Blu-ray Wins: A Bittersweet Celebration

[Dale]

I suppose I should be jubilant with Toshiba's announcement saying the end of the high def DVD format war has come. If you have not yet heard, Toshiba has tossed in the towel on their HD DVD format.

Oddly enough, I am not all that thrilled. It's not that I miss the fist pounding, name calling, and back biting from the combatants, for I don't. My sadness, if it is that, is because both contenders were so well suited for the job they were vying for. It is just unfortunate to me that one had to fail in the public eye. It is, after all, a bit of a public humiliation. Neither candidate deserved that fate, but, then again, the consumers didn't deserve an industry knock down, drag out street fight either! Both formats had elegant-enough technology to support their candidacy. In the end, only the belief that...

[url=http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/2008/03/blu-ray_wins_a_bittersweet_celebration.php]Read the Full Article[/url]

[jerfilm]

I believe we are all the victors in the long run.

There may be as many as a million of us who do not agree with you, Dale. Sorry about that.

The more I think about it, the more fed up I am with all of the parties involved. I think we were conned. Big time. It's hard not to conclude, for example, that Warner Brothers hadn't decided long before Christmas to get out - but what a great way to clear out that inventory by taking advantage of all those Christmas buyers taking advantage of Toshiba's, Wal Marts and others offers!! And honestly, I'm not so sure that Toshiba didn't see the handwriting on the wall, too....and got rid of a ton of inventory before it became almost totally worthless. Paranoid? Probably but it just doesn't set right. How many businesses in this world would give anything to have a built in market of over a million customers?? No, not right.....

I will not support Sony, nor Warners, nor Disney nor any of the other partners in this fiasco.

There are already solutions that are just as good that don't cost nearly as much.

For example, I can already record hours and hours of HD movies from DishNet by adding an outboard hard drive -which I have done. It has it's drawbacks - so far you can only play back through the DVR that recorded it in the first place. (Of course, and we don't talk about this, but there are already those who have hacked the system and discovered how to download to their computers .) Which also proves once again (if we REALLY needed proof) that copy protection schemes are extremely costly to develop and futile and worthless to implement.

Just think - you can buy a 750 Gb external hard drive for as little as $169. That drive will hold well over 100 movies. That's less that $1.69 per film. Why would I want to pay $30 for a bluray disc??

And of course, there are other solutions, including the internet.

No, If I were a betting person, I'd bet that other than game playing, blu ray ultimately goes no where and will soon be passed up by other solutions - cheaper and much easier to implement. And that IS a bittersweet victory for Sony and followers.......

Jerry

[BuddAdams]

Hi: I think the battle was a triumph of greed and stupidity over (really Uncommon) conman sense and we all lost. But, though I knew of the hard disk plug on my Dish box I hadn't seriously thought of it as a practically free HD library, as cheap really high capacity hard drives have quietly arrived. Great suggestion, and one less HDMI connection to worry about.

[HD Addict]

There's bound to be "sour grapes" on the part of those who opted for HD DVD. We each had a choice, one of two, or even both if you wanted to edge your bet. But the consumer can hardly be called a winner, even those who opted for Blu-ray, for the competition has been removed and we all know how business reacts when there's no competition to contend with. I chose Blu-ray but I would wait and see what the "victory" brings.

[hharris4earthlink]

I respect the opinions of everyone on this forum but, holy cow guys, get a grip. It

[jerfilm]

I think, Henry, that a high percentage of the bluray advocates are interested in things other than movies. No, maybe I should fairly say, in addition to movies. Those of us who so foolishly invested in HD DVD players were interested in just one thing - MOVIES. No one can dispute that becuz that's all they'll do - play movies.

They couldn't care less if the disc holding their movie was 50 Gb or 30 or 500. They got all kinds of extras that you guys mostly didn't get despite their lowly disc being only capable of holding 30 gigs. They're mostly not "techies" - not interested in having to hook their movie player to the Internet to download some new software to make it work with the latest releases. They wanted a good, reliable player capable of HD quality. And they got it.

As to downloads, I wouldn't fool with the internet at the moment either. But using my DishNet DVR to record and save HD content on external drives isn't one of those things you have to sit around waiting for. Well, I spose you might - but, you pick the content you want to record, tell the DVR and it does it for you - while you're at work, or sleeping or just watching it live. You do tie up TV time but not computer time.

Jerry

[Dale]

As President Clinton was often mocked for saying, "I feel your pain." But the purpose of this article was not to further poison the drinking fountain but rather to stitch together the two opposing sides into a conciliatory flag. I want to fly this flag over the benefits we all get from the marvel of high-definition DVD. It seems to me counter productive to rage at a particular company when big companies, the type you point to, are constantly changing manpower and directions. Both Shane and I were shockingly surprised at the new open minded and collaborative attitude we found at the CES Sony booth this year. I attribute it to the strong influence of Sir Howard Stringer, who simply understands the nuances of the Western mind, something that had escaped the old Shogun mentality of the previous leadership in many a Japanese company. But even if you hated the strategies which the rigors of capitalism impose and believed the blogger lies written to inflame you, why not calm yourself with a convenient, transportable little disk that can give you an endless amount of down time enjoyment? Why rage against the windmills? Cervantes gave us that lesson. Will your hatred for Sony (or whom-so-ever you feel wronged the world) lead to your examining every electronic device you use to insure it is "Sony-free" and has no Sony components or licenses? For what it is worth I recommend that you reconcile your differences with as much of the world as you can and enjoy your life as conflict free as you can make it. I am presently staying with my dying mother at her assisted living quarters. I can assure you that living close to death will re-orient your priorities and make such matters as this DVD strife look very trivial against any scale monitoring human problems. You who feel like Jerry reconcile your differences and then give yourself a pat on the back for making your own life better then those dirty rotten scoundrels did by driving us all so damn crazy with formats, formats, formats. _Dale Cripps

[akirby]

If I hear one more HD DVD fanboy say "but there's no more competition" I'll just have to scream.

How can there NOT be competition when we have so many hardware manufacturers? You don't think Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, LG, etc. will compete for blu-ray players? Of COURSE THEY WILL - it's what they do. And that will bring prices down as reasonably as possible. That does not mean we'll see $100 giveaways because they can't afford to do that. But then neither could Toshiba (long term).

And Jerry himself just mentioned HD Satellite - how is that not competition? There wasn't any competition (to speak of) for standard DVDs yet I can buy a player for $19.

Get off the lack of competition bandwagon and just admit that you're either miffed that you lost your investment or you simply don't like the Blu-Ray technology or, the more likely scenario - you just hate Sony. Nothing wrong with any of those positions - just don't try to create reasons that don't exist.

[allchemie]

I get DirecTv HD content and my sister who lives 1 mile away gets Comcast HD content. We both agree---NEITHER DirecTv or Comcast HD programs look anywhere near as good as Toshiba HD or Blu Ray. And besides not looking as good, when played through a good surround system they definitely don't sound anywhere near as good.
If you are lucky enough to get reception of a movie in 5.1, it is always in a "lossy" format. There are no great audio codecs in either service, or for that matter on downloads.

Of course, I imagine that most people don't give a rats behind as long as they "think" they are getting great cutting edge performance. Just as most people don't download Apple iTunes in their lossless format I expect the same from people "that just want to watch a movie". I already know quite a few people in my community that have a very good HDTV, but don't even use a surround system. And most of those that do have a surround system have one that costs far less than their HDTV and doesn't do credit to the movie.

I will definitely be getting a new Blu Ray player once format 2.0 is released and a good player is available. I love watching good movies in pristine condition and with a great score and soundtrack.

Greg

[terrypaullin]

First of all, let me acknowledge that this poor old horse has been beat mercilessly to death. I promise all, foremost myself, that I will never pen another word about BD vs. HD-DVD again