Thread continues from:
Round 1
Round 2

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MODERATOR INSERT (9/15/2006)

Due to the increased bickering in the HD Talk Forum, the forum moderators discussed the matter and came up with following. Hopefully, spelling out what is and what is not acceptable in this forum will provide some clarification to all of you. For the record, this is almost identical to how we run the Video Game Talk Forum.


You are allowed to--and we encourage you to--make posts that constitute constructive criticism. Blatant bashing of a format or bashing of the studios/manufacturers is strictly forbidden.

If the main purpose of a post is to poke fun at another format, then they are nothing more than flame baits, and they will not be tolerated. Same with threadcrapping. At the moment, whenever someone posts something good about Format A, then we can count on certain supporters of Format B to enter that thread and make a snide comment about Format A. Sometimes it's just a smiley, like or ; sometimes it's just a sarcastic one-liner. They are equivalent to threadcraps, and they will not be tolerated either.

Naturally, personal attacks are not allowed (all of the regular forum rules still apply, of course). Please remember to always discuss the topic, not the person. A personal attack is the fastest way to getting banned.

Some of you may feel that we're taking all the fun away. Actually, this is how we bring more fun into the forum. When we have more user-friendly rules, then more people will participate.


namja
Moderator, DVD Talk Forums

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By the way things are shaping up i think its fair to say that if there is a loser in this format war that it will be a much bigger loss than any previous format war both in terms of studios and the purchasing customer. The more I look at it the more it looks like this will be a battle that plays out over not the next couple months but over the next couple years. With that being said company's are going to be investing a boatload of cash into these formats and some like Sony have really placed thier entire reputation on that success.

I was certainly around for the big VHS-Beta war but didnt really follow it as I was pretty young at that time and by the time I really got into it Beta had already lost. How comparable do you guys think this format war is to that one? For one how long did that battle go on before Beta bailed out and were the cash investments anything like what we are seeing today?

I fully expect the HD format to really catch on with the major population especially when you look at the rate of people switching to flatcreens and HDTV's. I just cant imagine how much it would suck to have the format you supported fail after giving it years of support and spending thousands of dollars on it. I am lovin HD-DVD right now but I would be lying if I said I was 100% sure it was gonna be around in 2-3 years. Sony is a pretty big company and they have staked pretty much everything on BD so you wont see them going down anytime soon and definitly not without a fight. Also the fact that a few of the major movie studio's are not in the HD-DVD camp has me a little concerned. Anyways I was just wondering what your guys take on this is.

Obviously the longer this war goes on the more everyone has to lose if a format goes under and again this is looking like it could be a long one.
Do you think only one will be victorious or do you think both formats will survive side by side and am I the only one who is still a little nervous by adopting a format this early when there is a format war going on?

PS....

I didn't say copy protection. I said DRM. BD and HD-DVD have provisions in them that provide for streaming across a network, and even possibly copying to a server, provided it abides by the DRM.


Itunes allow playing on 5 different PCs at any one time. However, you can de-authorize and re-authorize the PCs you want to have this access. So it's actually more flexible than a physical media, since you're restricted to being able to play it on one device at a time.

What's stopping them from doing this now? They do on DVD. As jiggawhat said, as long as the item is a downloaded purchase, and not a stream or rental, the consumer is safe. The providers can't delete the files from your server. Also, a download service could actually pair up with recordable BD or HD-DVD formats, allowing a user to make an actual HD disc copy, much like how the current music stores allow coping to audio CD. In fact, since BD and HD-DVD have DRM built-in, it'd be even easier for the content providers to provide and allow this.

i'm not sure I've ever actually heard of music rights expiring for a film. Typically the problem is one of transporting the film or TV show to a new format that the music rights were secured for, such as DVD. This might pose a problem for video download, as the current music rights might not cover it and studios will have to negotiate for the new format. However, this has been an issue for VHS, DVD, and likely will be for some degree on HD-DVD and BD, so it's not unique for the format.

Again, purchased downloads won't be affected. Plus, there's much less reasons for a film to become unavailable. A movie won't go OOP just because the studio stops pressing discs, because there's little to no cost to keeping a digital copy online, as opposed to the costs of pressing and shipping discs. And when rights expire or are transfered, such transfers can happen instantaneously, meaning the copy stays online with only a background shift in where the money goes chaning; as opposed to any disc format where one has to wait for the new rights holder to start pressing discs again.

Online video downloading should actually increase availability of foreign releases. Nowadays a lot of films just aren't released in other countries due to the costs of distribution, and the limits on physical shelf space. Obscure Finnish Film costs just as much to master and press per disc as the latest blockbuster (actually maybe more so, due to less volume). However, it's not going to sell as much and may not even make the shelves of most stores.

