An epic war is transpiring right before America’s, and indeed, the world’s eyes. It is a war worth billions of dollars and is a fight for nothing less than control over what is called the living room experience.
A great American past time, besides complaining about one’s job, is the mindless hours spent watching television.
The internet has steadily chipped away at that viewing audience and now companies are attempting to recapture lost patrons by delivering something computers are struggling to do – display high definition movies on large LCD or Plasma television sets.
As high definition (HD) TV sets continue to sell in droves, people are eager to put them to full use. Standard DVDs will not cut it. A standard DVD runs at a resolution of 720×480, while many new TV sets can handle resolutions of up to 1920×1080. The solution is a new DVD format.
Enter the format war, HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray.
The war of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is not a new one and has actually been occurring over the past few years. The reason the war has ratcheted up is the scales have finally tipped into Blu-Ray’s favor, following Warner Bros announcement to fully support Blu-Ray over HD-DVD.
True to form, the HD-DVD camp claims it is not dead yet and will not go down without a fight. But the statistics for HD-DVD are not promising. Blu-ray discs continue to outsell HD-DVD’s discs by 3-to-1. 70 percent of movie companies are now backing Blu-ray, and rest assured, those with exclusive deals with HD-DVD are now checking their contracts for an escape clause.
To the consumer this is welcome news. Both formats provide more than enough high quality movie content to satiate any HD TV, and the lack of foresight on Toshiba’s and Sony’s part (major backers of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, respectively) has already led to enough confusion and splitting of companies.
It’s about time that a single format emerges as the victor so consumers can buy a new HD player without worrying if it will be the next betamax player within a year.
What remains to be seen is if consumers will warm to Blu-ray. Even if the format is winning on paper, by the time it’s the clear victor, consumers may move on to bigger and better things. They may even skip buying a new HD player altogether, instead vouching for an Internet download service. Apple iTune movie rentals come to mind.
The price of a Blu-ray player remains too expensive for the mainstream consumer that could much more easily afford a 1080p upconverting DVD player. Not to mention DVD prices have been on a landslide as of late. Blu-ray discs will generally cost a $10-$15 premium over a regular DVD.
It may be hard times for HD-DVD and Toshiba, but it’s a step forward to ending a war that shouldn’t have been created in the first place.