Is It My choice, Or Is It Yours?

[Dale]

I wrote the piece (below) originally for High-Def.Org Magazine. It concerns the high-definition DVD format war High-Def.Org is a printed monthly magazine read by 20,000 professionals working in television and motion pictures. The article contains a highly personal view (certainly different from my partner Shane's) and one which I ask no one to follow...nor is it some official stand taking by HDTV Magazine. It would be misleading to say, however, that it was written without the hope of being an influence to putting to rest this dual format problem. How it falls is not too much of a concern for me (even if I push one way and it falls back to the other) but to end this "strike" a side must to be taken. I know some of you will think I am blindly biased for the side I did take and far too simplistic in my view while others will say that I finally see the light. The technology and arguments behind either format are challengingly good. But I have been in this predicting business for 25 years with a pretty good track record. I saw HDTV peeping up out of the ground in 1984 and said to everyone who would listen that it was good enough to sweep the world, and it is doing just that much as foreseen. I stood in opposition against every commercial and public telecasting business in the world when I started out. In this particular article I made a decision, perhaps, also not popular, but at least it is for one side all in the hopes of moving us past the barriers that have been erected by having two battle weary formats created to do essentially the same job. We know how to live with one format. Thirty five millimeter film has been a standard for more that one hundred years, and still comes with yearly improvements. We don't need the added burden two formats working in parallel provides. We need just one format and that is why I wrote the piece below. __Dale Cripps

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The motion picture industry and consumer electronic manufacturers have asked me to decide which high definition DVD format will be used in the future. What? Why me? Well, I am a consumer. I read in the newspapers that the consumer, of all people, is to decide on which high-definition format will be used in the future. The professionals who developed it could not make up their minds before they went to market. I keep asking why they would leave such an important decision up to moi? They didn't offer me (the consumer) any such decisions for HDTV. After everything was decided they offered some compatible transmission/reception formats, such as the 720p and 1080i, but the selection of either did not isolate me nor leave me a potential technical orphan as does a decision for either of the high definition DVD formats. It seems to me that this kind of decision should be left to the experts. I didn't decide to have 60 cycle power frequencies for my home either and I am not the worse for wear. So, why is my decision so eagerly sought for this high-definition DVD format controversy?

Well, since they insist that it is my job as the consumer I best get on with it decisively. The good news is that to me it makes very little difference which format is selected. Either has its own cost of entry to me and each has an advantage here or there. And, they are both getting cheaper. When I (the consumer) make a decision the big commodity makers will produce it at a fraction of what either sells for now. So, I cannot find "cost" as a reason to choose one over the other. Nor can I find...

[url=http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/2007/11/is_it_my_choice.php]Read the Full Article[/url]

[rgoltra]

So what IS Shane's choice/argument?

[tuddingankc.rr]

Well I would not have chosen you to pick a format as I see you are still using "60 CYCLES" instead of 60 Hertz.

[miller]

Fancy features never have impressed me and I see by various surveys that I am not alone.

Can you cite any? Since this is a major pillar of the HD DVD camp, it's fairly important that you back up this claim.

The one Blu-ray machine I saw working as forming and stamping out 18,000 finished BD copies per day with a 16,000 copy good yield

Is this a typical yeild? How does this compare with HD DVD?

$1.50 to $2.00 each

What is the price difference? Why are some $1.50 and others $2.00? Are they different capacities? What capacity were they pressing? Is this what they sell them to the studios for? What does an equivalent HD DVD cost?

Let's end the needless controversy and get on with serving the public with a tight focus on one outstanding format.

So why would you be choosing the more immature format (your words)?

In all, this is a good article with a lot of good information on Blu-ray behind the scenes, but you come to the conclusion to support Blu-ray based only on this information, without adequately comparing it to the same information about HD DVD. It's like you're choosing one without seeing (or showing us) the other.

Good information, but unconvincing.

- Miller

[markmalone]

What happened? Did you get called for dinner? Finish the article and explain why.

[btreth]

Dale clearly stated his reason for Blu-ray. As far as Dale is concerned, both formats are functionally equal in quality, cost and features.
HD DVD is a format at the end of it's growth, Blu-ray has just begun. Thus Blu-ray is his choice, just like HDTV was his choice over EDTV. Does any body here think EDTV would have been a better choice?

[miller]

Does any body here think EDTV would have been a better choice?

Not a valid analogy. There is a clear visual difference between EDTV and HDTV that most people recognize. There is no such visual advantage of Blu-ray over HD DVD.

- Miller

[Dale]

I doubt that with every bit of material dredged up from all archives from both sides that I could convince you one way or the other. What I can do is make a choice and by that act end my argument. I do make a choice in this case because the public is burdened with the extra cost associated with making two competing formats popular. Both are workable and satisfactory for the job to be done as it is presently defined, i.e., to deliver movies and features about the movie. All I have done is choose the format which will most likely have a longer future and which offers more wiggle room to innovators (so that new or expanded uses can be made for the medium). There is an old adage in the communications business that says, "No matter how much bandwidth you have now, you will always want and need more tomorrow". The first hard drive I bought had a whopping 20 Megs of magnetic memory, for which I had to pay $1000. I thought I would never use all of that hard disk capacity since I was successfully working at the time (1987) with two floppies, each limited to 800 K. One floppy held the system and program I used and the other contained the data I was creating. Just last month I bought a 500 Gig USB axillary drive to supplement the 100 Gig internal drive already in my desktop. Actually. this was the third one of that capacity I acquired this last quarter -- one for a lap top and another for my DISH DVR. They are fast filling up with video, a use for a hard drive that I never anticipated when I bought that first 20 Meg disk. As a side note, I paid just $150 each for the last three 500 Gigs!

So, when I see one of the two high def DVD formats will always have an advantage over the other in terms of capacity-- today it's 200 Gigs Blu-ray vs 50 Gigs HD DVD -- and there is nothing else to dissuade me, I have to take capacity as the deciding factor. By no less of an authority than Mark Knox, who Toshiba hired to "sell" the HD DVD to the world, did I learn in a casual conversation at the Displaysearch HDTV conference, that as far as features go, Blu-ray could replicate (or with more capacity exceed) the features of HD DVD if they needed to for competitive purposes (or just found the will to do). It's a huge investment in authoring software. So, we may not get all of those features found today in HD DVD. We will get the ones we most demand. There is one thing you can always rely upon and that is that engineers will keep on engineering. They will make things they think we will embrace. If we don't give a damn, those features once used to beef up the appeal for HD DVD won't have a re-birth elsewhere. If we make a decision for Blu-ray (and I am not saying we will, or that it is in the cards) we should review the features offered by HD DVD and request the ones we love to be incorporated into BD.

Is choosing "capacity," even if at a slight premium, a good choice? I really don't know, but what I do know for sure is that I will never buy another 20 Meg hard drive for $1000.

[Richard]

Dale, I really love your writing and miss it. I hope to see more of your personal take on HDTV!

[pmalter0]

Dale:
No, you don't have to choose one; at least not until you have done sufficient research so as to make an informed judgment. Let me help you in gathering relevant information: while there is no perceptual difference in video performance; for the majority who do not have an HDMI processing receiver, HD-DVD 1st & 2nd generation players have clearly superior audio (1.5mpsDTS). Hence, only one format offers a relevant and perceptual superiority, and it isn't Blu-ray.