[Link: mediabiz.blogs.cnnmoney.com]

This is the beginning of the end for HD-DVD. Finally, this will end the format war and we can begin to mainstream the next DVD format. My clients don't care who wins, they are so similar, they just want something that will be there in 5 years.
Let's celebrate!

HB

That numbskull has not a clue. A monkey might as well been pushing random keys on the keyboard.

Wasn't Blockbuster one of the people who thought people would never rent movies via mail? I seem to remember something like that when netflix first came out.

I like the way every company has been given an acronym like GE (GE).

I don't care who wins either, BUT I do care what features win. Toshiba is committed to providing managed copy, which means that DVD's will be able to be burned to media servers. Granted, the spec has not been completed yet, and we don't know if it will be done right, but this is something we DESPERATELY need for our industry so we can sell our clients media servers. Sony on the other hand refuses to make any commitment to managed copy. In which case they screw CI's and consumers over royally. So that's a damn good reason to want to see HD DVD stick around. Not to necessarily to win the format war, but at a minimum yo force Sony to implement managed copy. Without competition, Sony has no reason to implment it and can thumb their noses at consumers and CI's.

Sony would never do that.........

I firmly believe that Sony BlueRay is going to "fail". This is not based on hard scientific evidence, just on track record. Has there ever been a successful Sony format? Maybe "fail" is the wrong word... perhaps just sell enough units to entice users with the promise of next-gen quality, but then get superseded by the next technology.

Here's the list so far, any more that I'm not aware of?

Elcasete - a larger cassette tape (very cool and ahead of its time)
Beta - the superior VHS competitor, killed by the porn industry
DAT - digital tape (was pretty useful for pro applications)
MD - small digital disc (sort of useful for prosumer multi-tracks...)
ATRAC - MP3 competitor
UMD - Universal Mini Disc
Memory Stick, MSPro - why oh why not use SD or other Flash/drive formats. Sony HAS to come up with its own format every time
SACD - DSD is great, too bad its so hard to work with

BR is next in a long proud line of Sony media formats...

I'm probably leaving out a few, anyone add to this list?

That is actually a very good point. Who is doing their market research. Its not like any of the above products were failures.... in fact I have good things to say about atleast half of the above items, but they simply arent winning the format war. Maybe they should take a lesson from Steve Jobs and his fruit company.

That's not an acronym, its a ticker symbol.

I bought the Toshiba HD-DVD deck for the very reason mentioned above. Sony has a horrible format record. I don't know how many articles I've seen predicting the end of the format war. My guess is that they are from companies who make more money from BluRay, yet don't realize that the lower price of HD-DVDs and HD-DVD players is what the consumers will prefer.

CD? Last time I looked the Red Book, has Sony written all over it; the SPDIF or Sony/Philips/Digital Interface Format does not have JVC, Toshiba, Matsushita, Fujitsu, Pioneer, LG, or Samsung in the acronym. Part of the high Def DVD squabble is on the royalties the company who wins the format war will collect and the paradigm is the royalties Sony is collecting by being an co-inventor of the CD. I am hardly suggesting you are are incorrect but give them their props for being partners in developing the most financially significant format in the world to date.

Alan

Toslink?

Well Playstation is sort of a video game standard. Granted only SOny makes them but it has been a huge sucess.

And while we are on the subject of video games. Why is it ok to have 3 or more video game standards out in the market place - successfully coexisting; and multiple DVD-R formats successfully co existing, and yet no one seems to think 2 HD Video disc formats can coexist successfully. And probably not becasue of public perception, but WHY not???

Don't get me wrong, I hate Sony, but I still don't understand why these 2 can't co exist. Can't we all just get along???

I always wondered who commanded control over media formats..

Of course! It's Blockbuster!

And all this time I though it was L. Ron Hubbard.

Rob.

Betacam has been extremely popular in the professional world for a LONG time now... and Video8 (Hi8), which dominated camcorders until MiniDV, is essentially a scaled down Beta system.

UMD as a movie format is a complete waste of time and should never have been attempted, but it does just fine for what it was original intended - PSP games.