HD-DVD's Temporary Edge

kukyfrope writes to mention a GameDailyBiz article speculating on the edge HD-DVD will have on Blu-ray in the near future. From the article: "Although Toshiba may take round one, in the long run 'complicating factors may shift the balance.' ABI predicts that by the end of 2006, only about 30 percent of the global hi-def movie player market will be controlled by Blu-ray, but that could quickly change as Sony launches its PlayStation 3 (which has a Blu-ray drive) worldwide this November. '...its large expected sales figures could change the market dominance picture dramatically,' notes ABI."

Comments

The Sony effect...

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Well, we've seen how the adoption of UMD on the Sony PSP console did wonders for that media format. 8-)

Enough speculation already!

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez, yet another "hd-dvd has the lead now, but who knows what will happen in the future, here are my guesses pulled out of my butt" article. Enough, all these stupid articles have absolutely nothing new to add. It's stop for the speculation to stop and time for the players and the consumers to start deciding. It's a waiting game now. Unless anyone actually chimes in with some interesting information (I'll repeat that, INFORMATION), not speculation, not wild-a** guesses, not yet another link to my blog to rack up adsense $$, I think that /. should declare a moritorium on these idiotic articles (not that I expect this to actually occur :( )

Re:PS3 is irrelevent

[cthellis]

How many people seriously watched DVDs on a PS2 instead of a real standalone player?

Plenty. Besides, how many people had a DVD player before the PS2 launched? (1997 vs 2000) Now how many will have an HD DVD player before the PS3 launches...?

or will they both lose to plain old DVD?

[bzipitidoo]

Does anyone use Super Audio CD? Or DVD-audio, Video CD, or Super Video CD? Video CD was kind of cool for a while when blank DVD-Rs were much more expensive than CD-Rs but now who needs it?

HDTV quality would be great, but not if we have to pay $1000s for an HDTV that might not be "compatible" (read, DRM capable), and another premium for a special player. Especially annoying when a $100 computer monitor is more than capable of displaying content at HDTV resolution. Then we get to pay lots more money to "upgrade" our libraries from DVD to a format we may not be able to back up or play at full resolution thanks to all the DRM crap. And we won't be able to skip the commercials. Is any ordinary Joe not going to see these problems? Not after the first ones to try it get burned and word spreads. The studios think we're all that stupid? DVD is good enough. I bet the negatives of DRM and price will more than offset the positives of higher quality video, and this will lose out the way Laserdisc did to VHS.