Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?

[Harrison]

Which of the two High Definition Disc formats do you ultimately see winning the battle and becoming the next standard of Video Disc that replaces DVD?

And why do you think the one you chose will win in the end?

But please don't just pick one because you hate Sony for example, unless you have a logical argument.

Personally I'm not 100% sure, but I have the feeling the outcome could end up being split with HD-DVD being the most popular in the US and Blu-Ray being the most popular in the UK and maybe Europe.

Why? Easy. In the US they have had HDTV broadcasting for longer than Europe with CRT High Definition TV sets being available in the US long before LCD and Plasma took off, whereas in the UK and Europe such CRT sets were all but non existent. Only with the recent push for HDTV with LCD and Plasma screens dropping in price have the average consumer started to take a real interest in buying into the HD revolution.

And in the US HD-DVD got a head start over Blu-Ray releases with many films already released on the HD-DVD format. I don't know about the rest of Europe, but here in the UK you do not see many films being sold on either format in stores, with only small sections dedicated to them so far. And I've noticed most are Blu-Ray discs.

There is another argument for the split I envisage. Player availability. In the US HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players were released when they came to market. In the UK I'm only just seeing them in stores and at prices high enough to turn away all but the video enthusiasts. This is set to change with the release of PS3 in the UK. For most this new console will be their first way of playing HD video on their TV and they will therefore be buying Blu-Ray discs.

I could be wrong. Who knows.

[Demon Cleaner]

I also voted for split standard. As there are already players being released that support both formats, I don't bother which format is going to rule the world afterwards. It's still too early to have a discussion about this, and in 2 years, nobody is concerned about it nomore anyway, as prices will drop under 100$ for a player.

[Stephen Coates]

I'm really not sure as I don't know much about either, ut I have a feeling it will be Blu Ray.

I could of course be completely wrong though.

[rayzorblue]

I went for HD-DVD because im old enough to remember the video wars back in the day which betamax lost not because of inferior quality but because of price and HD-DVD is the cheaper option, of course i also believe pretty soon all these will be defunct as i reckon Films on little memory cards will be available eventually and the way its going you would be able to fit more on one of them in the end especially if it was the size of a DVD.

Probably wrong though i rarely back a winner.

[Harrison]

I also believe that eventually we won't purchase any film on media of any kind. A time will eventually come when the telecoms industry gets of its bum and actually upgrades the networks to the current best technology, and once we all have Internet2 speed fibre connections we will then be able to all connect to true video on demand services that will allow access to the world's film library for a set fee.

But until that time ever happens I still think it will be a split thing for some time to come. Especially after I did some research into Dolby Digital Plus and discovered that HD-DVD states this new audio encoding as the default requirement for the format, whereas Blu-Ray states only DVD quality 5.1 Dolby Digital and Plus as only an optional extra.

[TiredOfLife]

Chose HD-DVD
Cheaper and backed by microsoft.
So expect it to appear in PCs sooner and gather support that way.

[Demon Cleaner]

And as Sony forbids that any kind of pr0n can be released on Blu Ray, you can imagine that HD-DVD can take profit on that market

[Submeg]

And as Sony forbids that any kind of pr0n can be released on Blu Ray, you can imagine that HD-DVD can take profit on that market

Well if that were to be true, then its definately going to be HD-DVD

[Harrison]

I didn't know Sony had forbid Pr0n releases on Blu-Ray. Not sure how they could really stop the industry using the format, but if they have then I agree, HD-DVD will definitely win easily.

[LowercaseE]

I do not agree with Sony's "censorship" tactics with Blu-Ray so I hope it fails.