FC NOW: The Fast Company Weblog
August 24, 2005
High Def Anxiety
It's war! A format war! At least that's what seems to be coming down the pike, now that talks have broken down between Sony and Toshiba in their attempts to merge their two competing high definition DVD formats.
Just to sum up: Both have invented the next generation in DVD entertainment -- systems that will make watching movies even more like a cinema experience. Sony's offering up its "Blu-Ray" technology, which has a much higher storage capacity than current discs; Toshiba's "HD-DVD" has less space, better compression. As for which format Hollywood studios are rooting for, they're pretty much split down the middle (the ones pushing for HD-DVD like the fact that the factory conversion will be cheaper than with Blu-Ray).
So what now? If the companies don't go back to the table, both formats will come out, consumers will be confused and hesitant to buy either until a clear winner is declared (see VHS vs Betamax). Everybody loses. On the other hand, both companies have put lots of time and money into this. Can they just throw in the towel?
What do you do when you've reached a stalemate with your competitor and there's only room for one winner? Is there a solution these guys haven't thought of? Enlighten us!
Posted by at August 24, 2005 6:45 PM | Category: entertainment |
5 Comments
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Here's a solution they should both consider -- keep fooling around until someone else comes up with the technology which will make them both obsolete! That should only take 6-to-18 months. That'll give me enough time to save up enough money to actually buy one when the first one rolls off the presses.
Since Sony is more than just a technology company, they own an awful lot of media (movie- and tv-related in particular). I would guess they will win this battle. They are in a much better position today than they were in when they lost the Betamax battle (even though Beta was the superior technology).
Solution is to linense it cheaper. More cheaper players and more companies using it means better saturation, and that means you win. The problem is both formats have the lucrative part(patents) in disk design, or else the solution would be easy Blu-Ray with better(HD-DVD) compression.
Can't we get past the issue of media stored on plastic disks? NetFlix and Movie Link are moving forward with models involving downloading video (legitimately). High bandwith connections are getting more prevalent and lower in cost every day, so this appears to be a good course to pursue. Decoders that allow viewing either format would over time allow consumers to decide which format they prefer without having to purchase expensive equipment or have to deal with the problematic DVD disk scratch experience. Hopefully technology will further develop on the static storage front so we can move away from this outdated 80s record-like spinning disk concept.
I won't care once a DVD player comes out that plays HD-DVD, BluRay and DivX-6.