Comments on: Betamax to Blu-ray: Sony format winners, losers

Sony's had more than of its share of winners, the CD for example--and losers--think Betamax.

[shahin2311]

3.5" floppy disk

Steve,
Great article!! I believe that MiniDiscs didn't catch on in America because there weren't (at least not any cheap) minidisc recorders. Had Sony released those shortly after the release of minidisc players, then I think it might have caught on. CD burners were getting more & more popular, so why get a format that I can't burn my favorite songs too. Oh well.

[research1st]

There are several computer based media formats that have went the wayside....
5 1/4 floppys, 8" floppys, several tape formats, etc, etc. At one time there was even Paper Tape. WOW!!
Failed and obsolete data storage formats are nothing new.

I was an early adopter of LaserDiscs, remember those 12" shiny discs...?
Still have my LaserDisc player hooked up to my system and on occaision will pull out an old LD to play,
it also makes an excellent CD player!!

I've held off on the Blu-Ray player purchase... I don't buy many DVD's, but rent heavily. I've been a Netflix member since their ealry inception. I learned my lesson with the LaserDisc purchases and found that most movies are not worth watching more than once anyway. It would be nice to have that crystal ball to see where Blu-Ray is at in 2, 3. or 5 years.
But then again it's probably safe to say that Blu-Ray, DVD's, CD's etc. will eventually be replaced by somehting else..... it's just a matter of when and whether it something to really worry about.....

[Native5280]

I swam in Sony's MD pool for quite a while. In fact, I purchased an MD player for my car and had stacks upon stacks of either mix MDs or MDs that I recorded from CDs. I relished the format, the ability to remove or replace a single track, reorder a previously recorded disc, and so on.

What I think turned a lot of people off from MD wasn't necessarily the price of the players (although they weren't cheap) but the impression that the sound quality was bad. Many journalists reported the first MDs did have poor sound quality, but by the time I started waving the MD flag the quality was better than MP3 and indistinguishable from CD (to my less than audiophile hearing, anyway).

It was actually the iPod (not a CD burner) that convinced me to give up the MD format. Why would I could carry 500 discs when I could carry the same content in something the size of an MD player?

Laserdiscs were very cool. Here in Denver, LaserLand was THE PLACE to buy (or rent) LDs. The quality was far superior to VHS and most LDs presented the video in "letterbox" (when most VHS tapes didn't). However, inexpensive players (like the Pioneer I owned) only let you do do certain "tricks" (like frame-by-frame advance) on expensive CAV discs. My player couldn't freeze frame on a CLV disc.

While I still have my entire LD collection, comparing DVDs to LDs today, DVD wins.

[Xanthus179]

Apparently I've gotten into the habit of depending on Sony to help me upgrade my media collection, or at least their consoles. My first DVD player was my PS2. I bought a PS3 shortly after they came out, and I am loving Blu-Ray, as well as the up conversion on my DVDs.

I guess, therefore, I can't really speak for the standalone players. All of my players have been multipurpose.

[DJOmega6]

Blu-Ray will be around for quite some time to come. It will be replaced by digital downloads one day, but not until broadband is more efficient, uncapped, and easier to access. Still a lot of people who don't have access to broadband services if they live in rural areas.

[NYCgoalie]

- DJOmega is SPOT ON!! On top of which...Blu-Ray players are getting cheaper all the time and new units are being released every month. As people upgrade slowly, these new players will be what they will be purchasing. And now I'm starting to see PC's with Blu-Ray readers/recorders; some for under 100-bucks (on sale).

Sony would be smart if they were to license Blu-Ray music CD's. You could have one disc with audophile qulity tracks, along with high quality MP3 files, along with videos, lyrics and other stuff (ringtones, wallpaper, etc.). If you can produce those and sell them for $10-$12 a piece, many people would buy those.

[mw1207]

There are blu-ray disc music-only discs. See the following reviews, for some examples: http://www.blu-ray.com/search/?action=search&section=movies&keyword=acoustic

[lmychajluk]

Let's not forget about the various flavors of MemoryStick. Does anyone besides Sony even use them?

