The high definition format war appears to be over. Blu-ray has won, HD DVD is finished. Toshiba can deny it as much as it wants, but the cold hard facts don’t lie.
And so now that the war between HD DVD and Blu-ray seems to be drawing to a close, a debate which had remained dormant for some months has again reared its controversial head. Some people say that Blu-ray’s victory is meaningless. They say that digital downloads are the future. And that optical disc formats are old hat.
This I don’t buy. At least, not yet I don’t.
The two most recent examples I can give of people voicing these opinions are two stories we covered right here on TechRadar. Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, and then Seagate CEO, Bill Watkins, both separately came out recently and basically suggested that: ‘downloads are the future, and Blu-ray will die on its ass’.
So, are they right? Or is it all a load of dingo’s kidneys? Well, I’d say that you only need to look at the motivations that exist for certain individuals to be saying such things.
Blu-ray: the last optical disc format
Steve Jobs and his iTunes empire would benefit hugely from people snubbing Blu-ray in favour of downloading movies. Even a foetus wouldn’t need to be told why.
And likewise, what about Seagate’s Bill Watkins? It doesn’t take a genius to work out that a manufacturer of storage devices would stand to benefit enormously from a massive upturn in digital movie downloads. After all, where are all these movies going to be kept? On Seagate hard drives perhaps?
We can discount their opinions, then. Because they’re biased. And as such, they are themselves meaningless.
So what do I seriously think will happen? I believe that digital downloads are definitely the way forward. Blu-ray Disc Association chairman, Frank Simonis, told us himself that Blu-ray will be the last optical format before downloads take over.
But I can’t see the mass-transition to downloads happening for quite some time yet. Sure, all those tech savvy Xbox, PlayStation and iTunes users out there can say they like downloading stuff. But at the moment there are several impracticalities which make mass-market video downloading totally impossible – at least for the time being.
Blu-ray vs digital downloads
Firstly, for Blu-ray to be ousted by downloads, you’ve got to convince the billions of technophobes out there who couldn’t even programme their old VCRs that an even more complex system is worth trying.
The day my mother downloads and watches a Hollywood movie from the web will be the day I deep fry and eat my Seagate FreeAgent portable hard drive.
People like simplicity. People like to buy a disc and put it in a player. They wouldn’t like having to try and remember which hard disc, or which device they downloaded Gremlins to last year. They’d prefer to just go and find it on their shelf.
Sure it might also be hard to convince people to invest in the Blu-ray format. But Blu-ray is simply a continuation of an idea which has existed ever since music on vinyl hit the mainstream in the 1930s. We’ve had various forms of tapes and discs since then, Blu-ray being the latest and most advanced.
But downloads are a new thing entirely. Convincing people to try it will take many years. And in the meantime, with people snapping up LCD and plasma tellies like chocolate bars, they’re going to want some HD content to watch on them.
Blu-ray offers an easy solution for normal people today. Downloads, don’t.
del.icio.us
Digg
reddit!
Facebook
Stumbleupon
Newsvine
Reader comments (3) Jump to Add Comment
jwmiller75
February 1st
3. Sure downloads maybe the way the of future but in the future we will still need someplace to store them all. So lets see endless stacks of extra hard drives (with how many movies lost if the hard drive damaged or lost) vs a one or even two movies on a slim flat disk which is easily replaced? I will stick with disks and not because I am fighting change. For those of you bashing sony and the ps3 because your HD DVD may go the way of the 8 track keep in mind that Blu-ray stores 50gb while HD-DVD is only 25. I also have no intention of stocking up on ipods either to store my movie library so steve jobs can suck on the dingleberries from my ass. *side note as well HD DVD players are not the only ones that play regular DVD's and up scales them.
Alert a moderator
jwmiller75
February 1st
2. Sure downloads maybe the way the of future but in the future we will still need someplace to store them all. So lets see endless stacks of extra hard drives (with how many movies lost if the hard drive damaged or lost) vs a one or even two movies on a slim flat disk which is easily replaced? I will stick with disks and not because I am fighting change. For those of you bashing sony and the ps3 because your HD DVD may go the way of the 8 track keep in mind that Blu-ray stores 50gb while HD-DVD is only 25. I also have no intention of stocking up on ipods either to store my movie library so steve jobs can suck on the dingleberries from my ass. *side note as well HD DVD players are not the only ones that play regular DVD's and up scales them.
Alert a moderator
ilovehddvd
January 31st
1. While I agree that the future is with downloads I think this article/post is pretty shortsighted.
First, the 'format war' will not be won by studio support alone. That is, people are not going to replace their large DVD liraries for a $400 blu-ray player that will be obsolete in Octoer, nor will they buy a PS3 (only profile-proof BD player).
Typically the argument that studio support tips the scales is based on experience with the VHS/Beta battle. There are distinct differences between that battle and the present formats, however.
Specifically, in the 80's there was only one way to get home video - cassettes - consumers could not ignore the battle if they wanted home entertainment. Today there are numberous competitors - VOD, PPV, Xbox live, iTunes, etc. If a movie is not available on HD DVD, I can get it on video on Demand for cheaper anyway.
Furthermore, consumers are happy with their DVD. HD movies only have a 4% market penetration, and only about 34% of homes in the US have HD TVs.
The majority of Consumers are not going to replace buy a PS3 (the only Profile-proof Blu-ray palyer) to watch movies, and they are not going to spend upwords of $400 to replace a perfectly fine DVD player. What they will do is buy a DVD player that will improve picture quality for their present DVD library (both will do that), is affordable (HD DVD wins) and is called a DVD player (Fact is the consuming public is not sophisticaed enough to knwo WTH a Blu-ray is much less what its player does). The above considered, consumers can effectively ignore Blu-ray and HD DVD.
Tosh is lucky because they are support y the DVD forum (which ceretainly does not want to lose DVD dominance). What Toshiba could do to tip the scales is 1) market HD DVD players as *DVD* players with added features, like upconversion and HD DVD capabilities - DO NOT market it as a NEW format. Let the consumers decide simply to improve what they have; Do not make them think they have to shift to another format and replace their library; and 2) the DVD forum should make HD DVD conversion a mandatory feature of the DVD spec - forcing the likes of SOny to include HD DVD conversion in all its DVD players. ZING.
Alert a moderator
Submit your comment
You need to Log in or register to post comments