Wedbush
Morgan Securities is of the mind that the battle between Toshiba's HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-ray disc format could very
well dictate the conclusion of the next generation console wars. The report suggests that the film studios could be the
ones responsible for deciding the victor in the next generation console war by choosing which format to support in
distributing their movies to retail, whether it be on HD-DVD or Sony's Blu-ray technology. Considering that the gaming
industry is pulling in as much revenue as the film industry, whichever format Hollywood favors could heavily tip the
scales, without a doubt.
Who do you think is going to come out on top of this conflict, HD-DVD or Blu-ray?













Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
5-02-2006 @ 6:17PM
Brian said...
Blu-Ray. Sony has more clout in Hollywood than Toshiba, with owning Columbia Tri-Star they automatically have a devoted film library. I mean, Sony has put out UMDs despite a lack in consumer interest and consumers seem interested in a next-gen dvd.
What might hurt it, however, is the name. Blu-Ray is much more awkward than the more explanatory HD-DVD. Also, If the BetaMax-VHS fight is any indication, the porn industry will decide which format will win out.
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5-02-2006 @ 6:26PM
Jonathan Worrel said...
Blu Ray all the way baby!
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5-02-2006 @ 6:40PM
Scapegoat said...
Hmm, I really don't care which wins. I just hope the competition between the two forces them to bring down movie prices to decent levels (ie at least what DVDs are at now).
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5-02-2006 @ 6:52PM
Murphy said...
I would love Blu-Ray to win it all, not only from a fanboy standpoint, but from a logistical view. Blu-Ray is the next generation of media, and far surpasses HD-DVD in improvements for the future. BRDs are an advancement, but HD-DVDs are more of the same, just bigger.
It's not just Hollywood that will decide this war (because studios are taking sides and so we won't have all movies on the same format for a while), but the general consumer will be a tough nut to crack for Blu-Rays. You see, while Blu-Rays are better than HD-DVDs in all respects, but they are more expensive (because it is new technology) and it is a completely new name to the world.
The average consumer knows what High Definition is, its the new craze, its a household name. The average consumer knows what a DVD is, we all have them, every movie comes out for them.
"Blu-Ray? OK, so the disc is blue, so what? Screw that, I'm going with the reliable choice!" says the average consumer.
This is not an issue of Beta v. VHS, because the conflict with that could have gone both ways, but it is equal when it comes to a new format that people don't know about. Blu-Ray is gonna have a tough time getting started, but if it gets enough support and the consumer actually does some research into their next purchase, then we should come out victorious.
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5-02-2006 @ 6:56PM
Paul said...
unfortunately that is exactly why blu-ray will lose. Hd is already about the same price as a regular DVD, it doesnt look like blu-ray will be able to pull it off. But I doubt it will have little effect on the consoles
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5-02-2006 @ 8:26PM
Fear said...
I hope Blu-ray flops, I already have a huge collection of DVD's, etc.
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5-02-2006 @ 8:36PM
OyoyoY123 said...
well, u can still play ur DVDs on a Blu-ray player~
ye cant play HDDVD on ur DVD player.
so~.......why do u wish the Blu-ray to flop?
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5-02-2006 @ 8:41PM
Cage said...
So OyoyoY123...you can magically play your Blu-ray disc on a DVD player? Uh..huh...youve been listening to Sony for waaaaaaaay too long.
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5-02-2006 @ 8:49PM
lionzub said...
As long as I can buy a Blu-Ray burner for my computer I will be happy (backing up MAME with CHDs). I don't give a fuck about buying movies, not worth the over-price they charge for the package you get most of the time. I stopped buying DVDs long long ago because they are worth nothing from a collector's standpoint.
I'm glad Sony is sticking with Blu-Ray though because it is definitely a highly quality disc. I still proudly show off my Hi-MD player in front of those iPod geeks. :D
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5-02-2006 @ 10:32PM
grenn6 said...
