Big Releases Heat Up High-Def Format War

An anonymous reader writes "Choosing sides in the high-def format war becomes that much harder today, as two powerhouse movie franchises hit store shelves on opposing formats. Exclusive to Blu-ray are the first two 'Pirates of the Caribbean' flicks, while exclusive to HD DVD are two different configurations of the 'Matrix' Trilogy. So which format wins this battle? According to High-Def Digest, this one's a draw. The article has capsule reviews of the four releases ('The Ultimate Matrix Collection' & 'The Complete Matrix Trilogy' on HD DVD, and 'POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl' & 'POTC: Dead Man's Chest' on Blu-ray) with links to excruciatingly in-depth reviews. In the end the site says both sets of releases boast benchmark video and audio, but a preponderance of standard-def supplements prevent all of the above from being the perfect high-def package."

Comments

Blu-ray the winner?

[jshriverWVU]

I'm not in favor of one over the other, but from everything I see blu-ray seems to be the winner. I have only seen once place sell HDDVD, everyplace has at least a few blu-ray, even the mom-pop store down the road has some blu-ray movies for rent.

Several PS3's out there, plus isnt walmart even going to be selling a bluray player for under $600? I've seen bluray blanks and burners at Best Buy and a couple other places, yet I have never seen even a regular HDDVD player.

They're just ahead, and sales seem to agree.

Just my $0.02

Re:Blu-ray the winner?

[elrous0]

HD-DVD has two big advantages--it's a lot cheaper (you can get HD-DVD players for almost half the price of Blu-ray players, and HD-DVD discs run about $5-$10 cheaper than Blu-ray) and it's not a Sony format (does anyone really want those control-freak DRM fanatics to gain a monopoly of the next-gen home video market?).

Re:Blu-ray the winner?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same way people bought VHS instead of Beta. For the love of all that is holy can we PLEASE stop using the "VHS vs Beta" analogy!! We ALL know that VHS "beat" Beta but please come into the present and stop talking about the past. No consumer is going to look at Blu-Ray and say "well VHS was the winner last time so i'll go buy HD-DVD" so the fact that VHS won has no baring on the current situation.

We all know there are similarities and have discussed them, there is nothing new to be gained from using the comparison.

Re:Blu-ray the winner?

[sl3xd]

Well, the obvious past format war (VHS/Betamax) has the following lesson:

* Betamax was introduced in 1975.
* Betamax was the most popular format in 1983 -- almost 10 years of dominance.
* By 1985, the market turned sharply to VHS.

Things can change over time, and it's still way too early to declare victory. (Sony declared victory in Betamax, BTW...)

I've seen as many stand-alone HD DVD players in stores as Blu-ray (More HD DVD, actually, but not by much).

Sony is hoping the PS3 will boost Blu-ray, and PS3 fanboys are certainly making that case... But the difference in the numbers of PS2's versus stand-alone DVD players should be a good indication of how much influence the PS3 will end up having in the grand scheme of things. (Same goes for the Xbox 360's HD DVD drive)

But with most of the manufacturers in the Blu-ray camp either going dual-format (as is LG and Samsung), or haven't released a Blu-ray player at all (Sharp, for example), it's becoming apparent that Blu-ray isn't an all-powerful juggernaut.

With Wall-Mart throwing their support behind HD DVD, it certainly strengthens HD DVD's position; but these (even lower-cost) players won't hit the market for 4-5 months yet. If a consumer can get an HD DVD player for less than 1/2 the cost of a Blu-ray player, HD DVD starts to look like the winner.

In the end, I expect the following:
* Neither format will 'win'. Dual-format disc players will become the standard (ie. LG and Samsung's next generation players), and the studio will press whatever format is most economical for a particular movie. Frankly, I think it immature to claim that "There can be only one" -- video game consoles have pretty much proven that having multiple formats is a sustainable model.
* Dual-format discs won't take off; there's no reason to more than double the production cost of the disc when making a dual-format player is much simpler/cheaper.

Re:Should be 'Priate Ninjas'

[DirtySouthAfrican]

I was much happier believing you meant "pirate ninjas"... maybe I won't see POTC after all...

Re:That is easy

[CyberLord Seven]

I don't know about this. I was watching a program about a month back. I don't remember the title, but it dealt with the Pron industries reaction to HD. The directors and producers had more enthusiasm but even they were concerned with the greater detail turning some people off. The actresses were really worried about how much pressure would be on them to maintain, or even improve to the level of detail HD will show.

cat

[BlueParrot]

I'll tell you what will win cat5e, cat6, cat7, fiber and wireless. Seriously, if you have to wait X days for the movies you ordered to arrive in the mail you might just as well download them overnight. The hard drive space needed will be available before either blue-ray or HD-DVD becomes mainstream. Of course, the movie industry will shoot itself in the foot and cripple the whole thing with DRM and whatnot, so it will be done over file-sharing networks and then we will hear how the HD formats lose sales "because of piracy", and there will be more draconian copyright laws. Blue-ray will lose, HD-DVD will lose, consumers will lose, the movie industry will lose, the artists will lose, ISPs will lose as they have to deal with DMCA notices, even the lawyers will lose as they have will have to deal with bullshit like this instead of something worthwhile. Orwellian governments will win as they get another excuse to implement more privacy infringing legislation. Welcome to the the digital millennium.