Bkue-Ray versus HD-DVD

[JDarrell]

Diehards,enthuisists and anyone who appreciates the physical media.It's bad enough MP3's are supposedly gonna replace cd's now microsoft beleives hd downloadable movies are the way to go.Maybe in 20 years when computers and high speed are the norm.As is it will not happen.

[mas]

In the age of itunes, what common, non audio/videophile wants physical media anymore??

I absolutely do.

In an age when few if any have any kind of backup, let
alone a workable disaster recovery scenario for their data further aggravated
by a dearth of PC level products that work reliably - (and
let's be honest and reasonable, how often is a home user actually going
to verify the reliability of the backup!?) - having a stable, secure,
reliable source is much preferable.

Especially considering that there is no real savings in buying a lossy volatile copy over the hardcopy, why simply buy the volatile file? The only ones that really benefit in this scenario are the distributors who are able to radically streamline their distribution network overhead.

If I want some volatile lossy copy for convenience and portability, I will copy it from the hardcopy reference source.

On the other hand, with a reference hardcopy I can make as many copies as I like. (And AnyDVD takes care of AACS if I had a reason to buy HD recorded content.)

[Professor.Ham.Slap]

I second that. I also would hate to have to resort to pulling files off my PC if I want to watch a movie. What if my wireless connection craps out in the midst of a movie? Hard drive crash? Sure a DVD player can go out but once again even a HD DVD player would cost about as much as a hard drive with the capacity to store uncompressed HD (plus no need for data reconstruction). All I can say is so far I love my HD player and I can't wait to stroll into Best Buy on December 2nd and pick up my copy of Transformers HD [H]

[Catharsis147]

Transformers was awesome for those who have not seen it, by the way.

[Catharsis147]

In the age of itunes, what common, non audio/videophile wants physical media anymore??

I absolutely do.

In an age when few if any have any kind of backup, let alone a workable disaster recovery scenario for their data further aggravated by a dearth of PC level products that work reliably - (and let's be honest and reasonable, how often is a home user actually going to verify the reliability of the backup!?) - having a stable, secure, reliable source is much preferable.

Especially considering that there is no real savings in buying a lossy volatile copy over the hardcopy, why simply buy the volatile file? The only ones that really benefit in this scenario are the distributors who are able to radically streamline their distribution network overhead.

If I want some volatile lossy copy for convenience and portability, I will copy it from the hardcopy reference source.

On the other hand, with a reference hardcopy I can make as many copies as I like. (And AnyDVD takes care of AACS if I had a reason to buy HD recorded content.)

Ha ha...........I agree with all of this Mas, but again I was referring to those not so informed about the problems of computer storage. Hell, I HATE Itunes, yet the convenience of an ipod (which is DEFINITLEY another trap: slave to a hard drive, non remvable battery, only interfaces with itunes, etc.) is simply undeniable. Would anyone here go back to using a portable cd player?

I am just saying people are lazy, particulalry those that could care less about quality (E.G. the masses who made VHS popular, the Ipod a dominating force and sent SACD to its grave). HD-DVD and Blu Ray didnt help matters by creating a format war either.

I PRAY that I am wrong though, and physical media remains an essential part of home entertainment for the next 20 or 30 years.

[gibbie]

I strongly agree with the previous statement regarding why anyone needs to own the actual media. But I should also add that I have never downloaded an mp3 or other audio file. So I firmly believe that once the bandwidth and availability issues are worked out, why would I ever have to buy a DVD or CD again? I rip my DVD's and CD's to my HTPC so everything I own is a click away. I find that I watch more movies and listen to more music than ever before. I can listen to any of my music throughout the house (using an FM transmitter) and using my smartphone as a bluetooth remote, I have album art and playlists at my fingertips. And I can't remember the last time I watched a TV show live. Again, give me the choice of what to watch and when.

My issue with current sources (iTunes, Netflix Watch Now, etc) are that I give up quality for availability. Give me a Media Center like interface (keep it simple, please) and the quality of a DVD-A or SACD or HD DVD and unlimited viewing and I'll be the first in line. Of course the price will be the determining factor. If it's too expensive, I'll continue to simply buy the CD's and DVD's and add them to my HTPC. If the on-demand price doesn't come close to what I normally spend each month for the hard media, what is the incentive to go with an on-demand service? I'll be happy to pay more for the convenience of not having to wait for the Netflix shipment or driving to the local CD store.

The reason I went with a HTPC was due to the storage issue of my DVD's and CD's. I'd be happy to never have to touch a disc or case again. Of course HTPC's have a long way to go before they are ready for the average home.

