The Far Side of Tech

Now that Toshiba has officially thrown in the towel, I think it’s worth considering where this leaves us and the HD disc market. Will HD DVD’s death mean Blu-ray will instantly become a must own product? Or is it merely going to just move over HD DVD purchasers and remain second fiddle to DVD? Here are a few of my thoughts on what this means for the state of HD media.

The Good

• Less confusion when it comes to HD disc purchases
  • Although the niggling profile issue with Blu-ray will be an even more obtuse difference to typical consumers
• Increased movie releases as studios feel more free to release in HD
• HD DVD owners who stick with the format will have access to a wealth of cheap HD DVDs as stores rush to drop the format and HD DVD owners start getting rid of their discs
• This will be a phenomenal year for the Playstation 3 due to more games coming out and the Blu-ray success

The Bad

• We won’t see cheaper Blu-ray players for some time
• We won’t see profile 2.0 players until the end of this year (Except the PS3)
• Blu-ray still has to contend with DVD as the consumer movie format of choice
• Sony’s corporate plan to center the PS3 as a must own entertainment device will become even more of a reality

Overall, the death of HD DVD is bittersweet for me. I appreciate all of the good that will amount from having a single HD disc format, but at the same time it saddens me that we’ve settled on a format that will take months to reach the point where HD-DVD is now. $200 Blu-ray players are still on the horizon, and the profile 2.0 nonsense makes Blu-ray an incomplete format until those players are on store shelves.

I’m also highly suspicious of Sony at this point–I’m certain they will do everything in their power to convince consumers that the PS3 is the best Blu-ray player option for a long time coming. While that is technically true, it’s also bad news for any third party companies who would dare to compete with the Playstation brand. It’s going to be hard out there for every Blu-ray player manufacturer unless they can offer a player significantly cheaper than the $400 PS3. ($200 is once again the sweet spot, in my opinion)
I’ve been writing about this format war since 2004, so at the very least it’s nice to have some form of closure. For now, I’m going to start hunting cheap HD-DVDs to go along with my many free discs (one of the other side benefits of this war), and make more of a concerted effort to find myself a 60GB PS3.

Update: Saul Hansell has a great post over at the NYT Bits blog about the next great obstacle for Blu-ray: The tried and true DVD format.

Similar Posts

• HD DVD May Be Dead, But It’s Still a Good Deal February 2008
• What the Warner Move to Blu-Ray Means for HD DVD January 2008
• Surprise? Bluray Adoption Slows, Upconverting DVD Players Find Success May 2008
• After HD-DVD Demise, Toshiba CEO Says DVD For the Win! March 2008
• My First Week of HD-DVD September 2007