The other side of the coin

[unixronin]

Yesterday, HD-DVD was pronounced dead.  There was some discussion in the comment thread attached to that post of the various reasons why Blu-Ray is less than an ideal solution, even though the Blu-Ray technology itself is superior to HD-DVD's.

So, Blu-Ray's technology may be right.  This morning, xnguard has posted an excellent analysis of what's still wrong with Blu-Ray.  Few people will be surprised that one of the major factors is the heavy DRM that Sony has put on top of the platform, but many potential buyers probably won't know that Sony keeps on revising and revising the Blu-Ray specification in ways that require more and more hardware capability to be built into players.  (As xnguard notes, there's already one lawsuit by an owner of a Blu-Ray 1.0 player who's found that his player became obsolete before the format war even settled out, and can't properly handle Blu-Ray 1.1 discs.  One studio has already begun to release Blu-Ray 2.0 discs despite the fact that no Blu-Ray 2.0 compliant player, either as a standalone appliance or as PC software, currently exists on the market.)  And then, too, one should never underestimate the implications of the fact that the Blu-Ray specification is at this point controlled entirely by Sony, a company which we have now come to know as a deep repository of shameless and unrepentant asshattery.  (Sony's president, at least, expressed an opinion implying that from Sony's point of view, the only problem with the Sony rootkit scandal of 2005 was that Sony got caught.)  This is a perennial problem with any technology primarily controlled by a single source: the market is at the mercy of the whims of that single controlling source.

Perhaps what we need here, now that the question of the underlying technology has been settled, is for the rest of the consumer electronics industry to get together and formulate an "Open Blu-Ray" specification.

Incidentally, I observed in a comment yesterday that if HD-DVD claimed to be able to go to three or four layers to increase capacity, you can bet someone will do it with Blu-Ray discs too.  What I didn't know yesterday (quoting xnguard, here) was that it's already been done:

Hitachi, Ritek, TDK, and Panasonic have all produced ready-for-market prototype Blu-Ray media with 4-layer, 6-layer, and 10-layer capacities.  Of those, only Hitachi's 4-layer process might work in existing drives with only a firmware upgrade required.  Firmware upgrades for consumer electronics are still rocky and uncertain, but 4 layers (100GB) sure does sound tasty-- especially if it only junks a minority of players that either can't be upgraded, or just aren't supported by the manufacturer any more.

And if 100GB sounds tasty, how about that 10-layer, 250GB disc?

Comments

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

it's interesting to note that all HD hardware was compliant from day 1, and would remain so, afaik.

the PS3 is the most spec compliant BR player, and i believe can do 2.0 ; it's also the most popular BR player. it's also cheaper than standalones, and has more computes, and is probably better than anything else on the market which is kinda sad :0 also a sony.

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[laurarey.livejournal.com]

I would love to read the analysis posted by xnguard, but unfortunately cannot access it.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

You can't? ... Oh. It's locked. Hmm. i wonder if he meant to do that?
I'll inquire.

UPDATE: Try it again, he just unlocked it.

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

thanks!

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Much as I would like the higher definition, I think I will stay out of this particular technology area until there are enough players and entrenched media so that Sony will not be able to "upgrade" the standards. It will either fail, because of too many changes, or it will become so prevalent that inertia will prevent significant (or any) changes to the standard. That is the problem that Micro$oft is facing now, and the results are not pretty for them.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we're not planning on rushing out and buying one tomorrow either. We'll wait a few years for the standard to solidify and prices to drop — or (hopeful, here) for an Open Blu-Ray standard to emerge that Sony doesn't control.