3 ms·

Bluray was generally superior yes. It wasn't flat out better in all ways, but it was at least on parity if not better to HD-DVD. Cost wise, it depends on what e

Bluray was generally superior yes. It wasn't flat out better in all ways, but it was at least on parity if not better to HD-DVD. Cost wise, it depends on what exactly we're talking about (Cost of disc, cost of licensing, etc), but blu ray succeeded largely due to Sony willing to take an estimated ~$3B loss on the hardware sales of the PS3 and leverage it's media partnerships to see the format succeed in the long term. Selling the PS3 at a deficit was instrumental in getting BluRay players into peoples homes en-masse, which then in turn allowed Sony to better negotiate media partners to use their format. So was it cheaper? No, I don't think so, but Sony was willing to eat a loss to make it "cheaper" for the end consumer. Technically, people paid more for a bluray than for an HD-DVD player, as a PS3 was definitely more expensive than a standalone player/drive for either, but the value proposition was definitely there, as many people wanted a PS3 regardless. In short, the value was there, both for the media companies and end consumers, for bluray as opposed to HD-DVD, but I'm not sure it was explicitly "cheaper".

cinntaile 5y ago
HD DVD was released with the xbox 360 by Microsoft earlier than Sony's PS3, so that value proposition goes both ways. HD DVD was cheaper too. The number of consoles sold isn't that different (Sony sold ca. 15% more over the entire lifetime of the console). At the time there were many claims that the porn industry would be the deciding factor.
- Zandikar 5y ago
  Being earlier doesn't mean it has a better value proposition. It just means it had an opportunity for entrenchment before a competitor can bring their product to market. Had they successfully leveraged that opportunity, that would be valuable, but they didn't. Microsoft/HD-DVD decidedly squandered that opportunity considering the PS3 (primary BR player purchased pre 2010) launched a year later than Xbox but had sold as many units in ~1 yr as the xbox had in 2, effectively eliminating any such market advantage in it's first year. > HD DVD was cheaper. Correct. Which is why my comment talked about value, and why "X is cheaper" as an individual metric in and of itself is not useful in measuring success. BR and the PS3 was decidedly more expensive. People still bought more of them than HD-DVD/360. > At the time there were many claims that the porn industry would be the deciding factor. Which was almost as laughable then as it is now.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    You claimed the reason why Blu Ray won was mostly because it was bundled with the PS3. I counterclaimed by saying that HD DVD had the same advantage. PS3 sold about 87.3 million while xbox 360 sold about 84 million, the difference is not that much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_cons... edit: It looks like my claim was not correct, a HD DVD accessory was required to play HD DVD content on the xbox 360.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      Yeah, if the 360 had included an internal HD-DVD drive at the same price point we might be somewhere very different. (Thought to be honest BluRay would probably still have won as dual-format drives based on BluRay appeared later).
    - jerf 5y ago
      "a HD DVD accessory was required to play HD DVD content on the xbox 360." Once again demonstrating the murderously huge difference between hardware that ships with the platform and attempts to add on hardware to the install base later. Exceptions will leap to mind, like the rumble pack for the N64 or the Dualshock controller, but in general, add-on attempts fail and fail miserably for gaming consoles. They don't leap to mind precisely because they failed.
    - Zandikar 5y ago
