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What the Warner Move to Blu-Ray Means for HD DVD
While I’m currently an HD DVD-only owner, I did eventually plan to get a PS3 later this year to complete my HD film experience. I figured this war was going to continue well on into 2009, and that cheap combo-players in 2009 were going to be the inevitable solution to this silly war. Now that Warner has given an amazing amount of leverage to Blu-ray, that prognosis may no longer ring true.
I don’t think the HD DVD camp is going to give up without a fight though. Toshiba still plans to include HD-DVD drives in all of their new laptops this year, and the special features implementation is still superior to Blu-ray’s fractured standard. Seriously, the fact that they still can’t get that together is downright shameful. I also expect Toshiba to throw even more money at the platform (at least until the end of this year), so we can expect more cheap player extravaganza’s.
The big problem this move brings is an even bigger lack of exclusives for HD DVD. With Warner no longer releasing titles on both platforms and Bluray with a bigger selection of studios publishing for it, exclusives are going to be pretty much the only compelling releases for the platform. It’s only a matter of time before Universal and Paramount start to look towards jumping ship from HD DVD as well.
If that occurs, then the platform will truly be dead. But for now, I’m not going to call it quits for HD DVD yet. Warner’s move doesn’t devalue the great films I already own for HD DVD–many of which can’t yet be brought to Blu-ray until it reaches parity with HD DVDs special features. Current HD DVD owners shouldn’t jump ship just yet, but those looking to step into the HD DVD club should hold off a bit and see if Toshiba can prove the platform still has life in it.
Update:
The Consumerist has a great article up titled Buyer Beware: Current Blu-ray Players Won’t Correcty Play Future Discs. They actually don’t reiterate much news, but it is interesting to hear that even Blu-Ray manufacturers were suggesting people get the PS3 as their Blu-ray player instead of a soon-to-be-crippled standalone unit. They also mention that the Profile 2.0 players won’t be coming out until October 2008, something I’m kicking myself for not mentioning in this article. Here’s an excerpt: