Bill Gates against the Blu-ray Disc!

[zorankarapancev]

Only few hours ago, Bill Gates and Toshiba Corp. President Atsutoshi Nishida, announced that they plan to develop high-definition DVD players together.
It is a big win for the HD-DVD format in its competition against Blu-ray Disc, which is backed by Sony Corp and Apple Computers Inc., to become the world standard for next-generation of DVD players.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050627/ap_on_bi_ge/japan_microsoft_toshiba

[SatStorm]

From now on, I'm a devoted supporter of Blu Ray!!!!

[mbellot]

Hmmmm.

An HD-DVD player with the Blu Screen Of Death.

I think I'll pass, thanks anyway DRM Bill.

[Nilfennasion]

The new technojoke:

Q. Which is the ideal format to support in a war?

A. The one that Bill Gates doesn't.

[normcar]

Bigbrother Bill will not succeed in hijacking the DVD formats. I suspect the winner will be the format, which has the least amount of problems, and is the easiest to use. Ease of use usually wins (except for MS Windows, where Bigbrother Bill created an illegal monopoly). BB's support will hurt as much as help. If both formats are easy to use, then there will be multiformat drives.

[waheed]

Anything for a vote against Microsoft.

Cost will be the most important factor in deciding which format will win.

How many people here use Dual layer dvdrs compared to single layer?

[sssax2003]

I'm a supporter of Blu-Ray.

[misterchuckles]

I've always been a supporter of blu-ray and now more than ever. Its clearly superior to HD-DVD from a longevity standpoint and yet Billy is backing Toshiba strictly to make life difficult for the PS3. Not that I care about the PS3 (ironically I'm anti-sony) but for consumers its royal pain in the ass.

[waheed]

Its clearly superior to HD-DVD from a longevity standpoint

Betamax was superior than VHS, but VHS won in the end.

[misterchuckles]

exactly...you'd think they'd learn from their stupid mistakes. But then again, its never been about convenience on the consumer end.

[Raga]

Blu-ray has more capacity, with 50 gigabytes, compared to 30 gigabytes for HD-DVD disks. But proponents of HD-DVD say their format is cheaper to make because the production method is similar to current DVDs.

Can anyone offer an educated guess on the possible differences in price with the two formats?

[edDV]

Hmm, seems a good strategy for the diabolical Mr. Gates.

1) Firmly establish VC-1 in HD Players. Blu-Ray will have to respond.

2) Optimize HD DVD players for MS HTPC based home networking (using VC-1 of course).

3) Stick it to the PS3.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

...except for MS Windows, where Bigbrother Bill created an illegal monopoly...

not
if it were a monopoly, there would be no alternatives
there are 'viable' alternatives to Windows
it's not his fault that nobody can come up with something better
that's like saying that Ford had a monopoly with the Model T...
there were other options, they just weren't as good.

[RLT69]

not
if it were a monopoly, there would be no alternatives
there are 'viable' alternatives to Windows
it's not his fault that nobody can come up with something better

Troll Alert.

Microsoft was a Monopoly - this was the ruling of the US Federal District Court which was uphled on appeal by the US Supreme Court. Get over it.

Windows being the "better" product is like saying VHS was the better product compared to Betamax. Windows was either the only option or simply the cheaper option. Better never entered into it.

[Redd]

Comon Sony
And technically Betamax was the better product over VHS.

[edDV]

Comon Sony
And technically Betamax was the better product over VHS.

An how was Betamax technically better when it took two tapes to record a movie? Betamax did not fit the consumer market and was a terrible failure.

Similar mistakes were made by Apple, Next, BeOS, Linux, .... you name it.


Read these two perspectives
http://www.betainfoguide.com/BetaBetter.html

It should be obvious why VHS (and Windows) won.

[The Stinger]

Betamax was better built! Better tape! Hardly any degrading like VHS does by sitting in a cabinet. If you wouldn't believe it, my father still has his beta from the early 80's. And his recorded tapes still work & look better than his VHS tapes from the early 90's.

With Bill Gates jumping on does this mean he is going to pull his balding head out his @$$ and include HD-DVD support on the 360?

[Xylob the Destroyer]

of course not!
that'll be a feature that you can purchase 'add-on' funtionality for the system that comes out after 360...
personally, i'm looking forward to Blu-Ray, and as the PS3 will play BD movies, that works out for me
if the upcoming 'format war' proves HD-DVD to be the winner, then I'll buy an HD-DVD player after the dust settles and prices have finally become reasonable -- at least I'll still be able to play my BD movies on my PS3.
this one is a tough call at this point, but I think Blu-Ray will win.

[edDV]

Betamax was better built! Better tape! Hardly any degrading like VHS does by sitting in a cabinet. If you wouldn't believe it, my father still has his beta from the early 80's. And his recorded tapes still work & look better than his VHS tapes from the early 90's.

