Did you know that the world of technology has permanently changed in the past week? If you haven’t been reading technology news sites (and let’s face it, most people don’t), then you might not have noticed that the HD DVD format is officially dead. With recent statements from Toshiba and Microsoft, it is now safe to say that Blu-ray has won the format war. This is big news, so let’s take a moment to break it down:
1) You don’t have to choose between 2 formats any more. This is because the film studios have mostly shifted their support to Blu-ray. One of the biggest studios (Warner Brothers) has already crossed over, and Paramount and Universal are expected to follow suit.
2) You don’t need to worry about buying the right/wrong disc player. Toshiba stated “it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.” As such, your choices are pretty much limited to Blu-ray or nothing.
3) You don’t need to throw away your HD DVD player. Your old HD DVD’s aren’t going to stop working all of a sudden, so there’s no need to worry about your already-bought equipment. In fact, some movies that are available as HD DVD’s may not be available on Blu-ray for a very long time. (Some of them maybe not ever!) It could take a while for the manufactures to start producing the BD’s (Blu-ray Discs), so your HD DVD stuff wasn’t a waste.
4) There’s another option, and it doesn’t involve discs. If you don’t feel like investing in expensive hardware, you can still watch HD movies! If you own an Xbox 360, you can already rent full HD movies through Xbox LIVE Marketplace and watch them on your TV. If you have an Apple TV, you can rent HD movies from the iTunes Movie Store. An if you own a reasonably powerful PC or Mac, you have several options for HD video downloads, including both movies and TV shows. No discs required!
It’s also worth mentioning that this is the first major format war that Sony’s won. They had a lot riding on Blu-ray, and the amount of money they spent to win this war will take years to recover. (Don’t expect the price of Blu-ray hardware to be plummeting any time soon.)
If you already own a Blu-ray player, then this is all great news for you. If you own HD DVD equipment, don’t sweat it; your stuff wasn’t a total waste. If you’re thinking of buying new equipment, you may want to check out your no-disc options. For now, I’m waiting for the price of BD equipment to drop. It may take a couple of hardware revisions, but I can use my Xbox 360 or iTunes while I wait. What about you? How do you watch movies and television shows?
Mar 14th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
We got the Xbox 360, so we have an HD dvd player, but I’m glad that we didn’t invest a ton of money in HD dvd’s, since we won’t be able to get a new player when this one bites the dust. I’m expecting that we’ll probably never get a blue-ray player, since by the time we’ve got the money for one, everything will probably be on-demand anyway. What do you think?
Mar 21st, 2008 at 1:52 pm
@Kristen
I think that’s a pretty good plan. If blu-ray ever reaches an “all time low” in prices, it may still be worth it to buy a player eventually, but I certainly wouldn’t do it right now. Also, since I wrote this post (a couple weeks ago), blu-ray equipment has gone up in price. (Predictable, right?) I definitely wouldn’t buy anything right now, but it may be worth it in the future. I can’t wait to hear how your on-demand experience goes! I haven’t tried it with the Xbox yet, but I probably will sometime soon.