I bet on the wrong HD format, sorry…

The forumla still holds, bet against Scoble, can’t lose. Sorry, but your rap sheet is a long list of losers.

There is a certain ‘coolness’ attached to choosing the wrong technology. Just think, in a decade or so you can talk about how you went HD and Betamax while the infidels went VHS and Blue Ray.

Robert don’t buy a player when for a little more money you can buy the PS3 with the player. Plus you’ll be able to try out the HOME network when it launches later this year.

What’s wrong is that movie studios put only 1 movie per Bluray or HD-DVD disc in the Mpeg2 format or in the H264 or VC1 formats. When that kind of disc could easilly fit 5-10 movies encoded in h264 or Mpeg4 at 1080p or 720p.

I don’t think that Sony should be allowed to corrupt Warner with a billion dollars or whatever was passed from one swiss bank account to the other to convince Warner to sign exclusively with Bluray. That kind of business is illegal, a free market economy doesn’t like monopolies and there are anti-trust laws. But there shouldn’t have been different blue-laser standards.

I just want one of those burners and blank discs to get more affordable per GB then hard disks for storing my data. I hope that there isn’t a conspiracy by Bluray and HD-DVD format companies in keeping blank media prices artificially high.

I +love+ Christopher Coulter!

I remember when Chris Coulter argued with me about this, saying the movie studios would go exclusively Blue-ray. I love it when he turns out to be wrong. It doesn’t happen that often.

Doesn’t happen ever. And I was saying that nearly three years ago. And for the record it’s BluRay (no e). And I wasn’t so much as making fun of THAT format, rather your blind allegiance to an obvious loser, that only suited the Microsoft political considerations of the time.

Far from being “cool”, it’s just foolish to waste time, effort and money on a doomed technology. The wrong choice and lack of preparation for such, can sink Companies, and wipe Nations and Empires off a map (Byzantine vs. Ottoman per the invention of gunpowder), not a wise choice for a 20 years-later-hearty-laugh with geeky beer buddies. Indeed, Toshiba and Microsoft are sporting big-time body-blows, right before CES no less. It will be the talk of Vegas. Will put pressure on Paramount now, paid off as they were. Another casualty? Adams Media Research and all the ‘conclusions for sale’ (hi, Jeremiah) analyst companies.

Christopher Coulter: the obvious loser (HD-DVD) outsold the winner (Blu-Ray)in the United States.

Really? What “sales” are you talking? If players, “yes” as WalMart had then cheap, and lots of the analyst reports didn’t pencil in the PS3 factor. But in terms of “content” (70% of the high-definition movie sales), BluRay won bigtime. And it’s not so much PAST sales as FUTURE, and BluRay holds the best ground for that. But, even there, sales leads alone are not enough, the story has many chapters and many volumes. And tons of hired-research flimsy data on both sides.

How much did Sony pay Warner?

@christopher coulter – while I have absolutely no problem with you pointing out Scoble was wrong about the format he backed, when correcting him on the name Blu-ray, you could at least get it right. It’s not BluRay just as it’s not BlueRay – it’s Blu-ray, dash and all.

OK – I’ll ask the dumb question. How does Warner going Blu-ray exclusive mean that the format war is over?

Well, insofar as the ‘dash’ and ‘small r’ goes, blame Verizon for that, posting on my V phone. Mea culpa, blog comments aren’t exactly WYSIWYG. Sigh. Looked right here. Honest. Back on Tablet now.

Simon: it means all the content will be in one format, the majority already. So if the content is one format, then then the war is over. HD-DVD has been a dead-duck for a good while, but they been fighting hard, pretending not to notice. The studios just want to kickstart a market.

If format = no content, then format = dead.
If format = content, then format = alive.

But done tit-for-tatting, just after two years worth of Scobleing ‘you are wrong’, nice to be right. Not that I care much for Sony, or have any care which format wins.

@10. Scoble bet on the format that every knows how to spell. That was smart. The idiots who proposed and approved a name with such peculiar and orthography should be shot. And why, why, why would anyone want to label a high-definition format with a word that is so close to “blurry”?

By the way, it’s a hyphen not a dash.

oops. there’s an extra “and” in that comment. And I didn’t mean shot, literally.

Ok yes. I was just following the ‘dash’ convention, laid down by MG Siegler. So, finally, Blue (minus e)(hyphen) + (small r) ay. Egads. The naming sucks, but then so does “Tombstone” as a Pizza, and it leads, and has clever twist marketing.

Well that’s over. Now about InPhase/Lucent vs. Optware/Hitachi. Optware has Fuji, Konica Minolta, Oerlikon, CMS (yuck), and a slew of Japanese Chemical companies. InPhase has Hitachi Maxell, Bayer and Cypress Semi, with ALPS backing both. HVD seems to have the upper-hand, standards and a longer list of backers, but Tapestry is no lightweight, nor is Hitachi, and seems to be room for market overlap.

What we really need is for Scoble to back one, then the answer will be dead obvious, whichever he backs not. Or failing that, wait until Microsoft chooses, then same outcome.

Chris, I still don’t get how Warner’s decision to go Blu-ray exclusive means the format war is over. Surely, there are companies that have decided to be HD-DVD exclusive; and companies that produce content on both formats.

So, I ask again, if Warner’s decision means the format war is over, when will Paramount, Dreamworks and Universal reverse their decisions to be HD DVD-exclusive; and when will the companies that currently produce content on both formats announce that they are going Blu-ray exclusive?

Only reason corporations love Blu-ray is the region coding, blah. There are no technical advantages to Blu-ray. HD-DVD is cheaper to press (therefore, lower prices for consumers).

This is not about choosing or not the RIGHT or WRONG technology… do not forget that all this format war is based on MARKETING and the power of lobyying in the USA. So, by the end of the day, the format with the best PR will win. Technology does not win.

buy a playstation 3. i mean the fact that if you ever wanted to buy a game and pop it in instead of watching a movie is a pretty compelling argument.

Also, it is sad to see that the movie industry is the only one playing this game, and we, the consumers are at the mercy of those guys…. but there will be revenge!! The NET will be the new format… you will see !

Simon – There are no studios supporting both formats anymore. HD-DVD has Universal, Paramount and Dreamworks for 30% of the content market. Blu-ray has the other 70% of the content market (Warner, Sony, Disney, etc.). With 70% of the content on Blu-ray then very soon the retailers will no longer want to devote shelf space to a niche format, and HD-DVD will disappear.

The NET will be the new format… you will see !

And somewhere in Cupertino, California, a man wearing jeans and black mock turtleneck stands watching the debate over what flavor of shiny plastic disc should be used to hold movies…

…and he laughs maniacally….

OF course, Warner Bros. is going with Blu-Ray. They idea is to stay in bed with the movie studio family (meaning Sony). The old regime has got to try a keep a lock on their place in the world.

Simon: it’s a numbers game, eventually one will win out, happens all the time, market inertia. Tosh and Microsoft can maintain their illusory fantasies as long as they wish, but they will eventually have to pay for retail space. Besides the war was over 2 years ago, for all practical purposes.

Buts it be high time to thinks abouts HVD vs. InPhase, being those early adopters ya’ll are, yessiree (Billy Ray Cyrus lingo there). Watching the kiddies, and the heavy Tennessee drawl from Hannah Montanaified Disney is like sandpaper on skin. 142 years of rising again, only never making it out of bed.