[hameiri]

Well, if you just look at the Betamax/VHS and HD-DVD/Blu-ray wars, I think you could figure out who would win with just one feature; capacity.

If you remember, Beta was the better quality machine at first. But, what people never seemed to understand was that it was only better in the original speed... one hour. With VHS the standard speed was two hour, but that could have a movie on it, and the movie studios jumped on it.

So, Beta increased their capacity to 3 hour, but anything Beta could do, so could VHS. They jumped to 4 hour, and now quality was no different. By the time the Beta 5 and VHS 6 came out, the writing was on the wall. Then, in a stunning move, Beta began making machines that wouldn't record in one hour! I couldn't believe it. That was their claim to quality.

So, anyway. You can see where this is going. Computers and entertainment needs more and more capacity all the time. When ever the HD-DVD boosters said "why do you need more capacity?", I could hear the IBM PC creators saying "Why would anyone ever need more than 640K of RAM?".

That, along with the increased bandwidth and the cool name made it clear to me, and I love it. Downloads currently are not of the same quality, and they still take up alot of time and storage. When you can buy a movie, and be sure you won't lose it because of a computer or appliance crash, then maybe it will make the big time. Until then, Blu-ray baby!

[i_am_still_wade]

That is a coincidence. Blu-Ray did NOT win because of capacity. Just before HD DVD died, the DVD forum was working on making generation 1 players work with triple-layer discs. (The beauty of the DVD forum and HD DVD was, in fact, early adopters where never screwed; if it didn't work with all players, it wouldn't come out.) Triple layer discs may never have come out for movies, but 45 GB and 51 GB discs would come out for the computer. HD DVD quite often used the very efficient VC-1 codec. In my informal testing, VC-1 movies looked better than H.264 movies because they were less grainy. And VC-1 still took less space than H.264. With VC-1, HD DVD could support long movies with high quality audio on a 30 GB disc with room to spare. Capacity was NEVER an issue. Anyone who says capacity was an issue with the case is a fanboy or works for the BDA.

Do some research. I am recording the latest episodes of the Simpsons through my cable box's FireWire connection which is required by the FCC to be active. I'm taking the original 720p HD source and re-encoding it into H.264. A 2.5 GB file becomes 750 MB with very little loss of quality. The copy is slightly worse in a few spots. This shows how much smaller a H.264 files can be. Obviously, HD movies are much higher bitrates as they should be. I'm pointing out how much the file shrinks with a different codec. If I took the days to re-encode with my hardware into VC-1, it would be even smaller than that. With movies, capacity was NEVER an issue.

Blu-Ray won because they had more support. Pure and simple. The only electronics company on HD DVD's side was Toshiba and neutral LG. Blu-Ray had Sony and Pioneer and, well pretty much everyone else. Blu-Ray had more money and more influence and more support. Does anyone honestly think ignorant Joe Consumer is saying "Gee, Blu-Ray discs have more capacity than HD DVD, therefore, I'm buying Blu-Ray". Please. Never once did the commercials say "Blu-Ray, because our disc capacity is larger".

[paskunyak]

A few months back a friend and I checked out the various video formats on his new 56" Sony. Blu-Ray is clearly better than hi-def broadcast TV, but only slightly. And both of these are vastly better than anything else, including the now obviously obsolete DVDs. So if you "bought" DVDs, except for workout/instructional ones, you blew a lot of money for nothing. But don't buy Blu-ray discs either, 4k(also known as Ultra High Def) is coming. Maybe not soon, 10 years or more, but it is coming. Video engineers believe it is the digital equivalent of 35mm film and Peter Jackson is one of many advocates. With 4k, and NOT before, we will finally have the video equivalent of audio CDs - truly excellent quality for home use. Can things improve beyond that? Of course, but just like SACD's not catching on, video beyond 4k might not make it either. For example, to go to an IMAX equivalent, would also require a huge screen that just would not fit even in McMansions, let alone regular size homes/apartments. So there may always be room for super high quality at cinemas, and 4k will eventually be the home standard. Question: Why buy a movie no matter the format? How many times are you going to watch it? Rental is the way to go. My big worry is download, where I suspect we will be lucky to get DVD quality. How much compression will they use to make the downloads faster? Watch quality fly out the window in favor of most users preference, convenience. Crappy sounding MP3s instead of CDs just because they are easier to "carry" around on portable players. It is always only the few who are true audio/videophiles. The mass of consumers want ease of use. Look how many nitwits never got their VCR's to stop flashing 12:00!!!

