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]
If Blu-ray wins, ps3 wins the console wars. if hd-dvd wins, xbox 360 wins the console war. but one problem: the wii takes the lead in the console war, which means that neither console with the blu-ray or hd dvd is by itself.
I read another post quite similare to this one and someone there made a interesting point. If MS were to really step into the format war they could, all MS would have to do is drop a bunch of $$$'s and buy a movie studio or 2 and whala we are back to a long drawn out war.
Ron: DVD is here to stay(digital advantage). A comedy don't need to be bought again in HD unless it has more extras and you are fan for example.
With the price of HDTV lowering, the cost to get a 50 inch. 1080P would be decent soon for many.
I do agree that more recent equipment will be needed to take it at it's full potential. I have old stuff(5.1, 720p) but I'm still able able to watched it all the same. The major part is the HDTV and this year more and more people will buy one. At least, they will be ready for next season of TV. ;)
Jeff C: Buying a studio(majority holder) is not like buying a small company for MS. This would take time that HD-DVD don't have. If MS would had acted, they would had done so many months ago.
A part from buying a studio, they could had made a HD-DVD Xbox 360. They could lower the price of the HD-DVD addon to $99 but it's still $180(BestBuy-US).
They may surprise us but I would not count on that. They prefer to sell via Xbox live anyway(HD light movies). ;)
By the time any of you have built up a movie library, both technologies will be inferior. The future is file transmission, physical media is a ridiculous waste of money, almost as bad as buying cell phones right now or MP3 players. I suppose if you like to throw your money around then buy whatever makes you happy today, cause tomorrow it will all be useless.
Cheers, Greg
Well, Sony still sucks. I still won't buy a blu ray rip off.
I'm satisfied with regular DVDs anyways. And so are most people. For this reason, Blu ray is doomed to fail also. HD-DVD may go first (though I think a few people have been a little premature in predicting its demise), but neither of these products is the future.
Most people, excluding the super-geeks and other forms of so-called "early adopters" don't really care to see their favourite stars in such clarity that their pores zits stand out on their plasma screens. It really doesn't improve the viewing experience. Most people aren't going to buy a hi def player of any kind.
The real story here is not how many more blu ray players were sold versus HD-DVD. The real story here is how few of either format have been sold. Most people just don't want it at all.
Blu-Ray winning the HD format war may improve sales of the PS3, but it will not be the deciding factor in the console war between the PS3 and Xbox360.
People may buy more PS3s, but as long as the console lacks good games, it will fail as a game console and people will turn to the Xbox360 or the Wii for gaming entertainment. But when Blu-Ray players start to come down in prices, the appeal of the PS3 can potentially go down.
In order for the PS3 to stand a chance in staying afloat in the console war, they need good games. But that opens up a totally different discussion.
I sincerely doubt that the Xbox360 not having a built-in HD-DVD player is an oversight for Microsoft. Afterall, their sights are set on downloadable movie sales through Live. Once Blu-Ray is established as the definitive HD format, they can include the Blu-Ray player into Xbox360 if they want. Although the cost of the license may be huge, it's a small investment for Microsoft to ensure the viability of the game console in the long run — again, as long as the console has good games.
Dan B WHAT????? I have the PS3 and my friend burns Movies for me puts them on a memory stick and I down Load it onto my PS3 they play Just great so I haven't got that problem maybe just playing the burned disk on a regular Blu Ray Player doesn't play dunno
As for Up converting I watched the Movie Cars on HD-DVD and On Blue Ray colours Bled sickly on the HD but very little Bleed on the Blu ray
on the upconverting just an observation
EMCEE!! How can you say sony sucks. If you think most people are happy with regualr DVD's your wrong. I bet you said the same thing about your VHS.. Blu is the future and there is no way around it. The quality of picture on a full 1080p t.v is remarkable and uncomparable. Buy your sell a PS3, game for a bit, watch a blu-ray, and enjoy it.
WE SHOULDN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED BY THIS FORMAT WAR…IT'S POINTLESS…THE WORLD IS MOVING TOWARDS SOLID STATE MEDIA ANYWAYS…SPINNING DISCS WILL BE A THING OF THE PAST… SONY IS GONNA WIN BECAUSE THEIR DISC CAN HOLD CLOSE TO 40 GB OF DATA WHEREAS TOSHIBA'S CAN ONLY HOLY LIKE 17…..BUT LIKE I SAID, THIS IS STUPID, SOLID STATE MEDIA IS WHERE IT'S AT!
I meant to say "hold"…not holy…just for you arseholes that are gonna correct me!
I have 2 Blue-Ray players for my computer from different companies. Both will not play blue-ray discs that implement that new security feature. I have 5 discs that will not play past the main menu. I have 10 other discs that play fine. I have yet to hear back from the customer support teams of either player. So in essence I have spent close to $1400.00 on computer equipment that is not doing 100 percent of it's job. I also own an HD player for my home entertainment system which I have had no problems with any disc that I have puchased for it. If the movie makers that support the faulty Blue-Ray format would also release their movies in HD format they would sell more movies and isn't that what they want. I will not purchase anymore blue-ray discs until the issue with the 5 that do not play is resolved. My vote for the best format stands for HD.
Maybe Dave bought the wrong player…..I have an inexpensive upconverting player running on my HD projector at 160" diagonal. The real test for my upconversion was old TV series (eg Star Trek)…..The pictures are crystal clear, and, let's face it, you don't need to be able to count Captain Kirk's nose hairs to enjoy the picture quality. Stanard DVD movies are even better, and one thing I have found with Hi-Def from my broadcast provider, is that it really has no great advantage for anything except some sporting events and concerts, (although Mick Jagger and David Crosby are kind of scary in HD!)
As to PS3 and XBOX360, they are losing to Wii simply because they have substandard controllers.
And please, whether you support one, or the other format, there is no excuse for childish name-calling in apublic forum……all that does is show who the real idiots are!
And yes solid state media/online media are the ways of the future…..the only problem is that it will be awhile before there is a 17GB/40GB chip available for the $.04 that it costs to manufacture a disk.(actually it will be awhile before a chip that size is even available, at any price.) This is okay if you don't mind paying $300+ for each movie.
Alex: Blu-Ray is 50GB and HD-DVD is 51GB. It's not used yet so 30GB is the norm for now for HD-DVD.
You are the first one to talk about Solid-state but you are wrong for movies because it's a read only media that is needed. The current war just show how bad it is. If they launched something new after Blu-Ray, it would be something that read DVD, Blu-Ray and the "Super Blu-Ray". By then, downloading will be the best way to get HD with Blu-Ray quality(50GB downloads) and troubles with bandwidth would had been work out. How many are capped right now.
Mario: You did not add the models and what software you use. You may need a firmware update for those drives. You can answer me on my blog since you left the comment above there. ;)
For anybody thinking that Microsoft is going to lose out, think again. Microsoft already supports both formats – their WMV9 codec is the basis behind VC-1 (which is supported on both disc formats). Sony is already a Microsoft partner too. Microsoft only went with Toshiba because of their previous history in the Entertainment & Devices market. Toshiba was a big supporter of the Portable Media Center device specification, and also built the Zune Gen 1 devices.
I've cheated. I own both the Blu-ray and HD-DVD players, with dozen of movies on both. My concern is if we really threw our hands in the air and declared Blu-Ray the format winner, what about those movies that are exclusive to HD-DVD's? If today you ran out to buy the more costly B.R. player, you won't be able to watch The Transformers, or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Politics aside, this is entertainment. Sitting back watching a good movie after work is really the objective. Let's not lose sleep over this. I've done everything the cheap way:PS3, and Toshiba's HD-DVD player, which is quite affordable now. I should know, I sell them everyday. If your unsure, just wait. Like everything electronic, prices drop. Spoil yourself, get both. There are great film titles on both formats.
Sing along with me folks!
Money makes the world go around,the world go around, the world go around.
Money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around….
Not sure where all this Blu-Ray mania comes from: I recently read an excellent explanation of HD resolution and it turns out a Blu-Ray movie playing on a 1080p TV versus a 1080i player playing on a 1080i TV have the EXACT SAME resolution. It's true, at least as I understood it — it's because your true 'source' in your system configuration are the movies, not the players. Movies are filmed at 24 frames-per-second, requiring the 2:3 pulldown feature in your TV…this results in the exact same resolution/output from the player to the television. Here's the link to the article to read it for yourself. Of course, it's true that Blu-Ray is CAPABLE of more, but it has no true source to play, and there will be an entirely new format to argue over by the time studios (if ever) change this. So, if you're a supporter of Blu-Ray you're paying more for the players, more for the discs in order to get the same resolution – Congrats!
And, who really cares about storage? How many of you are going to fill disc after disc? Maybe I'm not a big enough nerd, but I probably have a total of < 20 gigs of data I'd like backed up….I couldnt care less if I have to use several HD DVD discs to back it up versus 1 Blu-Ray. If you really need a lot of storage, you can get a terabyte of external USB storage for <$200 now….
hd was bound to crash as movies are harder to copy on blu ray then hd hence sony,disney, and warners will back blu ray.untill hackers start copying blu ray.then we go to the next tecn. and the losers will be the consumers