We have been following many reports lately trying to see what's next in the evolution of the DVD. This article from IGN, has a lot of good information it. Especially for those of us that are trying to understand the battle going on between HD-DVD and the Blu-ray camp. Last Thursday, The Blu-ray consortium met over in Los Angeles and laid down their action plan.
| The consortium expects Blu-ray to piggyback onto DVD and be a gradual replacement, but there won't be the wholesale market shift like we saw with the move from VHS, where people couldn't get away from it fast enough.
JVC Blu-ray prototype "We don't want to compromise on the requirements for players," said Michael Fidler, senior vice president of the Blu-ray Disc Group at Sony. "We don't want a solution that's just good for a few years out, we want to look five to ten years down the road." |
There's a lot more information to be found over at IGN, in the article written by Andy Patrizio. What is especially interesting is, they tell a little about the copy protection measures being looked at. One scheme involves a replaceable key. If one key is compromised, as was the case with DVD, that key will be discarded and a new one generated. DeCSS kind of gave the industry a wake up call as to what can happen, when you put all your eggs in one basket. Of course, as we reported earlier, Steve (Pixar) Jobs is sweating bullets and wants to hold up this new HD tech until a 'pirate proof' system is developed. Well, we sure as heck don't want that, as it is doubtful that such a system is possible - just ask SunnComm. Hopefully, it will generate some more discussion here and of course the best place for that is our Satellite, HD-TV, Blu-ray and HD-DVD Forum.
Source: IGN
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What Mick Fidler said was true. All the movie discs could be jammed packed full of the best quality video, sound and extras.
HD-DVD group = more "here and now" easy-to-migrate DVD tech for content producers, to get the ball rolling more immediate-term. NEC and Toshiba major proponents. No recorders planned yet. Hmmmmmm. Non-interest factor very high given this information, personally.
All in all, it looks like DVD (in its various incarnations) will be with us for a looong time to come. No doubt the huge growth in the hardwre (and software) market is due to catalysts like DeCSS.
Blu Ray, in particular, seems like it will be lockdown central. I hope they don't expect to sell much hardware (or software) with their content protection ideas. Because they won't. Especially with DVD out...
Still, I see potential for a great PC back-up/archival format somewhere here, though...I hope. As well potential for a smaller video camera disc format. Again, I hope. That's something we need. Not a yet-more-crappy-interim-movie format.
DVD is here. How many will be willing to buy into a high definition format, one wonders. I just don't see it becoming popular in the forseeable. Plus, with storage capacities moving like they are, I see Blu Ray's 50GB per disc as a very short-term strategy to get the format out quick to standardise on their tech. This is understandable since everyone wants to claim ownership of new markets. But these capacities will be laughable in a short period. HD-DVD appears particularly anaemic in this department...
As a sidenote:
TDK's hard coat thingy that can't be written on with a permanent marker sounds fascinating. I wonder how hard this hardcoat is, tho.
But perhaps most important of all is that both Blu-ray and HD-DVD are a waste of time without an HD-TV and it'll be a loooong time before these babies are common place and screens are a sensible price...
Just give it to some five year old, you'll find out real quick!
BOTH Blu-ray and HD-DVD (AOD) are here and now. They are both waiting for people to consume.
They are exaggerating Blu-ray advantages while ignoring their disadvantages though that is a profitable thing for them to do.
