Who else thinks that the BLU RAY and HD DVD War is stupid and the only people it hurts are the consumers?

Question

Until it is decided on which type to use what happens if you buy the other kind? Who is going to buy what? Tell me which is better and which one you think will win?

Answer 1

LG makes a player that has both the blu-ray and HD players, if I had the money that is what I would go with.

Answer 2

There is already a dual format HD DVD and Blu Ray player in the making. It was revealed at this years CES. Dont know how much it is going to cost though.
The nice thing about HD DVD is that the DVDs are cheaper that blu ray disks, the players are cheaper than Blu Ray players. If you already own an XBOX 360 its only 200 dollars for the add on.
Sony pretty much forces you to adopt a next gen dvd format, while microsoft gives you the option to buy one. The other plus for HD DVD is that some of their titles are released with both HD and standard definition versions so they can be played in both an HD DVD player and a standard dvd player. The downside to this is the cost, usually around39 dollars, which is sort of like paying for the same movie twice.
The XXX industry has already signed on to put out movies in HD DVD while Sony refuses to have porn on Blu Ray which could in time hurt blu ray since porn is a multi billion dollar industry. Thats going to be a lot of sales for HD DVD.
However, blu ray does have a better selection of movies, if you are into the super hero movies or martial arts films, most are on blu ray so far.
However HD DVD is goint to have some pretty great titles as well, including The Matrix Trilogy (could be on both Blu Ray and HD DVD because WB does both.) and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, for hardcore film fans these titles could definately help sell an HD DVD player.
I dont think there is room for 2 HD formats, something has to give here, its not fair to movie fans. I own and HD DVD player and it really sucks when a great movie gets released and it ends up on Blu Ray and not HD DVD and its the same for the owners of Blu Ray.

Answer 3

Firstly it is really a non-event this time around for two reasons:

1) As mentioned above LG have already released a dual standards player.
2) One movie company has already released dual sided discs one HD one Blu-ray but they do charge about £3 for the dual version.

In all decency Blu-Ray should win but 2 things stand against it.

1)The porn industry supports the HD format and that is a huge boost for it
2The high cost of Blu-ray and the production problems means HD will have a good head start numbers wise. A lot of people have Xbox 360's and that HD player looks good value if you do.

If you go single format go HD but I'd definitely go dual at the moment.

Answer 4

I look at it like this...my local Best Buy has four different Blu-Ray players on display connected with TVs and only one HD-DVD player, take that for what its worth. There is no reason why Blu-Ray doesn't have long-term prospects if for no other reason then Sony, being a Vertically Integrated company, owns a number of large movie studios and doesn't have to release their titles on HD-DVD. For what its worth I own a Blu-Ray and I love it.

Answer 5

XBOX $300 or $400
Plus HD-DVD add-on $200

= $500 or $600, exact same cost as PS3. PS3 is in one box xbox is an add-on.

HD-DVD will get spanked. I can guarantee the attach rate of the HD-DVD add on will be NOWHERE near the total # of ps3's sold. Bet.

But I still feel the Hi-Def disc market is crowded with two formats and limited customer base. How many people actually have HDTV's? Not many. Blu-Ray will win. But it will be a meaningless victory.

Answer 6

I believe BOTH formats will fail in the short term and it's not only because of the format war or a lack of awareness by consumers.

Simply put, I don't believe that there is a big enough jump in improvement from standard DVD to either BR or HDDVD to cause mass consumers to want to upgrade.

Both formats will struggle until the REAL next big thing comes along. Most likely something along the lines of flash-memory card technology. No moving parts! The small size allows you to store an entire library of movies in a device the size of a small AV reciever.

Answer 7

I think the standard DVD is going to be here for a while yet. This Blu-ray thing is not proven technology yet. They say it's better because of the blue-violet laser in it that has a shorter wave length, so therefore the picture is better. I plan on keeping my red-laser DVD for a while yet. Let's just see if this new kid on the block can stand the test of time.

Answer 8

The porn industry chose VHS over Beta back in the day and therefor VHS won out. Same holds true today with HD-DVD being used by porn industry so Blu-Ray is already dying and the Blu-Ray name is stupid. People recognize anything with DVD in the name :)

Answer 9

It is stupid. Sony will win with Blu Ray though, just because of the PS3, everyone knows what Blu Ray is already.

Answer 10

I believe in a couple of years, manufacturers will come up with a universal player. It will no longer be a war between palyers but between program manufacturer. I hope it will not happen like SACD and DVD-Audio, wherein hardware came up with a machine that can play both but program materials do not. There are artists that came out in DVD-A, but not in SACD, which is very sad. The ideal scenario here is that a universal player will come out, then program materials will come out in both formats. In that case, the real winner is the consumer.

Though I do not know if there are technical limitation in coming up with a Blu-Ray and HD DVD in one machine.