Blu-Ray Vs. HD DVD - Who will win?

[Juventus3]

I'm not sure how HDDVD is going to convince the world they're better. It has nowhere near the storage capacity...

[Ford Prefect]

I saw a clip on the news tonight that said Blu-Ray is outrenting HD DVD ... not sure which video store chain it was.

A couple techies at electronics shops I've talked to both figured Blu-Ray was the way to go, but that's purely anecdotal.

It's too early to tell though, so I'll continue to wait for a winner to emerge before I buy a player. Prices will be better by then anyway.

[TurnedTheCorner]

I'm not sure either format will become a dominant format like CD or DVD. They might end up more like a Laserdisc or SACD/DVD-Audio.

Blu-ray (or however you spell it) seems to have more content and supporters at the moment. But both sides seem entrenched and committed.

I wasn't planning on buying either format, but after watching Heroes in HD all season, I didn't want to drop to DVD resolution when Season 1 was released. So that forced my hand into getting an HD-DVD player. 6 free movies didn't hurt, either.

But yeah, prices for either format should only get better.

[Flamescupbound!]

I have a feeling Blu-Ray is gonna win this war. I see far more Blu-Ray movies around, whether it be in my local futureshop, movie rental store, or at some customers house i'm at. Maybe I notice them more because of the pretty blue casing, maybe it's because they're outselling HD-DVD. Who knows, but it definately seems more prominant. Seems when I see an ad for the latest popular movie being released on video, more often than not it's a DVD\Blu-Ray combo and not HD-DVD.

[Draug]

Do you actually see a lot of stand alone Blu-Ray players?

I would have assumed that the overwhelming majority of the players out there are PS3's. Very interesting if that isnt the case.

[ernie]

Right now for standalone players (i.e. those not meant primarily for gaming), HD-DVD is outselling Blu-Ray.

The movie attachment rate per machine (including PS3) for HD-DVD users is MUCH higher than Blu-Ray.

It doesn't surprise me at this point that Blu-Ray is renting more as, to be honest, if someone owns a PS3 there isn't much else to do with it at the moment. No games translates to people using it for another purpose. All things considered the fact that HD-DVD is still holding onto to about 40 % of the market with a few million PS3's being sold just confirms that the PS3 is not having as big an influence as Sony thought in any market (gaming or HD movie viewing). Hence the reason for the huge turnover of Sony executives that had anything to do with the PS3.

HD-DVD just had a 10-15% increase in hardware sales the last month with the price drop/deal on the Toshiba machines which is forcing Blu-Ray hardware makers to do the same.

But really, NEITHER format is thriving. To put it bluntly, the large majority of people in this world just don't care about HD movie viewing at this time. If you add up the total numbers of both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies sold at this point since the formats were released they are less than what just ONE of the worst movies sells it's first week of release on regular old DVD.

It's an uphill battle for either format against DVD right now and when people do start to get interested in switching (not in the near future IMO), it is going to have to deal with HD pay-per-view and downloadable content.

Besides the Planet Earth series there isn't much else that HD enhances. A bad movie is a bad movie a good movie is a good movie no matter what screen it's on.

[Bobblehead]

I tend to agree with what ernie is saying.

I think Blu-Ray has taken the lead - in rentals, sales, titles released, studio support - but HD-DVD players are cheaper and Toshiba's recent pricedrop really sold a bunch or players. Early on it also looks like Europe is favouring HD-DVD. But Funai (who makes Emerson and a few other bargain brands) announced their own cheap Blu-ray players yesterday.

Blue diodes (used for the laser pickup for both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD) were in short supply, but supplies are starting to free up, so prices should continue to drop for the players (and PS3 - Sony hinted at another price drop before Christmas).

Blu-ray appears to have a bit more momentum right now, but they aren't even a blip compared to DVD sales, so nothing is close to being decided yet.