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 补习班作业 - 未来DVD制式之争 |
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白丁
头衔: 海归少校
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加入时间: 2004/02/22
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作者：白丁 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
未来DVD制式之争
读后感
中国现行DVD产量是无可争议的世界第一(无论是否包括台湾或日韩在大陆的工厂)，可是我上DVD论坛网站的月台只看到两个汉语拼音，许多国内响当当的名字如长虹夏新TCL先科等都不在榜上。其实该论坛的门槛费也就是公司老总们的几顿饭钱，即使要成为核心成员的一万刀这些公司也出得起。
可为何没有去呢？
从企业的微观角度，原因可能是1)不知道，那是咱海龟的机会和桥梁的作用，俺这一贴你没借口了吧；2)没有立竿见影的利益不想去，这也难为了这些老总们了，这几年公司跟PP照样蓬勃发展，俺们只能感叹你命苦只愿去血拼价格赚RazorThin的margin，俺在九华山普陀山西华寺大雄宝殿为你烧香祝福菩萨年保佑你；3)没时间考虑，公司大了以后，放手deligate让professionals去经营，有人会替你考虑好然后给你brief得了。没人？乘现在美国经济不景气，到海龟网上一贴，只要你诚恳真心，黄埔一期到哈佛101期的能人会破釜沉舟跟你一博；4)怎么？没人想到，那要回头想想你雇的人是不是在这一行业不够专业或敏感，还是你的公司文化不鼓励下属去思想和提建议。
从宏观的角度说，国内有关部委做得很不够，没有鼓励动员扶持厂家积极参与应对，光靠狭隘的爱国主义自搞一套，忘了市场才是真正的老大，那永远中国只能定位于食物链的末端，看看大市场主人的脸色，啃啃别人剩下的骨头罢了。国内的DVD产业原来是由VCD发展起来的，那时没有国家的支持和国营大厂的介入，全凭各路神仙各显神通，把这一产业做得轰轰烈烈。
可是，看着DVD机在BestBuy从九七年的时700刀掉到现在的39刀, 眼见老美美滋滋的一台台搬回家，俺会觉得好像中国损失了什么……(尽管俺买到便宜MadeInChina的也是美美滋滋)
原文写得很精彩，文风简练清晰客观，过渡自然，俺门外汉也读得津津有味。建议先看原文，俺为了通俗，译文偷工减料了一点，还加了一点儿感情色彩。请各位老师和同学指正。
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未来DVD制式之争
DVD取代VCR还没几年，其下一代高清晰度制式已如火如荼。胜者将获得对消费者电器市场翻手为云的战略影响。这场争斗可能会象七十八十年代的VHS与Betamax之争一样，把消费者搅得不知所措，干脆两者的帐都不买。
两大阵营 :
蓝光由SONY和松下牵头，有戴尔、HP、日立、三菱、先锋、LG、菲利普、夏普、三星和汤姆猩。(蓝光盘容量50G)
另一方叫高解DVD由TOSHIBA领头，NEC加盟，并为MICROSOFT预留了座席拉拢其加入，众多的台湾厂商也站在旗下起哄。(高解DVD盘容量30G)
跟以往的VCR映象机不一样，DVD将融合到电脑，游戏机和电视机里。在数码音乐，电影和照片融为一体的世界里，DVD制式将影响从微软Windows到SONY PlayStation的销售。
日本的电器会社要不断推出新制式，以保持对日益强大的廉价中国制造的领先地位。即使最终是在中国装配，日本还是能靠供应关键零配件和在新制式中锁定专利成为赢家。
这场争斗甚至将美国和中国政府卷入其中，美国司法部开始质询是否SONY阵营不公正地阻碍了另一方的发展; 北京则同双方开战，推出第三种制式，尽管这一制式预计只能孤芳自赏。
角斗的故事始于并十年代中期，当SONY还在舔其败阵于第二场技术标准之争伤口之际。当时它的Betamax标准被松下VHS击溃，数十亿美元的VCR市场遭重创。接着SONY又失手未能在把其多项技术写入当下DVD标准中，尽管这次损失不大但却让以技术创新自傲的公司丢尽颜面。SONY的工程师决心在下一场战役中占先开始实验用较细的蓝色激光取代用于CD和DVD中的红色激光。
到了98年末,CD先驱之一的Ogawa有了蓝光读盘的原型，但一个细节困扰着他：为了增加光盘容量，要把光盘保护塑胶膜减到头发丝细的十分之一毫米。OGAWA求助于外界，尤其是在老对手松下工作的光盘专家TANAKA和其领导的吞剑者俱乐部(译者：原文SwordSwallowersClub，光听名字就佩服小日本够大无畏的武士道献身精神吧？)。在这个光盘沙龙的帮助下，OGAWA断定光盘制造问题可以解决。於是在此2000年一月三日TANAKA邀请OGAWA到著名的京都寺与主持共品新年清酒借着酒意谈起了下一代DVD的合作，两人想：咱俩全球最大的电器商统一一个标准，还有什么可说的(译者：酒的润滑作用不可低估，日本男人下班后都要和同事和几盅才会想起回家的路，这对培养团队精神互相交流启发增进合作不无益处，京姐和永恒的吃吃喝喝俱乐部看来是应该大大地发扬光大，也希望煮酒论英雄的一天不会遥远！)
且慢，太多可说的了。TOSHIBA以固执闻名的非等闲之辈工程师Hisash Yamada已领军测试了0.1mm 和同现行0.6mm厚的膜层。经过一年半的实验，YAMADA结论说薄制式难以制造，而厚制式可以容易兼容现行DVD。