[mas]

Sounds great.

And just out of curiosity, what back up strategy are you using?

And what is your disaster recovery plan?

Have you ever verified your backups? And do you have a routine plan for doing so?

Convenience is fine. But when you lose a hard drive with your entire collection, or you have a partition become corrupted that you cannot retrieve, or you have a vlotaqge surge that zaps your environment, or you inexplicably inherit a virus, or you experience any one of the myriad number of things things that can impact volatile storage that all of us who have spent time in the IT rodeo are intimate with, what then? Many small and mid sized businesses haven't an answer to this, let alone the average personal or household system.

With a hard reference copy, everything to which I just referred is moot.

What amazes me is that the simplicity is touted by so many (and this is aimed at the amorphous 'they' in the market) of whom have not been able to prevent their PCs from becoming infected and who heretofore cannot remediate a drive or power supply failure or institute a reliable backup and verification routine. And please don't get me wrong, there are plenty of enterprise environments where they have failed to do this except in principle! As few have ever actually verified their backups only to find them corrupted or unusable when needed. Easy? Simple? Right...

Are you prepared to configure the hardware with sufficient redundancy and the lack of single points of failure sufficient to mitigate damages? It won't be cheap. In fact most high end PC mother boards will still not even accommodate nor support mirroring across different controllers! And the average person hasn't a clue as to what I am talking about, let alone how to configure and administer such a system. In fact, many sysadmin don't. And if you use Windows you are simply adding to the headaches in this department.

Were it as easy as some would have you think, we could begin to have a viable discussion. But until then, a hard copy effectively mitigates all of the damages.

[gibbie]

If your questions relate to the 'why would anyone need to own media', why would I need a backup? The service provider would be responsible for the backup. As long as I can access the movie or audio, I wouldn't need to store anything locally.

My existing backups are the original media. If I loose a hard drive, it is my responsibility to reload the files. If I simply access the files on-demand, I no longer have a need to back anything up.

[ARPRINCE]

Xbox live kindda have the same thing on some of their downloadable contents like map packs (I don't know about the other stuff in the marketplace). I had my Xbox replaced twice and was able to download the map packs I already bought for a game because it was linked to my account (gamertag). I wish iTunes was the same.

But I still prefer a physical media under my keeps.

[mas]

If your questions relate to the 'why would anyone need to own media', why would I need a backup? The service provider would be responsible for the backup. As long as I can access the movie or audio, I wouldn't need to store anything locally.

My existing backups are the original media. If I loose a hard drive, it is my responsibility to reload the files. If I simply access the files on-demand, I no longer have a need to back anything up.

I agree with your implementation whereby you combine the usability of a HTPC with hard copy sources that double as non-volatile backup.

My comments were oriented toward all those who have advocated HTPCs in conjunction with simply downloading material (and this topic has been raised multiple times in the past). The questions were rhetorical, posed to anyone contemplating such a platform and designed to simply pose questions for which many have not thought through the ramifications.

Sure, if you have the media you absolutely have the flexibility and opportunity to load them to any format you desire; and I happen to agree that this is actually the best, cheapest, and (for most folks) easiest avenue.

Possessing non-volatile reference material (which also does double duty as a backup) affords you many choices, online distribution and availability included. And I suggest that this combination offers the best bang for the buck. ...with the least long term headaches.

[MatrixDweller]

Would you want to wait an hour or more to download a HD title each time you want to watch it. Or worse yet have it streamed to you so when the servers get busy you would have to stop watching in the middle of your movie so that it could fill the buffer back up.

Hard media is independent of internet connection quality and speed.

[gibbie]

The current limitations you mention are exactly why I qualified my statement with the need for ample bandwidth at a reasonable cost. While I haven't experienced fiber level performance yet, I'll hold out hope that this provides some promise.

No question that current technology is not suitable for acceptable on-demand services.

[mas]

The current limitations you mention are exactly why I qualified my statement with the need for ample bandwidth at a reasonable cost. While I haven't experienced fiber level performance yet, I'll hold out hope that this provides some promise.

No question that current technology is not suitable for acceptable on-demand services.

Sure it is, depending upon your particular networked topology.

On-demand streaming is not a problem, in that you don't have to worry about archival storage and maintenance and losing your entire library in a instance. Besides, any propagation latency can easily be corrected(sic) by compression and reasonable buffering!

The problem with downloadable media consists in the (potential) lossy quality and the failure of folks to burn a non-volatile hard copy for archival storage.

