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SirNitram wrote:Meh. The format war ends when someone dethrones DVD, not before.

I think that's the problem (imho) with the next gen formats, DVDs still work fine for a good deal of people, not to mention there's still quite a bit of movies and series out there that you can't even get on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, and most aren't gonna sit around until someone bothers to do it.

And interesting take Sephirius, hadn't thought of that angle.

It's still not at all clear that the strategy will work, and even if it does, that just makes it an ill-advised gamble that got lucky. Seriously, what kind of successful large corporation literally rolls the dice in an all-or-nothing gambit with billions of dollars? They'll never break even on the PS3 division selling it at such a loss, so they really do need BD to not only win, but to replace DVD in a timely fashion in order for the whole affair to be profitable, and I just don't see that happening.

Anyone know what the sales figures are for the players for each format? One thing is to look at disks sold but the overall number fo players sold for me would indicate where this is going. I'm getting the sense from being in the stores that neither format is a hit with consumers in terms of acceptance.

Echoing Mike's point I just don't think the lay person can truly see the differences between the two formats certainly not enough to justify switching over from DVD so I think this format war thing will be far from settled if Blu-Ray or HD-DVD become a niche thing.

Check out this CNBC video

Warren Lieberfarb's spin is incredible.

"Why was HD-DVD outrented 7-3 at BB?"
"PS3 has no games, lol"

"Why is HD-DVD only 34% of sales for the week?"
"Actually, our per-household attach rate is great"

"You only have Universal in your corner, won't you have a paucity of titles compared to BR?"
"HD-DVD connects to teh intarnetz!"

Dennis Toy wrote:Tell you the truth, Like yourself, i just don't see what's really supposed to be special about both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD anyway? Some would say it has 1080i with more resolution lines... BIG DEAL... what's wrong with DVD's definition anyway? Its the most clearest picture ever! It's movie theatre definition DAMMIT! What more can you ask for? It has 5.1 Surround, Movie Theatre quality! Menus, multiple languages and interactive content, Again what more can you ask for?

Not even close to movie theatre resolution, unless your local movie theatre is run by retarded monkeys who can't focus the projector. 35mm film will resolve something like 3500 line pairs across its width, a 35mm movie camera uses half of the 35mm frame used in a film camera, giving about 1700 line pairs top to bottom, or about 3400 lines of resolution. The movie cameras used by Hollywood have seriously good lenses, as in you could buy yourself a Mercedes for the cost of the lens, they will get every last bit of resolution that the film can handle. DVD doesn't come close, neither does HDTV nor BluRay.

In terms of grain, this is mostly a problem with earlier films like The Wizard of Oz. With anything recent it's simply not an issue unless someone fucked up. Analog may be obsolete but it is by no means a "low-res" format, it still has over 3 times the resolution of any digital format available to consumers.

I laugh every time I see this referred to as a "format war" when its more like two small dogs fighting each other over the crumbles that fall over from the DVD table. Like some here I don’t care for either format, and if and when anything replaces DVD it’s probably not going to be either of these stooges.

It's pretty much the same as the war between DVD-A and SACD, only the people with $10,000+ systems care.

Darth Wong wrote:Wouldn't it be funny if the next "big" format completely bypassed both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, which never became more than niche products?

I would love that. It would be great to have even higher capacities and better products. The problem is that HD-DVD's and Blu-Ray already push the limits of what modern HDTV's are capable of, and so not only would the subjective difference between such a format and the two "warring" parties wouldn't exist, but OBJECTIVELY there wouldn't be a difference, either. I don't think that the PC-capacity crowd would be enough to drive development of a whole new format.

Unfortunately, the next format change that would truly revolutionize the way we receive media is also one that the content providers would fight tooth and nail to destroy: in-computer storage of some sort. Let's face it, the ideal home entertainment medium would be a networked storage device with multimedia output capabilities. You download or copy movies onto it, and then select from your movie library with an on-screen menu. Ideally, it would have a storage medium with no rotating parts, hence limited noise and high shock-proofing. You could distribute it physically with large-capacity flash devices.

The spinning disc is a pain in the ass. Far less of a pain in the ass than magnetic tape, but a pain in the ass nonetheless. But the movie studios would use every weapon at their disposal to stop such a thing.

We're in a twilight zone of technology that could revolutionize the home entertainment experience and companies that view this technology as the ultimate evil.

Darth Wong wrote:Unfortunately, the next format change that would truly revolutionize the way we receive media is also one that the content providers would fight tooth and nail to destroy: in-computer storage of some sort. Let's face it, the ideal home entertainment medium would be a networked storage device with multimedia output capabilities. You download or copy movies onto it, and then select from your movie library with an on-screen menu. Ideally, it would have a storage medium with no rotating parts, hence limited noise and high shock-proofing. You could distribute it physically with large-capacity flash devices.