TOSHIBA也曾是DVD论坛的主席，DVD论坛设立于1995年旨在制定DVD的标准，YAMADA心想下一代DVD也应该在坛里讨论，所以但SONY在同松下定调后再邀请TOSHIBA加盟时，YAMADA怒气冲冲的回应¨ TOSHIBA不玩政治游戏。¨
SONY和松下不久就吸引了臭味相投的夥伴：有两百成员的论坛真是和尚太多了；再说，TOSHIBA的技术太相似于现行的DVD了，日本公司在DVD研发上投了几十个亿，不想被廉价的中国仿制把margin给切了一刀，前车之鉴那。
到了2002年2月索尼松下和其他七个公司宣布所谓的蓝光联盟，后来又拉拢了HP和DELL入伙。这年的夏天，TOSHIBA和其同党NEC也把其竞争制式高解DVD拿到了DVD论坛评估。尽管SONY牵头的蓝光成员组成了自己的俱乐部，他们仍人人多势众可以左右DVD论坛。当2003年六月和九月快对TOSHIBA的技术最后定稿时，论坛委员会两次表决都未能背书。
但在私下，TOSHIBA领衔的制式开始吸引同情者。这其中也包括了极力想把影响扩展到PC以外的微软，尽管微软表示不管那个制式它都希望能支持。业界的新军如台湾的制造商想要保住近年来由於DVD规模化生产的市场份额，偏向于TOSHIBA类似现行DVD易于制造的技术，更妙的是通过在DVD论坛的运作加入自己的技术，降低将来的专利使用费。在现行的DVD成本中，这一使用费高达30%。
到了2003年11月，DVD论坛又第三次审议了TOSHIBA的制式，这时INTEL冒了出来。按INTEL提议的否决议程，加上蓝光成员法国THOMSON和韩国SUMSUNG令人惊异的附议，DVD论坛委员会以八比六通过了一个TOSHIBA支持的版本。该论坛在上个月又通过了TOSHIBA制式的第二版并准以微软等三家的压缩技术。
习惯了主角的好莱坞焦虑的观看着这场喜剧，DVD已占了好莱坞40%的收入，所有的主要制片商除SONY影业外都骑强观望。制片商挑剔的实验并没有分出两种制式的高下，两制式的清晰度都高且都支持版权保护。蓝光拥护者认为它们的光盘容量更大，而另一方反驳说采用压缩技术后这无关紧要。TOSHBA的YAMADA说蓝光盘娇嫩要外加盒子保护，SONY的OGAMA怒冲冲的回复:”狗屁”，他在满腹疑问的美国公司面前演示光盘涂上泥土照样工作，显示问题已解决。
两大阵营都将在近期投放其产品。SONY已在日本试销$4000美元的机型但销量不旺。松下将在七月份销售可放蓝光盘的DVD机；SUMSUNG和LG计划年底推出蓝光DVD；TOSHIBA则称明年拿出DVD论坛支持的$1000美元机型。(译者：SONY好像吸起了以往的教训，先做市场，这应该是上策。不过中国能否相过去一样，让别人买单研发先试水后再拼死仿制呢？…恐怕是越来越难了。)
对局内人言，恶梦是没完没了的两鹬蚌相争，让消费者无所适从而干脆不掏荷包。但近期看来俩阵营都无和解的迹象，SONY的NISHITANI放话” 至少我们不会妥协” 。
Technology Titans Battle Over Format Of DVD Successor
By Phred Dvorak in Tokyo, Nick Wingfield in San Francisco and Sarah McBride in Los Angeles
Asian Upstarts, Microsoft See Chance for New Influence; Consumers May Be Baffled
It's been only a few years since DVD players started taking over from VCRs in the living room. But a new battle is already raging over the DVD's high-definition successor. The prize: enormous strategic influence over the consumer-electronics market. The players: practically everyone in the technology world, from personal-computer titans that want to reach into consumer electronics to upstart Asian companies that want to lure manufacturing away from Japan.
The fight could get as messy as the VHS vs. Betamax battle over videotape formats in the 1970s and 1980s, leaving people so confused they end up buying nothing.
"We thought everyone would agree this time," says Kiyoshi Nishitani, a former Betamax engineer at Sony Corp. who is a key player in the new battle. "We never thought it would become such a big deal."
