HD DVD Demo a Disappointment 532
triso writes to tell us that the recent unveiling of the new Toshiba HD DVD production model met with a few difficulties. From the article: "It was supposed to be the grand unveiling of a new generation in home entertainment when Kevin Collins of Microsoft Corp. popped an HD DVD disc into a Toshiba production model and hit 'play.' Nothing happened. The failed product demo at this week's International Consumer Electronics Show was hardly an auspicious start for the HD DVD camp in what's promising to be a nasty format war similar to the Betamax/VHS video tape battle."
Windows Trade Marks (Score:1, Interesting)
1. It's good for publicity
2. When you pay your small fortune for your crap version and it goes down on you, you can't say you weren't warned.
It couldn't possibly be be sabotage, not all the time.
Could it?
Why a format war? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Highest Capacity Wins (Score:4, Interesting)
Dual-layer DVD+-R disks hold twice as much as the single-layer version, yet cost more than twice as much and haven't really taken off.
On the other hand, if all you really cared about was high capacity, why not buy a Hard Drive? For just 100 dollars you too could hold 260,000 MB in your hands.
HD-DVD's are lower capacity, but cheaper. Blu-Ray has a somewhat higher capacity, but is more expensive.
Either way we're not talking about Blu-Ray-RW yet, so how does capacity help?
Re:Weird, i don't get t (Score:5, Interesting)
Timex ran the test a dozen or so times before they were supposed to go live. That watch did fine in every test. Then the golden moment came, and they were on the air. The watch took a lick'n as it was supposed to...
All those tests they had done, and the watch had finally failed for the real deal. So you can't always predict these things. Now it's always funniest when it happens to Microsoft, but if you give Murphy an inch, he'll make sure to make a fool of you every time.
Just why the hell do we need to replace DVD, now? (Score:2, Interesting)
Cost is king (Score:1, Interesting)
Hmm, which one should I get?? This is typical Sony.
My understanding of the manufacturing of the discs themselves is that fabricating Blu-Ray discs requires complete retooling, while making HD-DVD discs only needs a retrofit of the equipment used to make standard DVDs [projectorcentral.com]. Then you add Sony itself to the equation...They have a long history of developing proprietary standards, which are arguably superior, but end up being so expensive for the consumer that they die (the standard, not the consumer
The fact that Toshiba's demo didn't work means nothing. Ultimately the marketplace will decide who wins, and the trump card in the marketplace is cost. If Blu-Ray sets don't come down to be competitive with HD-DVD, HD-DVD will win by default - just like VHS did.
The video games point (Score:3, Interesting)
"The (video) games industry since the early 90s has had two or three incompatible formats and it hasn't slowed the adoption of game platforms,"
when i think about it, this seems like a great analogy to say 'hey, look 2 different types of disc isnt really that crazy or impractical' but i think they're missing a big point. can anybody imagine what it would be like to have a single console per generation? something within me is screaming 'that would suck, less innovation, less choice, less everything'. instinctivly i know that with video games having different consoles is definitly a good thing, i just cant seem to qualify it in writing appropiately, im sure some of you will agree.
with data storage/movies/whatever though i find it hard to accept having two potential 'standards'. we're not talking zip disks or anything here, were you know that your probably not going to be able to use it on 'every' computer you come across. yes, development of more than one type of _potential_ storage media is a good thing but for something that is so important from a cost/ease of use point of view there is, IMHO, room for -1- standard only in the end. unfortunatly some people are going to get burned when that eventual standard emerges.
Re:DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
encode them and put them on my iPod with video.
and fuck you for implying people wanting to rip their own disks are planning to break for law. some of us happen to live in countries where businesses don't own the government so much that format shifting is illegal.
Re:Highest Capacity Wins (Score:5, Interesting)
I cant imagine anyone will use this crap for data storage so the capacity is a moot point. I built a nice 4tb array on raid5 that cost me around $800 (20 cents per GB which is CHEAPER than blueray/hd-dvd), or yes, a couple of 400GB drives on raid1 and your data is quite safe and you dont need >10 disks for same capacity.
Furthermore, with consumer ADSL having 2mb these days (granted asymetrical), you can afford to back up to a popular p2p network, best backup method possible and thats how I backup my legally purchased music/movies and other non private media.
Re:Two points here... (Score:2, Interesting)
As a result of the success of Windows 9x at the time, I am quite confident that historians will reflect on the Windows era as a 10 year failure in the history of computing. The failure mostly belongs to the other operating systems that were unable to provide a viable alternative, but also to the wider I.T. community that gorged itself on the crumbs that fell from Microsoft's tables.
At the time, even linux was prettier, more flexible and had more applications and better hardware support than Windows at the time; yet Windows was selected in spite of its track record. And it seems we have not learnt. XBOX and XBOX 360 will be more of the same. Instead of building platforms that can last a decade (think PSOne), Microsoft will start churning out new versions more rapidly and product quality will slide quickly.
"Early adopters" got screwed (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess I was an early adopter of HDTV, because my set only has component inputs. AFAIK this means I won't be able to play EITHER format (at true HD resolution) because I can't support the oh-so-wonderful copy protection in HDMI connectors. As far as I'm concerned, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can both take a flying fuck at the moon.
"People want to own their content" (Score:3, Interesting)
Studio executives argue that people want to own their content and that DVDs offer the same portability options as downloadable programs or video on demand services.
Okay, Mr. Studio Executive, perhaps now you'll explain to me just why you should be allowed to control how I use something that I own?
(The scary thing is that Joe Sixpack would probably eat up whatever bullshit the studio exec spouted in response . . .)
Call Me When The Bugs Are Out (Score:3, Interesting)
If you can measure the failure rate, it's too high. And DVD media are a nightmare to get working reliably. Only buy top-of-the-line Taiyo Yuden media and DVD drives made in Japan. Nobody else - meaning the Taiwanese - can get it to work reliably.
