For those interested in the format war between the next-generation high-definition video disc formats, Blu-Ray and HD DVD, it’s now almost inevitable. Before Christmas, I bought an HD DVD player (on sale for $99!), bought and rented a few titles from Netflix. Within the past few weeks I’d started seeing rumours that the format wasn’t doing well. Then, I received notification from Netflix last week that they will cease to offer HD DVD titles. Finally, word this week that retail giant Wal-Mart is dropping HD DVD: let nobody be in any doubt that this is the death toll for the format! The gossip is that even Toshiba, who invented the damned thing and spent a fortune to develop and promote it, is considering quitting. So, it looks like I’ll either have a collector’s item or an annoying piece of equipment sitting around my house for years. And the winner? Blu-Ray. Everyone will have one shortly.
UPDATE 2/19/2008: Toshiba have admitted defeat and quit the race.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Stephen // Feb 17, 2008 at 7:52 am
Bad bit of investment there John
Or good, if it ends up worth a bit over time…you never know!
S
2 Frank Carillo // Feb 18, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Just bought a Bluray player. booya!
3 Stephen // Feb 18, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Don’t you mean Bluya?
S.
4 Dave Powell // Feb 21, 2008 at 3:41 am
have you still got a betamax palyer too
did the fact that it was on sale not give you a clue?
i’m going to wait it out a bit longer, if things go the way Apple would like, we won’t be using hard media in a few years time anyway - the new i book air doesnt even have a disc drive in it.
5 John // Feb 21, 2008 at 8:26 am
Dave- I’ve been a Mac user for over 16 years (this means I’ve avoided ever having had the woeful experience of owning a PC), and one of the most interesting products recently is the Apple TVII, which supports high-definition movie downloads and movie rentals… I do think Blu-Ray will be important for movie-watching in the coming years for most people, if only because people will take much longer to change the way they buy and rent movies. And, for that purpose, I expect sales of the Playstation III to hit the roof now - it supports full 1080p output, HDMI 1.3a and more, making it not only the best Blu-Ray player but among the cheapest.
6 John // Feb 21, 2008 at 8:27 am
BTW, don’t you LOVE the air?
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