lew Crippen]

There were plenty of problems early on with DVD.

Besides which you really can’t blame Sony—after all, the only player on the market is Samsung and there a a fair number of movies from companies that are not named Sony.

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

HD DVD had its own fair share of issues at launch too.

Regards

 

[Bob_L]

Actually, you can because they authored all the initial Blu-Ray discs.

 

[RobertR]

I think if HDDVD hadn't come out when it did, we'd STILL be waiting for the BR launch. HDDVD forced their hand. I also think they wish HDDVD wasn't around to show what a mediocre job BR has done with its initial titles.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I thought (though I may be incorrect) that Bob’s initial post starting this thread was a more inclusive criticism of Sony and the launch than just the first few movies released by Sony.

Then again it may be that I misread and his critique was limited to that and that alone.

 

[Tim Glover]

I would think that most new formats will have some bugs to work out...

 

[PeterTHX]

Sigh.

One more time:

Blu-ray is (among others)

Panasonic
JVC
Philips
Pioneer
Sharp
Samsung
Hitachi
LG
Yamaha
Onkyo
Sanyo
Apple
Dell
HP
BenQ
Plextor
and then Sony.

 

[Austan]

If you read articles dating back 2 years, you will see that Blu-Ray's time table were way behind HD-DVD and the price difference heavly favored HD-DVD. The XBOX360 November 2005 launch and the Toshiba HD-DVD April 2006 did push up Blu-Ray's time table. Because the BDA included many top CE manufactures (Samsung, Panasonic, Pioneer), they were able to pool resources and narrow the time gap. The price difference did not look good for Blu-Ray either. But with both lasers and disks being produced in the millions, it wont be long before that gap is narrowed also. Picture Quality concerns are yet to be determined. With only the Samsung player on the market and few Blu-Ray titles available, its too early to determine. The Toshiba firmware fixed most of the players issues and there is no longer any debate on "lock-up" issues and boot-up times are now bearable. So let's wait for November 2006 (or the rumored Samsung firmware in September) before we finalized our opinions on Picture Quality.

On the HD-DVD front, these are yet to be answered questions:
1) Can Toshiba increase volume? (only data we have is 10k sold and 20k shipped to US)
2) Will other major CE manufacturers start producing hardware?

"pool resources" = share R&D data or common standard or work together or corporation

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Yes,

Blu-ray was released prematurely.

I think that Sony and everyone else involved would have preferred a fall release when 50 gig could start to become available and (for the rest of the studios) VC1 authoring would have been ready. Not to mention more than just the Samsung BD player on the shelf.

The push to release so early was to keep Toshiba from earning bragging rights that they beat BD to market by six months or so. It's just a PR move basically... all about politics.

The BD push you'll see in the fall will be the "real" BD launch that hopefully will start to deliver what the "format launch" should have delivered to begin with.

 

[joseph westcott]

The real downfall of both formats is the unwillingness to accept the fact that someone will crack the privacy protection schemes. If one accepts this as a fact from the beginning, we would not be watching third rate titles for a product introduction from either technology. ICT tokens and HDCP are what are really holding back the adoption of either technology. Who wants to invest in a player and not be able to watch their favorite titles?

You want to see one technology blow the other away?
Sell copies of all the classics, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, etc. But, alas, for reasons mentioned above, these titles will not be available until component outputs are restricted to 480p output and HDMI/DVI with HDCP is the interconnect all of us are using.