Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Apple
Paramount and Dreamworks leave Blu-Ray behind
Technology has long been a battlefield with two competing standards facing off against each other: VHS vs. Betamax. AC vs. DC. Mac vs. PC. Atom vs. RSS. The most recent standards showdown revolves around next generation DVDs: Blu-ray vs. HD DVD. Industry titans have aligned themselves behind one or the other, and many are wondering when Apple will be shipping Macs with next gen DVD drives (these new DVDs aren't compatible with older DVD drives).Apple is part of the Blu-ray Disc Association which leads one to believe Apple will be shipping Macs with Blu-ray drives at some point in the near future. However, CNet reports that two of the biggest studios who were committed to shipping Blu-ray Discs have jumped ship to HD DVD. Paramount and Dreamworks Animation announced they will be releasing new movies exclusively on HD DVD, which is a set back for Blu-ray.
It looks like Apple has the right strategy with regards to including these next gen DVD drives. Wait until a clear standard emerges and then go with that, however, I know many Mac users are eager to watch HD content (whether from Blu-Ray or HD DVD) on their Macs not to mention burning data to these high capacity discs. Which side are you hoping will win out? Or does it not really matter to you, as long as you can find your favorite movies?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Fabian said 9:23PM on 8-20-2007
Basicly I dont care. But I hate the Blue-Ray Branding. I cant imagine to buy a box with such a horrible huge blue bar at the top.
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Bart Lee said 9:37PM on 8-20-2007
Well name your poison Fabian, 'cause HD DVDs have a big red bar across the top. This whole format war is ridiculous anyway. Sony and Matsushita have shot themselves in the foot by, er, dragging their feet on a compromise and attempting to "let the market decide". The market will decide to ignore both formats, as DVD is considered "good enough" right now by Average Joe. Anybody remember DVD-Audio or SACD? Don't forget, most people don't even have an HDTV yet. By the time they do, online delivery of HD content will be widely available and storage will be available in oodles.
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K28 said 9:39PM on 8-20-2007
Well, if you buy HD DVD you got a horrible huge RED bar at the top.
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sega prophet said 9:40PM on 8-20-2007
I hope blu-ray wins out, but I won't be that shaken up if hd-dvd ends up winning.
One or the other, Mac users need higher capacity optical media yesterday.
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blinkcowz182 said 9:41PM on 8-20-2007
I'm hoping HD DVD wins out because Sony's business tactics suck. Maybe if they pull a PR 180 and impress me, I'll back them, but until then, I'll stick to my xbox360's HD drive.
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Robert Haynes said 9:42PM on 8-20-2007
I really hope they don't go High Def, whether it's HD or Blu Ray because I don't want macs to cost more and have us be forced to pay extra for a feature many don't want or need. It's fine as an add-on @ the apple store, maybe.
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dimmer said 9:42PM on 8-20-2007
In terms of movies, it's pretty much who cares: but for data, there's a huge difference: HD-DVD has a 15GB standard format, 30GB double layer -- Blu Ray has a standard 25GB standard, 50GB double layer.
But more importantly, Blu Ray Recordable and Rewritable at 23 single layer, 46 double layer. HD-DVD is not specified for data capabilities at all. Being geared towards being non-recordable is something the movie businesses love: it's instant DRM.
So there are things a little more important than the band at the top of the box, if you want to do more than just watch HD DRM Movies.
(Not that Blu Ray doesn't have DRM facilities: it does, but it is also designed to be a data system, writeable, rewriteable, etc. etc.
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pkolyvas said 9:56PM on 8-20-2007
I'll just wait until the drives available are dual format (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) read/write plus DVD+/-RW.
Hopefully we'll see better archival formats and HD media downloads so that these lame-duck disc technologies are quickly eclipsed.
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mxz said 10:02PM on 8-20-2007
Apple is only a BluRay supporter because Sony, unfortunately, owns a larger part of music and movie industry and Apple would really hate to see Sony BMG leave iTunes, not to mention Tristar/Columbia & Sony Pictures. Why do you think Universal, being part of the Microsoft/Intel/HD-DVD camp, "left" iTunes?
