I like to avoid “format war” material and prefer to talk more about how to maximize your current or potential enjoyment of HD DVD. But it’s not like you can avoid those topics forever, and they do spark a little bit of interest in some of the more involved enthusiasts.
Here are a few tid-bits from recent news around the web and real life, which qualify as “format war” material, and naturally, they’re mostly good news about HD DVD. If you want to hear bad things about HD DVD (including made-up stuff), then you’ll need to visit the websites that have the other format in their name… naturally.
Top 10 Reasons to Buy HD DVD
The HD DVD Promotion Group sent Electronic House magazine a list of ten reasons to go with HD DVD (the Blu-ray guys did the same). While it’s not hard-breaking news, these are some good reasons and worth remembering next time you’re out there answering someone’e query about why you got into HD DVD or why they should consider it.
State of HD DVD
Wilson Rothman tells it like it is in his “State of HD DVD” article over at Gizmodo. The highlights of this piece include a list of three things that HD DVD has going for it:
- Low-priced players
- All players compatible with a finished spec
- Coalition members who cooperate with each other
In comparing movies on both formats, Rothman points out that “…even when you compared the exact same experiences, the HD DVD behaved much better.”
Gizmodo also made format war news when Blu-ray backed out of an open debate versus HD DVD. Editor Brian Lam postulated, “The only reason I can think of is that Blu-ray would not be able to defend the conclusions we made in our ‘State of Blu-ray’ piece…”
Transformers Wins Best Audio
The first ever “High-Def Disc Awards” were held this week at the High-Def 2.0 event in Los Angeles. The film, 300 won “High-Def Title of the Year” and the HD DVD version got “Best Bonus Features” award. The “Best Audio Quality” went to Transformers, an HD DVD exclusive title. Cruising around on the internet, it’s common to see endless talk about technical specifications that may only be measurable by machines, completely ignoring what humans can actually perceive and appreciate with their own eyes and ears on the equipment most people have on their $1000 (or way less) audio systems at home. Despite all the talk about Transformers not using a lossless audio track, it appears that nobody really cared in the end, and its Dolby Digital Plus track beat out the uncompressed and lossless audio on all of the competition on BOTH formats.
High-Def Formats Expected to Remain at Parity
Another story from that same High-Def 2.0 event is that analysts see no end to the format war in 2008, and predict no change in fortunes for either side. One of the problems is that consumers can get reasonably good picture quality from up-converting their existing DVD libraries, which provides a lot less urgency to get into a high-def format (those of us who have made the switch into both or either high-def format would argue there’s no going back to SD even if it’s up-converted!). Helen Davis Jayalath, from Screen Digest, expects things to be stalemated through 2012 because “backwards compatibility and upscaling reduces consumers’ desire to replace existing DVDs.” She also added that high-def adoption is below expectation despite the high demand for HDTVs, and felt that parties on both sides of the format war need to reduce their public battling because it discourages consumers from buying into either format.
HD DVD Is More Consumer Friendly
HDTV Magazine’s Publisher and Chief Technologist, Shane Sturgeon, declares the HD DVD format is much more consumer friendly. The article lists the numerous benefits of going high-def regardless of format, and explains why HD DVD is the better choice in the end.
Sturgeon also debunks various myths, misconceptions and misstatements that are commonly made regarding HD DVD. This is definitely a good read if you’re new to this format war business.
Widely Syndicated Columnist Don Lindich Chooses HD DVD
Don Lindich’s “Sound Advice” column runs in lots of major newspapers around the USA, and he started November off by enthusiastically recommending HD DVD to his readers. Like Shane Sturgeon’s article, Lindich also debunks the various myths spread by the other side. Over at his blog, Lindich goes on to cite comments made by many other audio/video experts that support his conclusions in favor of HD DVD.
Much of the typical format war news is based on speculation. Will Warner choose a side? Will Disney split with their associates? Will Microsoft build in the HD DVD player to the 360? And so on. An article is making the rounds right now about the first of those questions: will Warner choose a side? Business Week simply posed the question and wrote an article about it, however it’s likely to start getting reported as if it was real news. You can always tell exactly which side someone has taken when they report on this kind of story. It’s covered here at one of my favorite sites: FormatWarCentral.com and you can follow through to Business Week from there to read for yourself.
There’s plenty more to talk about when it comes to the format war, but all the trash talking is best done at the various internet message boards where people are far less inhibited in showing their enduring support for the side they’ve chosen. Comments on this posting are closed so that the smack talking can occur elsewhere.
