Do you think that BluRay and HDDVD will catch on?

Question

Considering that you have to have a high definition TV and a $400 player, I doubt that either format will catch on in the near future. Most Americans simply do not care to throw out their perfectly fine 32" to buy a $999 one. Nor do they care to throw away their $40 DVD player to buy a $400 one.

VHS to DVD was a giant leap. I don't think that DVD to BluRay is that great of a jump.

Answer 1

I don't think it will catch on.

Although I've been hearing about BluRay more and more on television lately, it doesn't seem that enough of the general public acknowledges the distinction between DVD quality and true High Definition quality to make BluRay and HDDVD a current revolution in home entertainment.

Answer 2

i have performed a lot of studying and actual seen both HiDef DVD formats area with the help of area. there is not any massive difference in high quality between HDDVD and Blueray. They both are fantastic and are definately a step up from favourite DVDs. the large movie studios have alingned themselves with both format so that's going to likely be a lengthy time period until eventually all videos are available in both fomats. what's extra in all probability is that one format would ought to knock out the different, kinda like at the same time as VHS beat Betamax interior the 70's.

Answer 3

Glass Houses: Blu-ray or HD DVD? By Debbie Galante Block


'Tis the holiday season, and I've been seeing commercials advertising both HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. SicolaMartin has produced a series of advertising and marketing initiatives to promote the Blu-ray format. 30-second commercials have been airing since November 17.
Why is it, then, when I ask friends outside my business circle, "which new disc format will you support?" their answers are almost always a resounding, "Huh?" That is, of course, unless they have an avid gamer in the house who has been anxiously awaiting PlayStation 3. At least, then they may have heard of Blu-ray.
While those of us who work in or report on the optical disc business are usually knee-deep (or deeper) in the next-generation DVD hoopla, consumer awareness of the formats remains sketchy, and understanding of the differences between the two is generally pretty muddled. This disconnect, of course, prompted me to write this column, and put both camps' assessment of the formats' relative merits, readiness for prime-time, and product positioning in one place. Why Blu-ray? Why HD DVD? Why would you choose one over the other? Replicators and consumers might ultimately have different opinions, but nevertheless I will try to offer some facts without opinion.
For the replicator, the primary plus for HD DVD is its similarity to the already-familiar DVD disc structure. No news there. If you are making DVDs now for a relatively a modest cost, you can have your machines updated so that you can make DVDs and HD DVDs, according to Mark Knox, a consultant for Toshiba. With standard equipment from companies like Singulus and M2, he says, it will cost about $150,000 to upgrade a replication plant, and he says that most of those who plan to make the jump have already done it. "I was talking with a guy from M2 who said, ‘I've done my HD DVD business. I've upgraded and sold new machines, and I'm not expecting to see any new HD DVD business because all my customers are ready to fly.'"

Admittedly, replicators are more tight-lipped with me these days, but my educated guess is that there are five replicators "ready to fly" into high-definition of any sort. That's more than enough capacity for now. But are equipment manufacturers satisfied already? Is their equipment perfect? Replicators haven't been sharing info on yields because, I expect, they have customers on both sides of the format fence. According to Knox, "None of the replicators are predominantly doing business on one side or the other."

In terms of getting titles and players to the market, HD DVD came first and jumped out ahead, but Blu-ray is starting to catch up in terms of hardware and software availability. Andy Parsons, senior vice president of product development at Pioneer, and chair, U.S. Promotions Committee, for the Blu-ray Disc Association, contradicts my belief that consumers are mostly in the dark about the new formats. "I was at my neighbor's house and someone came up and started asking about HDTV, and I said, ‘There is a disc called Blu-ray,' and he said, ‘Oh yeah—I know all about that' and proceeded to tell me about disc manufacturing issues he'd heard about," Parsons reports. "Word is getting out, and I notice a distinct difference from even six months ago. At least people have an inkling. If we can get people to understand that Blu-ray equals high definition, that's a huge plus. A lot of emphasis is being put into this."