I've been toying with that idea for a while, since TVersity's release for the Xbox 360 last software update actually makes this not only possible (it was already), but functional and visually attractive. The big problem is the insane amount of storage space needed to build a library. I have almost one Terabyte in total, and it's nothing compared to what it is needed to store the movies and series I own on DVD.. it works amazing, though.

Darth Wong wrote:Unfortunately, the next format change that would truly revolutionize the way we receive media is also one that the content providers would fight tooth and nail to destroy: in-computer storage of some sort. Let's face it, the ideal home entertainment medium would be a networked storage device with multimedia output capabilities. You download or copy movies onto it, and then select from your movie library with an on-screen menu. Ideally, it would have a storage medium with no rotating parts, hence limited noise and high shock-proofing. You could distribute it physically with large-capacity flash devices.

The spinning disc is a pain in the ass. Far less of a pain in the ass than magnetic tape, but a pain in the ass nonetheless. But the movie studios would use every weapon at their disposal to stop such a thing.

We're in a twilight zone of technology that could revolutionize the home entertainment experience and companies that view this technology as the ultimate evil.

What you've described as a hypothetical has already taken place almost to the letter. Kaleidescape makes ridiculously high-end network storage for movies to eliminate the DVD "middleman." In order to keep with Fair Use, you ALSO had to buy the DVD--they just copied it over to your massive hard disk space, and then the device streamed it to a TV or set of TV's around your house. And they STILL got the shit sued out of them by the DVD industry (they eventually won the court case, but still...). If I had several tens of millions of dollars, Kaleidescape would be an utterly awesome product. Alas... to be rich...

Master of Ossus wrote:If I had several tens of millions of dollars, Kaleidescape would be an utterly awesome product. Alas... to be rich...

The ten seasons of Stargate in high quality (but not HD) format occupies around 300 GB.. and if we consider HD then it's game over.

And if they go the route of having everthing online and people streaming it, we'll need a hell lot more of bandwidth which I think is not going to be available.

As a cinephile and collector, I have to admit that the prospect of downloaded media becoming the primary form of home video really does frighten me. I don't really like the idea of owning stuff if it doesn't physically "exist."

And concerning the bandwidth issue, it's great and all if you live more in an urban or suburban area, but what about those out in the country? Or for the people who can't really do that kind of multimedia Internet entertainment center stuff due to house layout issues?

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:As a cinephile and collector, I have to admit that the prospect of downloaded media becoming the primary form of home video really does frighten me. I don't really like the idea of owning stuff if it doesn't physically "exist."

Well, thanks to the wonderful invention of the DVD burner, which will of course eventually be updated with larger capacities and so forth, one can always put the bits onto an actual physical disc.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:As a cinephile and collector, I have to admit that the prospect of downloaded media becoming the primary form of home video really does frighten me. I don't really like the idea of owning stuff if it doesn't physically "exist."

And concerning the bandwidth issue, it's great and all if you live more in an urban or suburban area, but what about those out in the country? Or for the people who can't really do that kind of multimedia Internet entertainment center stuff due to house layout issues?

There's also the problem of data loss. Suppose the hard drive all these movies are on becomes corrupted or otherwise damaged, or the target of a malicious virus or some other hardware problem. That's a substantial loss of movies right there, while with DVDs it's almost impossible to accidentally destroy hundreds at once.

muse wrote:

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:As a cinephile and collector, I have to admit that the prospect of downloaded media becoming the primary form of home video really does frighten me. I don't really like the idea of owning stuff if it doesn't physically "exist."

Well, thanks to the wonderful invention of the DVD burner, which will of course eventually be updated with larger capacities and so forth, one can always put the bits onto an actual physical disc.

Having the movies in disk format in the first place removes that necessity. I prefer the option of having hard drives as DVD backups, not vice versa myself.

muse wrote:

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:As a cinephile and collector, I have to admit that the prospect of downloaded media becoming the primary form of home video really does frighten me. I don't really like the idea of owning stuff if it doesn't physically "exist."

Well, thanks to the wonderful invention of the DVD burner, which will of course eventually be updated with larger capacities and so forth, one can always put the bits onto an actual physical disc.

Uh, those "larger capacities" you're talking about would be HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray burners. The most you're going to get out of a DVD burner is a dual-layer disc at 8.5GB.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:As a cinephile and collector, I have to admit that the prospect of downloaded media becoming the primary form of home video really does frighten me. I don't really like the idea of owning stuff if it doesn't physically "exist."

Never heard of backups? Digital photography has virtually destroyed film photography in the marketplace despite existing only in electronic form.

And concerning the bandwidth issue, it's great and all if you live more in an urban or suburban area, but what about those out in the country?

Hence my mention of using Flash devices for distribution. The real point is that you need to allow people to move this data rather than slaving them to the goddamned shiny disc.

Or for the people who can't really do that kind of multimedia Internet entertainment center stuff due to house layout issues?