On Sony's side is Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic products, as well as PC maker Dell Inc. and many others. The opposing camp is led by Toshiba Corp. and plans to make room for video software from Microsoft Corp.
Unlike the old days of the stand-alone VCR, DVD players now go in computers and videogame machines as well as underneath the television set. In the converging world of digital music, movies and pictures, the technical specifications of the DVD's successor could theoretically affect sales of products ranging from Microsoft's Windows to Sony's PlayStation.
Electronics makers in Japan want to keep introducing new formats to stay ahead of competitors in China who have become a huge force in supplying cheap players. Even if Chinese companies end up assembling the new devices, Japanese rivals can still win by supplying key components and locking up patents embedded in the DVD's successor.
The dispute has even ensnared the U.S. and Chinese governments. The U.S. Department of Justice has begun a preliminary inquiry into whether the Sony camp unfairly blocked the other side's progress. Beijing is battling both sides: It's promoting a third DVD format, although that isn't expected to take off outside China.
It's too early for most consumers to start worrying about the format war. After all, a lot of families just unwrapped their first DVD player last Christmas. Everyone agrees that movies and audio CDs purchased for existing players will still work in the new generation of machines.
But connoisseurs who already have big TV screens and hookups for high-definition broadcasts may want one of the new players. The new discs hold several times as much information as a DVD -- including enough storage for hours of the data-packed, crystal-clear images required for high-definition television.
The roots of the current struggle lie in the mid-1990s, when Sony was licking its wounds from a second defeat in a technology standards war. Its Betamax standard was crushed in the 1980s by Matsushita's VHS, damaging Sony's sales in the multibillion-dollar market for VCRs. Then Sony failed to get most of its technology into the current DVD player. That was less costly but still embarrassing for the company that prides itself as a leader in innovation.
Determined to get a head start in the next standards war, Sony engineers began to experiment with a blue laser, whose narrower beam can be used to cram more data on a disc than the red laser used with CDs and DVDs.
