Blu-Ray Wins
I know that this is a few days old, but for those of you who don’t know, Blu-Ray has won out over HD DVD. I have been an avid supporter of Blu-Ray from the beginning. Let me start by reasoning my support of Blu-Ray:
It is the better technology. Just like Betamax. Blu-Ray has more capacity per layer, which allows for better quality. Blu-Ray stores 25GB per layer, whereas the HD DVD can only hold 15GB per layer (there were talks of increasing the standard, but it did not happen).
Now for my sillier reason: Microsoft backed HD DVD. In my opinion, anything that Microsoft backs should be abolished. Additionally, I am a big fan of the Playstation 3, which uses Blu-Ray discs. If HD DVD had won, it would become much more expensive for Sony to manufacture and support Blu-Ray, since they would be the only ones manufacturing the obsolete format.
Back on topic, the death of HD DVD came by slowly. Part of Blu-Ray’s success was certainly from the millions of Playstation 3’s that were being sold and used as Blu-Ray players. I have to credit Sony for making the Playstation 3 a wonderful Blu-Ray player. Even today, it is one of the best Blu-Ray players out there that is affordable (I know; I had a Playstation 3). In December of 2006, the tide changed on HD DVD (click for full view):
The quality of movies that were released for both formats may have swayed the market some, but I believe that the determining factor was the Playstation 3. In early 2008, many rumors spread that, at CES (Consumer Electronics Show), Warner would announce that it was dropping HD DVD in favor of Blu-Ray. This is when the ball really started rolling. A few days later, the rumors were confirmed to be true when Warner formally announced that it would drop HD DVD in favor of Blu-Ray. I believe that, by this time, people were ready for the war to be over. Rumors circulated that HD DVD’s fall was imminent and that Paramount would announce it’s love for Blu-Ray. Both of these predictions came true, but about a month later. On February 19th, 2008, Toshiba announced that it would stop production of its HD DVD players by March (right around the corner) and that it would pull all of its HD DVD players off the market. This announcement had so much power because Toshiba was the largest backer of HD DVD. Shortly thereafter, Paramount announced that it would be switching to Blu-Ray production. These announcements signaled the death of HD DVD. “The future is Blu.”
What could have been done that would have given HD DVD more success? Microsoft should have waited to release the Xbox 360 with a built-in HD DVD drive. The games should have been in the HD DVD format. The HD DVD camp tried everything that they could in order to ensure that HD DVD would win the format war. They slashed prices far below the prices of Blu-Ray players. Still, Blu-Ray was able to win.
If you wish to see a good history of the format war between HD DVD and Blu-Ray, check out Engadget’s perspective.
In the future, expect to see HVD emerging. HVD stands for Holographic Versatile Disc. It is still in the research process, but claims are that a single HVD can hold up to 3.9 terabytes of data. That’s 4.28809535 X 10^12 bytes, or 160 single-layer Blu-Ray discs.