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iJavaJoe said 10:13PM on 8-20-2007
I keep hearing about Blu-Ray and Sony. From what I have read, Blu-Ray was being worked on by EVERYONE from the Blue-Ray group. The standard was about to be agreed on when a small segment pulled out, I don't remember why? So this small group created the second "inferior" HD format.
With time, all things change and now HD is much improved, MS didn't want the competition from Sony Playstation so moved out of Blu-Ray into HD, etc.
In shopping the price difference in players is $50 to $100 with HD being the cheaper and Blu-Ray disks SEEM a couple of bucks cheaper. For computers Blu-Ray at this time is Better due to more capacity.
It's just too bad that Sony, Samsung, Panasonic and LG couldn't drop player pricing and get more players on the market as Blu-Ray (for the moment) is the better tech and stands the chance of being better for the near future 1-2 years.
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iJavaJoe said 10:23PM on 8-20-2007
For some history on BD vs HD read these:
http://consortiuminfo.org/blog/blog.php?ID=9
http://news.com.com/Blu-ray+group+gets+behind+Microsoft+tech/2100-1041_3-5330786.html
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/news/111705hpbluray/
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Galley said 10:25PM on 8-20-2007
The rumor is that Microsoft paid Paramount and Dreamworks a total of $150 million to dump support for Blu-ray. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've never been real crazy about Microsoft and their tactics.
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erick Baze said 10:29PM on 8-20-2007
The player prices are all going down, but you get what you pay for. I recently bought a Blu-Ray player and am very happy with the quality of the picture and the sound. I like high-end gear, but went for a mid-price unit this time. After much research and testing, I decided that Blu-Ray was the better format for many of the reasons listed above (holds more and can be used for data.)
I think Paramount made a big mistake dropping Blu-Ray at this time.
Erick
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VedicHymn said 10:30PM on 8-20-2007
Wow, Dimmer is so incredibly wrong it's painful.
HD-DVD isn't a data format? What's this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817130016
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Phil said 10:49PM on 8-20-2007
I could really care less about movies, though as others have already said having an expanded format for data would be nice. I'm of the mind that by the time the format war is over it won't matter as Apple, Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon and everybody else will be selling and renting HD or near-HD quality downloads which is going to win in the end anyway.
Why waste money and headache on a temporary format solution is what I say.
DVD is good enough for me right now. I'm not going to shell out big bucks and guess which will win for a few years. If that makes sense.
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tehpyro said 10:56PM on 8-20-2007
MAC VS. PC = BD Vs. HD DVD.
They've both chosen their sides respectively.
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Johnny Thrash said 11:14PM on 8-20-2007
Who really cares at this point... The players are not really affordable for most people, so the only people in this war are the big companies that want to bicker, cause a lot of controversy and get big Daddy Warbucks to spend tons of cash on a bunch of discs before one of them dries up. (BetaMax, Laser Disc)
I don't want BluRay because Sony is in on it. I don't want HDDVD because Microsoft is in on it.
So I'll just wait til this whole silly thing is over and done with.
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Rhys said 11:22PM on 8-20-2007
This war has a few years to go yet. Neither brand (Sony or Toshiba) are going to back down, they are both going strong. As someone aforementioned, online delivery will probably win all out and leave both formats struggling.
I'm waiting for something OTHER than an optical disc to come out and do the same thing. Wouldn't it be great if we had all movies on SD cards (or something alike). So small and compact, minimal loading times, durable.
Maybe I ask for too much... but it would be great.
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trainwrecka said 11:25PM on 8-20-2007
blu-ray is backed by disney... end of story. too many kiddos need to watch their aladdin and mickey for parents to skip out on.
as for HD-quality downloads --- are you kidding me? the iTunes store doesn't even feature standard def antenna quality downloads and they are pretty big files. Blu-Ray discs are 51GB for a reason - SPACE. I have about 100 DVDs - so that would be roughly 300GB of space needed to store them on a computer. HD??? 1-2TB... now imagine downloading that over DSL... yikes.
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trainwrecka said 11:27PM on 8-20-2007
oh... and who wants downloaded movies that you can no longer let people borrow other than movie studios? i don't mean like piracy - i mean like "hey i just watched this great movie last night - you should check it out"
actually i wouldn't be shocked if that is considered piracy with how over-the-top the law is.
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