HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray - Is It All in the Name?

Z asks: "As most of you are aware, the dawn of the nex-gen format wars is fully upon us. We have all talked about it until we are Blu in the face, but there is one simple, yet important topic I have yet to see discussed. What is in a name? Now, bear with me for a second here while I explain. As much as we geeks would like to believe it, we are not going to be the ones who decide which format wins out in the end; consumers are. Now, we all know people hate change. Users already know what DVD is, and most would like to think they understand HD. But Blu-Ray? Your average Joe only wants one thing when it comes to new technology, a feeling of comfort and understanding; something I think Blu-Ray is going to have a hard time giving them. I can't help but wonder, is HD-DVD going to win out simply because people are going to be more familiar with the name? "

I really doubt it.

Look at how quickly people embraced DVD, or how quickly people started using the MP3 format.

Re:I really doubt it.

MP3 took forever to become a consumer reality. I started encoding and playing MP3 on my computer in late 1995. I first got my hands on the crappy, crappy MPTrip discman in 2000. It took another 3 years before a half-decent MP3 deck was sold for car audio. And no, the insanely expensive EMPEG did not pass as half-decent to me, poor poor sound quality. I had designed a better player myself, using a cheap PC and a luxury sound card. It took a really long time for the masses to clue in to MP3.

VHS vs DVD was different, because it took the entertainment industry ages to put out DVDs. For the most part, new releases had simultaneous VHS and DVD available, but all the classics, the movies we really wanted, took years before being released. The price was also not quite right, since the same movie in VHS was usually a good $5 to $8 cheaper than the DVD. Consumers might not know the intricate technical details, but they certainly aren't stupid. A movie is a movie is a movie, doesn't matter if it's VHS, DVD or High-Def, you're not getting "more". Nor does it have a significant cost difference to the producer, they're all cut from the same masters, and up until a couple years ago, most people's TV sets could hardly show a difference between good VHS and DVD.

Re:I really doubt it.

There's one major difference between this and the two situations you cite.

The format that DVD replaced was ancient. The gap between VHS and DVD was huge, and DVD offered many features that VHS did not. And I'm not sure MP3 replaced an old technology so much as it filled a void.

There's not that much of a gap between DVD and Blu-ray/HD-DVD.

A name is important, but...

I think it will have a lot more to do with publicity than with the name itself. And the name "HD-DVD" is a good start, but it's not enough. If Blu-Ray makes a bigger splash on TV, in the newspapers, online, etc, then it could win.

It's also possible that having a name tied into an existing standard (namely DVD in this case) could have a negative effect, especially if Blu-Ray (or its supports) spin things that way. ("Why would you want to stick with something as old as DVDs when Blu-Ray is all-new, all-improved?")

Maybe novelty can help differentiate?

I think that it's entirely possible that the name issue could actually be a significant market differentiator for the two products. The "HD-DVD" products may come off as seeming like being just a minor upgrade to the old DVD standard, whereas Blu-Ray could seem to be a much fancier, different product. Since it seems like many people are hesitant to upgrade, but not necessarily hesitant to embrace entirely new technology, I think I can see that working in Blu-Ray's favor.

Consider also...

...that the average joe hates acroynms, my friends which know nothing about this are more likely to pick blu-ray merely because it doesn't have acronyms. I think people prefer things they can say, blue-ray vs h-d-d-v-d.

yes and no

I don't completely disagree, but I do thing "Blu-Ray" can catch on as a new "hip" and "bleeding edge" name.

I'd argue the opposite

Joe Sixpack, you know, the guy who buys the Hemi, or puts the "Type R" sticker on his Honda Civic, will by the Blu-Ray DVD, because..well, it's "Blue". Blue is better, neater, more high tech, with less distortion, jitter, wow, and flutter. I mean, think of it, red has a long wavelength, blue shorter. So it must be higher definition.

Seriously. This is what you'll hear from the droid at Best Buy.

"HD-DVD" sounds old and busted, a hack to make DVD "HD".
"Blu-Ray" is an entirely new technology, and as everyone knows, unless you have the latest trinket, you're a dinosaur, obsolete, gay, etc.

I may sound flip, but you get the idea. People buy spin, and marketing crap. They don't buy technology, or purchase on any rational basis.

Re:I'd argue the opposite

People buy spin, and marketing crap. They don't buy technology, or purchase on any rational basis.

Oh, most definitely. That's why I think Laserdisc made such huge waves, all but replacing VHS for precorded movies. I mean, damn, discs were high-tech and lasers have always been awesome.

