Re: Blu-Ray and HD DVD
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So this isn't going to be another VHS-Betamax thing? They'll both still be around in 3 years?
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Keep in mind the VHS-Betamax war lasted a long time. Betamax started in 1975. VHS didn't take over until the mid 80s and Sony started making VHS machines in 1988. Also keep in mind that technological superiority is meaningless--Betamax was better than VHS. But VHS won.
No one really knows who'll win the HD DVD/Blu-Ray "war." It's just too early to tell. Blu Ray has more players (because of the PS3) and also sells more discs by a rate of about 60% to 40%. But the HD market is so small that it could switch the other way with the right title. (E.g., when Transformers was released exclusively to HD DVD, the weekly sales ratio was only 51 to 49. But when Spiderman 3 was released exclusively to Blu-Ray, the ratio was 71 to 29.)
Each has its pros and cons:
HD DVD:
* Cheaper players (Wal Mart had one model for $99 a few weeks ago. You can still get that model for $185 on-line: search for Toshiba A2.
* Availability of combo discs (this gives you a Standard DVD on one side and HD DVD on the other, allowing you to play a movie on other players.
Blu-Ray
* More movies
* Cheapest player is also a gaming machine (PS3)
* Higher capacity (not used now, but possibly will be in the future. Also could lead to Blu-Ray winning the market of recordable media, which may lead to overall victory)
* Combo discs are more expensive than Blu-Ray discs. (Though non-combo HD DVDs are the same price as Blu Ray.)
It should also be noted that the earliest Blu-Ray discs were compressed using what many consider an inferior compression scheme. Thus leading to the same movie looking better on HD DVD than Blu Ray. This situation is rare now and I believe the consensus is that movies released today in both formats look pretty much identical.
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