They say that those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it. My father-in-law owns a beta-max player. And now, I am the not so proud owner of an HD DVD player.
For those of you who have no clue about what I am talking about, Sony and Toshiba have been battling it out for dominance of the next-gen high-def video format; a war that has been compared to the battle between VHS and Beta Max. VHS eventually won in spite of Beta-Max's supposed superior quality. And history repeats...
Until now the major studios have been split in which format they chose to support with Warner Brothers supporting both formats. Warner has just put its support behind Blu-ray, a move that the media is declaring the death of HD DVD.
As for why the major studios are choosing Blu-ray; it does have a higher storage capacity and Blu-ray titles have sold more copies than HD DVD titles, according to the AP. However, HD DVD players had their strongest sales in the 4th quarter of 2007 and it has many features already available that are going to take some time for Blu-ray to develop. HD DVD players also upscale regular DVDs to high-definition while Blu-ray players are unable to play them.
I also find Warner Brothers statement that the availability of multiple formats was causing confusion and accounting for slower adoption of HD players a bit tenuous. If that was the case, then why wait until after the holiday season to announce their move. Blu-ray players are considerably more expensive than HD DVD players, and for many holiday shoppers (myself included) the choice was apparently a no-brainer. I believe that if the market had played out fairly HD DVD could have had a shot, but the idea that the winner would be decided by the buying public was never a reality. Warner Brothers knew long before the holiday season that they would eventually back Blu-ray, all but killing the hopes of Toshiba's HD DVD. As a jilted holiday shopper all I can say is the least they could have done was warn a brother. (Sorry, couldn't help myself :-))
But all is not lost. I do have a thirty day return policy on the useless piece of electronics that is under my TV. As for Blu-ray. I am not about to rush out and buy one.