Listen, if you want to know what the general public will buy, I'll tell you: They'll buy the HD format that a) has the most movies, b) gets the best demos over the next year while they're wandering around Circuit City/Best Buy/etc., c) is supported by their friends and family (my parents, for example, would go for whatever format I recommended to them), and most importantly d) is the cheapest.

Of course, it's all moot if combo players reach decent prices. At that point, nobody but the A/V geeks will care about the differences...

Yeah, right.

Names have everything to do with how popular a format becomes. "Betamax" or "VHS"?

Nevermind that absolutely obscure music format, MP3.

At the risk of being modded offtopic...

Why is the DEC corporate logo the graphic for this article?

Did HP decide to use their corporate corpse to produce Blu-ray or HD-DVD players?

The Opposite

The opposite if anything.

HD-DVD is letter soup. It's "just another kind of DVD". Nothing special. CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, HD-DVD. Same thing.

Blu-Ray... that's cool. It's blue. No, not blue, 'Blu'. You see blue LEDs everywhere right now, they're "in". The name is like "hi-fi" or "hi-def". And it uses a ray. Ray guns are awesome. It's totally new.

Based on the name, I'd give it to Blu-Ray. A name can make a difference. Radio Flyer was named that way because both parts, radio and flying, were very new and high-tech things back when they first started producing their product. This made it "hip" and "sexy" (although I doubt those were the words used at the time).

I still think Blu-Ray will win for other reasons. Higher capacity, PS3 integration, and Java based menus are all good reasons. Not using MS's menu system is a good enough reason for me (yeah, yeah, "Sony will r00tkit my BR Playerz!").

HD good. Blu-Ray better.

It's the vibe...

End users hate ugly names.

PC, VHS are good examples of this as end users tend to use the words 'Computer' and 'Video' instead of their names. Though notice how people say DVD when they talk about DVDs? This is because it flows, it sounds remotely sexy, and it quick to get out in a sentence.
Now try and say Haych Dey-DVD in a sentence ten times fast...

Compare this to BlueRay where end users will see it and say it like that. They will then probably go with it based on its non-excluding non-geeky name and just that it looks a lot nicer than many other names out there. Of course no one will ever say BlueRay in conversation so they will say 'video' which for those of us around only six years ago will notice that 'hey that is what users are used too' and that is comfy for them. So purely on the type of name I'd say those behind BlueRay did their research and they expect it to be some thing that will help them: BlueRay becoming synonymous with Video.

DVD+HD **plus is better than minus!**

The BluRay folks should adopt a second name: "DVD+HD" and use the advertising slogan "plus means better, plus means more, don't settle for DVD minus HD when you can have DVD *plus* HD".

Then encourage the BluRay player builders to add a $5 DVD pickup laser and a $2 MPEG2 decoder chip so the BluRay players can also play back old fashioned DVD too.

When I first heard of Blu-Ray...

When I first heard of Blu-Ray I thought: "Gee, they couldn't come up with a dumber name? It sounds as stupid as Betamax!"

Then I found out Sony was making Blu-Ray and had a good laugh.

Then I read "HD-DVD" and fell on the floor laughing.

HD DVD Will Win for More Reasons Than That

I honestly think HD DVD will win over Blu-Ray. While name recognition will help, it won't be the deciding factor.
Remember, many don't have much faith in Sony anymore. They've had numerous delays with their PS3, which is their main way to market Blu-Ray. The PS3 is expected to be $599 or possibly more. Not only that, but their last format, UMD, failed miserably and is being pulled off Wal-Mart's shelves. Combine that with their previous failures with formats like Mini-Disc and Sony doesn't have much of a track record with having successful mediums. Also, don't forget, many consumers have a bad taste in their mouth because of Sony installing rootkits on their computers even if they disaggred to their EULA.
Other things that will help HD DVD is the fact that it has at least a 3 month lead on Blu-Ray. That and right now, you can buy an HD DVD player for $499 [toshiba.com] where as most Blu-Ray players are expected to cost around $1,000 when they're released.
Also, when customers find out that many Blu-Ray players will include a feature to disable themselves remotely [engadget.com] if anything "odd" has been detected in the player (I'm sure this will also be exploited by hackers). This permenantly damages the palyer requiring chips to be replaced.
Honestly, I think Blu-Ray is great for doing huge backups and working with large files on computers, but I can't see it succeeding in the movie market.

Since when are geeks not consumers?

As much as we geeks would like to believe it, we are not going to be the ones who decide which format wins out in the end; consumers are.

Apparently geekdom does not have ANY say in whether a format is accepted. This statement has given me a headache. OOOOhhh, my head!

silly question

look at early CD-R formats, look at early DVD-R formats.. someone built one drive that works with both and the war ended..