With services like napster and itunes, the shelf space is unlimited. The costs of distribution are significantly reduced as well. As a result, much more content can be offerred with little cost to the providers. On the music stores now, there's hundreds of songs and albums that are either OOP on CD or only available as an import. The hassle of importing is eliminated. Also, the middle-man can be eliminated. Now, foreign studios have to court and sell to domestic distributors to get their product out on disc. Those distributors are only going to pick what they think they can sell, and want a large cut of the sales; like, all of it. With digital downloads, foreign studios can make deals directly with the content providers, supply all their content, and get a cut from all the sales.

Because it's already purchased, and you have copies of it. Download services don't "de-authorize" purchases. For rentals, you'll pay the current owner, or rather you'll pay the service and they'll pay the current owner. Shifts in rights should be transparent.

TIVO has this, and it can be disabled if wanted. Likewise most online stores, which people here probably have no issues shopping with. jiggawhat also mentioned rewards cards for B&M which track purchases. Stores can even do this based on credit-card purchases. So it's not an issue unique to downloads, and it could possibly be disabled if its a big issue for most people.

Thanks for the correction.

Since there are some new people here, I am going to dredge up a news report from March (before either format launched) that suggests strongly that Disney was considering releasing on both formats:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060313-6374.html

This is why I am puzzled that Disney is still supporting BD only, despite the excellent launch of the HD DVD format. I remain hopeful that Disney will relent in the near future (months, as opposed to years).

Perhaps a polite letter writing campaign from HD DVD owners might nudge them toward releasing on HD DVD.

jiggawhat was saying "in the vein of Itunes," not Itunes itself. There are other music stores that use DRM WMA files that can work on a variety of devices and services. As far as software, there are other applications that can play Itunes-protected files.

I do think a universal, or near universal DRM will be required to allow it to take off. Considering the BD and HD-DVD both use AACS as their base DRM, and it has a lot of studio support, that may be a good DRM for downloads to go with.

It's a possibility, but it doesn't seem likely. Nothing like that has happened with music downloads. Also, the DRM on BD and HD-DVD allows for the de-authorization of discs and players.

Again, not likely to happen. The service is only checking to see if it's a legitimate copy, i.e. "was it purchased" and "is it on an authorized player." The service provider isn't going to check if it was purchases from the current rights holder, since the current rights holder has no rights to past purchases. It'd be like Fox going out and pulling all Sony DVDs of MGM movies. They don't have a right to those discs.

There are currently several different music services. There's Itunes, Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo, MSN, walmart, Virgin, Music Match, Emusic, Audiolunchbox, etc. Plus, there's thousands of individual sites with bands selling content themselves. Imagine an independent filmmaker who can't get a distribution deal being able to put his film up on either his own site and/or licensing to various other providers and getting it out there to the public for little cost, and getting money back.

True. How many people do that though? I think a physical format will probably always be available. However, the market share of it might dwindle if people find the convenience and features of video downloads to be better.

Sony launched Beta in 1975, JVC launched VHS in 1976. Sony started supporting VHS in 1988, 13 years after Beta launched, and 12 years after VHS launched. A lot of people point to Sony's support of VHS as the point Beta "died," although Beta machines were still released in the US until 1993, and Sony didn't stop manufacturing Betamax completely until 2002. So there's a good possibility that the current format wars could last several years at least.

As for cost, the first solo Betamax player cost $1200 in 1976 (the 1975 Betamax player was part of a unit that included a TV). VHS was cheaper, but only relatively so. In today's dollars, the price would be even more, which is why a lot of people rented VCRs in the early days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS
http://www.betainfoguide.com/indexnew.html
http://www.totalrewind.org/

Well, one thing to consider is that there's very little physically different with the formats, at least in terms of what the players have to deal with. They're both the same size and shape, utitlize the same wavelength laser, use the same video codecs and a lot of the same audio codecs, etc. So if the format war drags out too long and neither side looks soon to lose, dual-format players may become real possibility. At that point, both formats could co-exist much like DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW co-exist.

I don't know much about that war because I wasn't around for it, but one thing I think that's different now is that people weren't buying movies then the way they are now. It was more geared towards rentals.

I'm not all that worried about a format dying, provided it stays alive for a couple of years like many expect. I have no plans to purchase titles again for the opposing format (unless they're much improved and/or very cheap). I don't really mind having more than one format.