According to Knox, "For the consumer, there is a more basic and fundamental benefit of HD DVD today versus Blu-ray: price. We're at $500 to start for a standalone player, and $200 for a drive if you already own an Xbox 360. Price-wise, it's less painful to get into the game." PlayStation 3 may be the first glimpse some consumers get of Blu-ray, and according to Parsons, PlayStation adds an extra million (estimated) players in the marketplace by the end of the year added to players from Samsung, Panasonic, Philips, Sony, and Pioneer. PlayStation 3, if you can find one, is selling for about $500, which puts it roughly in line with the Xbox/HD DVD combo (and means that Sony is selling it at even more of a loss than Toshiba is taking on their first-generation HD DVD set-tops). Other than that, the most inexpensive Blu-ray player I could find was the Samsung BDP-1000 HDMI Hi-Def Blu-Ray player for $600. The rest of the players cost anywhere from $600 to $1,000.

Both HD and Blu-ray are talking about new and exotic features. One feature Toshiba is touting is internet interconnectivity. "An internet jack on the back of every machine is necessary or it can't have the HD DVD logo on it. Also, compatibility with the interactive programming platform, HDMI is built into every single HD DVD player as well," says Knox.

Another benefit of HD DVD hardware, according to Knox, is that "if a studio does something that we hadn't anticipated with the current machines, there is a program in place that can automatically update machine's firmware either online, or you can call the manufacturers' customer service and they will send you a disc."

Parsons doesn't refute anything Knox says but predicts that Blu-ray will start to gain real momentum by the end of the holiday season. While about 150 HD DVD titles are expected by the end of the year in the U.S., 80 Blu-ray titles were already available in the U.S. by November, and that number changes almost daily. Five major studios are supporting Blu-ray exclusively: Disney, Fox, Sony, MGM, and Lionsgate. Paramount and Warner were originally HD DVD-only studios, but they are now producing titles for Blu-ray as well. Universal supports HD DVD.

Sony DADC has six 50GB Blu-ray Disc production lines up and running (Adam Sandler's Click is a 50GB disc). The company is currently ramping up production to 60K discs per day. "We are encouraged by the performance of both our 25GB single-layer and 50GB dual-layer production technologies, both of which are meeting our expectations," ssays Michael Mitchell, executive VP, manufacturing and engineering for Sony DADC. The company also has nine 25GB Blu-ray Disc production machines in operation and has shipped over three million Blu-ray Discs for a client base of over 35 customers since beginning production in May of this year.

That's a summary of what I know now, but before I sign off for 2006, I'd like to take a moment to get on the soapbox. I was just at the IRMA show in New York last week, and had a chance to talk to some replicator friends. I also had a chance to listen to some Wall Street types talk about the future of physical media. I know there are a number of replicators who think that both Blu-ray and HD DVD will fail, and believe that it would be a lot less costly to keep replicating DVDs. I'm not a replicator, and admittedly I am not a manufacturing expert, but I am a consumer. And while I write about all of the new technology, I am rarely an early adopter, at least not on the video side of things.

However, after seeing both Blu-ray and HD DVD on high-definition televisions, and after seeing some HD broadcasts of sports events, I find it hard to believe that at least one of these formats will not catch on. Perhaps they may not reach the same market penetration that DVD has, but their market impact will be significant—more so than the once-promising DVD-Audio format (to which HD DVD and Blu-ray's naysayers have often compared the new formats), which has won over few non-audiophile fans. As Knox pointed out to me, someone willing to spend thousands of dollars on a HDTV is not going to quibble about the purchase of a new video playback machine. Once more channels are broadcast in HD, these same people are going to hate watching DVD because it won't look as good as what they see on TV every night. As the price of HD televisions goes down, more and more people will replace their aging SD televisions with HDTVs; it's a natural progression. New high-definition discs have the capacity to offer more, giving the studios opportunities to build discs and create fans and ultimately keep physical media alive. Replicators who ignore that potential are only contributing to the possible future obsolescence of the optical disc.

Will replicating high-definition discs turn out to be a business for only larger replicators? Perhaps. However—and this is a big however—while smaller replicators may not make the discs, they can certainly offer some ancillary services. Every replicator I've spoken to says the manufacturing business will continue to change, not just in terms of the types of media produced, but in terms of business models. That's true of every business. Remember, though, during the Christmas season, smaller replicators already do overload work. Maybe these kinds of replicator relationships will grow. Creative manufacturers will see how the internet can work for them as well.

