Blu Ray compared to Betamax in NYT article

[BART]

From the third page (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/business/26disks.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&adxnnl=0&adxnnlx=11 40995119-lPYz1b8rZOIHqxTz4VKaow) of the piece entitled, In Sony's Stumble, The Ghost of Betamax[You have to register to read the rest]:

...Sony and the Blu-ray group adopted a Java program for interactive features. Microsoft favored a rival called iHD because, among other things, it would work better with...Vista...The Blu-ray group's board also approved an encryption technology called BD+, which Mr. Majidimehr, Microsoft's vice president for Windows digital media, deemed superfluous.

These decisions led Mr. Majidimehr to take a deeper look at the Blu-ray format and whether it would be more expensive to produce, as Toshiba had long contended. Mr. Majidimehr...spent the next few months on the phones and flying to Asia to meet with Sony, Panasonic and the other Blu-ray companies.

"We asked them if they are serious, and they told us they were," Mr. Majidimehr said, referring to the added software. Microsoft also received more data that showed that the Blu-ray group was not meeting its targets for producing discs and optical drives. "We were getting a lot of data saying the HD-DVD format was a walk in the park and Blu-ray was having trouble developing theirs," Mr. Majidimehr said.

Microsoft's announcement last September raised alarm bells at Hewlett-Packard, which was coming to similar conclusions. Hewlett-Packard worried that the software included in the Blu-ray format would cost so much in royalties that H-P would be unable to add affordable DVD drives to its computers.

Blu-ray drives cost up to 75 percent more than HD-DVD drives, according to Maureen Weber, the general manager of the personal storage group at Hewlett-Packard and a former spokeswoman for the Blu-ray coalition. "There's not a lot of elbow room," she said of the thin profit margins on computers. "The economics of HD-DVD make a lot more sense for us. I'm starting to wonder about the manufacturing ability of Blu-ray."

...For Sony, a fortified rival spells trouble. Not only does it make it harder for Blu-ray to catch on, but it raises questions about Sony's approach of trying to create new formats when consumers turn out to be content with something less ambitious.

That is the lesson Sony learned the hard way in the 1980's with Betamax, and more recently when Apple outdid the Walkman with the iPod. Now it is Toshiba's and Microsoft's turn to challenge Sony's strategy.

[JeffDM]

I hadn't thought of Java being a possible issue for Microsoft.

I was told by a Java programmer that the MS Java implementation was actually pretty good, but the company abandoned it when courts told them they couldn't "extend" it with their own closed API extension.

Java certainly isn't the whole story for the MS HD deal, but I can imagine that it could have been a factor.

[nakimushi]

I'm sure this has been brought up before, but I think that the fact that the Sony PS3 is based on Blu Ray, and the X-Box360 isn't, is one reason why Microsoft is campaigning against it.

If they can keep Blu Ray from being widely adopted, it will take much longer to drop in price because it won't benefit from economies of scale.

That will mean that the PS3 will always cost much more to make and will force Sony to either eat much of the cost or price it out of range of the Microsoft box.

Microsoft only embraces "open-standards" if it is either detrimental to one of their competitors, or they can co-opt it to make it so.

[TAS]

[ QUOTE ]
JeffDM said:
I hadn't thought of Java being a possible issue for Microsoft.


[/ QUOTE ]Since MS owns the competing product for HD-DVD and hopes to make lots of money from it...

Asking MS what they think of BR is like asking them what they think of Linux.

[quenelf]

[ QUOTE ]
nakidasu said:
If they can keep Blu Ray from being widely adopted, it will take much longer to drop in price because it won't benefit from economies of scale.


[/ QUOTE ]

You already get a huge economy of scale simply from the PS3 launch, though. Since we're not expecting fast takeup of the new formats or players, whereas next-gen game consoles will sell like hot cakes, PS3 might well sell more than all the HD-DVD players put together... (Although this does somewhat depend on when they actually release the damn thing.)

Also does anyone want to use HD-DVD for data - backup etc - in computer drives? Why? Bit pointless to pick a format that doesn't give a significant improvement in capacity. I would assume Blu-ray has a significant edge here - although it's somewhat of a niche market, so maybe won't make a difference to the economies-of-scale thing.

I do agree MS that would love to see Blu-ray fail and that a slower reduction in manufacturing costs for PS3 would be one result they'd appreciate. I think they'd probably care more (in terms of PS3/x360) that if Blu-ray fails, that'll be one major selling point of the Ps3 gone by the board as being able to play betamax isn't a big advantage...

--quen

[quenelf]

[ QUOTE ]
JeffDM said:
I hadn't thought of Java being a possible issue for Microsoft.

I was told by a Java programmer that the MS Java implementation was actually pretty good, but the company abandoned it when courts told them they couldn't "extend" it with their own closed API extension.

Java certainly isn't the whole story for the MS HD deal, but I can imagine that it could have been a factor.

[/ QUOTE ]

MS certainly aren't big friends of Sun, so yes I would assume it's a factor.

I wonder whether Sony picked the Sun technology not just because it's better and more powerful, but also because they don't want to co-operate with MS where they don't have to? Since they are competing on the game console thing, which is Sony's most significant business. (Obviously this isn't taken too far as Sony computers still ship with Windows.)

As for MS's Java implementation, it *was* decent enough when it first came out (with a then-nice development environment), but it did include incompatible extensions and, much more importantly, they didn't update it. Sun had reached Java 1.4 while MS were still on Java 1.1. That's three major versions and huge improvements in the language/APIs.

I'm unsure what licensing costs would be associated with Blu-ray's Java implementation. Sun's PC/Linux Java runtime is free and somewhat open-source-ish (there are open-source alternatives to the core parts too), but the Java implementations for 'small' devices (phones etc.) have typically been commercial. Maybe BD-J is in this category, or maybe there are additional licensing requirements for it (e.g. you have to buy it from Sony and can't use an alternative).

--quen

[Skywise]

BD+ isn't an encryption technology - it's an extension to AACS, an extra set of rules if you will. Microsoft also jumped ship before BD+ was announced. The whole production/cost thing is also pretty much FUD from Microsoft. Earlier it's been stated that the key reasons they went for HD-DVD was for two things: Mandatory managed copy, and iHD. At the time Blu-ray didn't have that, and MMC is pretty much a critical factor for Microsoft and Intel to be able to sell set top boxes and the like which uses it. Blu-ray eventually relented on that point, but by then it was too late.

[Ty]

There's a popular theory circulating that the only reason Microsoft choce HD-DVD is because of Bill Gates vision of having a completely networked distributed media empire. He wants the formats to be as even as possible and wipe each other out so neither can take off. This makes it much easier for MS to push fowards their concepts on digital media distribution and finally doing away with physical media.

It's not a theory backed up by fact though, just someting that's been floating around the net.

[Skywise]

I wouldn't put too much stock in it considering they're not only backing HD-DVD, but are going to offer an addon for the xbox360 that plays them. Physical media will still be cheaper and controllable than distributing things digitally.

[LOUiE]

[ QUOTE ]
Skywise said:
I wouldn't put too much stock in it considering they're not only backing HD-DVD, but are going to offer an addon for the xbox360 that plays them. Physical media will still be cheaper and controllable than distributing things digitally.

[/ QUOTE ]
Of course, Bill only announced the add-on after there became a huge demand for the 360 to have the drive in it. I don't think it was in the plan originally to have an hd-dvd drive, hence why the add-on will probably not show up until at least 2007. Of course, I may be wrong and they release it the day the PS3 comes out.