19.4.04
Tech News
Apparently there's a race for the DVD-replacement format already.
Key grafs:
With all these alternatives, there's a "very good chance" that there won't be one successor to the DVD, but several, says Sistla. The Blu-ray may dominate Japan, the cheaper EVD the rest of Asia, and the HD-DVD could be the format of choice in the United States and Europe.
...
Also, what made the DVD popular isn't just the quality advantage over videotape, but also the addition of special features. So far, Kleinman hasn't seen any similar must-have advantage planned for the new formats.
If there's a pent-up demand for a new disc, it's probably on the recording side, Kleinman believes. There's no cheap or easy way to record HDTV broadcasts, something recordable versions of the new discs would address.
Sony is already selling a Blu-ray recorder for HDTV satellite broadcasts in Japan.
Basically, what happened here is the movie and personal electronics industries fucked themselves by getting the DVD so right. It's just too good a product, and very quickly achieved universality because it's high-quality, portable, clearly superior to the previous alternative, and now, easily copied. Hence, there is no wonder that it has become the universal standard - it just makes sense.
Being fucked by themselves into a low-margin (well, not really very low - lower margin, and still decreasing) format that everyone loves, the studios and consumer electronics makers (the big ones, at least) now wish to turn around and...fuck you again, with multiple formats, replacement purchases, and several years of absurdly high margins on products. Back to $500 players, or more, and say hello to a new price floor of $40 movies.
Eh-eh. Not happening. They fucked themselves, and Kleinman in the article gets it right - nobody, save for hard-core audiophiles (a large market, but not one worthy of executing a total format change for) will want these things, unless they do something new and better. Recording HDTV - that is what they'll do. Replacing DVDs, they will not. DVDs were quite clearly and for many, many reasons very much better than tapes - these new DVDs version 1.2 are marginally better, maybe, for some people, some of the time. Not a compelling sell. A format change is still several years off.
The only possibilty for these things to catch on is if they become must-haves for HDTV recording, the new VCRs - a real possibilty. Even then, however, they become mass consumer commodities, have to be backwards-compatible, and very quickly are merely value-added DVDs.
Key grafs:
With all these alternatives, there's a "very good chance" that there won't be one successor to the DVD, but several, says Sistla. The Blu-ray may dominate Japan, the cheaper EVD the rest of Asia, and the HD-DVD could be the format of choice in the United States and Europe.
...
Also, what made the DVD popular isn't just the quality advantage over videotape, but also the addition of special features. So far, Kleinman hasn't seen any similar must-have advantage planned for the new formats.
If there's a pent-up demand for a new disc, it's probably on the recording side, Kleinman believes. There's no cheap or easy way to record HDTV broadcasts, something recordable versions of the new discs would address.
Sony is already selling a Blu-ray recorder for HDTV satellite broadcasts in Japan.
Basically, what happened here is the movie and personal electronics industries fucked themselves by getting the DVD so right. It's just too good a product, and very quickly achieved universality because it's high-quality, portable, clearly superior to the previous alternative, and now, easily copied. Hence, there is no wonder that it has become the universal standard - it just makes sense.
Being fucked by themselves into a low-margin (well, not really very low - lower margin, and still decreasing) format that everyone loves, the studios and consumer electronics makers (the big ones, at least) now wish to turn around and...fuck you again, with multiple formats, replacement purchases, and several years of absurdly high margins on products. Back to $500 players, or more, and say hello to a new price floor of $40 movies.
Eh-eh. Not happening. They fucked themselves, and Kleinman in the article gets it right - nobody, save for hard-core audiophiles (a large market, but not one worthy of executing a total format change for) will want these things, unless they do something new and better. Recording HDTV - that is what they'll do. Replacing DVDs, they will not. DVDs were quite clearly and for many, many reasons very much better than tapes - these new DVDs version 1.2 are marginally better, maybe, for some people, some of the time. Not a compelling sell. A format change is still several years off.
The only possibilty for these things to catch on is if they become must-haves for HDTV recording, the new VCRs - a real possibilty. Even then, however, they become mass consumer commodities, have to be backwards-compatible, and very quickly are merely value-added DVDs.
perma-linky posted by jkd : 23:57
