HD DVD: Just another brick in the wall of defunct formats

Peace in our time

They're all born with the best of intentions, but only the strong survive.

Formats come and go. Some are barely noticed, and some die a slow, painful death. So now we can all breathe a sigh of relief that the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD was comparatively brief--unless you're on the losing side, stuck with a slowpoke player and a collection of HD DVD discs. I've already heard from some angry HD DVD supporters. War is tough.

If you're over 35, you probably remember the Betamax vs. VHS wars, which raged from 1975 to the late 1980s, when Sony finally surrendered and started marketing VHS machines.

Like the HD DVD-Blu-ray debacle, manufacturers divided into two camps: Beta had Sony, Toshiba, Sanyo, NEC, Aiwa, and Pioneer. An impressive lineup, but JVC, Matsushita (Panasonic), Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Sharp, and Akai sided with VHS. Even when everyone said Beta was dead as a doornail in the early 1990s (long before the introduction of DVD), the format soldiered on in Japan until 2002.

Pioneer still makes Laserdisc players like this DVL-919

(Credit: Pioneer Electronics)

Some formats wither and die on their own--the Laserdisc wasn't competing against anything but a lack of interest. The LD was a 12-inch optical analog disc alternative to Beta and VHS. It looked like an LP-size CD. Yes, it was a better, higher-quality format than tape, and it still garnered only a small yet fanatical market base among videophiles.

The LD fared better than RCA's crippled-from-the-start CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc) that came out in 1981. Marketed as "SelectaVision," the grooved, LP-like discs were fragile, and they never stood a chance against VHS tape. Still, RCA stuck to its guns for five long years before snuffing the CED in 1986. Ten years later, the Laserdisc was on its last legs when the DVD finally killed it off--the software, that is. Pioneer still sells new DVD-LD players. How's that for customer support?

DVD was unchallenged but for a brief skirmish with Divx (Digital Video Express, not to be confused with DivX). Divx was a DVD rental variant, but cheaper (a disc sold for about $5) and could be viewed only for 48 hours after its first use. Divx players could play DVDs, but standard DVD players couldn't play Divx discs. Disney, Twentieth Century Fox Film, and Paramount Pictures released their movies in the Divx format.

The Audiophiliac poses with an 8-track cartridge.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

Audio has had its own share of format wars, but it also had some remarkably stable formats. The LP has been around for 50-plus years, and you can still play the oldest LPs on a brand-new turntable.

It's starting to look like the LP will outlast the CD. But CDs are a long-running success and likewise universally playable, and most surviving cassettes are serviceable.

Analog tape formats like reel-to-reel, 8-track, and 4-track cartridges still have tiny outposts of devout followers, but the Elcaset came and went so fast, I never even heard it. Digital-tape formats like DAT and the Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) barely made a dent in the public's awareness.

So how will the HD DVD fare in the format history time line? What do you think: a mere blip or an interesting diversion?

[planblove]

I think 10 years from now HD-DVD will be seen as a technological blip. But they won't be forgotten mainly because they can still be used as an upconversion player for regular DVD's. HD-DVD could've been the standout format but I credit Sony for their excellent marketing of Blu-Ray, not to mention taking a big hit up front by including it in the PS3 which right now seems like the most genius idea of all.

R.I.P. HD-DVD.

[smokified]

Why spend the money on an HD-DVD player when you can get an upconverting one for far less?

There was also no way that HD-DVD could've been the standout format. BluRay technology was way ahead. HD-DVD was doomed from the start. Sony has had a good gameplan and even better strategies since the PS2-Xbox war.

[john55440]

Hmmm. I have an old Janis Joplin LP that's in "Quadraphonic" format. I wonder if it's a collector's item.

[NYCbob]

Yes Quad discs are collector's items, though most are not valuable. There is an active aftermarket for these as well as quad decoders. The problem with Quad was that there were even more formats than HDDVD and Bluray. SQ, QS, CD4, Dynaco, and several others. Quad won't make a comeback because we now have Dolby 5.1 and 7.1, SACD and other surround options, all of which are superior to that early technology and easier to implement. Most playback equip is sold with circuitry built in to decode Dolby formats. In the Quad days, most euip was not and a separate converter had to be purchased. Will Quad discs play on Dolby sound systems? try it!

[Superbluescreen]

Actually if you want HD movies now for a bargain you can wait for the fire sale of all remaining HD DVD players and movies. I got a decent player (HD-A30) for $149 and it upconverts all my regular DVDs. Now all I have to do is stop by BBuy or CCity and wait for the blowout on movies. Bluray may have won, but won what? The exclusive right to gouge consumers at $30-35 a movie?? In order to make a big headway they will have to charge maybe $5 more than a regular DVD which isn't going to happen soon.

[Sensible1]

Excellent way of justifying, with snark and venom, your investment in a losing format.

Honestly.

[IsoMedic]

HD-DVD will be a blip because it doesn't offer anything different from Blu-Ray (except for a few internet-enabled features that Blu-Ray will soon match).

The reason other technologies still have followings (small) is because they offered something different than their competitors. Though it never caught on, it found an audience, and sometimes a devoted one. HD-DVD doesn't fit that descriptor.

[videorr]

Technically, Beta did not fair well as a consumer product, but did find success in the broadcast market. And for years, the Navy distributed programming and movies to the fleet on Beta tapes.

[bschmidt25]

A great day for Sony. They lost the Beta battle even though the format was superior but more expensive than VHS. BD is the better format (right now anyways), and the players cost more, but they won this time around. The move to include BD in PS3 was genius on Sony's part, and the move to make the HD-DVD drive an additional cost item for the 360 was really dumb on MS's part.

[smokified]

What is MS going to do now? With no more HD-DVD the xbox has just a standard DVD player in it. That will severely limit the game quality capacity making the PS3 a FAR more superior gaming console on top of the already superior media center console that it already is.

[Sensible1]

"The move to include BD in PS3 was genius on Sony's part, and the move to make the HD-DVD drive an additional cost item for the 360 was really dumb on MS's part."

Only if you forget that everyone who buys a game console necessarily wants a game console -- and does NOT necessarily want to be forced to pay extra for an option they don't really care about.

I can't find the figures, but I'd be willing to bet that since its release, the Xbox 360 has outsold the PS3. Probably for that reason!

It's worth noting that the Wii -- which offers (to the best of my knowledge) neither playback of blu-ray nor playback of HD-DVD -- has handily beaten both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 in sales.

[MikeG8r]

Why was it dumb? MS is just going to replace the HD-DVD external player with a Blu-Ray external player. People who bought the HD-DVD player can switch without having to throw out the whole system. It was actually SMART on their part.

[hparker18]

There's also the last failed format war between DVDA and SACD. Nothing like two competing formats for an enhancement nobody was interested in to make sure everyone lost.

[sanjayb]

For all those crybabies that bought into the HD DVD format and are now complaining, DEAl WITH IT. War sucks. If you were too stupid and invested in HD DVD players and movies, well then it sucks to be you.

War is tough.

[smokified]

whatever moron. Who knew before that HD-DVD was not going to win the format war? Why are people stupid for not knowing something that nobody knew from the start? Were you the one that helped Sony win the format war? The way you talk is as if the rest of the world should bow down to you for some sort of world changing accomplishment.

[gerrrg]

Hey, I have a Laser Disk player from Samsung, 10 years old now. That was above and beyond, better than anything that was available at the time. It still plays movies, CDs and CDR music, plus it can function as a karaoke machine, of which I think it was the karaoke function that made this format endearing to a lot of people.

I know Toshiba waved the white flag this morning, but what if Toshiba and the Chinese manufacturers quietly moved HD-DVD technology into all of their upconverting players without an increase in prices, would anyone notice? That would be subterfuge at its best.

[RYNODog]

What most don't realize is that Blu-ray offers a greater capacity that HD-DVD. For next generation games as well as movies the Blu-ray format offers a greater future than HD-DVD. Finally Sony won one! I bought my PS3 banking of the virtues of a format that had a greater technical life than HD-DVD.

[PiratePete]

It is a shame.

The Blue-Ray machines are crippled, not being able to software upgrade and add to that the fact that Sony is also infamous for the DRMing tactics.

Best thing that could happen for HD-DVD right now is a huge licensing break and mass production of a decent, low-cost HD-DVD burner ($150 of less) with similarily low-cost media($1 or $2 per disk). Flood the PC market with burners and media, recoup your investment and best of all ... make it a huge head ache for Sony.

Imagine being able to download and burn video in HD and play back on your super cheap HD-DVD Player. Who cares if Warner Brothers is only selling Blue Ray if we can download and burn them to HD-DVD.

I refuse to buy from Sony, so I will stick with DVD's it seems.

[A_N_Onymous]

I think a better question is "Who Cares?"

great, Sony won the opportunity to gouge consumers for HD content . . but most consumers just don't care. There are lots of examples of this: most youtube vids are QVGA (320 x 240,) when people "rip" dvds there is almost always a loss of quality (bitrate vice resolution) to squeeze them down to a DVD-R, People using DVR's (who very seldom record at the highest quality because it decreases the amount of shows you can store . . which affects both resolution and quality)

when HD players are as cheap as and more feature rich than the current gen of players . . when the HD movies are consistently under the $10 price point . . and when computer processing power and hard disk capacity makes it as feasible to "rip" the discs . . well, it still won't matter, but at least then the consumer won't be getting gouged for something they don't really need

[Fantastipotamus]

You're honestly comparing youtube videos to Blu-ray and HD-DVD? That's idiotic, they're completely opposite. One's dedicated to getting the best possible picture that you pay for, and the other is for free uploading of movies you take of yourself arguing with other youtube members because they don't like your favorite anime. You can't compare those two.

