More HD-DVD / Blu-ray News

[aud19]

Blue Dominance?
You might say that HD and BD (Blu-ray) DVD will begin replacing today's DVD burners but according to IDC, even in 2008 when these higher capacity units are supposed to hit their stride their percentage of total sales will be only slightly more than 1%.

The same price deterioration is taking place with DVD recorders. In this area the new Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology (TSST) company makes its own pickup heads and chipsets. They are taking maximum advantage of this internal capability by making life extremely difficult for Panasonic, Philips, Sony, Pioneer and other CE players.

The HD and BD teams are warming up in the locker room determined to have their royalty based 20-30GB storage technologies replace today's cheap DVDR-based units (4.7GB single layer, 8.5GB double layer). Both are scheduled to hit the playing field at the same time - mid year. Both say it is obvious that people will step up to the higher priced burners/recorders/media because the higher capacity will be needed "when" High Def TV and video enters the market…soon.

Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD)
But almost before the first play of the game, another acronym announces it is entering the fray. Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) has already been approved by ECMA and JEITA and the first version of the media will hold 200GB and a technology path that has already been proven to be capable of 1TB (1,000GB or 200 standard DVDs).

Present plans call for burners and media to be introduced by multiple manufacturers in the third quarter of 2005, just in time for the holiday buying season. If the past and present is any indication of the prices, you can be certain the producers will be "competitive" with Blue technologies when they hit the field.

The come-out-of-nowhere kids know they have yardage to make up if they are to win the marketshare game over the long haul. The only way most of these firms know how to do this is by what Larry Lueck of Magnetic Media Information Services (MMIS) calls achieving "profitless commodity" status as quickly as possible.

The one thing we all know for certain is that no matter how much "extra" storage capacity you give to someone, they will fill it. HVD might be the home media server storage technology of choice next year for all of your photos, music, videos and time-shift TV programs. That or a nice little DVD library that costs a few hundred dollars and holds 200 very inexpensive DVDR discs you can randomly search.

Interesting options. But next we'll look at the DRM issue which will really determine how quickly the world safely (without being sued) implements all or any of this...

[Paul H]

It keeps getting "interesting-er" all the time doesn't it?

Paul

[Clive]

Oh boy!
Let's wait and see.

[David Meek]

With standard DVDs breaking the back of tape media and setting the precedent of discs as the format of choice, I disagree with the 1% market share projection. If you figure that 2008 will be the 3-year point of availability and with high def DVD (of whatever format) being priced close to standard DVDs, the market will swing heavily just as soon as the players' prices come down to mass-market level. IMO that's $300-400 US and should come to pass after a year or so of availability. Manufacturers and studios now know the consumer wants disc-driven media and will be pushing to get the newer, better stuff into our hands.

[George Bellefontaine]

Yeah, that 1% figure is ultra conservative.

[Daryl Furkalo]

But how many people will sit out during the infamous Format War? I don't think 1% of current DVD players sold is too far out for 2008. The players will cost $1000US min this year, and I wouldn't expect prices to fall dramatically for a couple years.

[JonMarsh]

Daryl,

Do you have any specific reasons why you think the player prices won't fall in the first two years? I know that limited availability of laser head assemblies may be one factor, but the rest of the player just isn't that much of a stretch over existing DVD players- not when you look at the processing, scaling, and output features you can get in a $200 - $300 player already.

My lowball guess, is that if players intro at $1K, there will be some models available at $500 or less within 24 months... at least, HD-DVD players will. Bu Ray might be another matter. It's a bigger challenge in the transport mechnism.

Initially market penetration won't be much more than LD or early DVD, but in a sense, existing DVD players and the proliferation of HD capable displays at a wide range of price points will pave the way for a more rapid uptake of HD-DVD. I honestly think it will have a faster uptake overall to the first 5% or 10% than DVD. Afterthat, it depends- my crystal ball gets cloudy, because there are a lot of folks out there with just NTSC TVs and no plans yet to get on the HD wagon- just look at what's on the shelves at Walmart, Target, Sears, Circuit City, etc. There's a smattering of HiDef capable sets, but nothing like saturation. These folks, using a conventional DVD player, don't even know what DVD can look like yet. I know, after having someone drop by while I was watching a movie on my NEC projector, and they'd never seen a DVD in anamorphic widescreen before, much less on a good display. The comment was, "Wow, that must be that HDTV stuff I've been hearing so much about- that looks really great- bet it cost a lot though..." (OK, so I was cheating a little, what with that being an Oppo DVP971 player upscaling to 1080i over DVI).

