Adam Tyner

Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are expected to be backward compatible. It would be commercial suicide for them not to be.

bboisvert

Without it, this format will be dead in the water. Seriously, most people don't have a stack of equipment in their houses, nor do they want that. The 'average' folks (who are the ones that will need to embrace this, eventually) want one box that plays everything... including the dozens/hundreds of discs they've purchased over the past few years.

Not to mention that I assume these players will 'upconvert' standard DVDs and will look better than 90% of the current players out there. (Maybe not mine, and maybe not yours, but most of them.)


This is going to be a really interesting couple of years. I still think releasing two different formats is going to be a hurdle that they won't be able to overcome. Even people who would be (relatively) early adopters are going to sit on the sidelines to see how things shake out.

Fok raises a good point, and one that I don't think I've seen discussed. Is it technically feasible to solve this with hardware? (A machine that plays HD-DVD and Blu-ray?) Or are the formats so radically different that such a beast would be impossible?

sracer

Yep. My Pioneer DV-578 Progressive Scan DVD player is an all-in-one device... DVD player, VCD player, Music (CD, SA, MP3, WMA), photoviewer...

"Upconverting" will probably be on-par with Progressive Scan... which looks pretty darn good on a quality PS player.


Yes, it is technically feasible to solve this in hardware. It's never been a technical issue but one of control. It will indeed be very interesting to see how both sides think they can win. Because they're not sticking to their guns for coexistence... they want to win. And with the winner goes the spoils of licensing the technology.

I wonder if both sides will reduce their licensing fees in an attempt to win over manufacturers. That will certainly be a factor. I think that "exclusive" titles will be the tactic they use for the first wave.

chanster

Sony doesn't have the cash to do what Microsoft did with the XBOX.

BigDan

They may not need the cash that Microsoft had.

For one thing, I assume a larger installed base of Blu-Ray players would also result in more Blu-Ray titles being sold, including many titles offered by Sony Pictures.

And I don't know how much of a loss per player we're talking about anyway, if any, or how long said losses would happen (prices are going to come down eventually anyway. Starting out with a lower price may drive Sony's costs down quicker, as well).

Because Sony has the "software" (the Blu-Ray DVD titles) to make up some of their losses, they might be better equipped to take losses on the player than the HD-DVD group.

If they're going to release a Blu-Ray PS3 early next year, the price point for that is likely to be around $300. I don't know that they're planning to take losses on that. It may not be all that expensive for them to offer a $150 - $200 Blu-Ray player right off the bat.

But I don't know the particulars of Sony's financial situation or how much it costs to produce Blu-Ray players.

chipmac

I read a rumor that the PS3 will sell for $599 initially. And no where have I read an official statement from Sony that the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 will also playback Blu-Ray movie discs. The could pull a MS Xbox on the PS3 where you'll need to buy some type of add on in order to playback movie discs and if they do you can be sure it would be more than a $30 remote.

eau

I don't think I want to be an early adaptor this time. I rather wait til the dust settles and the winner emerges.

Hendrik

...yep...!... (except it's called adopter, not "adaptor") (remember CED!?!) (remember Betamax?!?)

. . . . . .

Josh H

No room in my home theater for any more componets for one.

For another eventually they'll probably quit making regular DVD players (years down the road) and it will be tough to replace the regular player when it breaks.

Josh H

All indications are that the X-box 2 and PS3 will lanch at $299.

They take big losses on consoles and make it up on game sales. Just like razors being cheap and blades expensive.

chipmac

If that's the case I really don't see the PS3 offering movie support out of the box. I mean how can the dedicated players try to compete at $1000 if the PS3 can do the same thing plus play games at $300. Granted the dedicated players would most likely have better PQ but still. Who in their right minds other than hard core AV junkies would pay 3X more for better PQ? The other player manufacturers would be screaming at Sony like crazy.

Josh H

It probably won't play them out of the box and will just play regular DVDs (or there might be a more expensive version of the PS3 that does play blu-ray movies out of the box.

DthRdrX

Looks like I was right ....


"Sony prepares Hollywood films for Blu-ray bonanza
Movies will be available on new high-definition format 'from Day One'
Clive Akass at Cebit, Personal Computer World 09 Mar 2005"

Sony is making digital masters of all its films in high-definiton (HD) format so they can be sold on Blu-ray disks when HD players hit the market, the company announced today.

Speaking at Cebit, the world's biggest IT show, Chris Deering, president of Sony Europe, said: 'There will be an immense choice from day one.'

High definition is a major theme at Cebit, as it was at CES in January, though the industry is split between competing Blu-ray and HDTV formats for players and recorders. The two camps will be battling it out at rival press conferences later this week.

