Where Did HDDVD Go Wrong

[csschrot]

Joe, I would disagree with you on the Combo Disks. I don't think it was a fall back if the failed. I truely think they were thinking of the families like me that have a dvdplayer built into our van. It was nice to watch the HD version at home and then be able to enjoy on the long trips as the wife drives. Something I wish blu-ray would adopt.

Anyway they may have had problems (none for me) but you can't say Blu-ray has been perfect.

Shawn

 

[vurbano]

I think Combos were a STUPID idea and only raised disc prices and hurt sales. I have said this from day ONE.

 

[mike123abc]

HD DVD should never have existed to start with, and I believe after this standards committees will be more careful. HD DVD did not have the votes to win the standard. Sony and the rest of the BD folks on the DVD forum refused to vote in the HD-DVD standard. So, they changed the rules of voting to get it approved. What that meant was a large block of consumer electronics companies were not on board with the approval. If all the big CE folks were against it, it should have told them something.

The BD folks were tired of having to go through comittee to get everything done since the comittee was filled up with companies they did not want to deal with (Member List). So, they formed their own consortium and did BD outside the DVD Forum. It is not like both formats went before the forum and were voted on, instead the forum voted to approve the only standard they had on the table by changing the voting rules.

So, you end up with Toshiba and Microsoft against the rest of the CE world. The BD group had already locked up the software (why do you think Sony bought the MGM library, not to mention already owning a major studio). Toshiba and MS had no content except what they could bribe/buy. HD-DVD did remarkably well (with lots of money) getting software for their player. But the CE companies want to make money on electronics. DVD days are over, how do you compete with $40 Chinese players? So, you were stuck with Toshiba HD-DVD players, and yes eventually a Chinese player.

All the big names consumers know and love (Toshiba had really fallen in the US, remember they were in trouble from selling sub making machinery to the USSR) were doing BD. Having Sony Pictures, and MGM (later managed by Fox) in their pocket, it did not take much to get more studios on BD.

 

[JoeSp]

Joe, I would disagree with you on the Combo Disks. I don't think it was a fall back if the failed. I truely think they were thinking of the families like me that have a dvdplayer built into our van. It was nice to watch the HD version at home and then be able to enjoy on the long trips as the wife drives. Something I wish blu-ray would adopt.

Anyway they may have had problems (none for me) but you can't say Blu-ray has been perfect.

Shawn

I agree, BD has not been perfect but in order for HD-DVD to play from behind to win they did have to be perfect and they were not.

 

[vurbano]

BD should never have existed to start with.

 

[akodoreign]

BD should never have existed to start with.

Yeah that was Sony being rebellious to get their way. Still a little shocked that another Sony format didn't fail. Most of their previous ones have

 

[vurbano]

Yeah that was Sony being rebellious to get their way. Still a little shocked that another Sony format didn't fail. Most of their previous ones have

give it time

 

[Ronnie-]

BD should never have existed to start with.

 

[diogen]

The BD folks were tired of having to go through comittee to get everything done since the comittee was filled up with companies they did not want to deal with (Member List). So, they formed their own consortium and did BD outside the DVD Forum. It is not like both formats went before the forum and were voted on, instead the forum voted to approve the only standard they had on the table by changing the voting rules.

So, you end up with Toshiba and Microsoft against the rest of the CE world. The BD group had already locked up the software (why do you think Sony bought the MGM library, not to mention already owning a major studio). Toshiba and MS had no content except what they could bribe/buy. HD-DVD did remarkably well (with lots of money) getting software for their player. But the CE companies want to make money on electronics. DVD days are over, how do you compete with $40 Chinese players? So, you were stuck with Toshiba HD-DVD players, and yes eventually a Chinese player.

You can look at the same events from a different angle...

Having lost the DVD war to Toshiba, Sony started developing the BD standard before the turn of the century. In 2003 they released their new BD player in Japan.
Where Sony was really inventive, is when they decided to "buy" studios' exclusivity (nothing like this was done in the DVD times). And this way they attempted to stall all DVD Forum activities (while not offering the BD format for approval!!!) to develop a hidef DVD format. What is hardly ever mentioned, Toshiba was chairing the DVD Forum at that time and the stalling technics of Sony & Co. failed.

Studios were not behaving like a herd of sheep, either. Under pressure, Sony had to make some concessions: forget about MPEG-2 only and embrace new codecs (they would love to have VC-1 non-existent), accept new audio codecs, consider interactivity, etc. But between two evils - Sony and Microsoft - studios stuck with Sony.

This is all history now. One day it will be written in more details.
But there were no angels in this war: every single player would cut the throat of the other for a buck without hesitation. Sony just out-marketted HD...
And the jury is still out whether this victory isn't pyrrhic for the BD gang.

Diogen.

 

[vurbano]

You can look at the same events from a different angle...

Having lost the DVD war to Toshiba, Sony started developing the BD standard before the turn of the century. In 2003 they released their new BD player in Japan.
Where Sony was really inventive, is when they decided to "buy" studios' exclusivity (nothing like this was done in the DVD times). And this way they attempted to stall all DVD Forum activities (while not offering the BD format for approval!!!) to develop a hidef DVD format. What is hardly ever mentioned, Toshiba was chairing the DVD Forum at that time and the stalling technics of Sony & Co. failed.

Studios were not behaving like a herd of sheep, either. Under pressure, Sony had to make some concessions: forget about MPEG-2 only and embrace new codecs (they would love to have VC-1 non-existent), accept new audio codecs, consider interactivity, etc. But between two evils - Sony and Microsoft - studios stuck with Sony.

This is all history now. One day it will be written in more details.
But there were no angels in this war: every single player would cut the throat of the other for a buck without hesitation. Sony just out-marketted HD...
And the jury is still out whether this victory isn't pyrrhic for the BD gang.

Diogen.

Good post.

 

[akodoreign]

Good post.

You know what is said. "History is written by the Victors "

 

[mike123abc]

No doubt Sony was gunning to replace DVD with something it could control. But, they did it the smart way by getting software lined up. They did whatever the studios wanted to get their business and exclusivity. Owning their own studio was the first step. Being in the consortium buying MGM a brilliant ploy. This gave them Fox (Fox got to manage the releases from MGM). Disney they gave all the content protection they demanded. Warner made money via patents with each system so did not really matter.

Sony could not block the HD-DVD adoption by itself. Sony was just one vote. But, they had lined up enough companies to block the vote for a while. Toshiba, MS, & Co are the ones that got the rules changed to allow the vote in of HD-DVD. Yes both Sony and Toshiba were doing it for themselves. Sony had learned its lesson and took steps to gain control.

I am not saying Sony was saintly here. They played the game to win from well before it started. They knew what lost them the DVD battle. Sony bought the content needed to win. Toshiba the same, wanted to get the revenue from the new standard, and did what it needed to to win the forum vote.

 

[rad]

Just a question, why is it always Sony this and Sony that for Blu-Ray? IIRC the Blu-Ray association has Matsushita, Pioneer, Philips, Thomson, LG Electronics, Hitachi, Sharp, Samsung, and Sony as their members. Are folks saying that none of these other companies have nothing to gain and have no say in the "war"?

 

[navychop]

I've seen it posted that Panasonic actually has more Blu-ray patents than Sony. I wonder who will get most of the royalties, though.

 

[akodoreign]

Just a question, why is it always Sony this and Sony that for Blu-Ray? IIRC the Blu-Ray association has Matsushita, Pioneer, Philips, Thomson, LG Electronics, Hitachi, Sharp, Samsung, and Sony as their members. Are folks saying that none of these other companies have nothing to gain and have no say in the "war"?

Because it is primarily Sony's war. PS3 the number 1 seller of blue ray players.

In reality it is a war between Sony vs MS/Toshiba. But anyway it goes MS wins. VC-1.

 

[diogen]

I believe that for some reason (internet, probably) we had a front row seat at this event referred to as "format war".
In reality, this is how it always was, is and will be played in big business where "decency" in our layman terms is the
biggest curse and never applies. We just got to see this in all its glory for the first time.

That was the only point I was trying to make.

Diogen.

 

[JoeSp]

People blame Sony because of the PS3. Sony used the PS3 by its inclusion of a BD player to encourage with other incentives studio support. It apparently has worked. As for the chicken or the egg, that really is a moot point now.

 

[akodoreign]

People blame Sony because of the PS3. Sony used the PS3 by its inclusion of a BD player to encourage with other incentives studio support. It apparently has worked. As for the chicken or the egg, that really is a moot point now.

Bingo +1

 

[Stan Sherman]

I blame Microsoft. They should have integrated an HD drive in the XBox 360 as Sony did with Blu-ray and the PS3.

 

[akodoreign]

I blame Microsoft. They should have integrated an HD drive in the XBox 360 as Sony did with Blu-ray and the PS3.

They would have had to delay production and raise the cost of the box. They wanted the head start on Sony.

They released the HD-DvD drive as part of the contract with Toshiba. MS was pretty smart hedging their bets this way.

Now the only real winner in this war is MS with there VC-1 codec.