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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 one of them must triumph drew us to a single conclusion. I will not gloat over being right in choosing Blu-ray. It was just a lucky call. Nor will I find much respect for those who do gloat about being on that now-winning side. There was no genius that could have accurately predicted the outcome; not the developers, not the software companies, and certainly not the consumers. At best we could take a side which we believed had an edge and then lobby for its general acceptance. The finest educated heads in the business tried to handicap the race. Half were wrong, the other half right. Those who were for Blu-ray will no doubt take credit for making a wise choice. But don't take them too seriously. None of us knew how it would go or there would not have been hundreds of millions spent on supporting both sides. But it's all over now, at least this war. I believe we are all the victors in the long run. We now have a clear choice. We all know it's more than good enough. In fact, it's a spectacular entry (and so was HD DVD) into our homes. We should be jubilant that we live in a world and times when such exquisite options can be provided to us. And, for those who just can't sweeten the bitterness over loosing the battle, take comfort that new converging technologies are on the immediate horizon to once again leap over tall buildings and change everything from acquisition, storage, and the viewing of your video future. Everyone wins in time.
Posted by Dale Cripps, March 4, 2008 9:15 AM
Reader Commentary 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... 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. :D... 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.... I respect the opinions of everyone on this forum but, holy cow guys, get a grip. It’s just a format. You’d think you’d just lost your best friend. Remember that Blu-ray’s storage capacity is 50 GB as compared to HD DVD’s 30 GB. That fact alone means the price is going to come down because more applications can use the same format, and surely the best format is the one that stands the best chance of being around the longest. And, although I think downloading has its place, it’s still much too slow and complicated to replace a permanent storage medium like Blu-ray in most cases. Most people don’t want to mess with long download times and backups for movies they want to keep. But for movie trailers, game demos and other short, transient material downloads are perfect. One day, perhaps with a faster Internet, that will change, but I don’t believe that day has come for most people. Anyway, I have to go now. I’ve got to buy some flowers for my Laserdisc shrine. :wink: Henry... 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... 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 c... 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.... 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'... 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….after this. I believe I have read every post on this site (and some others) on this topic, and you know what, you are all right (except the thing about no competition – akirby was right!). It is logical and understandable to be mad at: Toshiba for not having a more effective marketing machine…… Sony for undoubtedly being guilty of some premeditation here….. Warner for pulling the trigger too soon and not allowing a win based on genuine technological advantage….. The “Industry” for allowing such an unnecessary War (both schemes worked well enough) to wage at such a huge expense to consumers (that’s my particular peeve). And many, I’m sure, are just mad at themselves for not waiting a little longer before writing a check. Still, the best perspective, I think, was offered by Dale. Should we... I have to disagree. The player prices will come down for two distinct reasons. One, many manufacturers will be competing now for market share. Two, it is in the nature of technology that once the initial investment in technology is amortized, the race begins to find cheaper and better ways to manufacture the product. There is nothing about this technology to suggest Blu-ray will be an exception. Also I disagree with the notion that somehow the players in this race resorted to unfair competition. This is the normal way the market works, and, in my view, this time it did work, unlike the Beta versus VHS wars in which the inferior product won. But I enthusiastically agree with the idea that the public needs to educate themselves to the possibilities of the format. Surround Sound is an important ingredient of the immersive HD experience and the industry has done a great job of making the new standards backwards compatible so that long-time users like myself don't have to throw aw... More from Dale Cripps
More in Category: Blu-ray
About Dale CrippsDale Cripps is a professional journalist who has focused two thirds of his career on the subject of high-definition television. Upon completing his education in business and service in the military he formed Cripps and Associates, South Pasadena, California, in 1964, which operated as a market-development company for aerospace services. In 1983 he turned to television and began what has become a 20 year campaign to pioneer HDTV. For fifteen of those years he published the well-regarded HDTV Newsletter (an international monthly written for television professionals). During much of this same time he also served as the HDTV-Technical Editor for "Widescreen Review Magazine." On November 16, 1998 he launched the Internet distributed HDTV Magazine, which remains the only consumer publication devoted exclusively to high-definition television. In April of 2002 he co-founded with Tedson Meyers of Coudert Bros, the High-definition Television Association of America, which is presently based in Washington DC. Cripps is the president of this organization. Mr. Cripps is a charter member of the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers and honored by that organization with the DTV Press Leadership Award of 2002. He makes his home in Oregon. |
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