In late 1998, Hiroshi Ogawa, one of the CD's developers, got the blue laser to read a disc in a prototype. But one detail worried him: He wanted to shrink the thickness of the disc's protective plastic layer to just one-tenth of a millimeter, or about the thickness of a human hair. That would increase the disc's data capacity. But Mr. Ogawa worried that such a disc might be impossible to make.
For help, Mr. Ogawa reached out to a loose community of his fellow Japanese optical-disc engineers who kept up a friendly exchange of ideas, even though they worked at rival makers. He was particularly close to Shin-ichi Tanaka of Matsushita, another longtime optical-disc specialist and the leader of his own coterie of engineers dubbed the Sword Swallowers Club.
With the help of the "optical-disc salon," as Mr. Tanaka calls it, Mr. Ogawa decided he could solve the disc-manufacturing problem. On Jan. 3, 2000, Mr. Tanaka invited Mr. Ogawa to a famous Kyoto temple to sip New Year's sake with the head priest. Then they repaired to a private room and talked about cooperating on the next-generation DVD player. The two men thought: If the world's two biggest consumer electronics makers agreed on a standard, what could stand in their way?
Plenty, it turned out. Toshiba engineer Hisashi Yamada, a no-nonsense man with a reputation for stubbornness, had directed his team to test both a disc with the 0.1-millimeter protective layer and another model with a 0.6-millimeter layer, the same as current DVDs. After a year and a half of experimenting, Mr. Yamada says he concluded that the thinner format was too hard to make, while the thicker one would make compatibility with current DVDs easier.
Toshiba was also serving as chairman of the DVD Forum, an industry consortium formed in 1995 to set DVD standards, and Mr. Yamada thought the next-generation DVD should be discussed there. So when Sony approached Toshiba to join the members-only alliance it had forged with Matsushita, Mr. Yamada said no. "Toshiba doesn't like political maneuvering," he says.
Sony and Matsushita soon attracted allies who preferred a closed alliance. They thought the industry forum, with its 200 members, was unwieldy. Besides, Toshiba's technology looked too similar to current DVDs. Japanese companies spent billions of dollars researching DVDs, only to see margins undercut by cheap Chinese copycats, and they didn't want that happening again. The Sony-Matsushita technology has more new features and thus is harder to copy, says Kazuhiro Tsuga, director of Matsushita's advanced appliances development center.
In February 2002, Sony, Matsushita and seven other companies announced the formation of what they called the Blu-ray group. Three other companies -- including Hewlett Packard Co. and Dell -- joined later. That summer, Toshiba and fellow Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp. presented their rival format, called HD DVD, to the DVD Forum for evaluation.
Even though the Sony-led Blu-ray members had formed their own club, they still played a key role at the DVD Forum, where they made up a majority of the steering committee. When the committee considered near-final versions of Toshiba's technology in June and September of 2003, it voted against an endorsement both times.
But behind the scenes the Toshiba-led format was starting to attract a diverse group of allies. One was Microsoft, which badly wants to extend its influence into other gadgets beyond the personal computer. It first started to show its video software at forum meetings at the end of 2002, lobbying to get the technology included in whichever disc format the forum ultimately blessed. Since January of this year it has tagged along on Toshiba's pitches to movie studios and others. Microsoft is offering studios a rock-bottom rate on its WMV-9 video compression software, which is used to squeeze movies onto a disc.
Microsoft says it isn't taking sides and would be happy to have its software incorporated into the Blu-ray format too. Amir Majidimehr, vice president of the Windows digital-media division, says Microsoft believes getting its software in DVD players will help stimulate demand for PCs that run its software in the future. As growth slows in its primary business of selling software to companies, Microsoft wants to tap into future waves of consumer spending on technology by ensuring its Windows operating system acts as a central "hub" that serves up entertainment to videogame machines, televisions and other gadgets.
