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Is it Time to Give Up on HD-DVD?

06.10.07 | Comments

I’ve been a fan of HD-DVD ever since this whole new format war started. The technology just made sense: At the time, we believed that it was relatively inexpensive to retrofit existing DVD pressing plants to print HD-DVDs compared to Bluray, which required new equipment. Then there was the ability to create double-sided discs which held the DVD version of a film on one side and the HD-DVD version on the other–something that wasn’t possible at all with Bluray due to the protective case the discs are held in. And perhaps most obviously, the name just screams to consumers that it’s the legitimate successor to the DVD format. Minimizing confusion is always good when introducing new technologies.

Needless to say, I was highly skeptical of the Blu-ray format when faced with all of these points in favor of HD-DVD. (You can get a better idea of my early stance from this Amherst Bytes article from September ‘05.) Sony’s unstoppable hubris with the PS3 and the rootkit fiasco didn’t put Blu-ray in the best light either.

Fast-forward a year and a half, and things definitely didn’t turn out as I expected. Blu-ray is actually giving a decent fight in sales, and certain failures in the management of the HD-DVD platform may have made it impossible for HD-DVD to ever win this format war. At most, it seems the best the HD-DVD camp can hope for is a stalemate that continues to splinter the HD disc market, and that’s not something I can really support with a good conscience.

Blu-Ray LogoTo see if I was completely wrong about this whole thing, I researched all of the initial reasons I had thought HD-DVD would eventually win this war. According to this article from Wesley Tech, it turns out that the manufacturing costs don’t differ all that much. In fact, the Blu-ray discs are sometimes cheaper! Regarding the hybrid DVD/HD-DVD discs I was so keen, they simply don’t seem to be making that much of an impact on consumers. And finally, as for the name, it seems that Sony’s marketing has done a much better job at cementing Blu-ray as the de facto HD format than HD-DVD’s pragmatic naming scheme.

While I took a certain amount of joy in hearing and reporting that Harry Knowles chose HD-DVD as his preferred HD format, reading this Digital Bits response took away all of the moment’s joy. I’ve respected Digital Bits ever since they launched, even though it seems they haven’t redesigned their site since then. That article stands as one of the most persuasive arguments that HD-DVD is well and truly fracked.

Here’s a quick summary of their reasoning:

  • Porn is not the deciding factor in this format war, as many often say. Porn is more easily accessible online, and often for free as well. It’s a completely different situation than the VHS/Betamax era.
  • When it comes to dual releases in both formats, the Blu-ray version seems to sell better generally.
  • Blu-ray has the support of every Hollywood studio except Universal. (HD-DVD’s lack of region coding may be one of the big reasons for this.)
  • The players are cheap, but that’s mainly because the Toshiba is bleeding money on the hardware. By the end of this year we’ll most likely see Blu-ray players around $300 anyway. (I think it would be suicide for HD-DVD to try and undercut them then.)
  • Soon after the DVD standard was completed, Toshiba refused to start developing a new HD standard with Sony when they asked. They thought it was too early to start worrying about HD. When coupled with the fact that Toshiba got all the royalties for the DVD format, it makes a certain amount of sense that Sony didn’t want to settle on a standard with them again. (That still doesn’t excuse their behavior, though.)
  • Most Blu-ray haters are basically Sony haters, and that blinds them to the format altogether.

I’ll admit, I’m somewhat guilty of the last point. Sony was just on a role with stupid corporate decisions at the time, and the inclusion of Blu-ray in the PS3 also seemed like they were trying to cram the thing down our throats at the expense of the console. In fact, I wrote a fairly long post about that back in March. I still don’t think that Blu-ray is helping the PS3 at all, but I can’t deny that the PS3 is helping Blu-ray. I wouldn’t be surprised if the PS3 is the main reason that Blu-ray continues to sell more discs than HD-DVD.

So what now? Up until recently, I was actually considering an HD-DVD player, especially with the ever-so-tempting Ultimate Matrix and Planet Earth sets just released. But now I think I’ll just sit and wait for one of those fabled single-drive Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo players to hit the $300 mark…


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