[MatrixDweller]

The reason why SACD adn DVD Audio have failed is because most consumers don't care about multi channel music. Most listeners use factory car stereos, MP3 players and 2 channel home stereos. THe other factor is that artists aren't using descrete sound channels to their fullest. Most DVDA/SACD I've listened to just matrix the sound to give it more of a live feel. To tell you the truth most don't sound much better than my Denon's 5/7 channel stereo or Dolby Pro Logic II mode.

The thing that will kill HD-DVD and Bluray will be the fact that DVD players that incorporate up-samplers may be more than adequate for most watchers. Sure Dolby True HD and DTS Master HD are nice, but the majority of DVD watchers are still either listening in stereo or have a $500 HTIB. The fidelity of HD audio doesn't mean as much to them as it does your average Klipsch owner. That being said, Bob with his 50" Plasma knows that SD looks like crap, DVDs look a little better, and HD looks best. If they can get close to HD quality from an up-sampler for $100 it's probably good enough for them. He probably has to deal with his wife after spending $3000 on a TV. Adding $500-$1000 for a HD player would probably see him doing some time in the dog house.

That's not to mention the fact that there isn't crap out on HD-DVD or Bluray. Blockbuster and Jumbo Video by me have about 4 feet dedicated to each format and typically have one or two copies of each title.

[Catharsis147]

Ditto Matrix. I think this is spot on, and the very reason I do not have much faith in either format winning.

Mark,

I also agree that physical media will always be superior to internet based content, I just thiunk that like it or not, we are heading in that direction.......[:'(]

[michael hurd]

I think that both formats will go the way of the dodo bird, just like SACD and DVD-A. First and foremost, why oh why does the consumer have to be the beta tester for both the hardware, the implementation and the software availability??

Many moons ago, we had Beta and VHS. Beta was by far the better system, with better picture quality, trading off the amount of recording time. However, VHS stabbed it in it's infancy. Many small TV stations adopted Beta. ( I know TBT news in my area had Beta up to a few years ago, not sure what they have now )

Along came DVD. DVD boasted multiple audio tracks, better PQ than VHS, and the simple fact that playing the media does not damage or degrade it. Simplified storage ( smaller packaging ) made it more consumer friendly. Major players in the industry signed on and AGREED on a format, and everything from players, audio formats, to manufacturing, distribution and marketing fell into place. It was a smash hit out of the park.

Now along came a high res audio disk. The industry could not agree on one format, so instead we had 2 competing camps. SACD and DVD-A. Both had their major labels. Both had technical merit. As an industry, they were sorely unprepared, as the amount of media released on either format was limited.

Did the industry learn anything? Heck no!

Now Blue-Ray and HD DVD. Same scenario, the customer IS the beta tester, especially the early adopters. You want to watch a certain title on your new HD projector, oh wait a moment, it is the wrong FORMAT, and we don't have a player! WHY? Because the two camps could not agree on anything, not even releasing a universal player. ( this may have changed recently, I have not kept up as I have NO interest in getting anything HD until 90 % of broadcast TV is HD. ) I will not put up with jaggies, noise, and other maladities to watch regular TV when I am not watching a HD feed. Don't get me wrong, a great HD signal on an HD display looks stunning.

I really feel that they missed the boat on this one, like before.

[skonopa]

Mark,

I also agree that physical media will always be superior to internet based content, I just thiunk that like it or not, we are heading in that direction.......[:'(]

Case in point, check out this new Alpine headunit - the iDA-X001! I was playing with one at the store just yesterday and was in love with it! However there is no CD player! It is made to be used with the iPod only (although you could get a CD changer installed as well). That was a show stopper for me as I do still use the CD player fairly frequently. I asked if they had a model that also had a CD player, but apparently not, unless I got one of those really expensive DVD units. But, man that thing sure is a lot nicer to navigate through my iPod than my current Alpine unit with the additional iPod interface.

[Catharsis147]

LOL. Convenience is key. DVD left VHS in the dust, with no questions. On a 13" TV or a 50" TV, there simply was no debate. But I seem to remember that on small TV's, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray wont look much better than DVD (I dont remember where I read that...........maybe I made that up in my head). If that really is true, the new formats will go the very road of SACD.

On the other hand, I never heard anything about DVD-Audio or SACD on the radio, yet when Blockbuster decided to carry Blu-Ray exclusively in its stores (however insignificant it was), my local radio station did a story on it. Seeing as I live in NYC, that seems like a possible big deal.

[mas]

On the other hand, I never heard anything about DVD-Audio or SACD on the radio, yet when Blockbuster decided to carry Blu-Ray exclusively in its stores (however insignificant it was), my local radio station did a story on it. Seeing as I live in NYC, that seems like a possible big deal.