Truthfully, manufacturers have been talking gloom and doom since I began reporting on the business in the early days of CD technology. And there is no denying that the business has certainly have suffered because of consolidation. Let's face it, while new formats and the internet are affecting replicators negatively, it has been undercutting of replication prices that has really been driving the business into a hole. While the replication business will likely continue to consolidate, unlikely partnerships may form, and new business may arise. It's like the old saying: "When a door closes, somewhere a window will open."

Glass Houses: Blu-ray or HD DVD? What the Market Needs to Know
By Debbie Galante Block - Posted Dec 9, 2006 Print Version Page 1of 1


'Tis the holiday season, and I've been seeing commercials advertising both HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. SicolaMartin has produced a series of advertising and marketing initiatives to promote the Blu-ray format. 30-second commercials have been airing since November 17.
Why is it, then, when I ask friends outside my business circle, "which new disc format will you support?" their answers are almost always a resounding, "Huh?" That is, of course, unless they have an avid gamer in the house who has been anxiously awaiting PlayStation 3. At least, then they may have heard of Blu-ray.
While those of us who work in or report on the optical disc business are usually knee-deep (or deeper) in the next-generation DVD hoopla, consumer awareness of the formats remains sketchy, and understanding of the differences between the two is generally pretty muddled. This disconnect, of course, prompted me to write this column, and put both camps' assessment of the formats' relative merits, readiness for prime-time, and product positioning in one place. Why Blu-ray? Why HD DVD? Why would you choose one over the other? Replicators and consumers might ultimately have different opinions, but nevertheless I will try to offer some facts without opinion.





For the replicator, the primary plus for HD DVD is its similarity to the already-familiar DVD disc structure. No news there. If you are making DVDs now for a relatively a modest cost, you can have your machines updated so that you can make DVDs and HD DVDs, according to Mark Knox, a consultant for Toshiba. With standard equipment from companies like Singulus and M2, he says, it will cost about $150,000 to upgrade a replication plant, and he says that most of those who plan to make the jump have already done it. "I was talking with a guy from M2 who said, ‘I've done my HD DVD business. I've upgraded and sold new machines, and I'm not expecting to see any new HD DVD business because all my customers are ready to fly.'"

Admittedly, replicators are more tight-lipped with me these days, but my educated guess is that there are five replicators "ready to fly" into high-definition of any sort. That's more than enough capacity for now. But are equipment manufacturers satisfied already? Is their equipment perfect? Replicators haven't been sharing info on yields because, I expect, they have customers on both sides of the format fence. According to Knox, "None of the replicators are predominantly doing business on one side or the other."

In terms of getting titles and players to the market, HD DVD came first and jumped out ahead, but Blu-ray is starting to catch up in terms of hardware and software availability. Andy Parsons, senior vice president of product development at Pioneer, and chair, U.S. Promotions Committee, for the Blu-ray Disc Association, contradicts my belief that consumers are mostly in the dark about the new formats. "I was at my neighbor's house and someone came up and started asking about HDTV, and I said, ‘There is a disc called Blu-ray,' and he said, ‘Oh yeah—I know all about that' and proceeded to tell me about disc manufacturing issues he'd heard about," Parsons reports. "Word is getting out, and I notice a distinct difference from even six months ago. At least people have an inkling. If we can get people to understand that Blu-ray equals high definition, that's a huge plus. A lot of emphasis is being put into this."

According to Knox, "For the consumer, there is a more basic and fundamental benefit of HD DVD today versus Blu-ray: price. We're at $500 to start for a standalone player, and $200 for a drive if you already own an Xbox 360. Price-wise, it's less painful to get into the game." PlayStation 3 may be the first glimpse some consumers get of Blu-ray, and according to Parsons, PlayStation adds an extra million (estimated) players in the marketplace by the end of the year added to players from Samsung, Panasonic, Philips, Sony, and Pioneer. PlayStation 3, if you can find one, is selling for about $500, which puts it roughly in line with the Xbox/HD DVD combo (and means that Sony is selling it at even more of a loss than Toshiba is taking on their first-generation HD DVD set-tops). Other than that, the most inexpensive Blu-ray player I could find was the Samsung BDP-1000 HDMI Hi-Def Blu-Ray player for $600. The rest of the players cost anywhere from $600 to $1,000.

