A New Look At Blu-ray Now HD DVD Is Dead

Larry Magid Examines The Winner In The DVD Standards Duel, Before It Becomes Obsolete Too

(CBS/Larry Magid)  I don’t usually cheer the death of a product or a technology, but I’m glad to see the demise of HD DVD. After years of contentious battle between two competing high-definition DVD standards, Toshiba, the primary backer of HD DVD, on February 19th conceded defeat. HD DVD is dead. Long live Blu-ray.

It’s not as if Toshiba had much choice. HD DVD was already in a coma. Warner Bros. Studios - the largest purveyor of DVD movies - put a big nail in HD DVD’s coffin in January when it announced it would no longer produce movies in that format but standardize on Blu-ray. That left only Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios in the HD DVD camp. The vast majority of new high-definition movies would come out only in Blu-ray.

Another couple of nails came from Netflix and Wal-Mart, both of whom recently announced they would no longer distribute HD DVD. Blockbuster earlier decided to carry only Blu-ray.

It’s not that I really cared who won. From where I sit (a few feet from a high-definition TV), I can’t tell the difference between the two formats. But the mere existence of competing formats made it impossible for me to recommend either type of player.

I’m all for competition, but not when it comes to standards. Imagine if certain books were compatible only with certain reading glasses or if the car you were thinking of buying could be driven only on certain types of roads.

Standards define almost every successful technology. It was safe back in the old days to buy any vinyl album because people knew it would work on any record player. And standards explain why the CD was able to quickly take over - people knew that all CDs worked on all CD players. The initial lack of a single standard stalled the deployment of video recorders back in the ’80s because Sony was pushing its Beta format while most other companies were selling VHS players. Some studios initially issued movies in both VHS and Beta, but ultimately VHS won out, causing Sony to eventually stop making the format. Standards are also important in the computer industry. They’re one reason Microsoft has done so well, although Apple has been able to buck this trend to a degree with computers that run different programs. But software isn’t the same as movies. People buy software and use it until a new version comes out - often two or three years later. When it comes to entertainment products, people buy or rent on a regular basis. You want a steady stream of programs to work with whatever hardware you happen to own.

It can be argued that the departure of HD DVD is a blow to competition. But I think the opposite will be true. With a single standard, it’s now more practical for hardware manufacturers to invest in development of new players and increased production capacity. That should mean more players on the market and, ultimately, better prices. If the prices of standard DVD players are any example, we should see a dramatic price drop within the year. A couple of years ago I bought a standard DVD player for $29 at a drug store.

Before you go out and buy a Blu-ray player, let me share my experience with the one I have. Movies in Blu-ray look and sound great, but truth be told, so do movies recorded on standard DVDs. That’s because most Blu-ray (and HD DVD) players, along with some higher-end standard players, convert the signal from a standard DVD so it looks great on a high-definition TV. It’s not as good as a Blu-ray disc but it’s still quite good.

But when it comes to signals on broadcast, cable or satellite TV, I’m now spoiled and feel I’m having an inferior experience if I have to watch a standard definition show on a high-definition TV.

Eventually none of this will matter because we’ll be downloading our movies via the Internet. There will come a time when buying media on plastic discs seems quaint.

Thanks to Apple TV, Microsoft Media Center extensions, TiVo and other products, that’s already starting to happen. But the full transition from disc to download will take several years and won’t be complete until we get faster broadband service than most American homes currently have. It would also help if the studios adopted less idiotic rules. Most video download rental services today disable the movie 24 hours after you start watching it, which is one reason I still prefer to get my movies on DVD from Netflix. I can watch them at my leisure.

[undermyboot]

Wow. Magid really just phoned this one in. No insight here.

[brianbwb-2009]

"Wow. Magid really just phoned this one in. No insight here." Posted by UnderMyBoot

Nor any mention of the coming probable invasion of privacy that Sony will put into their "web-enabled" blu-ray players, similar to the rootkit they put on their CDs that called home to Sony and told Sony what disc was in your computer, the rootkit that, if you tried to remove, would render your cd drive inoperable.

Avoid Sony like AIDs and Ebola combined, until we have guarantees that Sony will not practice this kind of nonsense again.

[shanev137]

Brian, that was in 2005, and Sony got sued and lost.

I doubt they will try a stunt like that again.

[brianbwb-2009]

I doubt they will try a stunt like that again.
Posted by shanev137

Yes, they lost the suit, but did you check the terms of the settlement? You sent them your viral CD, which you bought for $19.95, and they sent you $7.00 back. As for the damaged computers, first they put out a "fix" that actually fixed nothing, finally Microsoft put a fix for the rootkit in their "malicious software removal" program.

They incurred no loss, only the profit from some 1.4 million CDs went from $19 down to $12. Some loss.

You can bet that they will do this again, as this time the box is their own product, so they won''t be bricking peoples'' computers, they will claim that playing blu-ray on your blu-ray drive in your computer is not their fault.

Your privacy will still be compromised, they must gather such info on you to determine what ads to push on you.

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by shanev137

And it is not over, many people shared their CDs, loaning them to friends, and the CD pirate industry copied them and further spread the rootkit to millions of computers worldwide, I still see such "rooted" computers commonly.

Virus script kiddies have already modified the code to send your passwords and other keystrokes to ID thieves and other unauthorized people.

The irony is that such a script kiddie could be jailed for using a variant of the trojan that Sony and first4internet created, in violation of the law that criminalizes creating such software.

[RedCoat999]

Renting a movie through TiVo (Amazon service) I have 30 days to watch the movie. I don''t have to deal with scratched DVD''s that you get from Netflix.

[rf35]

Frankly, I prefer the security and durability of having a program on a physical disk. I''ve had to jump through too many hoops to prove I actually bought a product I downloaded when something goes wrong. Never thought I''d hear myself say this, but maybe I''m just old-fashioned.

[ov442]

Yeah Sony is pretty scummy as corporations go.
My Aunt and Uncle bought one of those Huge BetaMax video recording and playback systems with the camera, bag, everything because at the time it was way better quality than VHS, boy were they pizzed off when Beta died abruptly.
I think they still have it, they cant get rid of it. Maybe a museum will take it.

As long as there are billions of movies on regular dvd, im fine with it. I could care less about Blueray.

[Syndicate]

The thing I don''t like about bluray is the lack of backward compatibility. If I had a bluray player and bought a bluray movie then I could only watch it on what ever that one player is hhoked to. If it were HD DVD I could watch it in HD or on any of the other standard DVD players in my house or car. Or even on the computers. I do understand why movie studios would back a format that would require you to have multiple copies of the same movie for diffrent players.

[endofempire]

Backward compatibility is the reason why we got stuck on the NTSC, low def standard for decades. When color TV came out, we got a chance to make things right... Backward compatibility won out and we kept the stupid low-res standard until just a few years ago. Hurray for no compatibility and going forward with the right solution.

[Scooter68]

Some poster seem to be missing the stories about the very strong likelihood that downloading movies is going to get more expensive as soon as ISP decide how much extra to charge folks who gobble up bandwidth with movie downloads. Your rental/purchase fees will be just a part of the cost for you and then, if your hard drive crashes, bye bye movies.

[brianbwb-2009]

Most people miss the scam that you used to pay $20 or so for content you could watch as many times as you want, whenever you want, wherever you want. Now, you will pay the same, $20 or so, or near the same price, for content you will only get to use for a limited time, on the machine THEY say you can use it on.

Boycott all DRM products. (and this from a composer/musician)

[gnourt-2009]

Hard drives will always break. Disks pretty much lasts forever and are cheap. Until they figure out a storage unit that does not `break`Blu Ray will be around for a long time.To download a 1080p show (whenever that comes)would also take forever, people like to watch right away.

[ozarkbard]

"Not likely since most internet plans are single-price, all you can eat. While I never underestimate the sleeziness of the internet providers, it hasn''''t happened yet and I''''m not going to worry about it."-

Not true... a lot of ISPs have a "secret cap" on how much you can download. The cable modem ISP I am on now limits you to 80 GBytes per month, otherwise they cut off your service unless you send them extra payment... that''s less then 3 Blue-Ray DVD size movies. Only the most populated areas, where the huge customer pool and large backbone, allow massive downloading without extra charges; rural internet services, which account for most, will still limit downloading caps until the their backbone bandwidth providers radically lower their transportation fees.

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by ov442

You might be surprised to find that the VHS standard was only adopted for consumer sets, the pros went with, and many still use Beta.

If you make a, say, music video, and print to VHS, your TV station will not accept it, but they will, and have always accept Beta, so if your machine is a recorder, (and it still works) consider going into pro production, find local bands, and help them make the move to video.

That machine could possibly yet pay for itself, and some extra.