Posted by Mr. X on 04/06/06 02:38

"asj" <kalim1998@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1144241239.711876.316950@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com...
> Research firms (e.g. Forrester Research) note that Blu-ray will most
> likely win in the format war:

And they're wrong. :)

Since I'm bored, let me tell ya what will happen. The hardcore videophiles
will buy both. Those with less money will buy one or the other and defend
their choice like a religion. Neither group really matters. The vast
majority of the public will wait to buy dual format players.

While it's true that Blu-Ray disks hold 25G vs HD-DVD only holding 15G, a
dual layer HD-DVD can be made for less than a single layer Blu-Ray disk, and
HD-DVD uses MPEG4 (Blu-Ray only uses MPEG2 like current DVDs because Sony
owns a bunch of patents related to it). Videophiles will argue forever
about this but it won't matter either. HD-DVD is fundamentally cheaper to
make and it's trivial to print a disk that plays in a regular DVD player AND
has a second HD-DVD layer. This means that stores can stock just HD-DVD
disks and sell to both DVD buyers and HD-DVD buyers. This means that
consumers can buy just 1 HD-DVD and use it in their living room and also in
the kid's old DVD player. And retailers will have less tech support issues
because all the disks play in all the players.

Studios will notice that HD-DVD releases sell in larger numbers and will
eventually focus thier efforts on them. Consumers who really want a movie
that's only on Blu-Ray will be able to buy it, but Blu-Ray disks only work
in Blu-Ray machines and the players are more expensive meaning retailers
expect less buyers and more returns. Especially since the thing that's
holding Blu-Ray up right now is not the players but a high disk defect rate,
even on the single layer disks.

The PS3 will ship too late and too expensive to save Blu-Ray. Despite what
every kid posting on the net thinks, their parents won't all get them a $750
PS3 just a year after getting a $900 XBox360 or $500 on a gfx card for the
PC? The Blu-Ray is also gonna be trying to sell into the early Vista
compatible PCs and faceing the second generation of HD-DVD players.

Of course, the HD group made a huge tactical blunder by not getting an HD
drive into the Xbox360 and ignoreing the Revolution as well but economic
issues for manufacturers, retailers and users still make it a slam dunk.


X

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