geir ove rapp’s weblog

As you may have noticed the HD format war is finally over. Toshiba and HD DVD has retired from the market and Sony can celebrate their revenge over VHS. Hopefully most manufacturers will now launch products and prices can come down to a reasonable level. Personally I am waiting for a Denon or Marantz, but any input is welcome. But what will happen to SACD, one of the other format victories from Sony? (Well, Sony has nearly managed to kill this format them selves, but that’s an other story).

So what did actually happen? One important aspect is of course Sony’s support for Blu-ray as a standard feature in all PlayStation 3 game consoles. But more important is probably the major studios’ support for Blu-ray, also from those initially supporting HD DVD. Without any content HD DVD couldn’t stand any chance.

But despite the victory, Blu-ray is still premature. PlayStation 3 was delayed several times waiting for the Blu-ray technology. And even if there already a significant number of players out there, only a few support the Blu-ray profile 2.0 which is what could be considered the first full specification. Blu-ray profile 1.1 was released only to get reduce the head start of HD DVD, but should probably never been released, because it is only with profile 2.0 you get full interactivity and ethernet return channel functionality. But anyway, the pre-release was very necessary to cope with the competition from HD DVD and it obviously succeeded.

Congratulations Sony!

For those of you who have read my previous posting on this issue, R.I.P. audio CDs, here is the paradox. After spending several hours ripping my CDs and storing them in my basement I finally thought I was rid of them. But no! In my search for new music to my collection, I can hardly find any web shop offering music download in a lossless file format. Most shops offer MP3 or WMA. The only legal sites for downloading FLAC I can find is Metallica Live and Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts. Thumbs up!! The rest of music industry; get a grip!

So I guess I still have to go to my local record store to buy the CD, just to rip it and put it away…

I have been working on a analysis on Volvo Cars at school lately. (Yes, I am studying in Gothenburg, Sweden, the home town of Volvo). Soon we had a discussion about whether Volvo is a dull car or not. Of course it is! Just take a look at the Volvo V70 station wagon to see what I mean. But then, in my search to see if there is a slight hope to find something more exciting I dumped into the Volvo you see on the picture above. It is a Volvo C30 modified and tuned by IPD. It doesn’t only look great. It performs great as well. The 2.5-liter turbo engine is boosted to 384 horsepower. And it of course has a Alpine DVD/CD/MP3 player with iPOD integration, satellite radio with live traffic and touch-screen navigation with voice control.

So who said Volvo is dull?

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore

Crossing the Chasm is a legendary book about how to get new technology to reach the mass market. In this book Moore redefines the technology adaption life cycle model. Moore divides the market into five groups; innovators; the technology enthusiasts, early adopters; the visionaries, early majority; the pragmatists, late majority; the conservatives and laggards; the skeptics (don’t spend any effort here). The challenge is to get from early adopters to early majority, a gap which he describes as the chasm. (more…)