Rob Enderle is a liar

Rob Enderle is a liar

I’m sorry, I usually stay out of format war politics but this has to be said: Rob Enderle is a liar.

Rob EnderleAs you may know if you’ve been reading my articles, I’ve pretty jaded on the whole “format war” and think it’s all a joke. I previously wrote one blog comparing two of the most polarizing people involved in the war: Bill Hunt and Rob Enderle. But now it just plain needs to be said in no uncertain terms. The lies spread in the columns of Rob Enderle are malicious.

Could it have something to do with the fact that Mr. Enderle is on the payroll of Toshiba, the main backer of HD DVD, or is it just a mental deficiency the tech world has been writing about since 1994?

I want to point directly to his latest article and point out exactly where he’s lying. Yesterday he published an article on Digital Trends called, “Will Time Warner’s Move to Blu-Ray End HD War?” This headline makes it sound as if Warner had already selected Blu-ray, which they haven’t, but within the article he is his usual self. Here are a few selections where he flat out lies:

[Player] sales on the HD DVD side also went vertical on the opening days of the Christmas buying season, and this, coupled with the defection of several studios to the HD DVD camp, put the momentum back in that direction

Notice the bold part, I have highlighted it to point out his first lie. “Several” studios have not defected from Blu-ray. Viacom’s Paramount dropped support for Blu-ray bringing Dreamworks and Dreamworks Animation along with them because Paramount is the parent company of Dreamworks. It has been widely reported that this was the result of a $150-million buy-off from the HD DVD group. If all three studios were independent of one another it would hardly make for “several” regardless of the fact that Paramount controls the distribution of both Dreamworks studios. Let’s continue.

Dual-mode players remain too expensive, and recent changes to the security scheme on the Blu-Ray [sic] side broke most of them

He’s referring here to the recent Fox titles released with the BD+ security scheme. The second-generation Samsung Blu-ray Disc player and the first generation LG dual-format player would not play the titles. The players weren’t broken, mind you, they would still play every other title barring the few new Fox titles. Both players received firmware updates in mid-November repairing the problem. To report that the players were “broken” is disingenuous and compounding it with the fact that the problem was solved nearly a month ago is double malicious.

The place I do agree with him is that digital download is the future. It most certainly is true of music now. However, this isn’t South Korea where every home has broadband, and the broadband we do have isn’t fast enough to handle multiple streams of high-def content. Music works because it was relatively fast to download an MP3 even on a 56k modem (hell, I was doing it on 28.8k back in the day and it only took a few minutes). Blu-ray movies exceed 40GB in size, and HD DVD movies are around 26GB – that’s a lot of data. Until the infrastructure is in place to handle high-def downloads in minutes instead of days, high-def optical media will have its niche.

Because I hate this so-called “format war,” these lies being spread by “analysts” only serve to confuse the consumer and prolongs the war. If he’s not maliciously lying about these facts, he’s obviously not well-informed enough to make predictions regarding the formats. If he’s getting paid to give a third-party perspective of the war, he’s doing a terrible job of learning the relevant facts – which leads to the assumption that perhaps he’s just paid by Toshiba to spread FUD under the guise of a third-party analyst.

About Steven Kippel

Steven Kippel has worked as a systems designer for a leading high-end audio/video custom integrator in Southern California since 2003. He is responsible for researching new technologies and integrating them into existing systems and new construction projects. He has designed several high-profile systems for discriminating clients on the cutting-edge of technology. When he is not hard at work, Steven is spending time with his wife, playing with his band or promoting concerts and bands in the Inland Empire. His favorite bands include The Cure, U2, Eisley, Living Sacrifice and DragonForce.

View all posts by Steven Kippel →

7 Comments on “Rob Enderle is a liar”

  1. He’s doing that PR double-speak kind of thing that plagues both sides. It’s a presentation of facts using wording that implies more than is really going on.

    It works really well on people who are new to the whole thing and are unlikely to dig much deeper.

  2. Anyone buying Bluray is an idiot and anyone buying HDDVD is a moron.

    You are merely setting yourself up for DRM headaches. Boycott both formats and watch them drop the DRM.

  3. I think the conspiracy goes even further: Enderle has been accused of being on the Microsoft payroll for years. Microsoft originally backed Blue-Ray, then switched to HD-DVD. My guess is that Microsoft offered to back HD-DVD in exchange for a percentage of Toshibas’ disc licensing royalties. Enderle is just doing his usual shilling for Microsoft.

Leave a Reply to Ian Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *