This is Part III in the spotanime.com multi-part series, “HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray: Consumers In The Crossfire,” dealing with the future of the formats.
The high definition wars are in full swing, and gamers and videophiles alike are caught in the crossfire. CES has come and gone, and the consensus is Blu-Ray winning the battle in the still-undecided war. With all the talk about studio neutrality, “will studio [X] support format [Y]“, and whatnot, it would be a good exercise to find out exactly how the format war got to this point, try to figure out why certain studios side with one format over another, and the future of high definition media.
Where do we go from here?
Where do we go from here?
The battle’s done, and we kind of won,
So we sound our victory cheer.
Where do we go from here?
Why is the path unclear?
When we know home is near?
Understand we’ll go hand-in-hand
But we’ll walk alone in fear.
Where do we go from here?
When does the end appear?
When do the trumpets cheer?
The curtains close on a kiss, God knows
We can tell the end is near…
Where do we go from here?
- “Where Do We Go From Here”, from the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer“ episode Once More With Feeling
A Moot Point
With all this talk about Blu-ray emerging victorious, its crown may be all too brief. By the next decade, digital distribution will replace physical optical media for next generation high definition audio and video content. What this means is Blu-ray’s legacy will be about as important as the rival format it left behind for dead.
Studios are already experimenting with distribution methods with services like Amazon’s Unbox, Netflix’s soon-to-be-available download service, Blockbuster’s video-on-demand, online stalwarts like CinemaNow and Movielink, and Apple’s Apple TV combined with the growing library of movies available through iTunes. And one would be remiss if Microsoft’s Xbox Live Video Marketplace and, ironically, Sony’s PS3 Online Store weren’t mentioned as legitimate players in the digital distribution game.
The options are already there, but it is going to boil down to four key factors in determining the success, or better yet who succeeds, in digital distribution: content, quality, bandwidth, and delivery.
It’s Who You Know
Content, much like in the HD-DVD/Blu-ray war, will play a major part initially in the success of digital distribution. Sony will undoubtedly leverage their vast library of catalog material to position the Sony PS3 Online Store, in order to sell more PS3s, and will probably be a major holdout from competing video services. By putting a PS3 in every home, Sony has covered three of the four key factors: content, quality and delivery.
We’re already seeing Pixar exclusive to iTunes, and if the rumors of Apple buying Disney become true, then that will be another studio to take a side. As for the other studios, it would make the most sense to license their content to as many distributors as possible, or even offer their content themselves through their own distribution channel. This is where delivery will play a much more important role, which will be explained in a bit.
Lookin’ Good
Consumers want, at the very least, digital content as good as they can buy. That means, by the time digital becomes a feasible alternative to physical distribution, 720p content will be the lowest denominator for consumers. Anything less, and consumers will hold out for something better. It’s one of the main stumbling blocks today, where people don’t want to pay for digital content that won’t look as good as the DVD they can go to the store and purchase.
It also means, delivery devices must be able to handle 1280×720 content and above, and be able to downscale effectively when necessary. Right now, Apple TV can handle at maximum 720p content. The Xbox 360 and PS3 can output in 1080p. Home theater PCs can display in resolutions above 1080p, so they are future-proof, but asking everyone to own a HTPC is a little beyond what to expect from the normal consumer.
How Big Is Your Pipe?
Broadband is finally becoming the standard home connection, but even those have varying speeds and limitations. Until fiber optic speeds are available to most households, sending 720p content with today’s codecs would take longer than the average consumer could bear. The Xbox Live Video Marketplace has proven consumers aren’t ready for six-hour downloads to watch a two-hour movie. The time to send content to consumers must reach a fraction, not a product, of the content’s running time.
Speedy Delivery!
Delivery is the sum of many sub-factors for a physical device – the ability to display in acceptable resolutions, to interpret content from several sources, to handle current and future codecs, and to handle Digital Rights Management, or DRM.
The first is a direct relation to quality – if the content is delivered in 720p, then it should have the ability to display in that format, or perhaps upscale or downscale depending on the consumer’s preference. It should also have the storage capacity to keep the content locally; the consumer will be resistant to make a purchase if they feel they do not have some sort of tangible ownership of it.
The second has to do with content – if digital distributors decide to all offer their own content and cut out any external agreements or middlemen, that means the device should be able to accept content, much like an aggregator accepts feeds, from a variety of sources. The exceptions are when the distributor offers their own delivery device, such as Apple TV with iTunes or the PS3 with the Online Store.
The third is how the device can handle video compression. The more compressed a video, usually the worse the quality. However, Microsoft’s VC-1 is clearly the early leader in delivering HD content, by providing quality comparable to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC at about half the file size. This is an important factor – the smaller the file size without impacting video quality, the easier for consumers to download and store, and the better for customers to accept. This is one of the reasons why the Xbox Live Video Marketplace hasn’t reached the ideal penetration mark of Xbox 360 owners, because file sizes are just too big. Undoubtedly, the next three years will see improved video and audio codecs, and it would be smart for companies to meet consumers halfway in this regard, rather than wait for consumers to subscribe to higher-speed broadband services.
The fourth factor – DRM – is probably the most important factor of digital distribution. DRM is presumably the main reason why Fox and Disney are supporting Blu-ray exclusively, and as more and more companies develop DRM schemes to protect content, services will demonstrate a real advantage over eachother in the eyes of the studios.
One disadvantage to the consumer is that DRM is usually unique to a specific service. Music and movies purchased through Apple’s iTunes are only available through the iTunes client or via an Apple device such as an iPod or Apple TV, and it is usually tied to a specific PC or Mac running said client. One cannot stream iTunes media directly to an Xbox 360 or PS3, for example.
Netflix and Blockbuster both have entered partnerships with TiVo, which means TiVo is coming close to achieving the status of one box handling multiple content services. As Cable providers compete with their own PVRs, they would be foolish to ignore additional revenue streams like this, and would probably partner with similar if not the same content services.
The best and probably most universally accepted option is the home theater PC (HTPC). At first one would suspect this option to be the most expensive and physically unreasonable. But then one would only look under the hood of PCs to find the standard innerworkings – Microsoft Windows and Intel CPUs – to be most portable to a set-top device, if a company were to explore such an initiative. Saying that, the best delivery device may be one that hasn’t been manufactured, yet is in everyone’s homes at the same time – one that can output in a multitude of resolutions, can handle multiple DRM schemes and has the ability to accept video from almost all sources available through the internet.
The Blu Pill or the Red Pill
Blu-ray has a lot more competition right now than it’s DVD predecessor. High definition content is being offered through on-demand cable and satellite services, over network broadcasts, or digital downloads to PCs and game consoles. Offering a disc with the same quality is merely a way to allow the consumer to purchase the same content in a physical, and more accepted, format.
In the words of Buffy, “where do we go from here?” When any of the above factors improves for the consumer, digital distribution will become a more viable solution. Until then, Sony can tout they are the winners of the next gen format wars; but the truth is they only “kind of won”.
Dear Sony: