The next-generation format war has been quite the bitter battle, but it’s obvious which format has come out on top. HD DVD is effectively dead, much to dismay of its major supporters. This must also be a big pain to any early adopters, because that black box with a blue laser is pretty much useless. Or at least it will be in a couple of months when the major studios stop releasing new movies in that format. Sucks to be you.
But how did it come to be like this? How did the Sony-backed Blu-ray format manage to stomp all over the Toshiba-backed HD DVD? After all, the HD DVD format came out of the DVD Forum, the same people that populated our homes with DVD movies. It was a tried and true name that people would recognize, but it just wasn’t enough.
Let’s take a stroll down memory lane…
The Beginning of the War
When high-definition televisions (HDTV) came onto the scene, people started scrambling to see where they could get their hands on some quality hi-def content. A regular DVD player just wasn’t good enough and the upscaling DVD players seemed like a cop-out.
It was at this time that a new format had to be born. On one side of the equation was the DVD Forum, and this was chaired by Toshiba. By using lasers with short wavelength (blue), they were able to create a format that could store three times as much as a regular DVD. Using a dual-layer disc, this made enough room for 30GB of data. On the other side of the equation was the Blu-ray Disc Association, founded by nine initial members. Also utilizing a blue laser, these guys are able to cram 50GB onto a dual-layer disc, nearly double that of HD DVD. This was the first step toward next-gen dominance.
Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3
A major factor in the format war happened to involve video game systems. Just as Sony did with the PS2 and DVDs, they packed the ability to play Blu-ray movies into their PlayStation 3. Although the PS3 was severely more expensive than its gaming competitors, the Blu-ray functionality actually made it a decent value. Think of it this way. You could buy a PS3 for $600 or you could buy a standalone Blu-ray player for $800 or more. You do the math.
Your mileage will vary, but I also found that the Blu-ray player on the PS3 was actually better than standalone players. At least, that was my experience with a standalone Samsung. This is even more motivation to consider a PS3. But I digress.
Fighting out of the red corner is the Xbox 360. The gaming system did not have any HD optical disc drive from the get-go, but consumers were offered the opportunity to buy an HD DVD add-on for a couple hundred bucks. If you already owned an Xbox 360, this made for a fairly affordable solution.
I don’t have the exact figures, but as I recall, the PlayStation 3 sold better than the HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360. This may have served as a rather important factor in the eventual demise of HD DVD, because the PS3 essentially created a user base for Blu-ray.
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Porn Makes Its Choice
Like it or not, the porn industry is probably the most influential industry of all. When you think about the Internet, for example, many of the biggest money-making websites are porn. When you think about DVD sales, porn plays a pretty big role there too. Such is also the case when it comes to any sort of new technology.
Somewhere along the line, porn chose VHS as the format of choice over Betamax and we all remember how that went. The same thing happened in the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray. Although there were some “blue” movies released on HD DVD, the industry as a whole started adopting Blu-ray as their preferred new toy. No pun intended.
Retailers and Studios Jump Ship
And then they started dropping like flies. Retailers, rental outlets, movie studios… all of these guys that may have supported both formats started jumping ship and declaring their allegiance to Blu-ray. The damage inflicted on HD DVD really started to pile up. From Netflix to Blockbuster, Walmart to Best Buy, it seemed like no one wanted any piece of HD DVD anymore. These are some really heavy hitters, so when someone like Wal-Mart pulls the plug, you know that you’re in trouble.
The manufacturer side of things didn’t work out either. Shortly before Toshiba put the final nail in the coffin, Samsung declared that they would be focusing their energies on Blu-ray and giving less attention to their dual format players. They said that this was what the public wanted and they were simply responding to customer demand.
Even going cheap didn’t work for HD DVD. When you can’t convince the marketplace to buy a standalone player for $100, including seven free movies, you’re in some serious doo-doo. Remember that a standalone Blu-ray player still costs about $300 with no free movies.
Blu-ray Didn’t Win Yet
HD DVD is dead. That much is clear. Even so, Toshiba is not willing to admit that Blu-ray is the winner of the next-gen format war. Instead, Toshiba is saying that the true winner of the next-gen format war will be downloadable and/or streaming high-definition content from the Internet. People will want the ability to buy HD movies through an interface similar to iTunes, instead of having to buy a physical disc. That’s what Toshiba says, and based on what is happening with MP3s and CDs, it just might be the case.
In the meantime, I hear that you can score an awesome deal on an HD DVD player. It might even be worth buying just as a quality upconverting DVD player.
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