Consumers think they already have "HD-DVD"

I've noticed a whole lot of confused folks in various forums that already think that they have "HD-DVD" - when what they have, in fact, are upsampling standard DVD players.

Funny enough, most of the folks thinking that they had something that hadn't shipped yet owned Sony units. Perhaps this is not a coincidence. But people are going to be pitched DVD players with HD resolution - the confusion that this will breed will probably kill HD-DVD.

jh

HD-DVD will win

The consumer likes acronyms. Look at the battles: VHS vs Beta. VHS won. CD vs... uh... MiniDisk. CD won. DVD vs LaserDisk. DVD won.

Alright, some of them weren't really battles, but there aren't many "battles" where a named format beat out an acronymed format*.

* and now dozens of people are going to come up with counter-examples. I urge moderators to mod them down as trolls. :-)

Want some advice?

What is in a name? Now, bear with me for a second here while I explain. As much as we geeks would like to believe it, we are not going to be the ones who decide which format wins out in the end; consumers are. Now, we all know people hate change. Users already know what DVD is, and most would like to think they understand HD. But Blu-Ray? Your average Joe only wants one thing when it comes to new technology, a feeling of comfort and understanding

If you want to know what I think -- rather than expending energy worrying which DVD format wins out, you'd do better learning to stop talking like that.

For heaven's sake, you're not Claude freaking Shannon; you're some guy buying a device to play Spiderman 2. (You also may or not be the guy who thought "Digital" was the appropriate category for this topic but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one...) Could you possibly dial the condescension back a bit?

I think the opposite

I think that the name Blu-Ray sounds cooler, so people are more likely to buy it.

Just like people are more likely to purchase a "Roomba" than they are a "robotic vacuum cleaner." Well, that is it robotic doesn't have the cool buzz factor that it did when I was a kid.

Why won't this HD-DVD work in my DVD player?

That's the real question Joe Public will ask.

Many HD DVD buyers will be upset and have a slightly negative opinion of HD-DVD. Then, when the consumer goes and gets edjukated, he'll go with blu-ray, because it holds more data (because 50 is bigger than 30, just like the 7800 is almost 6000 points better than the X1900).

JMO

What about PSX - PS3?

How many PlayStations are there in the world? I thought it was something like 3 million. Now alot of plastation owners will hear about PS3, correct? And anyone who looks into a PS3 will be able to miss that it will use a Blu-Ray drive. So, main question: Will PS3 have an impact? I believe yes.

Price will tell

I think that price has more influence determining a format than anything else. Sony keeps making the same mistake over and over. They price consumer electronic devices like you would price a Lexus. Most people won't understand a single technical difference between the two formats. They will both have pretty much the same picture quality. Some rabid geeks will claim that they can see a difference with their superhuman vision. Everyone else already believes getting a widescreen tv is HD. When it comes time Ma and Pa kettle to go to Best Buy, (I don't mean this derogatorily. I live in Arkansas myself.) they'll ask the salesman what's the best dvd player for the money. Even the technophile Best Buy salesguy isn't going to try to get them to buy a $1000 bluray player. He lives on commission. He'll steer them towards a $350 HD-DVD player and save that #1000 bluray player for the gold plated audio jack chumps. That's around the price that they'll be when people really start chomping down on them. Sony will probably still be selling bluray for 1k. Don't forget that these are the people who tried to sell you umd at 2x the price of the dvd.

Poor average Joe...

I don't think you give average Joe enough credit. I think the hi-def wars will be won by early adopters, and I don't think average Joe is an early adopter. The early adopters will do a little research. Unfortunately, there isn't much difference between the two formats, so I can't predict what they will do. But I don't think it will be about the name because Joe will come to a decision apart from name, maybe what studio is supporting the format or something like that. I think the outcome is a toss-up at this point...

But Blu-Ray ray sounds cooler...

I think Blu-Ray may have the upper hand with a cooler sounding name. Like it or not but Joe Sixpack may be more lible to go with the cooler sounding tech. There's a reason those slimeballs in the marketing department get paid so well.

HD-DVD has advantage I think

I think Blu-ray is a "cooler" name, but think about it from the perspective of the average person. They know what HD is, and they know what DVD's are... they see HD-DVD and I'd wager at least 90% of them would guess correctly that it referred to high definition DVD's. You hear the term Blu-ray, and while it sounds nice, it gives zero clue as to what the product is.

Of course, with the PS3 having Blu-ray built in, that's a HUGE advantage... I'm really anxious to see how this plays out to tell the truth. :)

Yes

Yes.