If they continue to make (hybrid) players, there should be no problem at all, and even if they don't, it should end up like an older game console where there is a second-hand market for the players. It will probably be several years at least before you just can't play them.

Jay G, those are some good points. Maybe I am being a bit paranoid about VOD. Actually, I would love using it for rentals, but I'm still not sure I would want to use it for purchases.

I think worrying about HD DVD dying is going to be pretty pointless. Blu-ray is simply taking too long to get its act together which gives HD DVD more and more time to build a following. If BD keeps Fox and others away from HD DVD it will eventually win out, but it won't kill HD DVD anytime soon. There will be enough HD DVDs on the market and enough users out there that a combo player will eventually be a must to win everyone over to Blu-ray.

I think the worst case for HD DVD owners is having to get a combo player and switch over to buying BD discs to fill in our collections. All of our HD DVDs will live on for a long time. I have no worries about the money I'm spending on HD DVDs and the format war is pretty meaningless to me.

There have been some suggestions on AVS that Disney may soon announce dual-format support. In my mind, it doesn't mean anything until Disney actually makes an official announcement.

Suprmallet, we let a lot of things go for the past few months. We gave so much leeway that people actually began to think that bashing Sony was okay, or that chiming into every BD thread to comment on the failures of Sony/BD was acceptable, or that there's nothing wrong with flamebaiting.

Anyway, I'll discuss with the other moderators and give you a response. It may take a few days, so please bear with me.

namja
Moderator, DVD Talk Forums

I can't say I agree with Blitz's banishment for the simple fact that people make mistakes, but I will say that his comments in general were no different then digifreak and while I don't know what was exactly said by Blitz I can't agree just because he could have been egged on and at the same times was egging on with some of his statements like "choo choo" and so on.

What he said was a personal attack against me, and I had him on ignore, so I was not egging him on. He deserved his banning.

Absolutely. Blitz went from debating the formats and started attacking people. I also think you've got it a bit reversed, Namja. Blitz was the first to interject into any HD discussion and derail the thread. His "choo choo" comments were flamebait, pure and simple.

As for the inevitable comparison to DFNYC, I can't recall him making any personal attacks. If I were an BD supporter, I would hold up a guy like Jay G as a good example of a fellow BD supporter, not Blitz. The same holds true on the other side. There are a few HD-DVD supporters who I would not to be associated with, were I backing that format. Level headed and openminded is good, fanboy is not.

The idea that people "egged" Blitz on is insane. His entire MO was trolling.

And not just on this forum, either. His incessant "Nobody wants the Wii because it's just a souped-up Gamecube!" and "Nintendo is slapping me in the face by releasing Zelda on the Wii!" were just obnoxious.

Wow, I completely missed that Blitz got banned. It is a shame if went personal because his Choo Choo line was becoming a DVDTalk classic.

Back to the point, I have tended to stay out of these threads, but, I will inteject a few random thoughts on the format war.

Disney going agnostic as some think may happen would go a long way toward extending this a long time. As is I think we will have both formats for several years at least.

Toshiba did everything possible on release and narrowed the gap from "dead in the water" to "the underdog that could." They are about to release second gen hardware and some really good HD titles have been announced for Q3 and Q4. Sony and the BD team better come out guns blazing really soon if they don't want Toshiba and HD-DVD to gain more ground.

The one thing that irks me about this format war is that the studios (Fox, Disney, Lionsgate and Universal) will not just let us decide the winner. I applaud Paramount and Warner Brothers for doing it the right way and letting both formats have their best effort and then letting the consumer decide.

Lastly, if FOX and Disney do not go agnostic soon I may have to get a BD player, but as of yet I have not seen one I would purchase. The Samsung seems unacceptable, I am not big on Phillips these days, I in general do not buy Panasonic because of a bad experience I had with a DVD player, I hate to support Sony when they are being so unfriendly to the consumer and Pioneer who I usually buy from wants a bloody fortune. It amkes supporting both formats very tough. Especially with so few exclusives on BD that I want and quality being unacceptable on so many discs.

Well, That is enough random thoughts.

This post very succinctly describes my feelings as well.

I know there's a line between Sony bashing and Sony criticism but this is one of those companies that deserves to be criticized, as their mistakes are many, across the board. Were this another board, I might suggest that Sony bashing is "against the rules" because some Sony ad campaign might be started, but I know Geoff doesn't run his site this way and the suggestion is preposterous. But Blu-Ray, up until this point has been exceedingly deserving of any criticism. It sucks, plain and simple. More expensive hardware, less movies, less storage, worse quality, etc.

