Déjà vu All Over Again …
Borrowing from that American icon, Yogi Berra, let’s see if we “can observe a lot by watching” the wars between the Blue Ray DVD™ and HD-DVD™ formats. These are the new very high capacity DVD formats that allow for real High Definition quality. As more and more of us buy HD sets, HD DVDs are coming to the market. Up until now a DVD might have offered you a wide-screen picture and very good video, but it was not real high definition. Enter these two non-compatible formats. If you think this sounds familiar your right. You might remember the Betamax™ vs. VHS wars back in the late 1970’s. The two formats slugged it our for a few years with VHS ultimately winning, causing many consumers to end up with a Betamax™ machine but little programming to play on it.
I have been asked which one to buy. Right now my advice is to wait unless you want to pay lots of money for a machine that might not be supported in the future. In early January the annual Consumer Electronics Show took place in Los Vegas. This is one of the largest trade shows in the world. I had hoped to see some clarification of which format would “win.” I was interested in seeing which new machines were featured and more important, which format the big movie studios and video distributors would choose. Right now it is close to a 50/50 proposition with about the same number of movies available in each format.
Some of the manufactures of High Definition DVD machines are hedging their bets and have decided that they will offer machines that will play both formats. These machines are very pricey. Some of the movie studios are offering a single DVD disc with the movie encoded in both Blue Ray DVD™ and HD-DVD™ formats. I think this is a temporary “fix” as this radically limits the amount of material that can be crammed onto a single disc. Who wants to change to a second disc in the middle of a movie?
Right now there are large companies lining up behind each format with Apple, Panasonic and more recently Sony in the Blue Ray™ camp and Microsoft, Toshiba and NEC siding with HD-DVD™.
So my best advice again comes from old Yogi. "If you come to a fork in the road, take it." Seriously, unless you really, really, really “need” the newest HD toy and are willing to pay a premium price, wait!
I have been asked which one to buy. Right now my advice is to wait unless you want to pay lots of money for a machine that might not be supported in the future. In early January the annual Consumer Electronics Show took place in Los Vegas. This is one of the largest trade shows in the world. I had hoped to see some clarification of which format would “win.” I was interested in seeing which new machines were featured and more important, which format the big movie studios and video distributors would choose. Right now it is close to a 50/50 proposition with about the same number of movies available in each format.
Some of the manufactures of High Definition DVD machines are hedging their bets and have decided that they will offer machines that will play both formats. These machines are very pricey. Some of the movie studios are offering a single DVD disc with the movie encoded in both Blue Ray DVD™ and HD-DVD™ formats. I think this is a temporary “fix” as this radically limits the amount of material that can be crammed onto a single disc. Who wants to change to a second disc in the middle of a movie?
Right now there are large companies lining up behind each format with Apple, Panasonic and more recently Sony in the Blue Ray™ camp and Microsoft, Toshiba and NEC siding with HD-DVD™.
So my best advice again comes from old Yogi. "If you come to a fork in the road, take it." Seriously, unless you really, really, really “need” the newest HD toy and are willing to pay a premium price, wait!
posted by Jack Dominic at 8:13 AM
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