Electronics newcomers such as Taiwanese disc and player manufacturers want to hold on to the gains they've made recently as the DVD became a mass-market, low-cost item. They like the Toshiba-led format because it's similar to current DVDs and easier for them to make -- and so keep their market share.
Better yet, by working through the DVD Forum Taiwanese companies think they can squeeze some of their own technology into the new standard. That could lower royalties. On current Taiwan-made DVD players, royalties can be as high as 30% of the sales price, says Der Ray Huang, deputy general director of Taiwan's quasigovernmental Industrial Technology Research Institute.
In November 2003, as the DVD Forum weighed the Toshiba-backed format for the third time, the giant chip maker Intel Corp. stepped in. Intel wants to make sure that high-definition DVD players work well with PCs using Intel chips and believes it can exert more influence through the DVD Forum. At the meeting, Intel proposed changing the rules to prevent abstentions from being counted as "no" votes, say people familiar with the situation.
At the urging of Intel, the amendment was written up during a coffee break, passed and immediately put into effect. The rule change, along with the surprise support of Blu-ray members Thomson SA of France and Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea, was enough to get one version of the Toshiba-backed format approved in an 8-6 vote, according to people familiar with the situation.
An Intel spokesman declined to comment on the meeting but says the company supports the DVD Forum because it is open to participation from a broad range of companies. Thomson and Samsung declined to comment on their votes but said they remain committed members of the Blu-ray group.
The forum steering committee last month approved a second, rewriteable version of the Toshiba-led disc format and gave a provisional nod to Microsoft's compression technology along with two others.
The drama is being watched anxiously by Hollywood, where DVD sales now account for more than 40% of revenue. Most major studios haven't committed to either side (except, of course, Sony Pictures). Studios think they have more to gain by fence-sitting while the competing camps woo them with private presentations and promises to pay more of the cost of advertising new movie-disc releases.
In a number of studio demonstrations, Sony has played Lawrence of Arabia on a split screen, with one half in high-definition and the other in regular DVD. One executive from another studio recalls being struck by a scene where T.E. Lawrence is gathering troops before battle. Even at the fringes of the high-definition frames, he recalls, "you could pick out the individual faces and see the decorations on horses." By contrast, "in the current DVD release, past Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole, past the principal actors, everyone was a blur."
Studios like to give engineers working in high-definition technology particularly challenging scenes from their own movies, to see how they come out. For example, Warner Bros. has tested its Matrix movies, to see how well the technology renders different hues of black worn by the characters. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. has used the car chase scene from its movie Ronin, a scene considered particularly complex because of the fast moves and repeated changes from dark to light.
The tests haven't revealed a clear winner. Both formats offer superior picture quality and copyright protection. Blu-ray backers say their discs hold more data; the other side says that with data compression, that difference doesn't matter.
Mr. Yamada of Toshiba and his cohorts say Blu-ray discs are so sensitive to grime they may need to be protected by a cartridge. Rubbish, responds Sony's Mr. Ogawa, who recently ground dirt into the face of a prototype Blu-ray disc -- which he then played -- to show a skeptical American company that the problem had been solved.
Both sides are now preparing to launch products. Sony already sells a $4,000 Blu-ray recorder in Japan, although demand has been weak. Matsushita says it will start sales in July of a Diga DVD recorder that plays Blu-ray discs. Samsung and LG Electronics Inc. of Korea say they'll have Blu-ray recorders on the market by the end of this year. Toshiba says it may offer a player with the DVD Forum-backed format for sale next year for $1,000.
The nightmare scenario for everyone involved would be a prolonged fight in the market between competing formats, since consumers may be so confused they refuse to buy either kind of disc. But there's no settlement in sight. "We at least aren't going to compromise," says Sony's Mr. Nishitani.
Updated March 15, 2004
作者：白丁 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 补习班作业 - 未来DVD制式之争 -- 白丁 - (16218 Byte) 2004-3-18 周四, 00:04 (2105 reads) - DVD在中国的委屈 -- 牛仔 - (657 Byte) 2004-3-18 周四, 11:21 (255 reads)
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