Don't be ridiculous; that greatly simplifies house layout issues. Hell, you could move data around by wireless connection instead of running all over the house asking "Hey Billy, where did that DVD go? And what happened to the case for this one? And who scratched it all up?"

Microsoft is focusing on downloadable content from what I've read, so even if HD-DVD flops absolutely, the market seems to be steering more towards downloading content on to your HDD rather than have a physical disk handy except when you want a carbon copy for backing-up. The increasing capacities of flash media and decreasing costs mean you'll get future drives that won't have any moving parts, indeed, many personal stereos play their MP3s and what have you from a solid state system, bar the larger capacity iPods and so on.

The future will likely be a holographic crystalline one, where a solid block of polymer is used rather than ever denser optical discs with higher RPM to off set any time delay on the data bus. We're using flash media more now and the idea of using light reactive systems for holographic storage or spintronics is promising.

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Microsoft is focusing on downloadable content from what I've read, so even if HD-DVD flops absolutely, the market seems to be steering more towards downloading content on to your HDD rather than have a physical disk handy except when you want a carbon copy for backing-up. The increasing capacities of flash media and decreasing costs mean you'll get future drives that won't have any moving parts, indeed, many personal stereos play their MP3s and what have you from a solid state system, bar the larger capacity iPods and so on.

The future will likely be a holographic crystalline one, where a solid block of polymer is used rather than ever denser optical discs with higher RPM to off set any time delay on the data bus. We're using flash media more now and the idea of using light reactive systems for holographic storage or spintronics is promising.

You can now buy a 500GB hard drive for about a hundred bucks. Toss in a second 500GB hard drive in an external enclosure for a backup, and you're still out by only a couple of hundred dollars. If the capacity:price ratio keeps increasing, the idea becomes more and more viable.

General Zod wrote:There's also the problem of data loss. Suppose the hard drive all these movies are on becomes corrupted or otherwise damaged, or the target of a malicious virus or some other hardware problem. That's a substantial loss of movies right there, while with DVDs it's almost impossible to accidentally destroy hundreds at once.

If you were allowed to use your account to download another copy of the lost data, then that wouldn't be as much of a problem. (Of course, the media companies will most likely want to restrict that ability so you can't just login to your account at a friend's house and download the movie for them.)

Mad wrote:

General Zod wrote:There's also the problem of data loss. Suppose the hard drive all these movies are on becomes corrupted or otherwise damaged, or the target of a malicious virus or some other hardware problem. That's a substantial loss of movies right there, while with DVDs it's almost impossible to accidentally destroy hundreds at once.

If you were allowed to use your account to download another copy of the lost data, then that wouldn't be as much of a problem. (Of course, the media companies will most likely want to restrict that ability so you can't just login to your account at a friend's house and download the movie for them.)

If it were one or two files then it wouldn't be so problematic, but if your entire hard drive and library of movies wind up dying, we could be talking about several hundred gigs worth of data you'd have to re-download. Not a pleasant prospect.

General Zod wrote:If it were one or two files then it wouldn't be so problematic, but if your entire hard drive and library of movies wind up dying, we could be talking about several hundred gigs worth of data you'd have to re-download. Not a pleasant prospect.

It's not like you're going to need your entire movie library immediately, though. Just prioritize and stagger the downloads: grab some of your favorite music and a couple movies you might watch soon first, and you won't even miss the rest that you can download later on.

Mad wrote:

General Zod wrote:If it were one or two files then it wouldn't be so problematic, but if your entire hard drive and library of movies wind up dying, we could be talking about several hundred gigs worth of data you'd have to re-download. Not a pleasant prospect.

It's not like you're going to need your entire movie library immediately, though. Just prioritize and stagger the downloads: grab some of your favorite music and a couple movies you might watch soon first, and you won't even miss the rest that you can download later on.

Either way it's still a considerable amount of data you have to redownload. Replacing hundreds of DVDs would be a huge pain in the ass as well, but the chances of losing all of them at once is considerably less likely.

Darth Wong wrote: You can now buy a 500GB hard drive for about a hundred bucks. Toss in a second 500GB hard drive in an external enclosure for a backup, and you're still out by only a couple of hundred dollars. If the capacity:price ratio keeps increasing, the idea becomes more and more viable.

Holographics may be a newer field than practical spintronics, but if what IBM has claimed to create is true, you could get a terabyte or more on a single side of a standard floppy disk's surface.

On the other hand, Fujifilm said last year they were working on a holographic memory based MP3 player the size of a sugar cube that could hold a terabyte too and not only that, have near instant read/write times for any part of data in the substrate. Unlike flash, it doesn't have a physical self-life either limiting how many operations can be performed throughout its life.

Pricey at first, I expect. When people see the advantages of carrying your whole music collection, picture collection AND your movie collection (in 1080p HD, of course) in something the size of a modern mobile phone, they'll jump at the chance.