Just a few

comments...

Everyone

seems to credit the success of VHS over Beta, CDs over vinyl, etc. to consumer

choice. As if the consumers determined the direction.

H

ow do I

say this politely?

I know: Nonsense.

Oh, if a

particular format is overwhelmingly desired relative to another, then this may

indeed determine the market direction. But in the absence of an overwhelming

preference, other business factors become the determinant factor.

What

determined the success of VHS over Beta? Preference? Nope! It was Sony's

licensing strategy that penalized every manufacturer of the format by creating

a business cost for every machine that was deducted straight from their

bottom line. JVC, on the other hand, passed this licensing cost directly to the

consumer via a surcharge on every tape.

Let's see, if I am a manufacturer, which should I manufacture? Duh!

Consumers

didnt determine the success of VHS; fundamental

business decisions did. And Betas technical superiority continued to

dominate the niche professional market where Betacam is still common.

Likewise

with vinyl. Did the desire for vinyl simply disappear? No. In fact, I

distinctly recall this as I was still persisting in buying many vinyl titles as so

many of the early CD pressings were,,, well, lets be nice and just say they

sucked.

What

happened to the vinyl supply? Simple. Once the market percentage of CD players

reached a tipping point, distributors simply ceased to distribute vinyl. The

cost of distribution plus the cost of maintaining a duplicate inventory was

prohibitive. So the prudent business decision was to reduce costs and drive one

format. So what if some still desired vinyl. The costs of doing business

overshadowed niche desire.

So what market factors and business concerns drive HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray?

Licensing

costs are certainly a factor. And Sony has learned little since Beta. Manufacturing

costs are another significant factor. Additionally, DRM is critical as the

rights owners are loathe to lose control of their product. And in the larger, long term market, DRM affords greater distribution flexibility.

Even more

importantly, DRM affords rights holders many additional formats and avenues for

distribution. It enables timed playback, number of times viewed control, and

other options with a sunset feature that renders it a virtual pay per view

format without the need to collect and process hardcopy inventorya significant

protection and cost effective distribution feature Unfortunately for them

companies like SlySoft and their AnyDVD family of products have put a kink into

this. But the continuing struggle for such secure control is the future that extends

far beyond the simple copying of material.

But what

will determine which format wins? Without an overwhelming preference for one

format by consumers (which except for fanboys, does not exist), it would seem

to be the solution might be in some form of unified licensing format that affords

each camp an equitable distribution of licensing fees. But then that is the

rub, isnt it? Neither camp wants to surrender that advantage which they think

they maintain; Blu Ray via its higher capacity but with exorbitant production costs

along with slightly greater security with the new DRM add-on, and HD-DVD and

its compatibility with standard CD and DVD processes minimizing retooling and

the associated economy.

Again, it

remains to see just who will dominate, especially as the IT field has yet to

readily adopt either format.

But there

also lacks a compelling need for the consumer to chose either format with

current DVD and up scaling offering paths compatible with an existing base of economical

material and equipment. And the claims of unified playback machines is not

coming anytime soon, as the licensing provisions of Blu-Ray specifically forbid

themthus rendering the advantages of the manufacturing economy of scale moot,

and also insuring that the cheaper to manufacturer units will be more expensive

than the 2 separate units bought individually.

And therein

lies the real rub. As much as the fanboys may tout the formats, upscaled video

quality provides 80% of the improvement of HD for little or no additional cost.

And with much less incurred costs in

terms of commoditized program material costs and distribution.

So.what

about the Blockbuster announcement that they will carry Blu-Ray in their

stores?

Aside form

the publicity, I dont think it means that much. Why? Well, first, BB is not

the market driver it once was, as this announcement is sandwiched between losses

and continuing store closings. Additionally, and more important, the in-store

distribution vector has ceased to be a driving factor. In fact, in the

increasing direct mail distribution vector, all formats continue to be

available. The fact that Blu-Ray is now available in a dwindling market distribution

vector is unlikely to change the general negative direction of the distribution

vector. Especially as BB is continuing to close stores. Bottomline, the overall

traffic to stores is dwindling.

I wonder,

if they announce that they were to distribute Zima if that will drive that market? My guess is about as much

as the Blu-Ray market.

So,

despite the calls of the fanboys, when all is said and done, the COST OF DOING

BUSINESS from a business perspective is going to dominate market decisions in

the absence of an overwhelming market demand.

[Canadian_Dude]

mas...are you writing these yourself or copying other articles? They seem like they re written by a writer and it would take me half an hour to type that much.