Double Journey

HD DVD, known for ushering in the next generation of high capacity optical disc as well as the exclusive titles of Transformers and Shrek, died on Tuesday in Tokyo Japan.  It was just short of its second birthday.

The cause of death was a lack of support from the major studios and retailers.  HD DVD’s health had been failing for several months.  Several movie studios announced that it would stop supporting HD DVD and defected to its hated rival Blu-Ray.  In a desperate attempt to save its life, doctors slashed prices.  But it was too little too late.  The hemorrhaging was too severe.

Born on March 31, 2006 to Toshiba and NEC, HD DVD had the first player out for the next generation format.  For the next two years, HD DVD and Blu Ray waged an intense battle for supremacy.  There were times that HD DVD looked to be pulling ahead, but the numbers just weren’t adding up.  Consumer indifference slowed the progress of both formats.  Consumers did not find a compelling reason to upgrade to either as most believed their standard DVDs were good enough.   Consumers did not care, nor did they have the right equipment, to really appreciate the higer quality picture or the interactive menus.  Coupled with high prices for disk and equipment, and both formats struggled.

However, retailers and studios seemed weary of a long protracted fight so they started picking sides. Perhaps aided by the PS3 and more movie studio support, Blu Ray players were outselling HD DVD players despite their higher cost.  Still, with adoption so much slower than the original DVD format, it was hard to pick a winner quickly.  But one by one, support mounted for Blu Ray.  Things looked really bad as Netflix and Best Buy announced they would be supporting Blu Ray.  The final straw came when Wal-Mart, the retail Goliath, threw its weight behind Blu-Ray dealing the death blow to HD DVD.

HD DVD is survived by Microsoft, Universal and Paramount (The latter two quickly announced they would be adopted by the Blu Ray family).

So today, Toshiba announced that it was cutting the price of its players even further. The players will start for $149.99 and work its way up to $300. Throw in the fact that you can get 10 free movies with a purchase, and you are looking at a fairly good deal.

That being said, the HD-DVD camp is a little late to the game. With the defection of Warner Brothers from the HD-DVD fold, there isn’t much that the HD-DVD camp can do to actually save their format. You see, content is king. People won’t buy a player because it is cool new technology and it is cheap. They want to be able to play their favorite movies. I always believed that the first player to $100 was going to win, but that was before all the content got taken away from one of the formats.

In the end, I still think this race is a big yawn. I write about it only because I’m oddly curious about the battle going on from a geek’s perspective.

By the way, what type of lame ass reporting do they have over at Crave? In one of their articles, they suggested that Microsoft might want to look into buying a movie studio. For what possible reason would Microsoft do this? Seriously, it may be the lamest idea I have ever heard and quite frankly it is a little bit of irresponsible journalism. First, Microsoft is not in the movie making business. It is in a lot of businesses, but none of them are even close to actually producing a movie. Second, HD-DVD is a very very small part of what Microsoft does. There is no way that Microsoft, no matter how much cash it has, would make such a ludicrous transaction. As a shareholder, I would instantly sell my remaining shares if it ever happened.

I guess any old person can post whatever they want, no credentials required. Then again, I guess I do the same thing

Figured I would follow up on my original post about trying to pick a winner between HD DVD and BluRay now that the industry is starting to pick sides. Warner Brothers announced that they would only distribute their movies on BluRay. Warner Brothers is the largest distributors of movies there is and this puts the momentum squarely behind the BluRay camp. This means that Sony, Disney, MGM, Fox, and LionsGate all release on only BluRay. These are the heavy hitters when it comes to movies, and

Many believe that when there finally is one format chosen, that this will move consumers away from the sidelines. However, I don’t think this “confusion” on the consumers part is really what is causing the delayed adoption of the next generation DVD format. However, I think this is bogus. I think adoption has been delayed because people are indifferent. While no doubt movies look better, most Americans aren’t going to waste buying a player that cost 5x more than a similar DVD player and disc that carry a 25% premium.

Most people I know think DVDs look just fine on their TVs, even their HDTVs.

So that means the winner is officially … downloaded movies. Seriously, I wonder if anybody really cares about the next generation DVD format. I certainly don’t despite Rick’s urging for me to get a BluRay player and HDTV. While DVDs were a leap ahead from VHS in terms of quality and form factor, I don’t see the same thing here. For god sake, the disc look exactly the same! The next leap is a form factor of nothing. I don’t have to carry it around or get it, it comes to me.

So there you have it. I don’t really care that BluRay seems to have brought the hammer to the HD DVD camp, because in the end, both formats are going to be irrelevant.

This blog post is completely off topic, but I’m going to do that every once in a while just to keep things interesting.

I talk a lot about this subject with Rick, who always is raving about how great these next generation disc look on his awesome TV. I of course have stayed out of the fray because I still have my ten year old TV so it won’t really matter if I pick up a next-generation player. But I follow the war with some interest only because I find these types of battles to be interesting.

As I shopped around this Black Weekend, one of the things I did look for was to see what types of deals were available for either type of player. I saw multiple places with a Toshiba HD DVD player for $199. Amazon has it for even less. I didn’t see a Blu-Ray player for less than $399. There were a few of those, along with of course the PS3, which can act as a Blu Ray player itself, and at this point is the best value if you are going to go down this path.

Despite the fact that I’m a bonafide geek, I am also extremely careful with my money (wouldn’t know it from what I’m doing here would you?). I am a “mainstream” consumer in the sense that I prefer to let technology come way down in price before I buy it. I generally don’t see a reason to be on the cutting-edge, because the premium you pay is so much greater than the actual benefit you receive from the new technology. No doubt that these next-generation formats look great, but when I can buy a DVD player for $20, and the quality look absolutely fine, am I really going to pay 8x or 16x more money? Am I really going to repurchase an entire DVD collection I spent years building? Doubtful.

Many tout that the Blu-Ray technology is better. It might also have the better stable of movies with all the Sony and Disney pictures exclusively on Blu-Ray. But in the end, it’s about price, it’s always about price. I’ve stated my position. The first format to break the $100 mark for a widely-available player wins. At the price, people stop trying to save up for the purchase, and just go buy it. It becomes a mainstream purchase. If I have a choice between a traditional DVD player at $70 (which is what I spent on my player) or a newer technology at $100, then I would likely choose the newer one, just to future proof myself.

Anecdotally, the Circuit City I went to was sold out of their Toshiba HD DVD players, but had plenty of the Blu Ray players. Best Buy had plenty of both.

So what do you think? Have you picked sides in the war yet and why? Or are you like me, just waiting it out until someone makes it cheap enough to be worthwhile?