Both HD and Blu-ray are talking about new and exotic features. One feature Toshiba is touting is internet interconnectivity. "An internet jack on the back of every machine is necessary or it can't have the HD DVD logo on it. Also, compatibility with the interactive programming platform, HDMI is built into every single HD DVD player as well," says Knox.

Another benefit of HD DVD hardware, according to Knox, is that "if a studio does something that we hadn't anticipated with the current machines, there is a program in place that can automatically update machine's firmware either online, or you can call the manufacturers' customer service and they will send you a disc."

Parsons doesn't refute anything Knox says but predicts that Blu-ray will start to gain real momentum by the end of the holiday season. While about 150 HD DVD titles are expected by the end of the year in the U.S., 80 Blu-ray titles were already available in the U.S. by November, and that number changes almost daily. Five major studios are supporting Blu-ray exclusively: Disney, Fox, Sony, MGM, and Lionsgate. Paramount and Warner were originally HD DVD-only studios, but they are now producing titles for Blu-ray as well. Universal supports HD DVD.

Sony DADC has six 50GB Blu-ray Disc production lines up and running (Adam Sandler's Click is a 50GB disc). The company is currently ramping up production to 60K discs per day. "We are encouraged by the performance of both our 25GB single-layer and 50GB dual-layer production technologies, both of which are meeting our expectations," ssays Michael Mitchell, executive VP, manufacturing and engineering for Sony DADC. The company also has nine 25GB Blu-ray Disc production machines in operation and has shipped over three million Blu-ray Discs for a client base of over 35 customers since beginning production in May of this year.

That's a summary of what I know now, but before I sign off for 2006, I'd like to take a moment to get on the soapbox. I was just at the IRMA show in New York last week, and had a chance to talk to some replicator friends. I also had a chance to listen to some Wall Street types talk about the future of physical media. I know there are a number of replicators who think that both Blu-ray and HD DVD will fail, and believe that it would be a lot less costly to keep replicating DVDs. I'm not a replicator, and admittedly I am not a manufacturing expert, but I am a consumer. And while I write about all of the new technology, I am rarely an early adopter, at least not on the video side of things.

However, after seeing both Blu-ray and HD DVD on high-definition televisions, and after seeing some HD broadcasts of sports events, I find it hard to believe that at least one of these formats will not catch on. Perhaps they may not reach the same market penetration that DVD has, but their market impact will be significant—more so than the once-promising DVD-Audio format (to which HD DVD and Blu-ray's naysayers have often compared the new formats), which has won over few non-audiophile fans. As Knox pointed out to me, someone willing to spend thousands of dollars on a HDTV is not going to quibble about the purchase of a new video playback machine. Once more channels are broadcast in HD, these same people are going to hate watching DVD because it won't look as good as what they see on TV every night. As the price of HD televisions goes down, more and more people will replace their aging SD televisions with HDTVs; it's a natural progression. New high-definition discs have the capacity to offer more, giving the studios opportunities to build discs and create fans and ultimately keep physical media alive. Replicators who ignore that potential are only contributing to the possible future obsolescence of the optical disc.

Will replicating high-definition discs turn out to be a business for only larger replicators? Perhaps. However—and this is a big however—while smaller replicators may not make the discs, they can certainly offer some ancillary services. Every replicator I've spoken to says the manufacturing business will continue to change, not just in terms of the types of media produced, but in terms of business models. That's true of every business. Remember, though, during the Christmas season, smaller replicators already do overload work. Maybe these kinds of replicator relationships will grow. Creative manufacturers will see how the internet can work for them as well.

Truthfully, manufacturers have been talking gloom and doom since I began reporting on the business in the early days of CD technology. And there is no denying that the business has certainly have suffered because of consolidation. Let's face it, while new formats and the internet are affecting replicators negatively, it has been undercutting of replication prices that has really been driving the business into a hole. While the replication business will likely continue to consolidate, unlikely partnerships may form, and new business may arise. It's like the old saying: "When a door closes, somewhere a window will open."

