Blu-ray wins?

[Neil]

Looks like the format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray is coming to a close with Blu-ray being the winner:

Toshiba pulling the plug on HD DVD already? - Yup it's over. - Engadget

Hope no-one out there has an HD-DVD player...

[MattJimF]

hardly surprising consdering sony incorporated blu-ray into the PS3 while Microsoft went with an add-on HD-DVD player for the 360, the biggest rental compnay in the world, blockbuster, sided with Blu-Ray early on and five of the six major movie studio's pledged their support for Blu-Ray.

[Rass]

It wasn't quite as clear cut as it appears tho, with production costs significantly higher than HD-DVD, i honestly thought it was curtains a few months back when Paramount signed that 18 month exclusivity deal with HD-DVD.

I'm pretty certain PS3 won this for Blu-Ray tbh, expecting Xbox owners to fork out n additional 100+ quid for the drive probably a step too far. Tho im completely certain had the Xbox been able to come out with the drive initially it would be a very different story. Regardless of what the studios were backing, Blu-ray's been outselling HD pretty much 2:1 since the PS3 came out.

Personally, fucking delighted, firstly that sony managed to finally back the right horse, and secondly that i dont have a rather expensive piece of (soon to be) obselete technology under my telly

[Bigsby]

Even though blu-ray has won this particular battle, in my opinion its curtains for all optical media in the long term. HD downloads, whether legal or otherwise, will be the norm sooner or later.

[daveofficer]

Originally Posted by Bigsby

Even though blu-ray has won this particular battle, in my opinion its curtains for all optical media in the long term. HD downloads, whether legal or otherwise, will be the norm sooner or later.

i concur and i also think that this is the horse microsoft have really been backing all along hence no built in hd-dvd drive.

though i would expect a blu-ray add on for the 360 to be announced this spring.

[A.Pel]

fucing decent, thats whats on my laptop.

[Alkaline]

Originally Posted by Rass

It wasn't quite as clear cut as it appears tho, with production costs significantly higher than HD-DVD, i honestly thought it was curtains a few months back when Paramount signed that 18 month exclusivity deal with HD-DVD.

There's actually next to no difference between production costs of Blu Ray and HD-DVD discs. In some cases Blu Ray works out considerably cheaper, especially in bulk.

Warner moving to Blu exclusivity was the final straw for HD-DVD, whereas when Paramount moved to HD-DVD Blu still had a 60% stake in all HD Media. Now that it's 70/30 the likelyhood was that Paramount, who's exclusivity runs out in March, were to go format neutral at the very least leaving just Universal as the main player in the HD-DVD camp. Incidentally, Transformers was not the cash cow everyone though it was going to be for HD-DVD.

WalMart also stated recently that they would stop selling HD-DVD players and media in it's stores in America from March onwards. ASDA in the UK will probably follow.

The real battle begins now as Blu will be taking on DVD to become the main optical media on the market which hopefully will yield sharp price cuts for Blu media and players.

The UK will not adopt HD downloads for the foreseeable future as there is not the required infrastructure across the telecoms services to support across the board high def downloads. It will cost an estimated £100 billion to replace the current cabling to support internet speeds of 100mbps which is not achievable using the current UK wide cabling and all exchanges would have to be replaced to compensate for the higher usage demands. With ISPs already bottlenecking internet traffic at peak times the future for HD downloads in the UK certainly is not rosy.

[Alkaline]

I will point out also that Microsoft had their eggs in both baskets from the start as Vista supports Blu Ray fully as does the programming of the Xbox 360.

[Neutral]

Originally Posted by Alkaline

I will point out also that Microsoft had their eggs in both baskets from the start as Vista supports Blu Ray fully as does the programming of the Xbox 360.

The programming of my phone would support blu ray.....

One retarded comment quotes another

[Old Gold]

As long as whatever wins supports original dvds, I'll be a happy chap.