Media PCs

If media PCs finally take off in the next 5+ years, especially with the networks now offering more online content, I'd put my money with whoever micro$oft ends up offering better support for in Vista (I've seen rumors about Blu-Ray being added), since they have the ability to essentially kill off rival formats (unless the rival can get the kind of market penetration of the ipod).

Unique names don't sell? Ipod?

Yeah, like all the people that bought mp3 players instead of the ipod...I mean what's an ipod? The various new dvd players will all be together. The confused consumer will more than likely remember an unusual name than some standard "hd dvd". So which high definition dvd player should we get? Oh, this one has the patented blu ray technology. I remember hearing that was good. These other ones just say the standard hd dvd. Let's get the blu ray one! Heck blu ray may end up becoming synonymous with the next gen dvd players like people nowadays talk about ipods not even realizing there are other brands that sell related products.

Blu-Ray Sanitary Wash - "Kills germs dead"

The first idea in that direction was "Violet Ray" [pullman.com], a chain of laundromats in the 1950s. Every washing machine had a UV lamp. There's still a Violet Ray laundromat running in Baltimore.

They got their timing right on this one...

I'm just hoping HD-DVD doesn't win out, but I'm in wait-and-see mode right now.

Ultimately it depends on when people are ready and willing to ditch the hundreds of DVD players they bought in the last 3-4 years. Over the last 3-4 years, HD sets started getting cheap, DVD players got ultra cheap, people got over the fact that they can't record on their video media anymore (though, that's changing), and all-in-one surround systems became popular because the media is now all the same size.

A 3 month release headstart for HD-DVD isn't gonna get people to automatically throw out their existing systems that their wives just let them spend their entertainment budget on. Those are the people with the rear-projection sets. Anyone willing to spend twice as much for a plasma or an LCD they can hang on the wall is going to look at the fact that first gen HD-DVD doesn't do 1080p out of the box and Blu Ray does. The early adopters are the ones that are gonna care about picture quality. Everyone else is more likely going to care about spending $450 on a HTIB versus $500 on a single player. The salesman will likely get better commission on that sale anyways cuz it's an easier sell and all he has to say is that it does HDMI just like the other single player set.

As for the studios, I'd think they'd be more willing to release on Blu Ray than on HD-DVD cuz it seems to have more anti-piracy annoyances^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hprotections. Additionally, larger movie size means content that is less easy to compress and get across the net on your lowly 768k DSL upload. Then there's the addition of Java (the tech that just won't die) and the potential for net access from Blu Ray devices and you've got content that can download fresh movie trailer ads.

I think the fact that EVERYONE has a DVD player that works NOW will allow enough of a break to let the price differential between HD-DVD and Blu Ray to shrink. The number of new buyers that will get an HD set and mates it to a first gen HD-DVD immediately will be marginal. Once time enough has passed to get people buying the new hardware, the price gap will have faded and then it's all about hardware availability which seems to be largely behind Blu Ray. From the way things look, the majority of the studios and the majority of manufacturers are behind Blu Ray.

Sony may have screwed up in the past, but not like everyone thinks they did. MiniDisc had it's place, it's niche. For the longest time, we had S/PDIF on our consumer appliances even when there was an "official" digital audio spec out there named AES/EBU. They have PLENTY of successes to offset their PR blunders. I know Sony has screwed up in the past, but I think they got the timing right on this one.

A 3rd option

What if both formats fail miserably?

Recent digital formats have snowed the market because they offered obvious advantages over existing technologies that had been around for years. CDs and DVDs overtook magnetic tapes because they were more durable, had better resolution, (generally) offered more storage space, and gave you the option of skipping directly to a specific song or movie scene. Plus, magnetic tape media had been on the market for several years, so most consumers felt they had gotten their money's worth out of their old hardware. Many of the discussions surrounding HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray seem to assume that consumers will necessarily pick one. But why should they pick either? The only advantages these formats offer over current DVDs is slightly better video resolution (no novel access features or rugged construction) and more storage space for.....10 extra director's commentaries? I suppose certain video games would enjoy having a 50GB media, but honestly, who's going to make a game that takes up fifty gigabytes?

Whether or not Blu-Ray's horizontal line count is superior to HD-DVD's is irrelevant. What's relevant is how superior it is to the current standard - 480i on DVD. I think that the difference is negligible, unless you have equipment costing thousands of dollars. Even on old televisions DVDs were an obvious improvement over VHS tapes, which were literally wearing out from time and use. HD-CDs sound wonderful, but only on the right hardware. And very few people are willing to spend an extra $5000 on speakers just to hear greater clarity of the 10khz frequency. The costs far outweigh the benefits.

