HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray Next Round
I don't know how you feel about the ongoing format war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray but I'm sick and tired to hear which company is backing up which format and which format is doomed because of this move. Today the news hit the Internet by storm that Warner is going Blu-Ray exclusive and everyone was asking the question if this was the end of HD-DVD losing another major movie studio.
To be honest; I do not care if that is the end, if the war will go on another decade or if everyone will come to their senses and produce one format for all movies. I can understand that companies want to push a format that they have created. What I can't understand is that movie companies like Warner did not pressure the format creators to create one format which would be the best for the customers.
Now we have two formats and everything seems to be utterly complicated. Playstation 3 owners want Blu-Ray to win, the guys who bought a HD-DVD drive for their Xbox 360 want that format to win and everyone can't play movies that are released exclusively for the other format.
It's all about money of course and the company whose format is going to win will make most of it for a long time to come. Do they care about the viewers, the customers ? I don't think so. Besides the obvious fact that many customers who already bought a new player will not be able to view all movies they are also confusing everyone who has not made a decision yet.
My opinion is that we will see players who are supporting both formats. They will cost more but are in my opinion the only reasonable way to please those who buy the players. I for one will use DVD as long as possible and boycott this insane war. I would change my mind if they would release a player that is fast, without all the copy protection and DRM and play both formats without problems. This will never happen I know but hope is still there.
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There already are dual-format players, both standalone and computer drives.
I think only someone who create a player that support both formats can win this war. This war is no sense but about big money for producers.
Hey Martin, I don’t mean to be a pain but I don’t think there’s a hyphen on the HD DVD and I don’t think there’s an “e” on Blu Ray. (I’m probably wrong on this though..)
And I don’t care which one wins myself. I just want the whole thing to be done with so all the dvd players can get their act together.
Fortunately though I’m a gamer so I’m almost certainly going to end up with one of the lower end players in either the 360 or the PS3.
Nice article!
I quite agree. We have had this with the +DVD and -DVD formats too, and eventually (after several years) we have a sub-$50 writer that can burn both formats.
These companies never learn from the past.