Sony hints at Blu-ray, HD-DVD detente.

http://www.digitmag.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=4782

Sony hints at Blu-ray, HD-DVD detente

Thursday 24 Mar 2005 - 15:23

After more than a year of touting Blu-ray as the best technology to
replace DVD for storing high-definition video, a top executive at
Sony, one of Blu-ray's major backers, has opened the door to the
possibility of unifying the format with its arch rival, HD-DVD.

"Listening to the voice of the consumers, having two rival formats is
disappointing and we haven't totally given up on the possibility of
integration or compromise," Ryoji Chubachi, Sony's president-elect,
said at a news conference Thursday in which he discussed the company's
performance and future strategy.

The statement may surprise backers of the rival camps, who have
assembled consortiums of major electronics companies, disc makers and
Hollywood studios to promote the formats in a battle that echoes one
fought a quarter of a century ago between Betamax and VHS.

HD-DVD backers, which include NEC and Toshiba, say HD-DVDs can be
produced for about the same price as DVDs and are backward-compatible
with DVDs and CDs, making the format more convenient for both
consumers and the industry. HD-DVD movie titles, PC drives and players
are all due out by the end of the year.

Sony has steadfastly promoted Blu-ray as a technology that has greater
capacity, saying this makes the format more useful because more
content can be stored on a disc. The technology also has wider support
in the technology industry, although release dates for movie titles
have not yet been announced.

Chubachi's comments mark the second time that a Sony executive has
signalled the possibility of a compromise between the two camps. In
January, Ken Kutaragi, executive deputy president of Sony, said a
format war was not in the public interest and that Sony had not ruled
out the possibility of uniting the formats.

As Sony's future president, Chubachi's remarks Thursday may carry more
weight. Currently head of Sony's electronic components and
manufacturing businesses, he will replace Kunitake Ando as Sony
president on June 22 following the recent shake-up of Sony's top
management. That shake-up saw Kutaragi step down from Sony's board,
although he still heads its important gaming business.

Kutaragi also admitted in January that Sony, by supporting its
proprietary audio encoding system and not the widely-supported MP3
format, had lost ground to competitors such as Apple in the portable
music player market, which Sony had once dominated with the Walkman.

While Sony's technological and engineering base is sound, the company
must ensure that its products are aligned with the wants of consumers,
Chubachi said on Tuesday. Sony's engineers have traditionally been
regarded within the company as heroes and the creators of new markets,
but recently their ideas have not always led to products that matched
consumers' needs, he said.






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Allan

On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 12:00:20 -0500, Allan
<> wrote:

>"Listening to the voice of the consumers, having two rival formats is
>disappointing and we haven't totally given up on the possibility of
>integration or compromise,"
__________________________________________________ _________

I wonder if the *real* issue here is Sony has realized that existing DVD
technology is pretty good and consumers aren't going to shell out a lot
of money for a relatively insignificant improvement. Sony has already
invested a billion dollars in Blu-Ray and I can just picture them
looking furtively at each other and whispering "What have we done....?"

Comments?

--
BT

Bill Turner

"Bill Turner" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 12:00:20 -0500, Allan
> <> wrote:
>
>>"Listening to the voice of the consumers, having two rival formats is
>>disappointing and we haven't totally given up on the possibility of
>>integration or compromise,"
> __________________________________________________ _________
>
> I wonder if the *real* issue here is Sony has realized that existing DVD
> technology is pretty good and consumers aren't going to shell out a lot
> of money for a relatively insignificant improvement. Sony has already
> invested a billion dollars in Blu-Ray and I can just picture them
> looking furtively at each other and whispering "What have we done....?"
>
> Comments?
>
> --
> BT

I am by no means an expert on such things - but Sony must know, after all of
the previous 'dual format' adventures they have gone through, that having
the best format does not always translate into it becoming the most popular
or accepted format.

So, is the Beta vs. VHS all over?

Jay Stewart

Bill Turner, says...
> technology is pretty good and consumers aren't going to shell out a lot
> of money for a relatively insignificant improvement.

I don't think HD quality is a relatively insignificant improvement from
standard DVD. It's a much better looking picture.

Mark Spatny

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 07:29:51 GMT, Mark Spatny
<> wrote:

>I don't think HD quality is a relatively insignificant improvement from
>standard DVD. It's a much better looking picture.
__________________________________________________ _________

We each have our opinions on this. Mine is that current DVD technology
is pretty good. My question was whether Sony is having second thoughts
about the money they are spending for a technology which may not gain a
lot of consumer acceptance. I don't have any inside information on this,
we'll just have to wait and see.

It does remind me of the Betamax vs VHS wars back in the '70s. The
technically superior format lost. This 'has' to be in Sony's thoughts.

--
BT

Bill Turner

Bill Turner wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 07:29:51 GMT, Mark Spatny
> <> wrote:
>
> >I don't think HD quality is a relatively insignificant improvement
from
> >standard DVD. It's a much better looking picture.
> __________________________________________________ _________
>
> We each have our opinions on this. Mine is that current DVD
technology
> is pretty good. My question was whether Sony is having second
thoughts
> about the money they are spending for a technology which may not gain
a
> lot of consumer acceptance. I don't have any inside information on
this,
> we'll just have to wait and see.
>
> It does remind me of the Betamax vs VHS wars back in the '70s. The
> technically superior format lost. This 'has' to be in Sony's
thoughts.
>
> --
> BT

my opinion is that HD will take over eventually, but that the migration
from SD-DVD to HD-DVD (or blur ay) will be much much slower than
VHS-to-DVD.

My other prediction is that the "killer-app" from HD-DVD may not be
increased picture/sound quality, but the convenience of multiple
discs'worth of info on a signle disc, like having LOTR trilogy on one
disc or like SEINFELD complete series on a single disc.

as we may be learning by the success of the iPod, people are more
interested in convenience than fidelity... (i think)

-=goro=-

Ed Kim

Bill Turner <> wrote in
news::

> On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 07:29:51 GMT, Mark Spatny
> <> wrote:
>
>>I don't think HD quality is a relatively insignificant improvement
>>from standard DVD. It's a much better looking picture.
> __________________________________________________ _________
>
> We each have our opinions on this. Mine is that current DVD technology
> is pretty good. My question was whether Sony is having second thoughts
> about the money they are spending for a technology which may not gain
> a lot of consumer acceptance. I don't have any inside information on
> this, we'll just have to wait and see.
>
> It does remind me of the Betamax vs VHS wars back in the '70s. The
> technically superior format lost. This 'has' to be in Sony's thoughts.
>

I dunno...

MemoryStick vs. SD
MiniDisc vs. CD
ATRAC vs. mp3
MicroMV vs. MiniDV

You'd think Sony would have learned by now... but it's the same stuff
all over again. The only case where they've actually succeeded with
their own format is the Playstation, and I would attribute that more to
pure luck than good engineering.


--

Aaron J. Bossig

http://www.GodsLabRat.com
http://www.dvdverdict.com

Aaron J. Bossig

In article <>,
Bill Turner <> wrote:
>On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 12:00:20 -0500, Allan
><> wrote:
>
>>"Listening to the voice of the consumers, having two rival formats is
>>disappointing and we haven't totally given up on the possibility of
>>integration or compromise,"
>_________________________________________________ __________

>I wonder if the *real* issue here is Sony has realized that existing DVD
>technology is pretty good and consumers aren't going to shell out a lot
>of money for a relatively insignificant improvement. Sony has already
>invested a billion dollars in Blu-Ray and I can just picture them
>looking furtively at each other and whispering "What have we done....?"

>Comments?

DVDs are also being used for data backups which are growing at
tremendous rates. The Blu-Ray has the potential for much larger
quantities of data storage than does HD0-DVD. It's not just a
medium for movies.

Data storage needs a lot of space. So if HD-DVD takes over then
Sony may come up with something like their Eagle device for LDs.

Those devices were for writable laser discs and was a huge
changer mounted in about a 6-foot rack. I saw one in the
mid-1980s. Memory makes me think it held about 80 LDs.

Sony is big into storage and one of their machines that I saw -
about a 12 foot long cabinet - used the D1 video cartridges
with hundreds of tapes back up monstrous amounts of storage.

I think it was at a SIGGRAPH I saw that one - and it had name
similar to PetaByte - meaning it could easily hold up to a
million gigabytes.

Only time will tell if the potential data uses keep blu-ray in the
picture or the "It's good enough for now and we can do it without
major changes" wins.

Bill
--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com

Bill Vermillion

Mark Spatny wrote:

> Bill Turner, says...
>
>>technology is pretty good and consumers aren't going to shell out a lot
>>of money for a relatively insignificant improvement.
>
>
> I don't think HD quality is a relatively insignificant improvement from
> standard DVD. It's a much better looking picture.

Absolutely. It is superior. Anyone watching HD can instantly tell.

But I do agree that most will be in no rush to replace their libraries.
Other than a handfull of my favorite films I'd like to see in HD, the
rest are just fine on DVD.

Steve K.

Aaron J. Bossig wrote:
> MemoryStick vs. SD
> MiniDisc vs. CD
> ATRAC vs. mp3
> MicroMV vs. MiniDV
>
> You'd think Sony would have learned by now... but it's the same stuff
> all over again. The only case where they've actually succeeded with
> their own format is the Playstation, and I would attribute that more to
> pure luck than good engineering.

I agree Aaron. Sony has failed miserably with their sad "innovations".
Now the PSP UDP disc can be added to that as well.

Although console game systems have just about always been proprietary
format. Probably always will be too.

If BluRay is adopted, then it won't simply be a Sony proprietary format.
They will all use it.

Steve K.