News Sony sued for Blu-ray patent

[Da Dego]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/05...u-ray_patent/1

Sony is on the wrong end of a patent lawsuit over one of the technologies in Blu-ray. Discs are cheaper to produce if you don't pay license fees!

[AcidJiles]

Never likedthe way blu ray was marketed and brought to market hope it dies

[pendragon]

the forum link for this doesnt go to this thread.. just sent me to the forums...


I'm not sure what to make of this really.. small company just playing oportunist here, or is Sony being even more stupid?

[Fod]

god i want blu-ray to fail so badly. this format war is completely stupid and is bad for both industry and consumers. HD-DVD is more widely supported, cheaper, and easier to implement for fabrication plants. did i mention it's not owned by sony either?

i hope you bring sony to its knees, small random company!

[themax]

I side with Sony on this one. Sony was demoing the Blu-Ray years before it's release, and now suddenly the lawsuit hits, just as Blu-Ray starts to edge over HD DVD in sales. And how come they are targetting Sony, and not the Blu-Ray Association, Sony isn't the only investor, and I doubt they are the only manufacturers of Blu-Ray discs.

I hate our patent system. It's used by these smaller companies as a cash cow, more than it is as a protection of their ideas these days.

[Spacecowboy92]

Originally Posted by Fod

i hope you bring sony to its knees, small random company!

Amen!

[BioSniper]

Originally Posted by Fod

I hope you bring Sony to its knees, small random company!

Well said.
I too wish Bluray vanishes off the face of the earth even if its the "superior" format it still doesn't really make anyone forgive a company's mass wrong doings.

[Mankz]

Ha.

Eat that Sony.

[DougEdey]

IIRC Sony are the only manufacturers of the diodes, hence why they are being sued

[themax]

But from I have gathered the lawsuit is against the use of the protective coating on the discs themselves. Not the diodes.

I want to comment on the blind hate for Blu-Ray (Saying things like HD DVD has more support makes me wonder if you are even credible given the info available about both formats right now) but I won't with the exception of this post.

[Flyingsheep]

Sounds to me like everyone's saying "Blu-Ray should fail just because I said so, and because Sony is behind it all", which seems totally irrational.

Okay... why do you say that? Of course most of us don't even like Sony, myself included, but who cares? Blu-Ray is superior to HD-DVD. I would like the best technology to win, but if Sony keeps this up it's going to end up like Betamax versus VHS, where the inferior format wins.

[L2wis]

final nail in the coffin?

[mikeuk2004]

Originally Posted by L2wis

final nail in the coffin?

This final nail quote is used a bit too often I think. How many final nails are there. Can only have one and there also has to be a coffin first and Blue Ray aint Dead.

I dont think Sony will let this kill Blue Ray

[BioSniper]

The fact is that most people are against the business practices of the company that created it and as such its not a "blind hate", it's a hate for the company and to see that company fail at any point would be of great satisfaction to those of us that dislike them (Sony).

Why is it that you say Blu-ray is a superior technology? Just because it holds more data?
Hardly a good reason. It's like saying outright that Mitsubishi (or some other arbitrary company) makes the best cars because the Evo has more BHP than a Ford Focus.
What you have to look at in the long term is that what makes the car great as a whole. The Ford would be the better to the majority of people out there because of good availability and easy to get parts.

The fact that Sony basically don't licence anything to do with blu-ray to anyone (generally cheap 3rd party manufacturers) unlike will be done with HD-DVD (which results in cheap players) shows that there may be little to no future from the product due to bad business practices.

Blu-Ray is great on the tech specs but the company's past exploits really does lead one to believe that it will be too expensive for most people and when it does come done in price it'll be too little too late or support would have already shifted to the one that is cheapest as it will generally have a higher installed user base.

(Hopefully everything makes sense, its bad analogy's I know but it'd the best I can do right now )

[K.I.T.T.]

