HD-DVD Versus Blu Ray: Which is Better?
Home Entertainment's Two Heavyweights Battle For Supremacy
Oct 19, 2008
Since 1997 DVD has been the ultimate medium in consumer electronics and home theatre, surpassing VHS, and the short lived VCD mediums, and emerging as the most popular and successful home entertainment experience. Fast forward ten years and DVD superiority appears to be waning, as the entertainment market, along with industry companies and manufacturers have utterly embraced the two emerging industry counterparts, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
Company Endorsements Propel The Battle between The Formats
The two formats have both been endorsed by big name companies within the industry, with certain major companies/studios agreeing deals with each of the formats. In the blue (ray) corner there is Blu-Ray's captain, Sony, who lead an all-star line-up which includes Panasonic, Samsung, Dell and Phillips. In the opposing corner, HD, backed up by Toshiba, NEC. The two were also, more tellingly, both backed by major film studios. Blu-Ray was first backed by Warner Brothers, whilst Paramount Pictures opted to side with HD-DVD.
Disc Dilemma
The predicament for the consumer is that only certain movies will be available on each format and not on the other. This means that owning a Blu-Ray player would not enable a buyer to watch a film released by a studio who has sided with HD DVD, and vice versa.
John P. Falcone and Matthew Moskovciak, in their February 19 2008 article HD DVD vs. Blu-ray, explain that "...you have to decide between either a Blu-ray player or an HD DVD player, and you wont be able to play certain studios movies on either one. For example, if you're a sci-fi fan and you want to watch The Fifth Element, you'll need a Blu-ray player, but if you want to watch Serenity you'll need an HD DVD player."
This is obviously a big problem for consumers, and one that is seemingly lost on the studios and manufacturers of HD DVD and Blu-Ray, who have adopted this cutthroat approach in a bid to make even more money and establish themselves as the ultimate format, but are they in danger of alienating, and eventually losing the consumer market they so desperately seek?
Solutions To The Problem?
There are worryingly slim options as to a solution to this impending quandary. There are ways around the split, i.e. multi-purpose players which will accommodate both formats, however, as Falcone and Moskovciak inform us "...they cost more than actually purchasing two players, one for each format!"
Another solution to the problem, and something that is sure to attract, and satisfy customers, is the backwards compatibility that both players contain. As Michael Grebb informs in his March 2005 article The Showdown: Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD, "New players will be able to handle both old and new DVD formats in the same machine."
This is an obvious advantage for buyers, as they don't have to worry about their DVD collection becoming obsolescent whichever system they choose to go for.
Ultimately there are pros and cons facing any consumers who wish to purchase either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray mediums. On the plus side, these two new formats can hold much more data than regular DVD's and have sharper picture quality. However, the question still remains, are people going to spend a lot of money on a format which only allows them to watch half the films they want to watch?
