Blockbuster goes Blu-ray, HD DVD=beta?,

Lack of content depending on what you watch. There are many movies on HD-DVD that you cant find on Blu Ray. Its about top movies.

The European studios are almost 100% HD-DVD and Asia is leaning that way too.

I like foreign films personally.

Salespeople work for places that are paid to "Place" products favorably. Blu-Ray has greased a lot of palms.

A salesperson told me Blu-ray players are outselling HD-DVD 6 to 1 but this was not what deecided me.

That is if you include Playstation 3 sales but there is no way to know if a PS3 is being purchased for Blu-ray or gaming. 150,000 stand alone HD-DVD players have been sold v 100,000 stand alone Blu-ray players.

06-24-07: Rysa4
Fundamentally the Blu ray disc is a bit of technologic problem because it requires much more processing and hard drive space to function than an HD-DVD player; thats why they really havent been able to roll out all of those purported added features on the blu ray discs....

HD-DVD is straightforward and delivers the goods, without all of the false hullabaloo about a "Blu Ray victory is ineveitable" and other marketing drivel. Cart came out way before the horse.

That's the way I see it too. Blu-ray is *not* the better mousetrap. HD DVD is a more elegant solution, requiring less storage space to achieve equal resolution, standard interactive features, and standard high-def surround sound schemes which are optional on Blu-ray.

I hope the public sees it that way. I think Blu-ray is so complicated and memory-dense that it'll take years to work out the bugs and realize the theoretical potential. You can have it all right now with HD DVD.

There's so much spin coming out of both the HD-DVD and Blu-ray camps that it's hard to really get a clear picture of what's really happening in the marketplace.

Talking off the record to mass market dealers, neither format has seen significant adoption up to this point. Gross sales have been described as "dissapointing."

Still, it's far from over.

And no matter how much we deride Wal-mart, they have snuck their way up to being #2 in mass-market CE behind Best Buy, and are gunning hard for #1. They've got a lot more savvy than I would prefer to give them credit for.

I am not sure if you are all aware but someone has already hacked the HD-DVD format over the Xmas holidays 2006.

This could be another factor that is driving content providers and industry support towards Blu-Ray.

In essence the lower technology hurdles and lower cost may seal the fate of HD-DVD....ironic though this might be.

You might envision a future with Blu-Ray media only used for consumer players (protecting copyright) whilst PC's move towards HD-DVD burners for data etc. I can imagine those industry execs worrying about copy protection being thwarted so easily by PC users. Of course they will worry about the higher manufacturing costs of Blu-Ray too....but the greater hurdles and tighter control on copy protection may win the day.

I recall how Sony went after the company that did Playstation 1 emulation - in the end they have proved themselves at defending a controlled proprietary game console format....and that must be what they pitch to Hollywood. Remember that game consoles are often sold at a loss with profit taken from content sales and peripherals.

Think about it...which is the lesser of two evils?

Sony makes big royalties but has the money and major incentive to protect the medium from piracy. Hollywood studios will want this even if distribution costs are higher (as they plan to pass these costs on to customers).

Equipment player manufacturers would probably prefer the other way round....HD-DVD means no royalities to Sony...a lower cost product, higher sales growth and fatter margins (and who cares if there is piracy...as wide cheaply available media will just result in more player sales!)