Report: DVD format war to run another 18 months

Forrester Research says most consumers will wait until prices fall and conflict between warring formats to be resolved.

The story "Report: DVD format war to run another 18 months" published September 25, 2007 at 8:07 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from Reuters expires after 30 days.

[bobby_brady]

Hollywood wants HD or Blueray because of new DRM restrictions

Not because of capacity or "bonus material". I believe nobody will really care about the new format to matter much except for the diehards. Current DVD picture quality is good enough for the average consumer and how many people really watch the "bonus material"?

[J_Satch]

Doesn't matter

Technology marches on. Current DVD will go away and one of the HD formats will win, regardless of DRM or what's "good enough".

[mistakemaker]

This "diehard" agrees

Even as a "diehard" who likes good quality, I agree that it is primarily DRM restrictions that are behind the studios' push for HD video. It is a painfully low percentage of SD DVDs that have a picture quality that matches what even a SD DVD can provide. Since the studios don't even think the picture quality is that important to the sales of current SD DVDs, how can anyone believe they really care about the higher quality of HD video outside of a few niche markets/audiences?

[Heebee Jeebies]

No. That is a very small part of it...

Hollywood wants these new formats mostly because it allows them to sell to all of the lemming consumers new copies of the movies and TV shows that they bought on DVD. This is pure greed nothing more nothing less.

As for extras well DVD offers a lot of interesting features that were at least by Hollywood never touched like multiple angles and the like. I really don't expect to see any more use of the "special" features in the new format unless it can be tied to a way to charge twice as much for the disc or in some other way tie in to a service that costs money.

I would also like to point out that only shows (TV Shows) shot over the last 5 years (at best) have the needed resolution to make proper use of these new formats and HD. Movies shot on film are in the same box, the studios can claim anything they want, but they can't add detail and resolution to a film based movie.

The whole Blu-ray/HD-DVD thing as well as HD TV in general was done for two reasons only. To make money and to screw the consumer. The picture quality of HD over standard Def is simply not all that great and it really does very little in making a program or movie better.

However, Hollywood gets to resell you all of the movies and TV shows you have already bought on DVD, because the lemming consumers will buy anything that they are told to. The electronics makers get to sell expensive electronics that have really large profit margins, like DVD players that now sell for less than $100. And the US Government gets to auction off the broadcast spectrum freed up by the ending over the air SD broadcasts to help pay for Bushy Boys joke of a war.

What do we get? We get to empty our wallets and get very little in return.

Robert

[OscarWeb]

Not exactly.

Hollywood wants a new format because DVD sales have dropped. It's all about money, not DRM restrictions. They know that DRM can and will be cracked in a short amount of time.

[krazyken44]

Hmmm I agree

I don't care about the bonus material, or capacity. I rather like the old DVD's; they look fine on my good old regular TV.
Cost of new DVD products is foolishly high and like computer hardware, I don't buy it till it's at least a year old, stable, reliable. This DVD fight is why I won't buy one.
DRM's don't, or won't work for long cause there will always be piracy, so why don't they stop trying to kill with this type of technology. Some body always finds away around this anti-piracy crap, so give up.

[ArbitraryThinker]

Story inaccurate, success metric quoted already met

The story incorrectly says "A stand-alone Blu-ray player sells for about $500, while HD DVD players cost about $400"
and then states "Blu-ray needs to offer a viable hardware model at the $250 price point by Christmas 2007".

In fact HD DVD players already MSRP for under $300 and retail for $250. The $400 quoted in the story is 25% higher than the actual MSRP and 37% higher than typical retail price.

I have to question if the author performed even the most basic research on the topic, or simply took inaccurate quotes from Forrester verbatim. If an analyst (Forrester) has picked sides (Blu-ray) they have a vested interest in the outcome and should be treated as an advocate. This means the reporter has a responsibility to double check anything presented as fact.

[WJeansonne]

I agree

The reporter for this story is spinning the facts or is ignorant of the facts and is trying to make HD DVD look a little a bit cheaper than Blu-ray, when it fact it's 100% cheaper than Blu-ray players. What a joke!

