Universal HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players: Absolutely the WORST thing that could happen? (1 Viewer)

[Glenn Overholt]

But wouldn't Sony and Toshiba have to give an ok for universal players to be made? Would they?

I don't think so. If they did come out, it would be stupid NOT to buy one, and thus every other player (that wasn't universal), would never get sold - and so every hardware mfgr. would have to make them, and thus both sides would have to approve that.

Can you see Toshiba giving Sony permission to make these universal players? What, are you nuts?

Then there would be a software war. If one title came out on both formats, one of these two formats would have a greater disk capacity, thus allowing more extras. Now, if you had a choice like that, would you buy the disk with 3 extra features, or 10 extra features?

I cannot see this happening at all.

Glenn

 

[RobertR]

Sounds like they have access to each other's technologies.

 

[DanFe]

Well, I'm fast coming to the conclusion that a universal player is all that I will buy in the end.

 

[PeterTHX]

If Universal (ironic name eh?) starts releasing in Blu-ray format what reason is there for a combo-player?

50GB discs are in production. VC-1 discs are being authored. With the exception of price (and this is first-gen product) there is no reason to support HD DVD.

None.

Zip.

Pete TC talks about greed. What he got is the names mixed up. It was TOSHIBA'S SOLE DECISION to fight this format war, for patent & royalty money. They rejected every offer the Blu-ray group gave them. Thomson & Sanyo thought the offer was fair (they had been HD DVD only). Then Microsoft entered the fray to give Sony a black eye.

Then they slapped together a bunch of PC parts to get to market first.

So we have vindictiveness & greed as the reason HD DVD exists. If Microsoft had been willing to work with the Blu-ray group we probably already would have VC-1 titles on the shelves.

 

[RobertR]

Microsoft has been able to work with studios other than Sony on VC-1. Initial titles aren't in VC-1 because Sony claims MPEG2 is better (only Sony was able to author initial titles). Of course, the fact that Sony would have to pay royalties to Microsoft for the use of VC-1 has nothing to do with "not being able to work with them"....

 

[PeterTHX]

Wrong. VC-1 is an open standard, it had to be to be accepted as a codec for Blu-ray. So royalties aren't an issue.

 

[RobertR]

from http://bink.nu/Article6649.bink

Sony wants none of its money going to Microsoft.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Color me a skeptic because unless you were in those meetings and participated in those discussions, I seriously doubt that Toshiba or Microsoft are the only companies at fault for the lack of one universal format and Sony's lack of VC-1. Usually there is plenty of blame to go around on these type of poor business decisions.

I really hate it when people try to paint one company as the bad guy while those on the opposite side wear the white hats. The same applies to those that try to blame Sony for all that's gone wrong with their format rollout. Such tactics serve little purpose except to inflame others to counter that argument and down the lane we go towards another endless and meaningless heated discussion because what really happened in those industry discussions is not really known for sure by any of us.




Crawdaddy

 

[Cees Alons]

Although universal players won't bring and end to different formats staying next to each other, they will indeed end the format war as far as consumers are involved.

It will allow studios (and anyone else) to select the format that they think suits their needs best for a specific release (or all the time), and the consumer will buy a HR DVD release he likes, without even having to *think* about the actual format.

It's just like the way, say, a PC-hardware manufacturer can choose to pack either a DVD or a CD with its card, containing drivers, support files and extra programs.

Behind the screens the license war may go on, but we, the movie lovers, no longer notice it.
In the end one particular format will appear to survive, possibly. But perhaps that will even be a totally different one, or a "next generation".


Cees

 

[Ron-P]

Wrong. When will these people STOP comparing HD-DVD/BD to SCAD/DVD-A, you cannot. Hi-def is much stronger and is only growing in the consumer household, every day more and more people buy HD TVs and add HD programming. Hi-def dvd is the next step, a slow one to be sure but it is here to stay.

SCAD and DVD-A were always, and forever will be, an enthusiast format, not too many people need or want high quality audio playback or have the gear for it. People can see a huge difference in HD programming and therefore want it and are buying it.

 

[Travis Hedger]

Speak for yourself as you usually do. Did it hurt to read the first reports of those who purchased the first run of BR titles only to find they did not live up to what HD DVD already provides?

Reason 1. HD DVD is already here.
Reason 2. It looks great, current BRs do not, hopefully that will improve over time
Reason 3. It is cheaper, player and software wise.
Reason 3a. Amazon.com Prime accounts and 1 year 10% off coupons on HD DVD and BR stuff.
Reason 4. Did I mention it looks great?
Reason 5. Combo players, as much as you despise the idea will be a great thing.

As for your comment about greed, you could easily exchange all names for the other camp and get the same result.

Remember back in 1995, Toshiba and Sony were on competing terms, but they joined together and made a single unified product. Both companies today are in a pissing match over royalties, and don't you dare for a minute say that Sony is making a product for the benefit of consumers. Don't EVEN try it. We all know better. Both Tosh and Sony want to make money, both could have joined the other, they didn't, the time is now and this is reality.