Originally Posted by BioSniper

Blu-Ray is great on the tech specs but the company's past exploits really does lead one to believe that it will be too expensive for most people and when it does come done in price it'll be too little too late or support would have already shifted to the one that is cheapest as it will generally have a higher installed user base.

(Hopefully everything makes sense, its bad analogy's I know but it'd the best I can do right now )

Its what people have been saying for along time about Blu-Ray. it doesn't matter whether its technically superior because on mass people won't care they'll got for the option that hurts their pocket the least which means the one that's got the widest support on the market and is also easiest and cheapest to manufacture (HD-DVD).

[themax]

But it's already been proven that Blu-Ray will cost the same maybe $100 more come this summer so that argument of easiest and cheapest hasn't held water since Bit Tech reported it themselves on the $300 Blu-Ray player. And as for BioSpiner I find that pretty hypocritical. So many of you talk about M$ <--- (Example) and how Windows should fail or that MS bullies smaller companies, but yet you wholly support HD DVD and have a Live account. So how this now double standards as far "people" go with Sony? Sony has some shady practices, let’s hate them all and the format they support. But we will just pretend Microsoft isn't the same way and claim their format is better because it's cheaper (isn't the case anymore) and more widely support (Sales data says otherwise).

[Neogumbercules]

Chances are they will just end up settling out of court for a ridiculous amount of money and Target Technologies will walk away a hundred million dollars richer and Sony will continue to sell BR tech. If course until more details are available no one will know anything.

Sony hasn't even had a chance to defend itself yet and most of you guys are already casting them into the fire. Wait for the facts before you get the pitchforks and torches.

[HugoB]

Yes.... of course HD-DVD is more widely supported than Blu-Ray:

To avoid 3rd party bias, lets go by the listed supporters on each formats official websites:

HD-DVD: Warner Bros, HBO, New Line Cinema, Paramount, Universal Studios, HP, Intel and Microsoft. That's 8 companies who are willing to have their names on the HD-DVD site as supporters of the format.

Blu-Ray: Apple, Buena Vista, Dell, Fox, Hitachi, HP, LG, Lionsgate, MGM, Mitsubushi, Panasonic, Paramount, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sony (of course), Sun Microsystems, Thompson, Universal, Walt Disney and Warner Bros. So that's 23 companies who are willing to show their support for Blu-Ray on the official website.

Oh, and 3 of them are on both lists (Warner Bros, HP, Universal) so can't be counted as for or against either format.

Now yes, I'll admit that there are more supporters for HD-DVD than their website makes out. But I'm not trying to support HD-DVD, so I;m not going out of my way to find that evidence.

Please people think before you say things just because you read it on slashdot...

[Flyingsheep]

Originally Posted by BioSniper

Why is it that you say Blu-ray is a superior technology? Just because it holds more data?
Hardly a good reason. It's like saying outright that Mitsubishi (or some other arbitrary company) makes the best cars because the Evo has more BHP than a Ford Focus.
What you have to look at in the long term is that what makes the car great as a whole. The Ford would be the better to the majority of people out there because of good availability and easy to get parts.

Seems like "it holds more data" is still a good reason for me. Everything else you listed doesn't have anything to do with technology. Not that I'm saying what you said is worthless.

[BioSniper]

Originally Posted by themax

But it's already been proven that Blu-Ray will cost the same maybe $100

Not being harsh here but $100 when translated over here in the UK is usually £100 (~$200).
Now that may not be much to you and me but it's one hell of a lot to most people that I know. It's the difference between being able to afford something and not, I know that if I couldn't afford it I would buy the best I could which would always be the cheaper option.
Small price differentiations count for quite a bit when it comes to things like format wars, it's just a case of who gets there first.

The other thing is a lot of us Europeans want to see it fail because we fall foul of Sony's ill business plans more frequently than you guys over in the US, look for example at the PS3, MANY months later while a fair bit more expensive.
Essentially we gain less support from Sony than anywhere else in the world.
Why should we NOT hate them for penalising us just for living in Europe?

::edit:: Also, I knew my post may be a "light the blue touch paper and stand well back" type thing but seriously.