[askj113]

So what are you saying, don't buy any video formats for ten years? As soon as we start buying those, they'll be obsolete too because something better comes along. That's technology for you, you can't just wait and wait because you know things will get better, because they'll always be better next year

[minimalist]

You do realize that DVD has only been about about for 10 years? 10 years is a really long time in terms of consumer electronics upgrades.

And who exactly is going to benefit from 4K in a home market other than the uber-rich who can afford to have a dedicated home theater room with some absurd 100" screen? (and even then I'm not even sure that would be enough to get the full benefit of 4K unless you sat 4 or 5 feet from it)

It already takes a 46 inch screen or bigger for most people to get real benefit from 1080p over 720p. It's hard enough to find space for 50 and 60 inch screens. How big will the 4K screen need to be to get any benefit from the increased resolution and will anyone want something that large in their living room?

[iamwho]

For a format that debuted in 1975 and did not go away (at least in the home market) until 2002, that's some blunder. Better yet, ask the broadcast industry which format they prefer --and still use: Beta or VHS. Even until the very end Sony kept innovating: first Hi-Fi, then SuperBeta --and all VHS could do was copy. VHS' capacity advantage is great --as long as you understand that picture quality sucked when recording at EP speed, which was never the case with BIII speed on L-750 or L-830 tapes. Give VHS credit, though: their brands outmarketed Sony.

I'm curious as to why people keep hating Sony for inventing new formats. (God knows Panasonic has tried, with even less success. DVD-RAM, anyone? How about Philips and the DCC? Toshiba and HD-DVD.) On the faceplate of my PC is a card reader for, counting, 15 formats (some from same family). So, it's okay if XYZ develops a format, but not Sony? Who wrote the law saying the first format to debut wins and no one else gets to try something different? The hatred must be because, even with the failures, Sony has been more successful than most in getting industries to adopt its formats.

[omair-s]

Rightly said...

[minimalist]

New formats can be a good thing, if companies work together to make something that is truly cross market. Formats are supposed to be a way to make consumers more comfortable with giving up their money, knowing that the format might outlive any one CE company or studio.

But Sony still thinks they can use their once impressive market muscle to force people to use "formats" that only they use. That's not a format as much as a blatant money grab and consumers sense it.

UMD? Memory Stick? ATRAC? These aren't formats as much as they are a way to lock you into Sony's ecosystem and force you to give them more money.

[minimalist]

And its not just Sony who is guilty. Look at Apple and Microsoft and Vudu. All of them "sell" you movies now in a digital format that only they use on their respective boxes. Many are stuck on the machines you download them too. Not one of them can be played it on other manufacturers machines.

Without support across the entire CE industry you don;t really have a "format".

[minimalist]

Lets not forget Sony's wonderful proprietary, and bad sounding, audio format they tried to make everyone use instead of mp3 with their early digital music players... ATRAC (otherwise know as ACRAP by some Sony employees who understood it was a bad idea from the beginning)

Just judging from the retail presence though I don't think SACD and Blu-ray are very much alike. At best I recall tiny SACD sections at retail stores containing a couple of dozen titles.

If Blu-ray is as big of a flop as SACD then you'd never know it from the 25-30 foot long section of BD's already available at Best Buy or other retail stores. I think there are a little over a thousand BD's now. The format may not ever be as big as DVD but I'd say it already has significantly more traction that SACD or Minidisc ever dreamed of having in the US.

[paulimusmaximus]

I don't see why people bother buying a bd player anyway unless you have a ps3. I have a philips dvd with upconvert, and the quality is pretty good. I can deal with pretty good quality for $60 rather than great quality for $300. I don't think blu ray is as big as a jump in technology over the dvd as the dvd was over vhs to justify the price. I'm sure I'll own a bd player in the future, but not yet.