      > You claimed the reason why Blu Ray won was mostly because it was bundled with the PS3 And Sony's partnerships with media companies, yes. Both of these are true. > PS3 sold about 87.3 million while xbox 360 sold about 84 million I was referring to sales when xbox been on the market twice as long (2 years) as the PS3 (1 year) at calendar end (2007). If the 360 had an early-to-market advantage, it became irrelevant real quick and never recovered that sales advantage in any meaningful way once a competitor emerged. [1] > a HD DVD accessory was required to play HD DVD content on the xbox 360. Yes. Further cements what I was saying about the PS3 being instrumental in BR taking over HD-DVD as a consumer entertainment format. it also further highlights my original point of how "cheaper" doesn't necessarily mean better value, or better selling, or better adaption. There's more to it than "first" or "cheapest". BR/PS3 were more expensive and later to market than their HD-DVD/360 counterparts, and yet both when on to be as successful if not more so than their cheaper first-to-market rivals. The original question of this thread is how important "cheap" is to a technology attaining success. This is a clear example of "it doesn't". There are plenty of instances however where it absolutely helped. This was just an instance where it did not, or at least, not enough to outweigh other factors against it. 1. https://www.vgchartz.com/tools/hw_date.php?reg=Global&ending=Yearly https://www.vgchartz.com/tools/hw_date.php?reg=Global&ending... EDIT: Changed 2017 to 2007 because oops, holy hell it's been 15 years since PS3 launch?! I'm old ffs
- glowingly 5y ago
  HD-DVD was released as an add-on to the Xbox 360, external to the internal DVD drive. The internal DVD drive could not play HD-DVD movies. Sony's PS3 had the bluray player internally, as part of the base spec. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_HD_DVD_Player https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_HD_DVD_Player It looks like it was released just days before the PS3 anyways. EDIT: We both seem to have posted this bit of information at the same time. Sorry!
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    Yeah it seems I am misremembering things. I found out around the same time as you but thank you for taking the time to clear this up anyway.
nebula8804 5y ago
Did HD-DVD use Java like Blue-Ray? To this day I found it absurd that they require publishers to ship a Java application along with the content. It is probably the reason there are so many lousy menus. 4K UHD is even worse as many publishers have downright just given up. Everyone is using the same sample code. At least DVD did something interesting when it was released. I don't know if this is a problem that can be solved. The framework has to accomodate the lowest common denominator and you know some manufacturer will cut costs to the bone so you can't mandate some fancy graphics chip in the spec because it will kill the format before it can become the standard. Is this why they went with Java?
- dlp211 5y ago
  TBF to 4k UHD, the 4k stream is already being compressed significantly on those discs so every byte that doesn't go to content means that that you are compromising the content just a little bit more. That's also why so many 4k UHD discs don't have any bonus content on them and usually pack a Blu-Ray in.
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    Really? I rip 4K UHD so I can toss the disc and their crap software in the attic and typically I get 60-80GB per movie. From what I understand, these are 100GB discs right? Are they seriously cutting corners on the quality? If this is the case, now I am royally pissed. I am paying a premium to avoid the Netflix/Streaming compressed garbage and to know that they cut corners here when the whole point is about uncompromised quality...well that is just another blow to any shred of trust I have in these companies.
    - dlp211 5y ago
      I mean, the RAW 4k (or 6k or 8k) footage is typically multiple terabytes (almost 15 TB for 2 hours at 8k). That is then compressed down to under a Terabyte for use in the movie theater (typically 200-800GB depending on features and length), and then compressed further to get it onto 100 GB disc. It's important to remember that length is going to play a big part (there is a reason that Snyders Justice League is on 2 discs) and a consistent quality is going to be desired within a catalog.

