Blu Ray vs. HD-DVD

[Tossica]

Game, Set, Match! Well played, Toshiba!

Netflix is going Blu-ray only, too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, your team won! We already went over this! Congrats! The more expensive, consumer unfriendly, draconian, proprietary format won! How excited you must be!

Awesome! I can't wait to spend $400 on a BR player to get the exact same quality I could get from HD-DVD for less than 1/2 the price!

[Harrison]

I always lol when I think of Tossica crying himself to sleep.

[Jay]

I always lol when I think of Tossica crying himself to sleep.

...while clutching his Toshiba HD DVD player and Microsoft HD DVD add on saying "don't worry babies I still love you! I'll never let you go!"

[ClakarEQ]

Blu-ray is not as good of a consumer product.

Someone here tell me how great Sony is? Tell me how they are consumer advocates?

Wait and see, this fight maybe over, and lucky for us, we'll all have to pay for it, and pay for it big we will. /sarcasm off

[Lyion]

Bluray is the better product. It is not a Sony product, also, but a group of companies supports it.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6185883.ht ... Btitle%3B1

Best Buy, Netflix join Blu-ray camp

Electronics retailer announces it will begin promoting the PlayStation 3's high-definition video format as online rental house ditches its rival altogether.

By Erica Ogg, News.com
Posted Feb 12, 2008 9:23 am PT

Already starting the week off on a bad note, HD DVD's day just keeps getting worse. Starting next month, Best Buy says it will prominently display Blu-ray players and discs in its stores and recommend the format over rival HD DVD, according to a Reuters report. The support for Sony-backed Blu-ray, which the PlayStation 3 supports via an internal drive, comes at a precarious time for Toshiba-backed HD DVD, which is playable on the Xbox 360 via a $130 external drive.

"Because we believe that Blu-ray is fast emerging as that single format, we have decided to focus on Blu-ray products," Brian Dunn, Best Buy's president and chief operating officer, said in a statement Monday.

It's not an exclusive arrangement because Best Buy says it will still continue to offer HD DVD. But having Best Buy's valuable endorsement in the form of Sunday circulars, front-and-center store kiosks, and staff recommendation seems to be the icing on the cake for a Blu-ray victory in the format war--and potentially the death rattle for HD DVD.

Earlier Monday, online movie rental service Netflix announced it would phase out its offering of HD DVD discs by the end of the year. Netflix's position likely will have less of an immediate impact on the format battle because its business depends on people who have already made a decision on which format they support.

The HD DVD Promotional Group responded with a statement that's strikingly similar to the one issued earlier in the day: "We have long held the belief that HD DVD is the best format for consumers based on quality and value, and with more than 1 million HD DVD players on the market, it's unfortunate to see Netflix make the decision to only stock Blu-ray titles going forward. While the Best Buy announcement says they will recommend Blu-ray, at least they will continue to carry HD DVD and offer consumers a choice at retail."

[ClakarEQ]

yeah, and where did it say it was better for the consumer?

The more popluar was exclusvily driven by Sony in terms of pushing out video after video in blu-ray because they had the means (licensing, ownership, what have you) to get it done.

Again, I'm not here to cry over spilt milk, I don't have an investment into either technology.

I'm kind of curious how Sony / Consortium is going to license the product to MS and other sony competeing manufacturers / companies.

Is the xbox 720 going to have blu-ray in it? and at what price?

What will my future worries regarding DRM and sony be, they do not have a good track record in this area and are historically against any freedoms or growth in this space.

[Lyion]

I'm kind of curious how Sony / Consortium is going to license the product to MS and other sony competeing manufacturers / companies.

Is the xbox 720 going to have blu-ray in it? and at what price?

What will my future worries regarding DRM and sony be, they do not have a good track record in this area and are historically against any freedoms or growth in this space.

Actually, you have it backwards. The Bluray people license some of the technology from Microsoft, who has already said if consumer demand warranted it, they'd add a bluray player to the 360.

I do find it interesting you are mad at Sony in regards to DRM, but are ok with MS? That goes against the grain of a lot of people's beliefs.

[ClakarEQ]

I'm not ok with MS's drm either, but I feel they are open to change and while a ton of people hate MS, they have been inovators, they are customer focused, I can acutally see them becoming open with media. I just don't see that from Sony, and that is my opinion.

Perfect examples; how they missed the boat during the birth of MP3 players, a company that is a market leader in media should not have screwed up this badly. Their hidden little secret aka virus they embeded, again pointing to the complete foolishness of the leadership there.

Again I have no loss in either blu-ray or hd-dvd. But if you look at the track record of Sony, IMO it isn't positive.

Lets see how things go over the next few years.

[Reynaldo]

I'm still not going to pay 30 bucks per DVD, even though I'm glad Blu Ray is winning. Needs to come down in the $20 range, with sales on new releases and what not being 15 bucks.

Still waiting for one of these companies like Blockbuster or NetFlix to offer a Gamefly type package, where you can have 1 game + 1 movie out at a time for 15 bucks a month or thereabouts.

[Naethyn]

These new HD releases have dropped DVD prices to 5-15 bucks. We have a ps3 but I'd rather get 2 DVDs for the price of one bluegay.