If you have an HD-DVD player, you will not be able to play your DVDs on it... but if you have a Blu-Ray player, it supports all formats expect HD-DVD, and pretty much they said it can play HD-DVD, but it probably won't, because of the format war. DVD movies are on DVD9 disc now, and the movies that are coming out right now are almost feeling that DVD9 disc up without any extras, and running at 480p/480i. Just imagine a movie running at 720p, 1080i, or 1080p, you will need double or triple the space. HD-DVD can only hold about 32 gigs, and Blu-Ray is starting off at about 50-60gig disc, and later on 200+ gigs Blu-Ray disc will be out in the future. That’s why I think Blu-Ray will win, because of space. Space is everything now, it equals to less limitation. Imagine watching Band of Brother Series running at 720p/1080p, with all the extras, and all the commentaries, and 7.1 Surround Sound… and having that all on one disc, now that will be awesome.
Long live Blu-Ray …. Whoo Raaay
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5-02-2006 @ 11:28PM
SfGanjaMan said...
Green6 stop being a dumb beezy and stop manipulating others with your dumb ideology.
First of all your and idiot...Ok done.
Second of all"DVD's" will be able to run on HD DVD."There are many advantages to the fact that HD DVD discs will be the same size as current DVD discs. Backward compatibility will be available with all HD DVD players allowing consumers to only require a single player in their homes to play both HD DVD and DVD discs. DVD disc replication companies can continue using their current production equipment with only minor alterations when changing over to the format of HD DVD replication." So green6 what did we learn? All wait for a reply...
Third of all I would like to show you why programers have made processes that compress data. They do that so information can be stored in the smallest way possible, leading to my point. "This is because of new compression technologies, such as MPEG-4 AVC, which makes it possible to produce high quality content at lower bit rates without a visible loss of quality. With this advanced codec technology, it is possible to store 8 hours of high definition video on a 30GB HD-DVD." By the way every HD DvD comes in 1080P, while some players at this time might not support 1080P their is a big push to have future generations running this format.
I dont know which format will win. But I have a guess..HD DVD
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5-03-2006 @ 3:22AM
boots (former bd) said...
Grenn6, you are totally right. "SfGanja", it seems that "Ganja" is really affecting you. Oh, and Cage, have you been living under a rock? Too many FPS and zero Kingdom Hearts? All Blu-ray players can read DVD discs. Why is it that all Xbox fanboys want Blu-ray to flop? It's not like Xbox 360 depends on it flopping...
Anyway, the more storage, the better... Blu-ray is even more future proof than HD-DVD, just in case. With the H-264 Codec and the 8-layered Blu-ray in development, we might see some niceties that would be impossible on HD-DVD in the not so distant future. The "higher cost" of Blu-ray will only be in the beginning, and that will only be for manufacturers, not for us. PS3 will help Blu-ray become the format of choice, if content on demand is far away. Since High Definition will become the official broadcasted format in 3 years, and broadband speed doesn't seem to grow at a fast rate, let alone media centers are expensive, and content on demand will still be heavily DRMed, people will at least think of next-generation discs as a way of actually "owning" the movies instead of simply watching them.
Porn won't determine the winner this time around (even if it helps) since porn file sharing is rampant, as opposed to back then when the net wasn't a public service. Just for the record, Blu-ray is being backed by an important part of the porn industry as of now.
And don't even mention Holographic Storage... a format with no hollywood/porn support is useless for the mainstream. It might have a future though, if compression reaches important levels for it to store movies in the already invented format "4320p" (32 Megapixels), which has around 32.5 audio channels (it's sick), and we might see really high frame rates, like twice or even four times what is possible as of now. Maybe even true 64-bit color (natively on screens). Alright, one can dream.
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5-03-2006 @ 3:34AM
adam said...
wow, asking which format will win on a site called "ps3fanboy.com" I WONDER WHICH ONE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO VOTE FOR????
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5-03-2006 @ 4:55AM
eCom said...
In the upcoming cycle, we expect the playing field between Sony and Microsoft to be more level, and think that Nintendo will have the largest library of exclusives
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5-03-2006 @ 7:24AM
Hamilton said...
Look, the size of HD-DVD doesn't really matter as far as movies are concerned, why? because HD-DVD actuallys uses modern compression techniques like H264.AVC as a standard Sonys Blu-ray format will have most of the movies comming out in same old MPEG-2 which isn't even optimized for HD encoding. But as with most if not all Sony products they try to pull the wool over the eyes of consumers by talking up numbers which have no real world implications.
