February 20, 2008 5:01 AM PST
Blu-ray beats HD DVD... Now get ready for the next format war
Posted by Peter Glaskowsky 8 comments I have to hand it to fellow analyst Rob Enderle. Way back in August of 2005, he called the high-def format war in a piece titled "Blu-ray Wins or Nothing Does."



Logo of the Blu-ray Disc Association, winner of the high-def disc format war

(Credit: The Blu-ray Disc Association)
Then again, he also said in that article that "the more likely outcome is that the market will bypass both products and move to something else," so perhaps he wasn't perfectly prescient.

And come to think of it, a year later (in December 2006) he changed his mind entirely in columns titled "Optical HD Battle May Be Over: HD DVD Wins," "HD DVD Wins," and "Sony Kills Blu-ray."

And in August and even November of 2007, Enderle still believed HD DVD would win.

Well, if Rob Enderle couldn't predict the result, who could? Even just before the Consumer Electronics Show this year, when Warner Bros. Entertainment announced it would stop supporting HD DVD and join the Blu-ray camp, I was still hedging my bets: "Blu-ray wins, HD DVD loses. Probably.")

But when Wal-Mart--the Brünnhilde of modern retailing--took the stage last week to throw its weight behind Blu-ray, everyone knew it was over. And this week, Toshiba--leader of the DVD Forum, which developed HD DVD--officially conceded defeat. The company aims to end production on HD DVD hardware for home theaters as well as PCs by the end of March.

So we can all relax. Right?

Well, for a while, sure. But remember, DVD and Blu-ray were separated by only five or six years, so presumably we're due for yet another format three or four years from now. And a new format means the potential for a new format war.

The basic parameters are easy to predict. As I described last August in "After HD, what's next?" the heir apparent to HDTV is what's called "4K"-- that is, a display resolution with about 4,096 horizontal pixels and 2,160 scan lines. Sony already makes projectors that support this resolution. Red Digital Cinema makes 4K cameras. Director Peter Jackson has made a short film in 4K, and the "Final Cut" of Blade Runner was remastered in 4K.

So 4K is coming, and it isn't far away.

But why should there be a format war?

Well, there's always a format war. There was even a DVD format war, although we're all fortunate that it was resolved well before discs or players hit the market.

Sony will want to lead the transition to 4K, but the DVD Forum will still be around in five years. That's a recipe for a format war right there.


Will it happen? I sure hope not. Our best hope for a lasting peace is that Sony, Toshiba, and the rest of the DVD Forum members settle their differences and start working on the next generation immediately. If you have any influence within these companies, now's the time to start cooperating on technology development. The future won't wait.


Peter N. Glaskowsky is the chief system architect at Montalvo Systems, a Silicon Valley microprocessor-design start-up. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET.
Topics:Displays, News Analysis, Research
Tags:Blu-ray, HD DVD, Rob Enderle, Sony, Toshiba, Warner Bros., Wal-Mart, DVD Forum, 4K, Red Digital Cinema
Bookmark:Digg Del.icio.us Reddit

Isn't there a format out that that is even goofier than that? It is like 7000 something by 4000 something. I read it somewhere and just groaned. I think it has now become part of marketing strategy to announce new coming standards. However, for the life of me I can't see how that would help present format sales. Am I missing something wrt this situation?

I'm picturing solid-state as the format of the future.

CD/DVD players have too many moving parts for our liking anymore. IPods (and clones) are proving their value right now. I'm thinking 'thumb drives' or SD Cards (or at least the technology) will be the new 'format' of 2010 and beyond as capacities increase even further. I saw a micro-SD card yesterday (512MB) a friend pulled out of his cell phone - it was about the size of the fingernail on one of my pinky-fingers.

Eventually, solid-state storage will make its way into the mass storage arena as well - meaning, 'bye-bye harddrives' as well. I'm not thinking that'll happen as quickly though, considering what a voracious appetite for harddrive space the current operating systems require.

'On-Chip' will be a new buzz-term as well. Watch.

What's odd is even Blu-ray is not capable of true "bit for bit" HD. That is full uncompressed 1980x1080 full length movies.
and they are already thinking 4k (AKA Ultra HD) and beyond.
so far for ultra there are 7 competing disc format (some prototypes, some still just theoretical) providing upto 100gigs per disk.
You'd like to think they learned something during the HD/BLU-RAY standoff, like maybe they both lost customer base over the the delay while network delivery systems (cable, satellite, IP video, etc.) caught up.
But the truth is owning the patent on the final standard is so valuable that these companies risk the entire fortune/reputation of their business to be the winner, even if the standard is only likely to last 5-10 years.

solid-state does have some big advantages and some specific uses, but still has several flaws.
One is price (dropping fast, but it does have some bottom limit)
The other being life span, i.e. Flash cells eventually wear-out/burn-out (new SSD's use software to equally spread the read/writes among the cells to try and extend the life/reliability ) price would be less of a probem if lifespan could be extended.
I'd expect at least one more generation of optical disks for distributing static media like movies. software etc., but at least one of the Ultra disks under development, holographic, is a step toward non-disk holographic storage which could replace the spinning storage medium in the long run.

The never ending war between products.

Again - one word: Ipod. They're only going to get better and have more storage. As that comes about, cost less money, too. I remember buying a 1GB USB thumb drive (SanDisk Cruzer Micro) almost 2 years ago for *only* $99. How much are they now? Kingston has the same thing for $7.

Kingston also has the MicroSD Flash Card (2GB) for $16 plus SDCard adapter - with a lifetime warranty. Is that longevity with a steep enough price drop for ya?



You're probably right about one more generation of optical disks. But Holographic or not - if it's on a disk, it's going to be spinning. And that means moving parts.

I'm tellin' ya - people are moving away from having moving parts in their portable gear. And that means less moving parts in the non-portable gear as well. The less moving parts, the quieter things will be - and I know most people are getting tired of being able to 'hear' their computers.

The last 20% of this read deals with various collection, and storage mediums that may be used one day.
In all, a nice and interesting read for those into holography.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography