The Format War: Blu Ray Vs. HD DVD, Part 3

In Round 1 Of Blu Ray Vs HD DVD we ran down what Blu Ray and HD DVD do and elaborated on the features. Round 2 focused on the history of the two formats, and exclusive relationships the two sides have forged with content providers and retailers.

Now it’s time for the third and final round of this championship bout, and I’m going to tell you what I really think about the whole thing.

Gentlemen, let’s get it on!

First, I just want to say that movies taken from good transfers that receive quality encoding treatment on both Blu Ray and HD DVD look fantastic. As a film lover, I couldn’t be happier. I definitely find myself buying titles that would otherwise be rentals for me, because I am so impressed with the video and audio fidelity the two formats are capable of providing. Beyond whatever reason you favor one format or the other, I hope we all agree that it’s the movies that really count here.

That said, I have to admit that the Blu Ray/HD DVD Format War is something of a guilty pleasure for me. People get passionate about trivial things, and I’m pretty sure that there are people in both camps of this Format War that would pick up arms if it came to that. I try to remain objective and present things neutrally on my site, as my focus is news and not opinion. I have caught myself on more than one occasion putting something in an article that shows my personal bias, and it makes me laugh. It’s human nature to pick sides in a fight, after all. If you want a flashback to the good old days of usenet trolling, baiting and flamefests, go hit the Blu Ray and HD DVD section of any big AV web forum.

Equally amusing are some of the verbal stones the two sides have thrown at each other. There are quite a few people involved in this that have absolutely no idea whatsoever what their market is, and absolutely no clue what is important to the consumer. Honestly, at any given time it seems like one or both sides have no interest in winning.

The studios are still divided, and that will impact people’s choice. Blu Ray has Disney, Fox, Sony Pictures, Screen Gems, Columbia, Tri Star, MGM, and Lionsgate. HD DVD has Universal, Paramount, Dreamworks and Weinstein. Warner Bros. and New Line release on both formats. If you are a big fan of any of these studios, their allegiance will impact your decision.

Both formats have pluses and minuses, and both will wow you with the best high definition video you’ve ever seen. I write about AV gear and news, and you’d think that I would choose to have both Blu Ray and HD DVD in my home. However, like most of you, I work for a living. I have a wife, two kids, a mortgage and two car payments. At this point in my life I have to chose one or the other, just like most enthusiasts and consumers will have to. I spent lots of time doing lots of homework reading lots of editorial reviews, lots of consumer reviews, lots of web forum threads and auditioning lots of equipment (and after that sentence this web page is going to score lots higher on Google serps for the search term “lots”). Since it’s human nature to pick a side in a fight, that’s exactly what I did:

I chose HD DVD.

From the very beginning the specifications for HD DVD were in place, and from the very beginning the video and audio offered by the format were outstanding. First generation HD DVD hardware was painfully slow, and was prone to freezing, like a PC running Windows 95. However, the software was ready.

Now that we are entering the third generation of HD DVD hardware, the hardware is approaching the speed and flawless playback of standard DVD players. The only real headache for HD DVD has been problems with combo disc (standard DVD on one side, HD DVD on the other) playback, but it appears that the studios are doing away with combo discs altogether.

Contrast that to Sony’s Blu Ray, which was rushed to Market with incomplete specifications so that Toshiba wouldn’t build an insurmountable lead in the marketplace. In the beginning, Blu Ray dual layer discs were not capable of being produced in batches with acceptable yields, so all the early Blu Ray discs were single layer, and possessed less storage capacity than HD DVD did. On top of that, Blu Ray was utilizing mpeg2, the same video compression as it’s predecessor DVD, and the digital artifacts present in DVD video were glaringly apparent in high definition. In terms of video quality, Blu Ray was a firm second place in the early days of this rivalry.

In fact, since the Blu Ray Profile specification is still in flux, current and future Blu Ray player owners have no guarantee that their players will function properly with future software. If I paid $1500 for a Pioneer Elite Blu Ray player only to find that a year later it was severely handicapped in functionality, I would be seriously bent. That is the situation every current Blu Ray stand alone player owner finds themselves in.

I really take issue with a company that displays this kind of arrogance. Sony thought they would force adoption of Blu Ray with the Playstation 3. It didn’t happen, because the Playstation 3 was the wrong videogame console at the wrong price, and people didn’t come. Toshiba is guilty of not fighting the best fight in this war, but they never made me feel like they had a casual and utter disregard for me as a consumer.

There it is. I love HD DVD. I hope it can survive in the market, if not win, because it offers a great user experience. HD DVD’s future is looking brighter with the acquisition of Paramount/Dreamworks exclusivity, and sales numbers have been creeping upwards weekly. Don’t kid yourself though, if they announced the demise of HD DVD tomorrow, the day after tomorrow I would be purchasing a combo or Blu Ray player, because I want the movies.

One of the drawbacks of a format war where both parties are holding their own is that the public is in no hurry to adopt. Let’s face it, combined Blu Ray and HD DVD disc sales are about 1% of standard DVD sales. In all probability, neither of these formats will replace DVD. Blu Ray and HD DVD are more of a bridge between DVD and whatever that replacement format ends up being.

I would love to tell all of you to run out and embrace Blu Ray or HD DVD, but knowing that one format may not survive, I can’t do that. If you’re an AV Enthusiast or a film buff, you owe it to yourself to experience what real high definition has to offer. If one of these two sides actually ends up winning the war and we are left with a single format, by all means, everybody dive in. The water’s fine.