With Bill Gates jumping on does this mean he is going to pull his balding head out his @$$ and include HD-DVD support on the 360?

All Urban Myth.

There wasn't much real difference between the formats in terms of video quality. Longevity was a tape issue and that was equal Betamax-VHS. S-VHS surpassed Betamax and U-Matic in most ways but still failed in the market because video quality was low on the list of consumer wants.

[edDV]

of course not!
that'll be a feature that you can purchase 'add-on' funtionality for the system that comes out after 360...
personally, i'm looking forward to Blu-Ray, and as the PS3 will play BD movies, that works out for me
if the upcoming 'format war' proves HD-DVD to be the winner, then I'll buy an HD-DVD player after the dust settles and prices have finally become reasonable -- at least I'll still be able to play my BD movies on my PS3.
this one is a tough call at this point, but I think Blu-Ray will win.

Blu-Ray serves my needs best but that is a S-VHS kind of mentality. The mass market doesn't really care so the format wars are wide open for staking mass market territory. Mr. Gates has proven to be a master at winning these wars.

Remember VC-1 and H.264 can force many more hours on those HD DVDs. DRM advocates want the material as tightly compressed as possible (but with adequate display quality) to keep reauthoring under control.

[The Stinger]

of course not!
that'll be a feature that you can purchase 'add-on' funtionality for the system that comes out after 360...
personally, i'm looking forward to Blu-Ray, and as the PS3 will play BD movies, that works out for me
if the upcoming 'format war' proves HD-DVD to be the winner, then I'll buy an HD-DVD player after the dust settles and prices have finally become reasonable -- at least I'll still be able to play my BD movies on my PS3.
this one is a tough call at this point, but I think Blu-Ray will win.

Blu-Ray serves my needs best but that is a S-VHS kind of mentality. The mass market doesn't really care so the format wars are wide open for staking mass market territory. Mr. Gates has proven to be a master at winning these wars.

Remember VC-1 and H.264 can force many more hours on those HD DVDs. DRM advocates want the material as tightly compressed as possible (but with adequate display quality) to keep reauthoring under control.

So you seem like a Microsoft junkie. So maybe you know...Since he is now supporting the HD-DVD format, will he include it with the 360? I don't see why you wouldn't want more space for HD games. So you wouldn't have to compress it to fit on a DVD9.

[edDV]

"So you seem like a Microsoft junkie."

Why do you assume that? Art of War states you must know and respect your enemy in order to defeat him.

But I'm not at war with Mr.Gates. My needs are to anticipate his moves and adapt.

[The Stinger]

"So you seem like a Microsoft junkie."

Why do you assume that? Art of War states you must know and respect your enemy in order to defeat him.

But I'm not at war with Mr.Gates. My needs are to anticipate his moves and adapt.

Just stating you seem to know a lot about Microsoft, so I could ask a question about the next Xbox.

[AlecWest]

I anticipate that the popularity of the current DVD format will be around for some time to come. This has all the earmarks of the last format war (VHS/BETA) and people who remember it will "wait" until the war is over before jumping on the HD player bandwagon ... unless someone creates a dual-format HD player (which will likely be horrendously expensive). And, there are some similarities to the Quadraphonic Stereo war (SQ/Discrete) in which everybody lost ... since both formats crashed and burned, leaving consumers (like me) stuck with the equipment.

I can't speak for others. But, for me, I'm waiting until the war is over ... and even then, will continue to wait until prices come down considerably.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Sony losses again.
Seriously I couldn't care less what format is better as long as there will be a big selection of movies(readVD-AUDIO) and cheap media.

[edDV]

'... unless someone creates a dual-format HD player (which will likely be horrendously expensive).

I can't speak for others. But, for me, I'm waiting until the war is over ... and even then, will continue to wait until prices come down considerably.

What we are seeing are pre-release tactics. MPeg2 HD streams are a given. Backward compatibility to current DVD is a given. This is all about VC-1 vs H.264 vs other MPeg4 vs other not named codec for the much tighter compressed next generation. These guys are fighting for 2009 not 2006. Mpeg2 will quickly fall to MPeg4 or other.

[Skith]

Strange, there is a news post about this over at cdrinfo.com but it also states that gates is remaining neutral between the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray formats.

link

[edDV]

He needs both and can exploit HD DVD to advance VC-1 on both formats.

PS: The article shows Gates leveraging HD DVD to promote VC-1.

News Flash: HD DVD may evolve into a VC-1 only technology to put hours of HDTV on a small DVD and thus forcing Blu-Ray to offer the same.

[waheed]

I hope DRM doesn't make it into either one of them

[edDV]

no contest

Both will be encrypted and require HDMI for display in HDTV.

No HDMI? Then only 480p 720x480 max. Maybe they will limit to 480i only.