[jimmymist]

A HD/BLU-RAY Player

I will buy neither of these formats untill this silly war ends and a dual-format DVD player comes out. This is just stupid.. and bad business.. to force consumers to upgrade and lock us into your movie line while competing studios use a differnce format. Methinks this will increase movie piracy exponentially as this format war heats up.

[richto]

Like the LG one?

You mean like the LG dual format player than came out months ago?

[krazyken44]

I am

Not buying into it either. I won't buy either untill this is settled.
Let's say this if they wany to fight they aren't getting my money.

[David Kelson]

BLU-RAY

SIMPLE SOLUTION FOR ME. I PURCHASED ONE OF EACH FORMAT
AND IT WAS STILL HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS CHEAPER THAN THE LG
COMBO PLAYER. BY THE TIME THE DUST SETTLES I WILL HAVE
WATCHED SCORES OF MOVIES IN BOTH FORMATS. DAVID

[markdoiron]

Well ...

On the surface your answer (purchase two players) sounds reasonable. However, eventually both players will break. And most of your money won't have been tied up in the players, but rather in the videos themselves. If one format totally loses out (ala Betamax), then you lose big-time because of this format war. You'll be stuck with videos that you can no longer play. So, while you might not like the price of a dual-format player (I don't either, BTW), the success of them is the best for all of us consumers.

--mark d.

[sanenazok]

I agree, even with the bad metrics

Oh boy maybe the marketing (I mean research) company used stupid measurements, but I for one will buy EITHER Bluray OR HDDVD once the price of an internal (sata or ide) player for a desktop computer reaches $99. Right now these cost about $500.

[jc4691]

I'm with you.

I'm waiting for the combo bluray/hddvd burners to go down to $50. Guess I'll be waiting a bit longer :(

[mastamusicdj]

Have you looked into this

Have you tried using an X-Box HD-DVD player with you PC, if you check ebay it isnt rare to see one under $150 and they work great as a playback device as long as you have the correct hardware to power HD video and HD playback software like power DVD ultra. Im using one with my vista 64 bit build attached to my HDTV and it looks amazing in full 1080P.

P.S. im pretty sure vista has built in support for the drive.

[Dan Reno]

I wish it were going to be that easy...

Sanenazok,

I'm with you; Just biding my time until the price of a HD optical
drive drops enough to be affordable. Unfortunately, it looks like
it's not going to be as easy as buying a cheap one, and slapping
it into your computer.

The brainiacs at the movie studios have come up with something
more vicious than Macrovision and CSS: HDCP.

From the little nuggets I have been able to piece together, it
looks like High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) is
going to go much, much further than simply encrypting the
content on a disc.

First, any unlicensed equipment will not be able to display HD
content. Sounds reasonable so far; There are similar restrictions
on DVD equipment manufacturers & DVD software developers.

Second, your software (including the OS), your video card, and
your monitor all have to be HDCP compliant. If even one item in
that chain is not compliant, your HD content will either be
*downsampled* to standard definition, or not displayed at all.

(Like that nice 22 inch LCD monitor you just bought for your
computer? Sorry, you can't watch your HD-DVD version of
"Napoleon Dynamite" on it since it's not HDCP compliant. Thanks
guys!)

Third, the studios have a mechanism for "revoking" HD drives
that have had their encryption keys compromised.

The idea is that, *if* you hack your drive, and *if* the encryption
keys are made public knowledge, the studios can alter the
encryption on all newly minted discs that will render the new
discs to be unplayable on *your* optical drive, and *your* drive
alone.

There is still significant speculation as to whether the studios
can target a single optical drive, or have to revoke an entire
brand, or perhaps a certain model of drives.

That leads to the possibility that a law-abiding HD citizen could
get swept up in a overly broad "revocation" crackdown, and end
up having a nice high-definition doorstop, or in the case of a
internal drive, a nice high-definition paperweight.

So, do you really want to buy that "cheap" HD optical drive now?
I sure don't, since I'll most likely have to buy a new video card &
monitor.

And what the heck gives the studios the right to "revoke" my
drive? As far as I'm concerned, it would the same as a filthy hack
from Universal Studios coming into my house and taking away
my HD-DVD player, claiming I've violated the licensing terms of
the player.

I have honestly never seen such a consumer unfriendly product
in the history of consumer electronics.

What do you guys think?