Also, fyi, the storage capacity and blu-ray drives already exist for the PC world, and video cards (and laptops) are coming with 1080p HDMI output.

The problem more lies with the lack of education regarding HD that the general public has. Lots of folks believe that 1) all the TV's at Best Buy/Circuit City are showing true HD content (and are thusly unimpressed) and 2) just because you paid $1500 for your tv, your cable is automatically HD.

I agree on some points, for it to take off with the mainstream, the prices do need to come down. C|Net is already reporting some some cheaper Blu-Ray players due out this summer, which will finally break the $399 pricepoint set by the PS3.

Personally, I cannot wait to see what game developers can do with the 50 gigabytes of storage a dual-layer BRD offers.

[rtan89]

I think HD-DVD will be just another blip. A worthy attempt, however, the fact is that Blu-Ray received more support from the entertainment industry.

[fhaguru]

thanks for the information, this stuff always confuses me.

[fhaguru]

http://www.onlinefhaservices.com

[darthstupid]

I think people will look back at HD-DVD and realize it was a mistake to have chosen BD. I'm betting BD hardware will end up staying high priced and eventually suffering the same fate of Laser Disc. It will be accepted by a/v elites while most people will stick with DVD. Online downloading will emerge over the next 5-10 years as a real alternative to DVD.

HD-DVD was a format "good enough" for the general public with a finalized feature set that could compete with anything BD offered accept at the highest end. Most folks have TV's smaller than 42" and average quality sound systems. They will never see the benefit of the higher end equipment costs of BD.

Sony and the Blu-Ray consortium did a fantastic job of marketing and in the end I think that is what killed HD-DVD. Toshiba never sold it to the public. Sony spent a lot of money on big glitzy commercials that got BD on the minds of people. Toshiba and the DVD Forum should have done the same.

Sadly this all could have been avoided if the two camps would have spent more time hammering out an agreement to join both technologies.

[minimalist]

People forget 15 dollar DVD's and 35 dollar players are a very recent development in the history of the DVD (the last 2 years). Two years after their introduction in 1996, DVD players were still selling for 350-500 dollars. At the time, DVD's themselves routinely sold for 30-40 dollars. Yet they became mainstream because they were a standardized format that people could understand and trust to be around for a long time. More people bought them, prices dropped and then even more people bought them, and so on and so on.

Now that HD-DVD is gone and Blu-ray is left standing, this is exactly what we have... a standardized format. If more people adopt, prices will come down and more people will adopt, just as it happened with DVD. I can't understand how anybody could think prices will be kept artificially high when there is so much more money to be made by selling to mass numbers of people.

There is no standardization in the download or streaming market so people who claim downloadable video will eclipse HD media seriously underestimate the hassles associated with downloadable content and seriously overestimate the average consumers patience for dealing with that mess. When content providers are willing to sell their media in a standardized, un-drm'ed and flexible format like mp3, then we can talk about downloadable video becoming mainstream.

[jxballard]

Blu-ray is definitely a better media than HD-DVD for gaming but I'm blown away by how expensive movies and games will become after this is a standard. Of course every new technology works this way and I guess we'll have to live with it until something new comes along.

http://www.thegamejunction.blogspot.com
http://www.theaquariumkit.com

[hfjacinto]

Reading about all these old formats made me do some research on the subject and I found a great website that covers the old Video formats but stops at DVDs. Read for some history of where we came to where we are now and btw format wars have been around for as long as video and audio have been around.

http://www.totalrewind.org/mainhall.htm

[NYCbob]

Hasn't anybody noticed? I did a Linda Blair headspin when I discovered who really owns Blu-Ray -- Everybody thinks its Sony, and attributes the war victory to the very late announcement by Warner Brothers that they were going exclusively with Blu-Ray. Sony owns only 30 percent of the patent - the rest is owned by Panasonic, Pioneer and...wait for it...Warner Brothers! So why did Warner wait so long? Why were they playing around with HD DVD and paying royalties, when they could GET royalties, pay themselves with every Blu-Ray disc they produced? If Warner had announced upfront that their immense library and successful features would only be available in Blu-Ray, might we not have had such a protracted, consumer baiting war?

[Ben_140]

As with all new technology I prefer to sit on the back burner and wait for the dust to settle before upgrading any equipment. this whole HD thing seems to be just a way of making everyone buy a HD television and HD receiver and HD player, which to me seems pointless when the public seem quite satisfied with the low quality.MPEG compression that we see on most of the digital television channels. I myself still use A CRT wide-screen television and watch a lot of Video in DivX format straight from my laptop using S-Video, of course lack of money dictates when new technology is necessary.