Random Update: The Format War Rages On

There simply hasn't been anything interesting to post about lately. The video world is pretty dead, but just as I did two posts ago, I have to thank Sony for releasing Spiderman 3 exclusively in widescreen. Yet another defecation has been taken upon the "fullscreen" zealots.

In other news, the extreme price cut (probably clearance) of Toshiba's HD-A2 player caused 90,000 HD-DVD players to fly off shelves, and while it sounds like a lot, just consider that Sony is selling about half that number in PS3s, weekly. The big issue I have with this is that, while I'd LOVE to pick up a cheap HD player (and I fully believe HD-DVD can deliver the goods), this has only put a dent into Blu-Ray's stride, and whatever progress has been made in this format war, has been reversed to some extent. Fuck you, Toshiba, I would buy your format if it was winning, but trying to turn the tide is only delaying me (and MANY other people) from buying EITHER format.

Think about it: Tons of people buy DVD players, and they usually don't go for the $30 players, because they feel they're shitty (quite the contrary in many cases), and will even buy >$100 DVD players just for superior playback/recording abilities, or even a brand name. If HD players stayed consistently in the 100-200 range (and maybe even 200-300), people would buy it... fast.

Stop prolonging this struggle, those who bought the losing format (whoever it will be) are fucked already, so we don't need them building up a library only to lose support later on.

I'm starting to sound like Doom9 with this update... I never expected to report news, more than just bitch and whine about idiocy in the video world. Well, believe it not, I CAN tie this in to my life. Recently, I finished a paper (yes, for college) on the differences between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray; no sources have been cited (most of the paper is based on my own knowledge, opinion, or estimated statistics from other, uncited sources), and the paper has been dumbed down to an extraordinary level in order for the professor to grasp it to at least some extent.

More importantly though, I will most likely revamp the entire paper (which currently runs at 7 pages, though will face definite expansion), removing dumbed down words, discarding my NUMEROUS parenthesis in the paper (I do it on here too!), and going into specifics on bitrates, disc speeds, background information on the development, and while not necessarily citing many sources, will provide far more statistical information on sales, actual video encode data from both formats, etc.

Of course, the paper will remain opinion to some extent. I'm a Blu-Ray supporter, even if it is for the larger disc space (Yeah, I know it's not necessary for many movies, but think of data storage), but I primarily support it because it's winning. If HD-DVD was currently in the lead, had the majority of studios and hardware developers behind it, AND led sales, I would be in favor of it. I want this war to end, and I'm sure www.digitalbits.com would agree with me on that. In the end, the paper will be published most likely here, and maybe on a separate site.

Some topics I've already discussed in the butchered version:

- Disc space comparison
- Codec usage and compatibility
- Audio formats and practical advantage of uncompressed audio
- How simultaneous BR and HD releases have used the same encodes.
- That the one advantage of two formats is quicker price drops.
- Improvements over standard DVD in interactive features.
- The demand of Region Coding from New Line Cinema, thus delaying HD-DVD versions.
- Dreamworks and Paramount's sudden shift to HD-DVD which prolonged the war.
- How this war is analogous to every war before it.
- The changes from DVD to High-def are not justifiable to a lot of people (people have shitty eyes).
- Both formats have proven themselves capable of awesome video
- That Blu-Ray's extra 20GB on a BD50 is not as helpful as many think
- That it takes an HD30 (two layers) to fit most movies, whereas a BD25 would have (probably) done the job.
- How quickly the prices of both formats have decreased in under two years.
- That adoption rates of either format has been substantially lower when compared to DVD's debut.

Just to name a few. I wrote the thing in two days, so it shouldn't really take me more than one more to fill in the remaining details and topics that I haven't covered already. However, I do have little time, so extra work is the last thing I want to do by choice. Someone call a publisher.