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OCAU News |
The next-gen DVD war took another turn recently with a major movie studio deciding that it will support both formats, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. With both formats set to hit the shelves early in the new year it’s getting to the stage were the major content providers are making firm decisions as to which way they will go.
Blu-Ray is being pushed by Sony Corp while HD-DVD is the work of Toshiba Corp. Blu-Ray currently has the support of Walt Disney, Sony Columbia Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, game maker Electronic Arts, computer suppliers Dell, HP and Apple Computer, and the Sony PlayStation 3 will carry a Blu-Ray drive. On the hardware suppliers side Blu-Ray also has LG Electronics, Pioneer, Sharp, Philips and Panasonic. Meanwhile, HD-DVD has the support of Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. HD-DVD will also be supported by chip maker Intel Corp and software giant Microsoft Corp. With these last two on board this provides a support base which could add some leverage to the Toshiba camp. Paramount Pictures have stated that they will provide content on both formats.
Samsung claim they will provide drives for both formats and are even looking into the possibility of a dual format drive, which would dumb down the format war to a degree. While both formats use a blue laser to read and write to the disk, the single/dual layer capacities are 15GB and 30GB for HD-DVD and for Blu-ray, it's 25GB and 50GB. HD-DVD also offers backwards compatability with existing DVD disks, something Blu-Ray lacks, and I think this will be a major plus for many people. Neither format seems to offer any other real advantages or disadvantages except their capacity. While Microsoft claim the 50GB Blu-Ray disks are "nowhere in sight", Sony claim this is not the case and that 50GB disks will be available by mid 2006.
At this stage, the balance seems to be leaning towards Blu-Ray but will it stay that way? Will we, as the consumers, end up with more obsolete new hardware in our home? Which format will you choose or will you sit on the fence for a while? We have a poll running in this forum thread where you can have your say and see what others think.
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All original content copyright James Rolfe.
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