Blu-ray might have won the format war, but its success has put it at a bit of a disadvantage with consumers in one notable way: although HD DVD lost the format war and has been discontinued, this discontinuation has precipitated a major price drop. HD DVD players have been tumbling in price lately, after having lost the format war with Sony’s Blu-Ray, and having Toshiba cease the development of the format. The tumbling prices have fueled popularity of the HD DVD players and Blu-ray, so far, isn’t as popular as the industry expects it to be.
HD DVD might have lost the format war to Sony’s Blu-Ray, the current economic downturn has given new life to HD DVD. When Sony got the backing of the biggest Hollywood studios in spring, it appeared to be the knockout blow for HD DVD as the studios also dropped HD DVD. However, aggressive price cuts have kept the market alive for HD DVD players and HD DVDs. HD DVD players also play standard DVDs.
Whereas Blu-ray discs and players are still very expensive, the cost of the HD DVD disks has fallen from $40 in some cases to as little as $10.Payers can be bought for less than $60, compared with about $250 for a Blu-Ray player. Thousands of HD DVD titles are still available, including some recent hits like American Gangster. In short, in spite of HD DVD being officially discontinued, HD DVD players’ availability at rock-bottom prices have stoked a lingering popularity for the format.
The primary disadvantage of Blu-ray vs HD DVD is cost. However, HD DVD does offer some nice features that Blu-ray has so far failed to offer, though. One nice feature of HD DVD players is that they are backward compatible, thus enabling users to use a single player to play all types of HD DVD, DVD and CD.
Another disadvantage of Blu-ray in comparison to HD DVD is that HD DVD generally supports higher quality audio. This may cause some consumers to either buy an HD DVD player at rock bottom prices, or to skip the high definition players altogether and stick with ordinary, low-cost DVDs. The image quality on DVDs isn’t nearly as good as Blu-ray, but it is still pretty good, and ordinary DVDs still look great on large flat panel TVs such as those made by LG and Samsung.
Another disadvantage is that the gaming platform that is compatible with Blu-ray, the PS3, isn’t all that popular compared to Xbox 360 and Wii. The high price has been a factor. Microsoft offer a very inexpensive HD DVD drive for their Xbox gaming system may be a compelling reason to adopt the format, especially now that prices for these players have hit rock bottom. The Microsoft player attaches to the Xbox 360 with a USB cable.
When it comes to a format comparison, the main disadvantage of Blu-ray when compared to the format it vanquished, HD DVD, is price. In an economy like the one we’re in at present, that can be a major advantage.
Comments
Comments are closed for this post.