HD DVD FTW

[usbcd36]

the porn industry has decided to adopt HD DVD as it's next-gen video format. The word "adopt," however, may be of poor choice, as Sony has denied the industry use of Blu-Ray technology; perhaps "forced" is a better word. Anyone old enough to remember the format wars of the previous generation (VHS v. Betamax) probably knows the dirty little secret why the Betamax faded into the night and VHS ruled as champ: porn. Due to Sony's disallowing of the industry to utilize Betamax technology, it folded, and is now only used by high-end media production systems, such as television stations, where quality of video is top-priority (as the Betamax yielded higher quality video than VHS). So, in light of the multi-billion dollar porn industry's "adoption" of HD DVD, where do you, the internet-goer, see Blu-Ray and HD DVD heading? Collapse for Blu-Ray? Prosperity for HD DVD?

Comments?

You've been listening to tWiM too, apparently…

It's only a speculation as to why VHS triumphed, but a good one at that.

I was just thinking, what if in a few years instead of optical disks, we have HDD cartridges? Think of all the video they could hold! (they would have to get a lot cheaper, and find some way to make the idestructible by shaking but it could happen)

those entered the world in 1982, and left it in 1998. The problem is that hard drives are sealed for a reason. Without the insides being almost 100% particle free, the heads can't get close enough to store large amounts of data.

Edit: damn page breaks…

[Sir Games-A-Lot]

I was thinking a purely data connection (metal contacts to a PCB on a sealed unit like those swappable HDD's they use in offices).

guess that answers the question on the other page too...

[usbcd36]

If you still need the heads and the motors included, why not just have swappable hard drives altogether? It's not like the controller board costs that much to make. Plus, with SATA, you only have 22 pins, including power.

[Sir Games-A-Lot]

If you still need the heads and the motors included, why not just have swappable hard drives altogether? It's not like the controller board costs that much to make.

That's exactly what I meant in my first post (I didn't know there was an existing (albeit defunct) technology that had just the platters in the cart, thus the question in relation to Madc0w's idea on page 1).

I guess really the idea in there was to put them in user friendly cases and make them hard to break, as well as agreeing on a standard video format and having stand-alone players for them.

[warmachine]

Heck, wait a couple more years, and we might not have to worry about hard disks at all. With the way flash media is progressing (read: Toshiba's 30GB flash drive laptop), it might not be too surprising to see disk based memory disappear by the end of the decade; but, then again, that's just my guess. So, the idea of a video cartridge might not be all that unfeasible.

As for making some concessions, usb is right:

It's only a speculation as to why VHS triumphed, but a good one at that.

It is only a speculation, but, like he said, a good one.

And, I did fail to mention that VHS had a truly superior run time, as teraflop pointed out:

I think a much bigger part of the VHS victory was its ability to hold feature length films. When first introduced, Betamax could hold 1 hour of video, while VHS could hold 4. You would need multiple Betamax cassettes to hold a single movie, as opposed to 1 VHS.

Imagine a having all 6 Star Wars episodes in Betamax. That would be, what, 3 per episode... (counts on fingers) 18 tapes. Now add the 3 Alien movies. The Lord of the Rings would have needed something like 4 tapes per movie.

Sony broke a cardinal rule when they made betamax: NEVER trade-off convenience for the sake of quality- NEVER EVER. The moment you need to change tapes half-way through, you lose the support of every couch potatoe on Earth.

Of course, neither HD DVD nor Blu-ray suffer from an inability to store full-length movies, so that won't come into play during this war.

Laserdiscs, however (which I own quite a few of), did require one to flip sides in the middle of movies. Heck, my copy of Jurrasic Park has two LDs, meaning you have to flip it twice. In spite of that factor, though, they did seem to last quite a while - they even still make LD players, but they cost a bundle and play just about every disc based format now, so it's more of a universal media center than just a laserdisc machine.

Hehehe, there's an idea... ressurect the old LD system and start publishing HD LDs. Heck, I'd buy 'em, if nothing else than they're analogue and would lack the encryption/compression that riddles DVD technology.

[Ari]

But flash drives will probably always stay far behind hard drives in cost to storage ratio. 30 gig flash drive=$500=

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that any of the currently made players can actually read the 3 layer hd-dvd mentioned earlier... and the people that already have players won't want to have to dump their $500-1200 investment in a landfill so soon...

And about using hard drives: why? The whole point of using the optical drives is because it costs 10 cents to stamp a disk and like $5 to make a hard drive.

I personally want blu-ray to come out on top since I already own a ps3, but I doubt that either format will reach popularity. Everybody watches youtube and digital cable these days, so they obviously don't care about video quality... but Blu-ray FTW!