[Daryl Furkalo]

Jon,

The biggest problem I see is the current insistence from Hollywood that the video connection be digital, thereby excluding a whole lot of HDTV sets. Unless they back down from that demand, there will be a much smaller market, and much fewer sales. Did DVD players initially drop 50% after 24 months, I don't have a clue? The first player I bought was a Toshiba 2200, and that was a fourth or fifth gen model, and I paid around $600 Cdn pesos.

My new Panasonic has an HDMI connection, so I will probably do my part for the 1%, format war be damned. It depends what kind of player you can buy for $1K at release.

[JonMarsh]

My first player was a Sony DVPS7000; ThomasW still has and uses that one.

My second player was a Toshiba, about the same price, but that was their top of the line model, with DD decoding built in; my daughter is still using that one, and when I bought it, there were still no progressive scan players, and three players from Toshiba which were less expensive. My next player was an HTPC.

Yes, the feared lack of high res analog component support has a lot of folks worried or PO'd; for example, an old friend who used to be my manager bought TWO Toshiba 55" widescreen HDTV's in late 2002; neither have digital inputs, not DVI, much less DVI or HDMI with HDCP.

I have a DVI to RGBHV box that's HDCP compliant, so I expect to be able to use my NEC 9PG+ CRT FPTV. It works with current DVI/HDCP DVD players.

Yeah, I'm almost certainly going to be one of those stupid ones buying a first gen player. But I look at it as more evolutionary than revolutionary, comparing the move from LD to DVD. (Still have an LD player and about 125 disks). Sigh....

I expect what we'll see will be something like this from Toshiba,




Sanyo's reportedly will look like this...



Thomson/RCA has pledged to bring out players, but I'd take a wait and see position on that...

[Brandon B]

My lowball guess, is that if players intro at $1K, there will be some models available at $500 or less within 24 months... at least, HD-DVD players will. Blu Ray might be another matter. It's a bigger challenge in the transport mechnism.

Playstation3. Certainly won't be more than $500.

BB

[Daryl Furkalo]

Yeah, PS3 with its Blu-Ray and Cell processor will make things very interesting in about a year from now.

[Evil Twin]

Playstation3. Certainly won't be more than $500.

BB

But both the PS2 and Xbox are lousy DVD players- I hope the PS3 would be a better BluRay player, if it does that. I know it uses the drive, and I know the Cell is designed to support comprehensive DRM from the ground up.

Yes, I think the Cell processor is going to make things rather interseting in 12-18 months, to say nothing of 24-36 months. 21st century personal computing...

[Brandon B]

Yes they are lousy. But they use analog outs and probably have pretty inferior MPEG decoders. PS3 is almost certainly going to be leveraged by Sony to jump start BluRay, and will certainly have an HDMI output. Should provide very good picture quality, or else they've negated most of it's value.

I will take a small bet with anyone the first PS3's will ship with a free BluRay movie title.

BB

[MaximusII]

Ps3

Will the PS3 be around $500? I am not sure they could sell to their prime audience at that price.

[Brandon B]

My guess is it may debut in Japan for $500, more like $400 here, and will drop to $299 after 6 months or so.

BB

[basementjack]

I think 1% might be right
4 sure each and every member of this forum will have one as soon as possible.

When DVD's rose to fame, they worked with almost any TV, and gave consumers a feature benefit over tape. A High Def format doesn't give consumers any new features benefits, just quality, and the number of HTIB sold should convince all of us that most consumers care very little about quality. Plus they preceive Standard DVD quality to be exceptional. And almost everything is available on DVD now, but won't be on HD-DVD for years.

See what we're up against?

Oh yeah, and add another stupid VHS vs Beta format war - A war that might make us early adopters sit back and wait just like we did with DVD-Audio players that don't do SACD. (Actually I still don't own one and I would like to and now it looks like my local best buy is getting out of DVD-A, but that's another thread...)

Yeah guys, 1% is probably a bit optimistic - there's a good chance that one of these formats will fail, Historically, We've not seen two formats of anything make it to the end.

Hope I'm wrong though - I for one would really like a High Def DVD player.

[Daryl Furkalo]

But if the PS3 only has an HDMI output, it severely limits the target audience. It probably will have the lowly analog outputs, but if it has that, will Blu-Ray movies even be compatible, or worth the effort?

[Brandon B]

I think you will see all HD-DVD and BD players having HD output available only on HDMI.

BB