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More companies join Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD peace conference

23 April 2005 0:05 by Lasse "cd-rw.org" Penttinen | 7 comments

This is actually rather extraordinary in the technology industry. It really seems that the HD-DVD and Blu-ray camp are trying to find a consensus peacefully, without fighting for it on the free market.

Looking back we can recall a lot of format wars in the IT industry. The VHS vs. Betamax in the video casette recorders is one of the most famous ones. The DVD-R vs. DVD+R calmed down quite quickly as all drive manufacturers now support these two formats in parallel.

Behind this 'sudden' urge to find a peaceful solution must be the economics. Hostile competition is expensive. It is so expensive, that I can bring down even largest of companies. For an example, Yamaha was forced to step back from optical recording industry, even though it was one of the highest quality and most innovative manufacturers (read this). Instead of speding millions on marketing, lobbying, and price reductions, they seem to have chosen the peaceful way. There is plenty of cake for both of them, as we see from the DVD recordable market today. But customers usually benefit from the fierce competition via aggressive pricing. Now if Blu-ray and HD-DVD find a peaceful solution, will they be floating the prices high with common agreement, since there is no need beat the competitor on the free market?

Other key companies involved in the format war, including Matsushita's Panasonic and Netherlands-based Philips are also studying ways to end the three-year stand-off that is threatening to stifle the industry's growth.

But sources close to the electronics companies said it was still early days, and that the discussions would take a long time, while adding that a positive outcome was not guaranteed.

"Discussions are taking place, but it's very complex, both in terms of technology but also because so many companies have a stake in this," one source told Reuters.

Source: Reuters

Permalink to this article | Topic: HD DVD

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Discuss this article!
gotisos (Inactive) 23 April 2005 3:35
Yeah I just saw an article on this: http://redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=11865&hed=Sony%2c+Toshiba+Eye+DVD+Format maybe this means I wont have to buy two different burners/players, or better yet a have some type of dual player/burner [ + quote]
holoman (Inactive) 23 April 2005 7:23
I dont know, it seems that there is still alot of up in the air discussions. I wonder how the announcement by Inphase's Holographic Storage disk at NAB this week is going to add to the confusion. [ + quote]
jimmyjojo (Junior Member) 23 April 2005 16:52
A "peace conference"??! What is this, the Israelis and the Palestinians? It's a bunch of stupid money hungry companies trying to put their heads together and suck out more cash from us consumers. The more they "fight" the better off the consumers are. [ + quote]
gotisos (Inactive) 23 April 2005 20:38
not really they are probably just looking for the cheapest solution, which will then hopefully be transfered somewhat to the consumers. you never know, I am just tired of waiting dammit, 4.7 gigs is not enough anymore, and dual layer disks are a rip off. [ + quote]
Nephilim (Moderator) 26 April 2005 10:01
It's about time they tried to cooperate. This +/- R crap has been an unnecessary headache. [ + quote]
naviscan (Junior Member) 28 April 2005 20:35
About HD-DV vs. BluRay: So far the difference is drastic: Capacity! To this date HD-DVD standard offers 15GB per disk, and BluRay promises up to 25GB. When a HDTV source is writen on a blank DVD (19 mbps, or a two-hour movie) needs minimum 17GB of space, you do the math! As usual, you are the winner (consumer)! [ + quote]
tonysm75 (Newbie) 14 May 2006 13:19
Here's a website that tracks the success of blu-rays vs. HD DVDs over time. It include a dashboard of graphs and stats, and it's based on data from Amazon.com. Check it out here: http://www.thedvdwars.com [ + quote]