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5-03-2006 @ 8:18AM
DIEGO said...
i've seen demos of both formats and they're really not that impressive and i couldn't tell the diffrence between the two. personaly i'm happy with my upconverting dvd and i will not buy either (unless the ps3 is or less than $399.99) until they make me buy one. i don't feel like i should pay $30 (Blue-ray or hd-dvd) for a movie that cost $15 (dvd) just to watch it in hd.
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5-03-2006 @ 8:34AM
Fear said...
You think Nintendo's gonna win? Thats funny. They have zelda, which, hopefully, won't suck like the cell-shaded gamecube one. They have afew other games that are fun, but the main thing they're doing is the whole compatible thing, which I don't see as a big thing. I could go out and buy a NES, SNES, N64 and Gamecube and everyother Nintendo system for less than the Wii's gonna be priced, its dumb.
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5-03-2006 @ 9:01AM
Duscrom said...
My vote is for...
DVD 9!
What have we all learned from past experince?
Music.
Cassets won out over 8 track
CD won out over Cassete
MD did Not beat CD
MP3 players beat MD, and co-exsist with CD
Super CD Audio did not win out over CD
DVD Audio did not win out over CD
You need more then quality to move a consumer base. You need to fundimentally shift the paradigm of how things are used. When going from VHS to DVD, it wasn't Just about video and audio quality.. It was about Not needing to rewind tapes, not havint the tapes wear out, smaller boxes for more shelf space, extras, and TV box sets.
Smae with Audio, when going from Tapes to CDs, you changed the way the music experince worked. Going right to your song, les chance of wear. and in some cases, you get longer discs, and bonus tracks. But SACD/DVD Audio, was just the same fundimentally as a CD. Just more expensive.
DVD 9 is going nowhere as far as movies are concerned.
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5-03-2006 @ 9:49AM
Silverfrog said...
Great that you guys mentioned that there are compression technologies out there that enable high definition video to be compressed and stored on an HD-DVD disc. But, Blu-Ray benefits from this too, folks. If you could store 8 hrs of HD video onto an HD-DVD, how much could you get onto a blu-ray disc? Hmmm.
My opinion is that Blu-Ray will win the format war. This being a PS3 fanboy site notwithstanding, the Blu-Ray has more hollywood studios supporting it and will eventually have them all. Meanwhile, HD-DVD struggles to get as many hollywood players as Blu-Ray. If you google it, you can see what I'm talking about.
Plus, I believe this article to be wrong in a sense. Hollywood does have its role in determining the outcome of the HD medium wars, yes, but the next-gen consoles also have a role to play in determining the medium. When hollywood executives (who also produce games) know that a next-gen system supports a standard, they will be more inclined to support that standard themselves. And, which next-gen system currently supports an HD-DVD spec? None. Even though Microsoft announced they would support HD-DVD, I don't believe enough people will buy the add-on because it won't support HD-DVD games, just movies. But, on the flip side, Sony's PS3 has mass appeal, lots of hype, and will support Blu-Ray out of the box, all before the holiday season.
Plus, I agree with the poster above who mentioned that there will soon be a 200 GB spec version of Blu-Ray. I just read that it's spec was recently finalized and ready for testing. It should be available soon. If it becomes available this year or even early 2007, Blu-Ray will be the hands down winner without a doubt.
So, let's recap. I believe Blu-Ray will win for the following reasons:
1. Higher capacity discs
2. More hollywood studios supporting the format
3. Weak support for HD-DVD by next-gen video game consoles
4. Strong support for Blu-Ray by next-gen video game consoles
5. Blu-Ray has upcoming 200 GB spec. Always wanted to have the whole series of "24" in HD...on one disc? Done.
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5-03-2006 @ 12:20PM
Grenn6 said...
Like I said previously blu-Ray will win … you’re the idiot that thinks compress data is better then uncompressed data, no matter what technology there is for compression, uncompress data will be better for movies, for games that’s another story. Like I said the previously again that blu-ray will support all format expect HD-DVD, so people can have a single player in their home, also with a Blu-Ray player you can hook it up to a normal TV to, unlike the HD-DVD player, you can only use it on a HDTV or HD Ready TV. That’s another good thing about the blu-ray players, so go buy your HD-DVD player, and we’ll see who the idiot is later on, YOU !!!! .
PS3 + Blu-Ray = enough said!!!
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