HD DVD vs. Blu-ray
April 25, 2007
By John

Despite what you may or may not be reading or hearing lately, HD DVD is not dead, and Blu-ray hasn't even made a dent in sales compared to DVD. This format war is just at the beginning, and neither side is giving up anytime soon.

Now that I have that out of the way, let me start with some back-story on this format war. Originally, there was to be one next generation disc format for movies, PCs, recordable media, etc. However, they couldn't come to an agreement, and now we have two competing formats like we did back in the VHS versus Betamax days.

You can't talk about Blu-ray without mentioning Sony. Sony is one of the major companies that developed and is backing Blu-ray, and hence their movie studios are exclusive to it. Not only that, but Sony has gone on the offensive trying to purchase controlling stock in MGM, getting Disney and Fox as exclusives, and offering Blu-ray inside every PS3 sold. While this has seemingly crippled PS3 sales, the move has worked quite well for Blu-ray. At this point, once you remove the inflated numbers (PS3 games on Blu-ray discs, giveaways, promotional movies), Blu-ray sales have been relatively flat. Casino Royale (a Sony Film) is the biggest seller so far, accounting for around a fourth of all Blu-ray disc sales. Granted the sales numbers are out pacing HD DVD, but the numbers are at such small amounts, that they are virtually meaningless. That being said, Blu-ray has a major advantage when it comes to studio support, and if that doesn't change, then Blu-ray has a pretty good chance of becoming the next generation DVD format.

HD DVD recently has been called dead by some of the more radical columnists, but I assure you that they are just doing so to draw attention to their columns. HD DVD format has some great exclusive titles going for it. Not only that, but studio support is increasing. In May, they are finally releasing the Matrix trilogy on HD DVD. You can bet that will send a sales spike for HD DVD movies. However, they still have a long way to go before they get out of the woods. They need to secure more major movie studios to get more movies out. That is not to say that HD DVD is doomed. Recently, Wal-mart has decided, due to having the lowest cost of entry by several hundred dollars, to flood its stores with low cost HD DVD players this Christmas season! How low of a cost? Rumor has it that they are trying to get the stand alone players under $199.99! They are also gearing up for HD DVD movie support to an almost exclusive level! Now movie studios will have to debate on whether or not they want to keep their films exclusively on Blu-ray or be able to sell their films at the world's largest retailer. And HD DVD still has the better picture quality advantage. That's right folks, Blu-ray is still using antiquated compression techniques that make HD DVD discs hold a higher quality video footage in a smaller space. In addition to that, several Blu-ray films were made on single layer discs, meaning that the discs were smaller in size than HD DVD discs!

Like I said earlier, this format war is far from over, and won't likely end for several years, especially considering the low adoption rate of HDTVs that can take advantage of the new media. So fear not, early adopters, this format war still has a lot of fight left in store.