 

[PeterTHX]

Sony Philips saw that SD disc had more industry support than MMCD and decided to join forces. They did the right thing.
Yes, but now the shoe is on the other foot. Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, hell just about EVERYONE *except* Toshiba & NEC thought Blu-ray is the better product.

Toshiba was the lone holdout. Because they stood to lose that royalty money.
So Toshiba couldn't do in 2005 what Sony did in 1995. Bow out with diginity and grace and make the best product possible (the Sony 7000).

So don't try to pretend this format war isn't Toshiba's doing.

"HD DVD is here now"...huh? So is BD.
BD looks great too. Not all releases of course. Not all HD DVD releases are top notch either. Software prices are pretty much the SAME.
Cheaper players? At least the Blu-ray players ARE players. Not artificially priced low PCs.

Who has the most potential? Who has the most industry support?

You *should* know the answer.

Hint: HD DVD = Toshiba
Blu-ray Disc = the industry

 

[Travis Hedger]

Why do you have so much angst?

Yeah it would have been great had Toshiba went with Sony, or vice versa, who cares, that time has passed us and will not happen. Combo players are the only thing that can save that situation.

I also noted about the quality being able to change in the future for BR movies, but I see you selectively skipped that portion of my statement.

So much bitterness, hate and anger for HD DVD. It was like it stole your candy bag on Halloween night or something.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

Is that why the Samsung player uses a Windows 98 hourglass every time you try to change a function?

 

[Edwin-S]

It's going to be funny to me because many of the people that are presently touting 30G as sufficient space for "playing a movie" will be the same ones who will eventually be bitching about having to constantly change discs in the middle of the movie. That is what I'm going to be laughing about: not the fact that we could all be stuck with a format where even short films might have to be spread over two discs. The PQ on HD DVD is sweet. In fact, so sweet that it becomes very difficult not to jump in the pool; however, there is more to these formats than just PQ and I believe capacity is going to be a bigger issue than it seems. Data transfer rates are going to be a big factor as well: especially, when the studios start implementing extras that run concurrently with the film and require mulitiple streams of high def audio and video to do so.

If combo players materialize, I just think they are going to be a signal that neither Blu-ray or HD DVD have gained any traction in the market. If combo players arrive then Blu-ray and HD DVD will essentially be market failures.

 

[JeremyErwin]

SACD was originally sold on the (somewhat dubious) premise that PCM was evil. This, of course, meant either going back to analogue, or designing whole new libraries of DSP functions for DSD.

I don't own any Meridian equipment. However, I've read enough of their library of white papers to guess that a good part of their reputations comes from using DSPs for everything-- room correction, tweeter/Mid crossovers-- and a format that favored analogue just would not do. Additionally, Meridian had designed Meridian Lossless Packing, which was used to cram 96/24 six-channel and 192/24 stereo audio onto DVD-A.

Curiously, many universal players convert SACD into PCM before processing. Perhaps my Sony SACD player does as well. I'm not so sure that the addition of SACD circuitry to a DVD-Audio player entails as much of a "compromise".

For me, SACDs are bit more convenient, because they often include a non-broken CD layer. I have not bothered to double dip, though Naxos has released titles for both discs, and a number of artists (NIN for one) have both SACD and dualdisc releases. Besides, my high frequency sensitivity isn't that great, so comparisons would be less than meaningful.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Are triple layer HD-DVDs more likely than quadruple layer Bluray Discs?

 

[PeterTHX]

Triple layered discs are based on the old prototypes of DVD itself being triple layer.

They couldn't make it work back then, and since HD DVD is an evolution of the DVD format (not a new formfactor like BD) its up in the air if they could mass produce it beyond the prototypes (note dual format hybrid discs don't currently support more than 1 HD layer).

TDK is now making quad layered BD discs, and has shown prototypes of 8 layered BD-ROM.

Neither player spec calls for discs with more than 2 layers. Even if HD DVD was able to mass produce tri-layer discs the players probably wouldn't play them. (It's questionable if quad layer would be accepted by a Blu-ray player as well).

 

[PeterTHX]

I think its their way of letting you know the player is busy...Bill Hunt actually liked that. (I, for the record, do not).

Travis: HD DVD (Toshiba) didn't steal my candy but they did make it confusing for the marketplace and jepordize the future of HD on disc, something I've desperately wanted for a long time.

It isn't a Universal player, it's Universal studios that can end this format war. If they start supporting Blu-ray then its pretty much moot.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

Peter, at this point, I hope Universal stays exclusively with HD DVD until BD gets its act together with picture quality and capacity. I haven't given up on BD, I'm keeping my player and hoping for good quality in the future, but someone needs to hold Sony's ass to the fire. Because BD is suffering right now.