Why Blu-ray/HD DVD are redundant

High costs, catfights and the internet will conspire to send both optical discs formats to an early grave.

It's interesting to see some of the mainstream IT media are now starting to question whether anyone is really interested in the next-generation optical disc formats, HD DVD and Blu-ray.

In a sense, it's a bit of a misnomer to call them "next-generation" because they are already here but in the minds and certainly the wallets of most consumers, they remain "next-generation" by simple virtue that DVD is still holding sway in most households.

[masterg]

Whoever writes there articles needs to get a life.

[shmee]

Blu is virually expandable to any mimilt

Blu is currently outselling HD DVD 2:1 in NA , 9:1 in JAPAN and 4:1 in EU.

This is just MS attempt to make HD DVD look just as good as Blu-ray

[ericnellie]

Blu-ray has out done HD DVD world wide. It's actually pretty impressive. I think that having a Blu-ray drive in each and every PS3 will pay off for Sony in the long run;)

[ruibing]

Well DVD is obviously not going away for a long time, since you must remember that we even still have CD with us after all these years, but next gen storage is here to stay.

BD is the dominant one because it has more supporters (studios and companies), larger storage (up to 100GB now), and already have second generation BD-R drives on sale. Almost everyone, except Toshiba, Microsoft, and Paramount, are saying that BD will win. The only way for HD-DVD to still say in the game is more price slashes and more free movies with all players (they already give a season of tv and half a dozen movie), but I think its like dragging a dead horse. Back when Sony admitted defeat with Betamax, it had the good sense to start making VHS devices. I hope we can end the format war soon, since it hurts both the companies and consumers (at least the ones who are waiting or have bought a HD-DVD).

[aiphanes]

Why would you do it, when you could go down to Best buy and buy the movie for $24.99 and watch it right here, right now?

And the movie will last forever and it will not get deleted by accident from a hard drive crash... Nobody has a 30 meg download pipe yet....digital distribution will not happen till everybody has at least a 30 meg per sec download pipe...the most people have in the USA is about 10 megs avg...but most people are still on dial up...so how are they going to download a 50 gig movie in 1080p with 7.1 surround sound? I just want somebody to tell me how they are going to be able to do this?

[TheMART]

Well not all movies are full 50GB. And then still. Overhere in The Netherlands, 20Mbit including free phone to land lines is 30 Euro nowadays. No extra costs. That's over 2MB a second. About 7GB in an hour. In approx 5 to 7 hours the average movie is in.

An external HDD has no discs, no scratched media. Attaching an external USB 2.0 HDD, or stream through your network from PC, gives you a HD experience without any next gen HD playing drive. I even have an older DVD speler with a USB connection I can connect the HDD to.

So yeah, these techniques could easily be obsolete within a short period of time.

[Kyur4ThePain]

7 hours to watch a movie? LOL Have fun with that, my friend.
Oh, and don't forget to buy a second HDD for your backups, right?
Damn, now you have to spend MORE time to make those backups just in case.

It's funny how, now that it's becoming clear that HD-DVD is getting an @ss whipping, suddenly both formats are "dead" and "redundant".
It's amazing what some people will go through just so they can say they didn't support something Sony related.

[YoMeViet]

7 hours to watch a movie? and you have to PAY for it and WAIT 7 hours?!? that's totally insane. I rather order from PPV or buy a disk. No need for backups and btw Blu-Ray disks have a silver-coated layer so it's almost impossible to scratch them unless you intend to use a sharp object to do so.

[Scarfy]

Mart - You really are a thick c**t, aren't you?

What you have just stated is an ideal world situation.

No internet connection runs at full speed all the time. Have you never heard of contention ratios? Ever heard of server speed?

Seriously, you'd have to put the download on and either go to bed, go for a walk, go to work or whatever; and hope that 7 hours later the movie have downloaded without issues.

OR you can walk in to a store and pick it up off the shelf.

Don't get me wrong, movie downloads will happen. But we're at least 20 years away from it being realistic.

[anh_duong]

actually think the blu-ray hd-dvd will end in combo players that are capable of playing both discs.

[YoMeViet]

Samsung already has "duo" Blu-Ray + HD-DVD players, they're just more expensive than single ones.

[THE_JUDGE]

you forget that Blu-ray in the future won't be used for just movies. It will replace the CD-R/RW. If Sony is smart and they are they will all the companies put Blu-ray drives in their laptops. If you have Acer, Gateway, Dell, Apple and Sony with Blu-ray drives in their laptops then people will use the BD/RW instead of the CD's if they are the same price. More room the better! If Blu-ray can win the movies and the business sector then they have it!

[season007]

now even if they know they are losing they still just WON'T give up.....that's why they need all these marketing...promotion..., just to hope for a day that both format will survive and be played on the combo players. They don't even want to win it now, they just want to survive

[aiphanes]

They will have 100 GB disc next year...and the PS3 will ultimately give bluray the edge.....next year....Its all a mater of time...it will happen...its too bad the HD-DVD and bluray could not have solved their differences before the launch of both formats.....toshiba and sony do not hate each other...look they both developed the Cell processor...its Microsoft and Sony that hate each other....I think in the end toshiba and sony will compromise...and end the hd-dvd\bluray war....

But online distribution of movies in the next 10 years? its possible but the infrastucture will have to be upgraded...Remember that are bluray movies that are near 50 GB in size....i would rather have my movie collection on disc rather than on the harddrive...or rent the bluray or HD-DVD at hollywood video....why spend 7 hours to download a movie than can be lost or corrupted? So me a 100 mb pipe and they we can talk...

[WilliamRLBaker]

STONE HIM THE ARTICLE WRITER IS (insert here).

1.Paid off
2.Paid off by M$
3.BIASED
4.STUPID

Thats pretty much all we here from the sonyfanboys in this thread, the article is right, HD DVD and blu ray hold no sway dvd does and its gonna be that way for a while till all homes get HD setups...ect because HD DVD and blu ray aren't needed if your watching on an SDTV EDTV...ect

[THE_JUDGE]

are being sold each year than SD or ED tvs so it will be more prevalent. HD is the future and you have to know that these companies are jockeying for it.

[Karebear]

Here's an idea, stop posting blog posts as news.

[skarn]

What exactly is the point of the "blog" section then?

[Enigma_2099]

... then the format war may actually MEAN something. But as long as people with limited budgets have to break into stores to get them, it won't matter to anyone.

[ceedubya9]

Right now, neither format is making enough noise to take regular dvds out of the picture, and until the prices come down a bit more neither probably will for a long time. The PS3 has obviously been the reason behind Blu-ray's early success. Although I have a PS3, I can't force myself to abandon DVDs yet until this whole mess has cleared out.

[jaja1434]

I love how this article has nothing to do with BR vs HD yet most of the post are about out super fantastic BR is over HD. And they are telling the author to get a life?

[user9422077]

blog ftw!