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[ In Focus ] |
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Blue laser blues
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by Wayne Cole
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"Well, my momma got 'em,
My daddy got 'em,
My brother got 'em,
My sister got 'em.
Woke up this morning,
Grandma-papa had them too.
Yeah you know about that,
They got them Blue Laser Blues."
This rewrite of Canned Heat's 1967 classic, "Bullfrog Blues," kept popping into my head each time I walked into a computer or electronics store during the latter half of 2007. On the shelves where I had previously seen internal and external Blu-ray writer computer drives and recordable media, there appeared more and faster DVD and CD drives or media.
The occasional Blu-ray and HD-DVD drive with blue laser read capability only appeared along with the home theater players, but neither type of unit seemed to be flying off the shelves. A number of laptops and desktop systems shipped with drives that could write all the red laser formats and read blue laser disks, but consumers didn't seem to really notice.
A Costly War Of Words
What videophiles and the consumer press did notice was the increasingly acrimonious and public war of words between the HD-DVD and Blu-ray manufacturers. Many of the former early adopters and "power viewers" have decided that standard definition DVDs on a quality HDTV look just great, thank you very much, so take your incompatible blue laser formats and ... you know the rest.
Meanwhile some studios like National Geographic Films will issue HD titles in both formats, and some OEMs like Samsung have demonstrated players that can play either format. But for content producers there is no relief: No manufacturer has yet shown a serious inclination to devise a unit that can write both Blu-ray and HD-DVD.
While the videophile and consumer press go on about the viewers who are being denied a portion of the HD experience by this spat, some of the larger issues (and potential profit losses) seem to be blowing right over the manufacturers' heads. Being largely orchestrated by Japanese companies, this spat follows the Japanese philosophy that there is no difference between love, business, and war -- and that all is fair in each. As manufacturers lose themselves in the fog of war, they seem to be missing some key points.
Except for the squabbles over the division of license royalties for each piece of blue laser media produced and each blue laser device sold, high capacity HD blue laser discs were poised to become the norm in distribution, as well as home and studio recording and rewritable arenas, five years ago. But manufacturers made the irrational decision to essentially forego five years of some profits in hopes of attaining the unattainable goal of cornering all the blue laser format profits at some future date. It seems unusually irrational when you consider that these lost profits probably come close to the real (as opposed to the exaggerated) losses due to commercial piracy.
Gone In A Flash
Another factor the warring factions seem to have missed is that the day of the blue laser disc seems to be passing even before it becomes the state of the market. Increasingly fast, compact, and affordable solid-state storage, USB, and IEEE-1394 drives have become common modes of distribution.
A number of my legal and forensic clients now deliver and take delivery of media on thumb drives, USB portable media, or the same solid-state media common to many digital still cameras. Increasingly, security video archives are being kept on these media as well. The larger government community shows little inclination in moving en masse to formats that have designed-in compatibility issues and can't become a de facto COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) standard before the technology becomes passé.
So, while manufacturers continue this format war against their own self interest (and arguably the interest of their stockholders), consumers, content creators, and distributors are increasingly turning from passive collateral damage victims to proactive alternate solution providers. The appearance of home theater equipment with networking, hard drives, and built-in Microsoft or Java media services mean that more and more HD media will be downloaded from the Internet for playback on computers, portable devices, and HDTVs. The net effect may be the realization by Sony, Philips, Toshiba, and the other combatants that the market is hearing and may start heeding another echo from the 1960's: "What if they gave a war and nobody came?"
Wayne M. Cole, CCV, CLVI, and member of the AGCV Board of Advisors, is also the owner of IHP, a video production company located Santa Barbara, CA. Contact him at wcole@ihpweb.com.
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