of all news coming from CES, this seems to be one of the bigger ones...

blu-ray winning the "war"?

Yes, it does look like Blu-ray might have won the battle against HD-DVD. But I don't expect either format to ever reach the popularity of DVD or VHS because they already face a new threat: digital distribution. That will be quicker, easier, and cheaper than buying a movie on an actual disk.

To me this War of the formats has just begun.

Less than .01% HD DVD and Blu-Ray sold last year vs DVD format.


Some facts I am sure a lot of people are not are of yet.

HD DVD is region free, the same isn’t true for Blu-ray.

HD DVD technology allows for backwards compatibility with regular DVD players and will even play on Blu-ray players.

HD DVD players are required to have network support which makes updates more convenient, Blu-ray, on the other hand, has plenty of players that don’t have network support.

So the less expensive, region free, feature-rich, backwards compatible format was beaten by the more expensive, restricted format. And let’s not forget that no matter how many PlayStation 3 consoles Sony will sell (which include Blu-ray), a true DVD replacement will need stand-alone players. This is where Blu-ray has failed big time so far.

It seems more like a media battle win, that a consumer battle win. The consumer battle has still to be won and that battle will decide the out come of the Format War.

Yeah, this is sad news. Rumours are now rife that Paramount might drop HD-DVD aswell.

This blu-ray deal is absolute horse shit. Just another format change to snag consumers into buying yet more equipment and media. It kind of reminds me of how Intel ramps up processor speed over time. example:
"Gee, I really like my top of the line 3.0 ghz cpu. What? Intel now has a 3.4 ghz chip now? Oh shit I've got to get my hands on one of those, even if it is twice as expensive as my 3.0 ghz goes for now."

Yeah, the war is over, and payoff money won it, as expected. New Line went with Warner, both paid to make the announcement the same day. Rumor is that Sony and MS were bidding with Warner up until midnight the night before the announcement, that Fox and New Line were both on the fence, ready to swithch to whichever side Warner went with, and that Sony paid out an ungodly sum to get the deal through.

Honestly, tho, it's too little, too late and Sony and MS may have wasted hundreds of millions wooing the studios between the two. Consumer confidence in both brands is permanently tainted now, and with digital distribution both cheaper and easier than buying a player (I can rent more HD movies on my 360 than are available on both formats combined now, most cable has HD on demand/PPV with dozens of titles, the HDNet Movies channel has a couple dozen HD movies every month that aren't available anywhere else as part of my cable package, and iTunes HD rentals are coming up soon as well) their sales will probably never be what DVD is. Most people I know don't actually buy many movies anymore, and when they do it's only when there's a really good sale or used from a rental place; most people rent or download, partially because the movies the studios put out are mostly garbage, partly because they realize they only watch the movie once or twice anyway and usually never watch any of the extra DVD content anyway. The 1980s/90s model of movie distribution is slowly dying, and the HD "war" has just hastened that along.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/09/sources...both-going-blu/

To be honest, I didn't really back either one of them. But from what little I know, I was leaning towards HD-DVD. Oh well, hopefully this means the war is over and done with. And I can get back to buying some movies.

Edit* Digital Distribution (lets call it DD) may be taking off in US, but it's virtually unheard of here (UK) and the rest of europe. Many people I know would prefer to have a real hard copy than a DD copy. I mean there are 1 or 2 HD movies channels, but not enough to affect sales in retail.

You guys are what killed HD-DVD, ya know. The final straw for Warner was apparently the lack of region coding. I have no idea why that is such a big deal to the film companies, but apparently it is.

as far as I understand, HD-DVD is still based on the good ol' red laser, which has been reproduced (in various and lesser qualities) millions of times. while the blu-ray uses just that. a blue laser ray. and as I understand it can use regular (or slightly larger capacity) DVD's and just burns them with smaller grooves (as a result of the smaller wave-length blue light).
so, fancier dvd drives vs. efficient lasers...
does any of this really matter though?

Nope, both new formats use a blue laser. The difference is simply a matter of software, licensing and the default density of the media. There was absolutely no reason why the two standards could not be combined beyond the fight over who made the profits on the licensing; they could have done Blu-Ray on cheaper HD media, or HD-DVD could have been tuned to burn at BD-ROM density. This has been all about the $$$ from day one.

Christ, we should boycott both and let them all rot!

Meh, as much I love that idea. It will never happen. 99% of the people out there, don't realise they as a whole hold the power to make or break something. Instead they all get sucked in by advertising.

It looks like someone had a camera in the offices of the HD-DVD camp back when this news came out. Here's how it went down:

**chuckles** Well, that was interesting take on the subject.

However, I personally preferred the HD-DVD format, but irregardless I'm still sticking with regular DVD for the foreseeable future.

ROFL!!! What film is that?

I don't think that HD DVD as a format is dead, It's weak, but It's not dead.