Gartner Predicts HD Format War Winner
Massive technology research house Gartner says that the HD format war that has been raging for nearly two years will end in 2008. Guess who they think will take the prize?
Massive technology research house Gartner says that the HD format war that has been raging for nearly two years will end in 2008. Guess who they think will take the prize?
Despite the HD-DVD camp’s recent protestations to the contrary, Gartner believes that the war between Toshiba’s preferred HD format and Sony’s competitive Blu-ray technology will be won by Blu-ray and that it will happen this year.
Even though there have been massive price cuts on HD-DVD hardware – especially stand-alone players produced by Toshiba – Gartner feels that these measures will simply draw out the inevitable conclusion of a battle to decide what may be the last physical format on which people will buy their movies or TV shows.
The primary reason for HD-DVD’s predicted demise that Gartner cites in their report is a lack of support (and therefore movie titles) from the major studios.
It has been speculated that this would be a nearly insurmountable hurdle to overcome since Warner Brothers announced their exclusive support of the Blu-ray format immediately before the opening of the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month. The announcement spurred wild speculation as to Paramount’s commitment to the format.
Indeed, consumers seem to already smell the blood and have recently given far more of their dollars to the Blu-ray format.
Apart from consumers who have already purchased an HD-DVD player and/or movies, the biggest group to be potentially impacted by a Blu-ray victory is Microsoft, who have backed the HD-DVD format since its inception and continue to sell HD-DVD player add-on hardware for their popular XBox 360 video game console system. Should the HD-DVD format fail, Microsoft would have to license the Blu-ray technology from competitor Sony in order to maintain viable HD movie playback on their console.
[computerworld via Engadget]
It's funny because my own research team wrote the same thing last year:
Why Blu-Ray will win the format war
http://www.mcgrath.ca/2007/07/03/why-blu-ray-will-win-the-format-war/
And my research team is me only ;)
And made an update after Warner announcement http://www.mcgrath.ca/2008/01/07/why-blu-ray-will-win-the-format-war-now/
A3 HD-DVD is now $150 in Canada. Will they restock when it's a sold out?
Can you imagine how much Sony is going to make Microsoft pay for the right to use Blu-ray? Seeing as doing so will only strengthen XBox360's hold over PS3 in the gaming market. Bill must be rolling his eyes at that price he will inevitably have to pay. If I was Sony I would refuse to give Microsoft a liscense to use Blu-ray. At least until PS3 surpasses XBOX 360 in the market.
I don't think it will be in Sony's best interest to do that. Sony's Computer Division SCEA(VAIO & Playstation) needs a lot of licences from MS. One good example is Sony's Sonic Stage software for their MP3 players.. Initial versions were having problems with windows. VC1 was a problem initialy for Blu-ray when it started… and guess who was behind that..
This is good for Sony. Now Google should somehow team up with Sony just to really stick it to Microsoft.
Waoo… Well actually I saw that coming when Warner Brothers transfered to Blu-ray. I bought HD-DVD player for my Xbox and also Toshabia HD-DVD player for my home theater system. I guess should have waited. I don't know what to do now as HD-DVD is going to be doomed.
All I can do is cross my figures and hope some how Toshiba and Microsoft use their magic wand (i.e. money, power and name) to somehow save HD-DVD because that is going to save a huge stuid investment I have done on HD-DVD.
I Laugh at you Blu-Ray supporters… Geese lets let Sony plays us like dolls. You guys do realize you are paying Sony's debts to other companies to develop the Blu-Ray format? Toshiba Corp just bought the manufacturing plant that puts the processors in Sony goods such as the PS3? What makes me sick is that Sony preyed on the youth to buy gaming machines, and then sell them movies. Kids are deciding on a inferior format for us grown-ups to use. The Blu-Ray markets will get a huge shock when profile 2.0 hits the market. Geeze Samsung just pulled the up5000 of the shelves of stores for its profile 1.1 blunder, that left 5000 customers helpless… Interactivity, web-enabled content, and other cool stuff found on Toshiba HD DVD format still has to be desired by Blu-Ray the Sleeping Giant. Oh well, like someelse has said many times before, We Arn't the Brightest Species in the Universe. We like expensive things that are not complete. Sorry that is unless you buy a PS3, powered by a Toshiba chip…
HD DVD may die, but for those that it has touched on its short Journey, we owners of HD DVD knew all along what HD was supposed to be….
Oh by the way HD DVD players are cheap and they upconvert DVD's better than Blu-Ray machines.
WooHoo!! yay Blu-Ray were No.1!!
if you're not Blu its sucks to be you!
HAHAHA!! I laugh at all who bought into HD-DVD I hope you enjoy your new doorstopers and paperweights. Blu is where its at, baby!! *runs around like a drunk half naked frat boy*
How soon people forget how Sony tried to gather info about people witout their consent.
Will this be done with their BLU RAY as well and no I dont support either system as I was waiting for the war to end.
Argh, this world is doomed. Adults acting like children… what a sad state of affairs.
Reagan Podelec: Just watch this funny video and you will see what your state of mind look like as a HD-DVD supporter:
http://www.mcgrath.ca/2008/01/15/the-downfall-of-hd-dvdfunny-video/
Btw, your statement about Sony selling to the young gamers is false. Adults(18+) are playing with the PS3. I checked many polls online.
Not everyone are into web stuff or even extras. So the profile 1.0 can still play Blu-Ray/DVD(upconvert) movies but won't be able to go online. DVD did not have web access either but it did not stop it from being sold in millions. I got a PS3 so I'm safe.
David.S: Don't laugh at them. They took a risk but lost. Of course, I did wrote the A2 and A3 were possible doorstop on my blog. They were very popular post.
Ron: Collecting information could be done by Toshiba. Woooo, it has web access!!!! ;)
Kev: We are children to someone else :D
I still recommend that current HD-DVD supporters buy the player for backup. Hybrid players will be a costly niche market for now.
I agree with much of what Reagan Podelec said. HD DVD was the better format. Why? Okay all of the Blu Ray cheerleaders will talk about the storage capacity of the disc. Granted. But upconverting regular DVD's is not good on the Blu Ray players and if you read the customer reviews on many websites, you will see that Blu Ray players are still having issues playing even Blu Ray discs….
And By the waym Samsung has a shiny new DUAL format player for HD DVD and Blu Ray. That should be the future.
Microsoft will likely NOT buy Blu Ray from SOny. The HD DVD peripheral was not a huge seller anyway and why not just ignore the movie playback. Did anybody actually use their Playstations and Xboxs as a DVD player? Most people already own a DVD player anyway and in this world of downloading movies, who is going to pay SOny $32 for their movies anyway.
I hope that everyone realizes that BluRay is not a gift for Home Theatre lovers.
It is a gift from Sony and their partners TO Sony and their partners. They get to eliminate alot of the movie downloaders and get $32 per movie at the same time.
BluRay may win, but Most parents and single people will opt to keep their regular DVD players. That means that although BluRay might beat out HD DVD, they won't win against regular DVD for a long time. Or at least until BluRay movies come down in price.
I will NEVER pay $30+ for a movie.
blue-ray and hd-dvd are both crap
The Xbox 360 is doing very well for one simple reason. The games!
The games on the PS3 are terrible. They're churing them out as fast as they can to catch up to Microsoft, but sadly, the games are usually terrible.
If you like to play games at home or online, the Xbox 360 is the only way to go. At least this year anyway.
Who cares about movie playback anyway. Buy a standalone player once they drop below $200
Everyone forgets that it was Toshiba that decided to break away from the development of Blu-ray with an inferior product in an effort to rush the player to market. Had they only waited…
Blu-ray is clearly a better player in every way and time will see more bells and whistles and a lower price. The only thing we have to thank HD-DVD for is the competition. Without their aggressive pricing strategies, we'd be paying a lot more for our blu-ray players right now! It won't be long before we see $99 blu-ray players and $250 blu-ray disk recorders.
I find the simularity between this war and the VHS/Beta war of the past fasinating. Beta had more features and better quality than VHS but VHS could play longer tapes with poorer quality. Because of VHS's ability to run longer tapes they won the war even though most people never used the longer play tapes because of the poorer quality. We now have Blue Ray vs HDdvd and Blue Ray is winning the battle because they can play a longer disk even though they have fewer features than HDDVD. Common sense should say that people should go for the lower price more features but once again we see advertising and hype getting people to go for the lower quality product.
It's taken almost 25 years but sony has finally stuck it to the gullible consumer. They learned fromthe Beta vs Vhs war. A better product will always lose out to a better marketted product.
congratulations to all the "WINNERS".
You sure are!
Well if I had bought an HD-DVD player I would say that the Blu Ray sucks too but the reality is that the format is much better and Sony was brilliant in combining it with the PS3… it's what I would have done. Thank you to HD DVD for the competition and price war. It helped make High def players and movies cheaper for everyone to buy.
I personally bought myself a PS3 so i'm safe with respect to Blu Ray, and after playing both the 360 and the PS3, I have to say I am really happy with my choice… intergrated wireless, runs silent, Blu Ray, and more games coming this year, what a machine!
Dan Brammer: HD-DVD is 51GB but not used at all. But Blu-Ray has higher capacity in labs.
Toshiba had issues at first too. Are reviews about old players or new players? Plus, Toshiba is the only major one doing players.
PS2 was used has a DVD player by many. Now, it's cheap. Many use the PS3 to play movies.
HD-DVD supporter are quick to say movie price is higher but don't mentioned that they pay the same. Was HD-DVD movies supposed to cost less to make?
Who said you must pay $32 for a movie? Blu-Ray movies won't be sold under the price of a DVD for a while. I would hope to pay $1 or $2-3 more soon but not $10 more. I will wait for sales. Renting is also a good solution. I will keep my current collection of DVDs. That's the main competitor to Blu-Ray now. Downloading for now don't count for HD movies because you can't have the same quality(smaller file size than on the disk).
DrVex007: I care about movie playback because I have one less player in my setup. Plus, I can play a few games too if I want. :D
It's funny that many don't like Sony. Granted they made errors in the past but this time they are not alone in Blu-Ray. And they got the studios supports(5 out 7)
I am still not totally convinced that even with a single format(Blu-Ray)that the masses will go out in droves and buy the new technology and replace the old. With the HDMI direct digital connections on regular dvd players of ALL prices there just isn't that difference in the picture quality that we saw between VHS and DVD when it first hit the market. As well, you really can't see any significant difference unless your television is at least 50 inches or larger. The new surround formats that will only be available on the new discs will also require a complete update of electronics to hear them.
Time will tell, but until we see prices drop drastically for both the players and movies along with the elimination of operational problems with these first and second generation players, in my opinion, the jury is still out as to how this will all play out.
David S
You also suck as your the one that would buy crap if it had a better appeal
You are the one that would follow what ever your told
You would buy whatever they tell you is better
Your the type that buy every piece of crap they tell you to buy
so laugh all you want how much crap have you got or bought because they tell you to and now it's obsolete
LOL