Blu-ray Supporters Fire Back

[rjcc]

From HD Beat (http://www.hdbeat.com/2005/09/29/blu-ray-answers/) :

In an interview with CDRinfo.com, Frank Simonis of Philips answered a few of the questions posed by Microsoft in an interview with Toms Hardware yesterday.

Main points made:

- Blu-ray technology was the first to introduce a hybrid disc containing a movie in both SD and HD on the same side
- "Managed copy" is not format specific, the AACS DRM used by both HD-DVD and Blu-ray enables managed copy and network streaming
- Blu-ray has the potential to be as cheap as DVD's are now, in 3-4 years
- There is no reason why Chinese DVD manufacturers cannot join the Blu-ray association and manufacture Blu-ray players as well (they have announced plans to provide HD-DVD players already)

The full story on CDR Info (http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=15145)

[Goronmon]

Not to sound all anti-Sony. But doesn't this come across as them basically confirming what Toms said, but adding the "but that could change in the future." line to everything?

[bapenguin]

Interesting. Intel/MS's argument basically said Blu-Ray claims to have a lot of this stuff, but they haven't SHOWN it to anyone. As long as BR can prove that they do have hybrid disc support, 50 GB discs, managed copy support, etc then basically it comes down to storage...and Blu-Ray wins in that department.

[Ernst_Jager]

After reading this article (http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/microsoft-hd-dvd.ars) I understand Microsoft's decision much clearer.

[Roc Ingersol]

Not to sound all anti-Sony. But doesn't this come across as them basically confirming what Toms said, but adding the "but that could change in the future." line to everything?
That's what I got out of it.

[kickmybum]

After reading everything I hope HDDVD pulls through, Phillips response doesn't really defend their position. Especially when they only respond to a fraction of MS/Intell's complaints about Blue Ray.

[Zeal]

Interesting. Intel/MS's argument basically said Blu-Ray claims to have a lot of this stuff, but they haven't SHOWN it to anyone. As long as BR can prove that they do have hybrid disc support, 50 GB discs, managed copy support, etc then basically it comes down to storage...and Blu-Ray wins in that department.

What? I didn't see Sony prove anything. It also comes down to manufacturing costs, storage, drive speed and a lot of other factors.

Unless Sony can step up and properly refuate Microsoft's claims, I don't see how Blue-Ray wins in any department. It's a disc that offers basically the same amount of storage space (if not less), reads/writes slower, costs more to manufacture and may have copy-protection issues.

Also, if Blu-Ray does support 50GB discs, it really isn't much of an advantage, in my opinion. This is based on the fact that HD-DVD's 30 gigs of space is more than enough, offers a faster read speed, and can be multi-layered to add additional space.

Also, this is another major reason:

If 50GB disc support isn't nailed by then, then Blu-ray on the consumer player-level will weigh in at 25GB. Toshiba is now pointing to 30GB as the standard HD DVD disc size, and they claim to have perfected the manufacturing process already. So we can expect 30GB HD DVD support at launch. Additionally, HD DVD supports hybrid discs now, while Blu-ray's solution has yet to be demonstrated.

[KarmaGhost]

As I said before, the waiting game continues...

[Heretic Machine]

I'm sorry, but both formats are extremly premature when it comes to the movie market. As far as data disks go, ok, and even console games. But both the PC market and the movie market take a LONG time to shift formats, we are just starting to see wide acceptance of PC games being distributed on DVD's.

New formats should be a long way off if they expect any kind of success.

[Claus DuBois]

................we are just starting to see wide acceptance of PC games being distributed on DVD's.....

It might be more appropriate to call if "publishers' resistance". Most surveys I've seen clearly show the PC users already widely accept the DVD format and are quite frustrated that publishers continue to use CD format for distributions. I call it "publisher resistance" because it seems that maybe the only reason they continue to distribute primarily in CD format is so they can try to gig you another $5 to $10 bucks for the DVD version.

[bapenguin]

I'm sorry, but both formats are extremly premature when it comes to the movie market. As far as data disks go, ok, and even console games. But both the PC market and the movie market take a LONG time to shift formats, we are just starting to see wide acceptance of PC games being distributed on DVD's.

New formats should be a long way off if they expect any kind of success.

I agree there really isn't room for this in the movie market. I think they really should push it on home PC users for backup and data storage purposes. Hell even enterprise solutions would be amazing. The fact that you could get reliable data backup on a mostly indestructable source is huge. Get the foothold in there, then grow slowly in the movie segmant.

[51|RandoM]

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray both rely upon two things: Hi-Def Televisions becoming the norm, instead of the exception and production houses switching to Hi-Def production.

Before those two become common, there is no real market for a new, higher density format.

What we're seeing now is the different camps trying to stake their claim on the next de-facto standard.

[mister_slim]

So, the Managed Copy mode that brought MS and Intel onboard is what pushed some of the movie studios to Blu-Ray. Interesting consequence.