The future of Blu-Ray definitely seems to be rosier and it would be unthinkably ignorant to write off the format as it is now. Nobody sane thinks that the format was is over right now and Blu-Ray has lost.

But to deny people to give opinions about a format, or a company, or a poorly written article, seems to be asinine. It's not my board, so I don't make the rules, and I'll follow whatever decision you want to make, but if no criticism is allowed, you might as well close down this thread. Unlike most video game discussion threads, this one actually had a very low signal-to-noise ratio. For every two fanboy posts we had one or two well written intelligent replies, and it would be a shame to throw out the DVD with the bathwater, so to speak.

I agree 1000000% Blitz started alot of this crap and he derailed plenty of discussion. Good riddance.

I think Fox would be the last studio that would switch to HD DVD. I've always thought they are the key if HD DVD wants to be the sole HD format. They have such a great catalog of titles. They are so worried about piracy, which is why they chose BD for their copy protection. That really sucks because aside from Universal, Fox is probably my second favorite studio in terms of content. If the Panasonic gets good reviews, and I find a deal on it, I may be a dual supporter. Still lovin' my HD-A1.

I think Fox would be the last studio that would switch to HD DVD. I've always thought they are the key if HD DVD wants to be the sole HD format. They have such a great catalog of titles. They are so worried about piracy, which is why they chose BD for their copy protection. That really sucks because aside from Universal, Fox is probably my second favorite studio in terms of content. If the Panasonic gets good reviews, and I find a deal on it, I may be a dual supporter. Still lovin' my HD-A1.

I think most of us will be dual supporters at some point if Fox won't go dual format. I'm going to be patient for now, but eventually I will want those Fox titles and will have to give in and buy a BD player. Granted the player prices will have to be half of what they are selling for now. I'm betting by the midpoint of next year we will have a much better idea of how the format wars are going to go.

Let's hold off on any more Blitz comments for now. I think there have been enough opinions posted so far to make it clear how many of you feel, and while the mods mull it all over, it'd be nice to see things return to something resembling normalcy.

All of the Blitz6speed discussion from this thread has been moved to a new discussion in Feedback.

While Fox does seem to be a stalwart BD supporter, perhaps for copy protection reasons as you say, surely Sony/Columbia would be the last to switch. I wonder if the deal to transfer MGM distribution rights to Fox came with a quid pro quo that Fox must stick with BD only?
As things stand now I expect both formats to survive and I hope that at least one thrives, rather than becoming just a niche market.

Eventually I expect to buy a BD player when prices come way down (~$200) and the bugs in the format are worked out. There are some Sony, Fox and Disney titles I would eventually like to get. I would hope that the problems in the format (inefficient visual and audio codecs, lack of better audio options on some releases, dearth of special features) get fixed for good in the next few months. But getting the price down on players will take years I think.

For now, I am happy to get as many of the titles I want as are released on HD DVD, and stick with SD DVD for the rest. If Disney, Fox, et al. would like some of my HD disc business, they know what they can do...

If Universal were to jump ship and start releasing on BD, that would be bad news for HD DVD. Surely Sony would have liked to entice Universal to the BD side before the format war ever began. That makes me wonder just what the dispute is between Universal and Sony. (Or, does Toshiba have a hold on Universal?)

I have tended to stay out of these threads, but, I will inteject a few random thoughts on the format war.

Disney going agnostic as some think may happen would go a long way toward extending this a long time. As is I think we will have both formats for several years at least.

Toshiba did everything possible on release and narrowed the gap from "dead in the water" to "the underdog that could." They are about to release second gen hardware and some really good HD titles have been announced for Q3 and Q4. Sony and the BD team better come out guns blazing really soon if they don't want Toshiba and HD-DVD to gain more ground.

The one thing that irks me about this format war is that the studios (Fox, Disney, Lionsgate and Universal) will not just let us decide the winner. I applaud Paramount and Warner Brothers for doing it the right way and letting both formats have their best effort and then letting the consumer decide.

Lastly, if FOX and Disney do not go agnostic soon I may have to get a BD player, but as of yet I have not seen one I would purchase. The Samsung seems unacceptable, I am not big on Phillips these days, I in general do not buy Panasonic because of a bad experience I had with a DVD player, I hate to support Sony when they are being so unfriendly to the consumer and Pioneer who I usually buy from wants a bloody fortune. It amkes supporting both formats very tough. Especially with so few exclusives on BD that I want and quality being unacceptable on so many discs.

Well, That is enough random thoughts.

So did anyone else notice these in the Superman thread:

Wow, those are real covers, right? They look fantastic! I don't even like the old Superman movies that much, but those covers alone have me interested.