[warmachine]

I definitely get you, Ari. Most people won't want to throw out expensive HD DVD systems that can't read higher capacity disks; to make it fair though, Blu-Ray will do the same eventually, and then there will be a nation of PS3/Blu-Ray owners disgruntled about that, just as with the HD DVD crowd.

This is why I never buy new tech; just give it a few years to allow for ironing out of formats and bugs, and then invest. I never owned a DVD-R/RW drive until DL was widely available, because 15GB of data (on a double-sided disc) is plenty for what I need. I did, however, own one of the first generation HP CD-RW drives; I still have it on my desk, chugging along when I need to burn stuff that isn't time-critical.

As for the expense of flash memory, I'm wagering that Moore's Law will kick in and by 2012-2013ish, it will probably have phased out disk based storage (HD storage, not necessarily CDs and DVDs). Doing the math, that brings the approximate cost down by and the maximum storage capacity up by a factor of four. Not cheap enough for videos to be sold on, but certainly cheap enough to use as a primary storage volume (and a heck of a lot less volatile, too).

[demonofaj]

Ugh, my thread was as bad as it is...but I'm in a pickle. I want to get the External HDDVD player for my 360...but HD DVD at the moment has horrible studio support from what I see...and err....isn't that what REALLY counts?

[Rototiller]

I dunno. I like blue-ray and hd-dvd both.

[teraflop122]

Moore's law alone will not make flash drives preferable over hard drives, and I'm not sure what any of you mean by "less volatile." Flash memory tends to wear out far more quickly than hard drive platters do. Lets also remember that hard drive storage capacity is increasing rapidly. While we're giggling and screaming about 30GB flash discs, the first 1TB hard drives are poised to hit the market.

Optical discs, in one form or another, will remain the more economical choice for storing and selling large amounts of data over flash memory for a long time. Technologies superior to Blu-ray and HD DVD are already in use by corporations to backup data, such as holographic versatile discs with 300GB capacities.

A more likely senario is the rapid adoption of internet downloading services. Soon virtually all digital media will be downloaded instead of bought in physical form. Highly integrated home electronics will allow the media to be played throughout the home. In fact, globally propogating wireless networks of one kind or another will allow us to access our media anywhere we are on the planet, even with all of it stored in hard drives out our home or at some information center. Bandwidth will have multiplied many times over, and wireless and streaming media technologies will have become exceptionally reliable. You will only be as likely to lose a signal then as it is likely for a stereo to fail today.

[demonofaj]

Actually, I have a theory of my own (adopted from some quote from some guy at Sony)...we won't have discs soon. The world is going digital now...and I doubt a physical disc drive will be necessary, hell, we'll probably just have a media box with internet capabilities and buy HD movies from that (a la XBOX Live Marketplace)...just wait...just wait...

[vskid]

A more likely senario is the rapid adoption of internet downloading services. Soon virtually all digital media will be downloaded instead of bought in physical form. Highly integrated home electronics will allow the media to be played throughout the home. In fact, globally propogating wireless networks of one kind or another will allow us to access our media anywhere we are on the planet, even with all of it stored in hard drives out our home or at some information center. Bandwidth will have multiplied many times over, and wireless and streaming media technologies will have become exceptionally reliable. You will only be as likely to lose a signal then as it is likely for a stereo to fail today.

Thats a good idea, but what if you don't have access to the internet at suitable speeds (like living in the middle of nowhere, being too poor, etc.)? Maybe it will be used along side whatever disc format is used at the time, and computers will still have storage for personal stuff like Word documents.

[NiN^_^NiN]

Just to explain how p0rn won the VHS vs BETAMAX

Back then you had to go to cinemas to see it and lets face it the average joe didn't wanna go into a cinema thats dirty and had people in it for that type of movie.

When they brought out VHS and the porn industry atarted to make movies on it the average joe started to buy the VHS machines and decided the format wars basiclly.

The fact is now p0rn is everywhere and can be had for free so i don't think HD-DVD on porn will win this war like it would when the VHS debate started.

I do think it will win cause of the name HD means Hi Def to most average people and DVD they already know so they will go oh i have a HD tv so i should get the HD DVD.

[dman762000]

There wasn't porn on the Betamax? I could've sworn I saw a beta movie at Goodwill the other day called "Dirty Schoolgirls" or something to that effect.

porn at goodwill,,, that's just absolutly crazy

anyway back in the early '80s porn was a deciding factor in beta versus VHS because the majority of people who had vcr's then were men and who watches the most porn,,, hmmmm,,, but now since(as was said earlier)porn is free on the internet, and the majority of people who look at porn now are excitable teenagers then it won't have much effect on hd vs. b.r.

[teraflop122]

Just to explain how p0rn had some effect on the VHS vs BETAMAX

Fixed