cinntaile 5y ago

HD DVD was released with the xbox 360 by Microsoft earlier than Sony's PS3, so that value proposition goes both ways. HD DVD was cheaper too. The number of consoles sold isn't that different (Sony sold ca. 15% more over the entire lifetime of the console). At the time there were many claims that the porn industry would be the deciding factor.

Zandikar 5y ago
Being earlier doesn't mean it has a better value proposition. It just means it had an opportunity for entrenchment before a competitor can bring their product to market. Had they successfully leveraged that opportunity, that would be valuable, but they didn't. Microsoft/HD-DVD decidedly squandered that opportunity considering the PS3 (primary BR player purchased pre 2010) launched a year later than Xbox but had sold as many units in ~1 yr as the xbox had in 2, effectively eliminating any such market advantage in it's first year. > HD DVD was cheaper. Correct. Which is why my comment talked about value, and why "X is cheaper" as an individual metric in and of itself is not useful in measuring success. BR and the PS3 was decidedly more expensive. People still bought more of them than HD-DVD/360. > At the time there were many claims that the porn industry would be the deciding factor. Which was almost as laughable then as it is now.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  You claimed the reason why Blu Ray won was mostly because it was bundled with the PS3. I counterclaimed by saying that HD DVD had the same advantage. PS3 sold about 87.3 million while xbox 360 sold about 84 million, the difference is not that much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_cons... edit: It looks like my claim was not correct, a HD DVD accessory was required to play HD DVD content on the xbox 360.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    Yeah, if the 360 had included an internal HD-DVD drive at the same price point we might be somewhere very different. (Thought to be honest BluRay would probably still have won as dual-format drives based on BluRay appeared later).
  - jerf 5y ago
    "a HD DVD accessory was required to play HD DVD content on the xbox 360." Once again demonstrating the murderously huge difference between hardware that ships with the platform and attempts to add on hardware to the install base later. Exceptions will leap to mind, like the rumble pack for the N64 or the Dualshock controller, but in general, add-on attempts fail and fail miserably for gaming consoles. They don't leap to mind precisely because they failed.
  - Zandikar 5y ago
    > You claimed the reason why Blu Ray won was mostly because it was bundled with the PS3 And Sony's partnerships with media companies, yes. Both of these are true. > PS3 sold about 87.3 million while xbox 360 sold about 84 million I was referring to sales when xbox been on the market twice as long (2 years) as the PS3 (1 year) at calendar end (2007). If the 360 had an early-to-market advantage, it became irrelevant real quick and never recovered that sales advantage in any meaningful way once a competitor emerged. [1] > a HD DVD accessory was required to play HD DVD content on the xbox 360. Yes. Further cements what I was saying about the PS3 being instrumental in BR taking over HD-DVD as a consumer entertainment format. it also further highlights my original point of how "cheaper" doesn't necessarily mean better value, or better selling, or better adaption. There's more to it than "first" or "cheapest". BR/PS3 were more expensive and later to market than their HD-DVD/360 counterparts, and yet both when on to be as successful if not more so than their cheaper first-to-market rivals. The original question of this thread is how important "cheap" is to a technology attaining success. This is a clear example of "it doesn't". There are plenty of instances however where it absolutely helped. This was just an instance where it did not, or at least, not enough to outweigh other factors against it. 1. https://www.vgchartz.com/tools/hw_date.php?reg=Global&ending=Yearly https://www.vgchartz.com/tools/hw_date.php?reg=Global&ending... EDIT: Changed 2017 to 2007 because oops, holy hell it's been 15 years since PS3 launch?! I'm old ffs
glowingly 5y ago
HD-DVD was released as an add-on to the Xbox 360, external to the internal DVD drive. The internal DVD drive could not play HD-DVD movies. Sony's PS3 had the bluray player internally, as part of the base spec. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_HD_DVD_Player https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_HD_DVD_Player It looks like it was released just days before the PS3 anyways. EDIT: We both seem to have posted this bit of information at the same time. Sorry!
- cinntaile 5y ago
  Yeah it seems I am misremembering things. I found out around the same time as you but thank you for taking the time to clear this up anyway.

nebula8804 5y ago

Did HD-DVD use Java like Blue-Ray? To this day I found it absurd that they require publishers to ship a Java application along with the content. It is probably the reason there are so many lousy menus. 4K UHD is even worse as many publishers have downright just given up. Everyone is using the same sample code. At least DVD did something interesting when it was released. I don't know if this is a problem that can be solved. The framework has to accomodate the lowest common denominator and you know some manufacturer will cut costs to the bone so you can't mandate some fancy graphics chip in the spec because it will kill the format before it can become the standard. Is this why they went with Java?

dlp211 5y ago
TBF to 4k UHD, the 4k stream is already being compressed significantly on those discs so every byte that doesn't go to content means that that you are compromising the content just a little bit more. That's also why so many 4k UHD discs don't have any bonus content on them and usually pack a Blu-Ray in.
- nebula8804 5y ago
  Really? I rip 4K UHD so I can toss the disc and their crap software in the attic and typically I get 60-80GB per movie. From what I understand, these are 100GB discs right? Are they seriously cutting corners on the quality? If this is the case, now I am royally pissed. I am paying a premium to avoid the Netflix/Streaming compressed garbage and to know that they cut corners here when the whole point is about uncompromised quality...well that is just another blow to any shred of trust I have in these companies.
  - dlp211 5y ago
    I mean, the RAW 4k (or 6k or 8k) footage is typically multiple terabytes (almost 15 TB for 2 hours at 8k). That is then compressed down to under a Terabyte for use in the movie theater (typically 200-800GB depending on features and length), and then compressed further to get it onto 100 GB disc. It's important to remember that length is going to play a big part (there is a reason that Snyders Justice League is on 2 discs) and a consistent quality is going to be desired within a catalog.