HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray Spot Check: There's still no good option
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 5, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Anand
I was talking to Mike Andrawes last night (the inspiration for my earlier post on the high definition format wars) and we got on the topic of whether or not the Warner deal meant the imminent demise of HD-DVD. Admittedly, the longer the wars went on the more disinterested I became in what titles were out on each format. I refuse to start collecting either until there's a single format that has all content available (I guess I could make an exception in the event that universal players become the defacto standard).
I popped into Best Buy last night with Manny (the guy from the Home Theater post) after dinner to pick up some last minute CES gear, and we decided to do an informal survey of what movies we liked that were exclusive to each format.
| Blu-ray | HD-DVD |
| Spiderman 1 - 3 | Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, Bourne Ultimatum |
| The Prestige* | Anchorman |
| Superbad | V for Vendetta |
| Casino Royal | Knocked Up |
| Life Free or Die Hard (I know) | The 40-Year-Old Virgin |
Now this isn't a comprehensive list at all, but what it does highlight is this: neither of us could, in good conscience, recommend either standard. Despite HD-DVD's more affordable pricing, you can't watch things like Casino Royal, Spiderman or Superbad in high definition on it, and that's just simply unacceptable. The same applies to Blu-ray, it doesn't matter what exclusive titles the format does have, because the ones that it doesn't are just as good.
Herein lies the problem I was outlining yesterday, this war is fought for industry members, it's fought for the Sonys and the Microsofts of the world, it's not fought for the people buying the movies. Honestly, the only options are to either support both formats or support none, backing one or another just doesn't make any sense unless you really hate all of the movies in one of the columns.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
46 Comments
View All Comments
Mithan - Sunday, January 6, 2008 - link
The scope of the article wasn't about standing up to support somebody.JonathanMaloney - Sunday, January 6, 2008 - link
Which is why we should all build HTPCs with those LG BD / HD-DVD combo drives in 'em! ;)daniyarm - Sunday, January 6, 2008 - link
This isn't a fanboy site, you are just an MS hater. There has been plenty of news about Wii, that it's beating both 360 and PS3. And about PS3, what news do you want to hear, how it miserably failed as a gaming platform, that it is really hard to write games for and that's why all the games out for it totally suck?!Have you been reading any sort of news about BR and HD-DVD? Neither is dominating, because 60% is not domination, it's a very close lead. And when you compare it to DVD sales, both are losing by a mile.
HD download will never take off in this country as long as we continue to have one of the worst high speed internet accesses in the world. We are amongst third world countries, look at internet access in Japan and Europe. Several countries have T1 lines in most homes. Tokyo is running fiber for 100Mb access. Half US still has dial-up. You can't stream 20GB hi-def movies even over DSL. We are at least 10 years, maybe even 15, away from streaming HD into every home.
rudy - Sunday, January 6, 2008 - link
It's not as easy to run high speed to most places in the US as it is other countries which are only as big as 1 of our states. I would love a fiber connection to the door of every home in America as much as the next guy but that is just a ton of money especially give how spread out Americans live.Frallan - Monday, January 7, 2008 - link
Well check Sweden out:45.65 km² Per person compared with US of A with 30.4 km² per person.
It isnt about how spread out the ppl live its about how the market is regulated. As long as you keep allowing telecoms to have close to monopoly you will not see fast cheap access...
PandaBear - Saturday, January 5, 2008 - link
You sir, are just mocking right?AFAIK this whole war is Sony vs. the rest of the world. I am not sure why does it matter because each format will only last 5-10 years, and the way it goes and wasted the life of the technology, they will both lose out a whole generations worth of profit.
If I am an ASIC/platform OEM solution provider, I sure as hell won't spend billions to R&D a cheap solution just to find out that the format lost. It is the standard that let consumer feel confidence to buy and a producer feel confidence to R&D and publish titles.
The way it goes right now people will just torrent their HD contents and Hard Drive based solution (with pirate contents) will dominate.
MrPickins - Sunday, January 6, 2008 - link
Sony vs the whole world? LMAOEducate yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_...">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_...
MadBoris - Saturday, January 5, 2008 - link
There is plenty of money to be made but people want to make more money than the other guy, that is what it amounts to.The fight with both standards is insuring that neither takes off and succeeds. It would be foolish for anyone to build up a library in any format unless you already have a dual format player, even then it's still risky.
It's a real shame because all they are doing is hurting everyone, themselves financially and consumers who would like to go HD.
Movies should come with both formats and the consumer decide instead of being force fed. At this rate we might as well wait to the next HD specs and disc technology, if this keeps up we can just skip HDDVD and bluray entirely. It's lack of adoption is not the consumers lack of desire it's caused by the greed.
kilkennycat - Saturday, January 5, 2008 - link
... remember the incompatibilities of DVD+R, DVD-R with the first-gen DVD-Video players?? Now all DVD-players are multi-format and include all CD-variants too.. The first to market with a sub-$250 multiformat stand-alone HD-player and the corresponding $150 "ROM"-drive stands to make a fortune. Some silicon-integration magic and appropriate mass-production mechanics is all that is required.With heavyweights like M$$ trapped in HD-DVD land by the Xbox360, the HD-DVD camp ain't likely to cave in very soon. M$$ would have to offer trade-in rebates on all current Xbox360 drives. Probably inevitable anyway, but the replacement drive for the Xbox360 would have to be dual-format to placate existing owners of Xbox360s and HD-DVD media.
BansheeX - Sunday, January 6, 2008 - link
DVD-R/DVD+R is a horrible analogy in predicting a dual format outcome. Those formats were recordables and were first of all never vying for content so you had no content exclusivity to worry about. If you only had a DVD-R burner with no DVD+R support, it wasn't exactly a huge boon to stick with buying DVD-R disks. DVD+R had superficial advantages nowhere near the likes of exclusive content, and since the disc structure was almost identical, dual format was easy and relatively inexpensive for manufacturers to implement. That's not true for BD/HD-DVD though. The disc structure differences are major and require completely different lens apertures. You also have 7 million people with PS3s and counting who are unable to play exclusive HD-DVD content. Dual format commercial content will also be perpetually confusing for consumers and eliminate the potential of repeating DVD's financial success.