Both HD and Blu-ray are talking about new and exotic features. One feature Toshiba is touting is internet interconnectivity. "An internet jack on the back of every machine is necessary or it can't have the HD DVD logo on it. Also, compatibility with the interactive programming platform, HDMI is built into every single HD DVD player as well," says Knox.

Another benefit of HD DVD hardware, according to Knox, is that "if a studio does something that we hadn't anticipated with the current machines, there is a program in place that can automatically update machine's firmware either online, or you can call the manufacturers' customer service and they will send you a disc."

Parsons doesn't refute anything Knox says but predicts that Blu-ray will start to gain real momentum by the end of the holiday season. While about 150 HD DVD titles are expected by the end of the year in the U.S., 80 Blu-ray titles were already available in the U.S. by November, and that number changes almost daily. Five major studios are supporting Blu-ray exclusively: Disney, Fox, Sony, MGM, and Lionsgate. Paramount and Warner were originally HD DVD-only studios, but they are now producing titles for Blu-ray as well. Universal supports HD DVD.

Sony DADC has six 50GB Blu-ray Disc production lines up and running (Adam Sandler's Click is a 50GB disc). The company is currently ramping up production to 60K discs per day. "We are encouraged by the performance of both our 25GB single-layer and 50GB dual-layer production technologies, both of which are meeting our expectations," ssays Michael Mitchell, executive VP, manufacturing and engineering for Sony DADC. The company also has nine 25GB Blu-ray Disc production machines in operation and has shipped over three million Blu-ray Discs for a client base of over 35 customers since beginning production in May of this year.

That's a summary of what I know now, but before I sign off for 2006, I'd like to take a moment to get on the soapbox. I was just at the IRMA show in New York last week, and had a chance to talk to some replicator friends. I also had a chance to listen to some Wall Street types talk about the future of physical media. I know there are a number of replicators who think that both Blu-ray and HD DVD will fail, and believe that it would be a lot less costly to keep replicating DVDs. I'm not a replicator, and admittedly I am not a manufacturing expert, but I am a consumer. And while I write about all of the new technology, I am rarely an early adopter, at least not on the video side of things.

However, after seeing both Blu-ray and HD DVD on high-definition televisions, and after seeing some HD broadcasts of sports events, I find it hard to believe that at least one of these formats will not catch on. Perhaps they may not reach the same market penetration that DVD has, but their market impact will be significant—more so than the once-promising DVD-Audio format (to which HD DVD and Blu-ray's naysayers have often compared the new formats), which has won over few non-audiophile fans. As Knox pointed out to me, someone willing to spend thousands of dollars on a HDTV is not going to quibble about the purchase of a new video playback machine. Once more channels are broadcast in HD, these same people are going to hate watching DVD because it won't look as good as what they see on TV every night. As the price of HD televisions goes down, more and more people will replace their aging SD televisions with HDTVs; it's a natural progression. New high-definition discs have the capacity to offer more, giving the studios opportunities to build discs and create fans and ultimately keep physical media alive. Replicators who ignore that potential are only contributing to the possible future obsolescence of the optical disc.

Will replicating high-definition discs turn out to be a business for only larger replicators? Perhaps. However—and this is a big however—while smaller replicators may not make the discs, they can certainly offer some ancillary services. Every replicator I've spoken to says the manufacturing business will continue to change, not just in terms of the types of media produced, but in terms of business models. That's true of every business. Remember, though, during the Christmas season, smaller replicators already do overload work. Maybe these kinds of replicator relationships will grow. Creative manufacturers will see how the internet can work for them as well.

Truthfully, manufacturers have been talking gloom and doom since I began reporting on the business in the early days of CD technology. And there is no denying that the business has certainly have suffered because of consolidation. Let's face it, while new formats and the internet are affecting replicators negatively, it has been undercutting of replication prices that has really been driving the business into a hole. While the replication business will likely continue to consolidate, unlikely partnerships may form, and new business may arise. It's like the old saying: "When a door closes, somewhere a window will open."