01-08-08: Jamesw20
What gives with beating up on Sony?? They took the punches with Betamax, which WAS a superior product to VHS. Now they have another likely superior product but are marketing it effeciently.
I have, and have had many Sony products and have respect for many things they've done in electronics and home entertainment.
But they have a greedy side that gambles everything to get the monopoly or the licensing fees. Beta failed because they were too greedy to license the technology to other vendors until it was too late. JVC licensed everybody and VHS became the standard. Sony wasn't content to go with SD format or some other static memory card; they had to come up with a proprietary one for Memory Stick. They have a crummy record with format standards because they want it all.
I've been in the high tech industry for 27 years and what Sony's done with Blu-ray, I've seen too often: A leading vendor announces an impossibly ambitious performance standard, the gullible rush in to sign up, thus neutralizing or marginalizing other development efforts that could have seen the light of day sooner. IBM did it constantly to keep other vendors from moving ahead. The computer industry had a name for it--FUD--as in Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. As in, "don't waste your time and money on that piddly 30GB HD DVD technology; soon you'll be able to get 50GB disc from Blu-ray."
While Toshiba and HD DVD were producing excellent digital transfers with elevated sound standards, instantly upgradeable software, and interactive special features, Sony was putting out indifferently transferred Blu-ray discs (because they couldn't get the 2-layer 50GB versions to work yet), accompanied by run-of-the-mill Dolby Digital sound, software upgrades that came in the mail, and slow, glitchy machines.
Eventually they will get to the performance level they promised, but it will take a couple years and the consumer loses in the meantime.
For an example, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix should be a state-of-the-art hi-def disc. In HD DVD, you can select Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus, and there are interactive special features. In Blu-ray, you get straight multi-channel PCM, std. Dolby Digital 5.1, and garden-variety special features with no interactivity.
Also, if you look closely, the "format wars" were just the latest battleground for old grudges among studios and technology vendors. Disney and Universal have had a feud that dates back to the 1920s. Each picked an exclusive side. Of course Sony Pictures/Columbia/MGM would be exclusively Blu-ray. But Microsoft has grudges against Sony (XBox vs. Playstation) and Sun Microsystems (Java). Java is used to program Blu-ray discs. MS supplies the scripting language for HD DVD. They also cut a deal with Dreamworks SKG when it formed. SKG ALSO has a grudge against Disney dating to when Katzenberg left Disney to help form SKG. About the only studio not to have a dog in those fights, or loyalty in thos alliances, was Warner, who was the last to produce both formats. Do you think for a minute that Sony didn't exploit those grudges to get exclusive sign-ons from 20th Century Fox, Disney, Lions Gate, etc.?
And in this case, why did there have to be a format winner anyway? It was only a matter of time before there would be universal players under $300. It's not like it was with video cassettes in the early '80s, when the form factor was incompatible and each machine was $500-1000 in 1983 money. Now you can get one of each for a combined $500, and the discs are the same size and shape.
It's true that content vendors hate having to stock multiple SKUs of a single title, but there was a time when they stocked LPs, 7" reels, cassettes, and 8-track of some titles, and later, LP, cassette, and CD.
Video vendors stocked VHS and Beta, and later, VHS and DVD. With the demise of VHS they've only had to stock DVD for the past few years and they've gotten spoiled. THEY are the ones who pushed to limit the format choices to the consumers--Blockbuster, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, etc.
If the studios had all gone exclusive one way or another, there would have been little impact in the multiple SKUs argument, because new releases would have been released in std. def DVD and in one hi-def format, either HD DVD or Blu-ray, depending on studio affiliation. Actually, HD DVD was ahead on that game too, as they were issuing HD DVDs in dual-format, one side std. def and the other HD DVD. One SKU per title.