BskyB is to pilot HD broadcasts next year, but initially the techology will be used in Europe primarily for viewing recorded content. HD-ready TV sets are already on sale - Sharp showed an LCD model with a 65in screen today - and Deering pointed out that PCs can also be counted as HD platforms.

Sony's film offerings will include some 6,000 titles it bought with MGM Studios.

Deering said: 'High definition will become the cornerstone of [Sony's] activities in video, audio, TV and movies.'

He added, referring to next year's launch of the Playstation 3 console: 'You can bet that HD is part of Sony's Playstation programme.'

Deering also said that the revolutionary Cell processor powering the Playstation, will have much wider applications."

nightmaster

How do you know your old dvd player will be 'trusty'? Discs made today are theoretically supposed to have playlife capability of decades. There certainly needs to be a player available down the road for our old discs because alot of people are going to be selective about how many titles they buy over (and over) again in the new format. If a fella has hundreds and more movies on DVD already, he may not want to see his collection go unsupported by the hardware manufacturers. They weren't introduced to the public as being a fad format and we all know some standard DVD discs may never see an existance in HD-DVD, therefore backwards compatibility is essential; furthermore, not having that from the very beginning is only going to further alienate the potential mainstream buyers.

Drexl

Yeah, this is like Folger's boasting that their coffee is "mountain grown." ALL coffee is mountain grown.

You can't discount the effect that marketing will have on releasing the titles. Just because the studios have the HD masters available, it doesn't mean they're going to release them all at once. They can't over-saturate the market.

Aren't they planning new editions of the LOTR films with some documentaries? They may be holding off on HD so they can release the versions with the new extras on HD-DVD and standard DVD at the same time.

DthRdrX

What it means is that Sony is not looking at a slow change but a quick one. No one expects 6000 titles at launch.

Kumar J

Another new format has been announced yesterday.It's called HVD and it can hold 6000 times of a CD on a single disk!It will out for the public on 2008.It's developed by 2 guys who quit Sony and built their own company

Adam Tyner

I've seen articles on HVD dating back at least to early September 2004, so it's not quite that bleeding-edge.

bboisvert

Agreed, Sony won't throw thousands of titles out right away. But I'm also not convinced that this rollout will be much quicker than the intial DVD rollout.

They're in a no-win situation. They want to get a ton of titles out there on Blu-Ray to 'win' the format wars. But statistics have shown again and again that people tend to only buy 'new releases' that are just coming out, heavily advertised, get prime shelf space, etc. When people bought their first DVD players, they didn't make a list of all of the classic films they wanted to add to their collection -- they grabbed Tomb Raider or whatever happened to be in front of them when they made the purchase. Later, they may go back and get a favorite or two, but they won't be doing any wholesale purchasing of catalog titles.

So, if Sony puts out 500-1000 titles very quickly, they'll have a great perception that there is tons of content on Blu-Ray. But when people finally go out and buy a Blu-Ray player, all of those hundreds/thousands of titles will be virtually ignored in favor of whatever the hot new titles are that month. They'll essentially be using those titles as bait for the format, at the expense of sales for those specific titles. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.

DavidH

All I can say is bring it on. I'm watching The Matrix on HD-TNT and I am blown away. WOW! The DVD looks like VHS in comparison.

Crazy Aoshi

I don't have an HDTV, but I have a monitor capable of diaplaying HDTV resolution [more or less]. So when HD-DVD drives come out for PC, I'll think about it. Assuming they come out at all, which I think is inevitable. Even if Sony etc. refuses to make one, some third party eventually will.

PopcornTreeCt

I have 1 HD-TV in my house. Maybe someday all 5 of them will be HD but that's not happening. I watch movies on some of the HD channels including Eyes Wide Shut and Full Metal Jacket. Yeah they looked good but I already have them on DVD. See, here's the thing, when I double dip on DVDs for better picture quality I don't have to buy a new DVD player and watch it on only 1 of my TVs to notice the difference. I was gonna compare Laserdisc to HD-DVD but that's not fair because even Laserdisc was a bigger jump from VHS than HD-DVD is from DVD. I'm gonna pass on most HD-DVDs and then go crazy on the format that comes next.

DVD Polizei

Wait until Basic Instinct gets on HD-TNT. We're talking Discovery Channel Beaver.

Oh wait, maybe not. Ted prefers Shawshank Redemption.

Kumar J

It came out yesterday as a ready product and will be available by 2008 to the consumers.So it's a big news and might be a treat to the HDD industry
http://dvd.ign.com/articles/590/590428p1.html?fromint=1

sureAV421

this is going to end up like DVD-Audio and SACD.