There’s a war raging in the home electronics industry: the battle between Sony and Toshiba to determine whose technology will be the standard in next generation DVDs. It’s a conflict likely to be decided by the likes of Walt Disney, the sales figures of the PlayStation 3, and the porn industry.
Much like the struggle between VHS and Betamax in the early ’80s, nexgen DVDs will be in either Blu-ray (produced by a group led by Sony) or HD DVD (led by Toshiba) format. The new discs offer high definition picture quality, and contain far more storage capacity than traditional DVDs.
Consumers won’t buy two DVD players in order to play both types of discs, and it would be too costly for studios to produce both formats. So eventually one technology will win out over the other, and watching them jockey for position has been enjoyable.
Right now, chicken or the egg irony is playing a big part in why neither format has broken out. Until they have televisions and DVD players capable of delivering the hi-def benefits, consumers won’t buy the discs. And at the moment, those devices are enormously expensive. A good HDTV can run anywhere from $2,500 to $5,000, and most nexgen DVD players start at $500. This leaves consumers in a conundrum: It’s tough to afford a home theater upgrade at those prices, and, even if you do shell out big bucks, you don’t want to pick one or the other and have your chosen format lose the war. Thus, the consumer is left completely out in the cold.
Each side is aggressively courting the movie studios, and in that scenario, HD DVD might have the upper hand. HD DVDs can be replicated using existing equipment, while Blu-ray requires expensive new stamping machines. But then, Sony gave Blu-ray an advantage when it released the PlayStation 3, which is capable of playing Blu-ray discs. Of course, the inclusion caused massive shipping delays and pushed the price for the console to almost $600, another major hurdle for the consumer.
But the biggest determining factor might be the adult entertainment industry. Sony didn’t allow porn makers to use Betamax back in the day, and many attribute that decision as a deciding factor in eventual VHS supremacy. And now, just like before, Sony won’t allow affiliated replicators to press porn discs. In addition, rival studio Walt Disney won’t do business with any DVD replicator that produces adult discs after past manufacturing errors landed porn snippets in copies of its children’s films. (The Little Mermaid, indeed.)
Buckle up and don’t get too attached to your DVD player. It’ll be obsolete soon.
Comments
John MacAyeal Says:
March 28th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Maybe the growing popularity of downloading movies will decide the battle. Which format provides easier downloading? Probably no one can guess at this stage of the game. It was something as simple as space that decided the outcome in one of the first great technical battles of the modern age, that between direct current and alternating current. DC loses power after about a mile of transmission while AC can carry on for hundreds of miles. Downloading movies or some other simple factor will probably be the final arbiter in the case of Blu-ray v. HD DVD.
Leave a Comment