Posted by Temsonic on 08/31/06 16:39

"Dr Zoidberg" <AlexNOOOO!!!!!!!@drzoidberg.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4locrrF2tocvU1@individual.net...
> mo wrote:
>> Who exactly was the winner of the last 'format' war?
>>
>> I would say '-' but they were fairly similar anyway and became
>> inteerchangable almost once multiformat writers became available.
>
> "-" was more popular , mostly because the blank media were slightly
> cheaper but then as you say dual format writers made it pretty
> irrellevant.
>
> I'd expect a similar situation for HD & BR - sooner or later the players
> will converge

The last format war can't be compared to this one. The difference being that
+ and - are both recordable formats, so whichever one you chose didn't
particularly matter as you were only going to record what _you_ wanted on
whichever format you had chosen.

With HD-DVD and Blu-ray, the problem is that most of the studios have
aligned themselves with one format or the other, and in some cases have said
they will not release films on the opposing format, e.g. Sony will not
release HD-DVD's, and Universal will not release Blu-ray discs. In effect
this means that if it stays this way, whichever one you choose you have to
run the risk of not being able to play HD media from certain studios. If
dual format players arrive soon, and more importantly arrive cheaply, then
great. If not, the sooner one of the formats loses the better.

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