Call me when there are HD drives on the market and media that work together RELIABLY.
In other words, call me in two or three years.
Re:The video games point (Score:3, Interesting)
It will also be interesting to see if, for example, PC games (and thus PC machines) will end up with one as the de facto standard, while movies being predominantly released in the other format -- probably with most drives compatible with both.
Does anyone know if a current DVD mastering pipeline can also produce plain old CDs? I've mostly seen notes of the fact that HD-DVD is an easy transtition if you have DVD equipment, but what if you want to go back? For manufacturers of smaller volumes, the committing of a production line to only next-gen discs might be a significant step.
Re:Has Steve Jobs ever had a demo fail like that? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:"Nasty format war" my foot (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Well (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Highest Capacity Wins (Score:2, Interesting)
Normal RAID 5 has 1 disk for parity... DP-RAID, has 2 disks..., why not have DP-N? We have file systems with snapshot capabilities... take a snap, calculate the # of disks, and start shoving data.
It would take double the disks, but you could lose up to half of them and still have your data.
Re:HD discs are long overdue (Score:3, Interesting)
Regardless, you won't have to wait 50 years. Mandatory HDTV broadcasting is only a few years away in the USA and Canada
My TV is ready
Re:DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I'm 26 now and most of my friends are in their first years of work, a few have been working since they were 19 or so. Judging from my friends we buy games (PC and console), we buy DVDs... CDs? Not very often. We used to when we were younger, but not really anymore. I don't know what it is all a mix of, but we don't. Maybe it's the "Napster generation" or whatever. And we only got internet in our teens, broadband in our twenties. The new generation raised with broadband from childhood is probably going to even more focused on downloading. I doubt downloading is only for those who can't afford to buy...
Re:Well (Score:5, Interesting)
Not everybody 'gets' the whole HD movement.
-Why should average shopper buy a BD or HD title if they already have it on DVD?
-How many consumers already think that DVD IS Hi Def?
-With all the Hi Def ready displays out there, how many actually show HD content?
-How many times do you go into a bar or sports restaurant where they DO have an HD display with Satellite hookup and HD content STILL SHOW Standard Def channels on the screen?
-How many times do you see in a public place the aspect ratio screwed up on one of those plasma displays?
The ONLY way BD/HD will surpass DVD is when the cost of a BD/HD title is less than a standard DVD and we don't see that happening at all, ever.
Video distributors will NOT stop making DVD's if they're selling and Hollywood will not issue an order to stop producing content for it for DRM sake.
actually, they had to be swapped! (Score:3, Interesting)
So for most movies you had to flip once or twice and swap discs once.
Despite all of this, LD was a success. It was around for a long time. It was perhaps not a widespread success, but then again the discs cost $50 a piece or more, were huge (as you say) and so prone to warpage that renting them was an enormous risk.
As to VHS, most say VHS won because it recorded more time (4 hours initially, 6 later, Beta topped out at 4 3/4 hours for most of its life) and because Beta had no porn. The movies being on VHS format and not Beta was probably an effect, not a cause. Additionally, JVC was more aggressive in licensing VHS than Sony was with Beta, thus making more VHS players available at more competitive prices.
I don't know which HD format will win, but barring a case of over-DRM, I am sure one of them will succeed. There is demand for HD content, at much more than there was for LD content, and that survived for years.
I know I have stopped buying stuff on DVD because I know the quality just isn't high enough to want to own for long. Renting DVD is still fine, but I really don't do that either since if I just wait a few more months I can set my TiVo and get the show in HD off of HBO or Showtime and it'll look a ton better.
I don't buy TV series on DVD because I don't feel like owning them in a quality markedly inferior to what they were when I watched them for free.
So I do stay that there is a need for HD content on demand. That probably means on disc format, but perhaps PPV could substitute.
Re:Has Steve Jobs ever had a demo fail like that? (Score:5, Interesting)
Format Wars - Really on the inside? (Score:2, Interesting)
This makes me suspicious... maybe the VHS vs BETA is just a smoke screen.
Seems to me more like a DVD-R vs DVD+R pseudo-battle.
If the camps "push" the right buttons, both formats will appear in the common home device (probably even the devices on the opposing sides).
Why?
Because, this is a way to convince the public that BOTH formats need to be licenced. Both camps will make license fees, and enough uncertainty to keep the upgrade cycle moving along. (DVD peeked out, became an one-shot, and didn't need upgrades like other tech standards... example: VGA, SVGA, XVGA.)
Double the fees, and good side effects... hmmm, could it be a smoke screen?
Live TV demos (Score:3, Interesting)
Live shows in general were always coming up with "oops" moments. Another classic was a semi-live action series called "The Avengers", which (at that time) starred Patrick McNee and Honor Blackman. In order to make the fight scenes realistic, they trained Ms. Blackman in actual martial arts to quite a high standard. This had one drawback. She was actually a good deal better at fighting than the stuntmen were at getting out of the way. More than one ended up unconcious in the studio, but with no ability to edit the recordings, they just had to stay there until they cut to a different scene.
Re:warning: insufficient license (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, with a conference of like 100 people, the chances are > 5 of them are awake and coherent.
Re:DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't really speak for this person but what I infer from what he has written is that he is using his own anecdotal evidence. That would correspond to my personal observations. It isn't unusual to know one or two individuals who have a compulsion to collect media (without buying any). It is not something that can be accurately measured like air pressure or parts per million of some pollutant. But we all have our own sample of acquaintences. I'll base my opinion on that sample rather than the self interested claims of one group or another.
By the way I also had a boss who played fast and loose with licensing issues. He would also pontificate against piracy without any acknowledgment about his own personal choices.