Feb
25
Format War Over - Blu-ray Victorious
Filed Under Blu-ray
If you’re wondering whether it’s safe to buy into either Blu-ray or HD DVD in the midst of a “format war” just put HD DVD out of your mind and know that Blu-ray has won, the format war is over and you can take that to the bank.
In the past several weeks/months HD DVD has taken hit after hit, most notably starting with Warner Brothers announcement that they would stop supporting HD DVD by June of this year, followed by Netflix announcing they would stop renting HD DVD’s by the end of the year and then with Best Buy announcing they focus their attention on Blu-ray as well.
We need look no further than Matsushita’s (Panasonic) Masayuki Kozuka for some insight as to why he believes HD DVD’s fate was sealed long ago:
I guess what sealed Toshiba’s fate was its “$99″ pricing on Black Friday. That pricing must have discouraged every manufacturer from entering the HD DVD player market. I believe Chinese manufacturers’ entry to the US market was HD DVD supporters’ last hope. Given the market price at $99, however, it became impossible for any other manufacturer but Toshiba to enter the market.
This post breaks with our format here just a bit, but HD DVD’s demise was certainly a huge story in the home theater world and I would have been remiss not to mention it, now back to your originally scheduled programming.
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