[Jay]

These new HD releases have dropped DVD prices to 5-15 bucks. We have a ps3 but I'd rather get 2 DVDs for the price of one bluegay.

I shop my Blurays on Amazon and the few extra bucks to take full advantage of the clarity and sound is worth it. I wouldn't buy a Bluray from like FYE or anything but on Amazon the prices make it well worth it. Also I found Best Buy's pricing to be good as well. They actually had Planet Earth for 10 bucks cheaper than Amazon.

[Tossica]

These new HD releases have dropped DVD prices to 5-15 bucks. We have a ps3 but I'd rather get 2 DVDs for the price of one bluegay.

I shop my Blurays on Amazon and the few extra bucks to take full advantage of the clarity and sound is worth it. I wouldn't buy a Bluray from like FYE or anything but on Amazon the prices make it well worth it. Also I found Best Buy's pricing to be good as well. They actually had Planet Earth for 10 bucks cheaper than Amazon.

The 2for1 sales make for cheap libraries as well.

[Kramer]

well. blu-ray ftw.

[Gidan]

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUST34593320080218?sp=true

TOKYO (Reuters) - An impending end to a format war over next-generation DVDs boosted shares in both victorious Sony, in the Blu-ray corner, and Toshiba, in the losing HD DVD camp, on Monday as consumers cheered an end to confusion over which discs will carry high-definition movies.

Shares in Toshiba Corp, which a company source said was planning to axe its HD DVD format, jumped nearly 6 percent as analysts praised a move to cut its losses, while Sony Corp shares rose 1 percent.

The Blu-ray win means consumers seeking sharper movies on high-definition DVDs no longer have to choose between rival incompatible formats and run the risk of being stuck with a 21st century equivalent of Betamax -- Sony's videotape technology that lost out to VHS in the 1980s.

Having one format should also help accelerate the shift to the new technology in the $24 billion home DVD market.

"It doesn't make sense for Toshiba to continue putting effort into this," said Koichi Ogawa, a chief portfolio manager at Daiwa SB Investments. "It needs to cut its losses and focus its resources on promising businesses."

Both DVDs can carry high-definition movies, but growing support from Hollywood and big U.S. retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores has given Blu-ray a crushing lead in the war.

Overall sales have so far been small as shoppers, faced with rival machines that played only one type of disc or the other, have held back.

"I was expecting Blu-ray to win but I was kind of waiting it out," said Masahiro Taniwaki, a 26-year-old systems engineer shopping for a Blu-ray recorder at electronics retailer Bic Camera in Tokyo.

Toshiba said on Monday that no decisions had been made on HD DVD, but widespread media reports said the company that has led the HD DVD fight was about to surrender.

"The two formats, though both were good, have confused consumers and prevented them from moving into the high-def future," said Stephanie Prange, editor in chief of Home Media Magazine.

HOLLYWOOD FAVOURS BLU-RAY

The defection from HD DVD in January of Warner Brothers and its huge film library brought the tally of Hollywood movies in the Blu-ray camp to a commanding 70 percent.

Recent sales figures show many consumers had already written off HD DVD, which was also backed by Microsoft Corp.

Blu-ray accounted for 93 percent of next-generation DVD hardware sales in North America in the week after Warner's announcement in January, data from the NPD Group showed.

Blu-ray recorders from Sony, Matsushita and Sharp made up about 96 percent of the Japanese market in the last quarter of last year, said BCN, another research house.

At the core of both formats are blue lasers, which have a shorter wavelength than red lasers used in current DVD equipment, enabling discs to hold up to five times as much data.

Toshiba had billed its format as less costly for the industry as it allowed some existing DVD-making equipment to be reused, but Blu-ray discs had space for more content to be packed in.

Hopes that ending the battle would boost disc sales sent shares in CMC Magnetics, a Taiwan firm that makes about a third of the world's DVDs, up nearly 7 percent on Monday. Other Taiwanese DVD makers also surged.

LOSSES NOW, PROFITS LATER

Toshiba will likely suffer losses of hundreds of millions of dollars to scrap production of its equipment and other steps to withdraw from the business, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported.

But analysts gave high marks to Toshiba's move to pull the plug on HD DVD just two years after launching its first players. It took Sony more than a decade to quit Betamax.

Nikko Citigroup raised its rating on Toshiba to "buy/high risk" from "hold/high risk". JP Morgan maintained an "overweight" rating while predicting the elimination of sales promotion costs would add 30 billion yen ($280 million) to Toshiba's operating profit in the next business year from April.

Shares of Toshiba hit 829 yen, their highest close since before Warner Brothers defected but still down more than a quarter since the subprime crisis hit last year.

Sony shares have also fallen heavily over the same period, amid growing fears of a U.S. slowdown that would slow consumer spending.

While Toshiba was still officially silent on the fate of its technology, pundits and consumers were clear the war was over.

"Blu-ray won. It's fantastic and I trust Sony," said one customer, William, as he browsed DVD player aisles at the Best Buy Co Inc store on New York's Fifth Avenue.

($1=107.83 Yen)

[Jay]

Thank god I sold my HD DVD add on.