Plus, I just bought a DVD player three years ago! Suddenly it's obsolete? I don't think so - the T-1000 still looks pretty sweet on DVD, and my discs are in great shape. Asking me to pay an extra $300 for a player, plus $30 for a new movie, plus $2000 for a new tv, plus $100 for the cables needed to even hook up HD components, just doesn't justify a really nice solar flare.

Does anyone else remember that one of the early, great selling points of DVDs was that you didn't have to rewind them? Wasn't that awesome? And now we take it for granted.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the popular (albeit contrived) marketing of Blu-Ray as "BD-ROM" media, which sounds an awful lot like "CD-ROM."

Just saying it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, like getting reacquainted with a familiar friend.

I don't think name will play into it too much, to be honest, nor do I honestly think that the 3-month HD-DVD headstart will help too much either. I'd wager decent odds that in the end, it will be up to Middle America to decide, since (I'm pretty sure) they are statistically the slowest adopters.

Any statisticians/marketing gurus care to chime in and correct me/confirm?

BluRay is much more personable...

Yes, I wrote about this before, but I think you've got it backwards.

Try this, say "H. D. D. V. D" three times fast, and you'll see a problem: it's long, it's cryptic, and it's hard to use in conversation. It becomes very "techy" sounding, and has no charm, it conjures no imagery what-so-ever. "Blue Ray", on the other hand, is two simple words that are already used in everyday conversation. When put together, they create wild space age imagery, not of the "techy" kind, but of the "wow" factor. It's two sylables compared to it's competitor's five. Blue is a color commonly associated with the calm and understated, and synergizes with the more aggressive imagry of its "Ray" counterpart. After all, "RedRay" immediately conjures up images of fire, blood, and bad 70s B sci-fi flicks.

As a graphic designer, I'll votche for BluRay having much more possibilities for aesthetically pleasing logos. It's use of lower-case letters (which give it a more personable feeling), combined with it's cute spelling make it endeering. It has symmetry, and varried "skyline" (the shape the tops of the letters make).

HD-DVD, on the other hand, is made of mostly sharp edged letters, all upper-case, very impersonal, intimidating, and institutional in nature. Accronyms are not comforting to people. FBI, CIA, IRS, WTF... all negative connotations. People tend to make accryonms of subjects that are undesirable or discomforting, since shortenning the name gets it over and done with being said more quickly. I assure you that if the FBI really stood for "the Friends of Birds and Igloos", people would much less rarely refer to it as "The F.B.I"... and when they did, they would call it "Feebee". A product with an accronym in its name has a harder time endeering itself

Yes, all these perceptions are going to be subconscious, yet, most of the innitial judgements about the product are going to stem from the subconcious "feeling" you get when you first see or hear about it. Thus, a name and a logo can litterally shape and define a product for the consumer before they even see it. Steve Jobs and his staff were geniouses when they shortened the cryptic "Performa 7300/200" to "iMac", there's no coincidence that the relative success of the iMac was shaped by it's more personable and less intimidating portrayal... and that all starts with a name.

They buy what they're told to buy

Joe Average will buy what he's told to. The usual sales talk in Best Buy will run along these lines:

"Yeah, erh... Hi. I wanna buy this new DVD kind, ya know, the one with the better resolution and clearer picture and all that, you got that?"
"Oh, you mean (insert the tech they got more margin for)."

The consumer might have had a say in what's being bought some years ago. He has nothing to say anymore. He's buying what's available. Best Buy and its buddies don't even have to offer both. They dictate what's being bought, because people WANNAHAVE! that new technology, and if BB doesn't carry BluRay, well, then it's HDDVD. Or if they don't have HDDVD, so it's BluRay.

Joe Sixpack doesn't know the difference anyway, so he'll buy whatever is available, because he wants it NOW. Just like it was in good ol' Russia, you don't get what you want, you get what's good for you.

Or neither will win

And what if say... neither format wins?

Does that mean both names suck?

Afterall there is precedence for formats simply not gaining traction. LaserDisk never got very popular, and most people have no reason what so ever to buy an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player as they don't have an HDTV to go with it. So, why bother?

Voluptuous Mounds

Personally I want HDDVD to win, just because I like anything with "DD"'s ;P

Both!

I'm certainly going to wait until I can get a player with both Blu-ray and HD-DVD support. Then I won't get obsolete discs I can't play in case one or the other dies.

Oh, and the player must be able to play region 1 AND 2 discs, or be cheap enough so I can buy two players. I refuse to obsolete half my DVD library after all...

Yup

In a word... Yes.

Consumer confusion

I'm just glad I don't work in a store that will sell all these formats. Is anyone anticipating all the returns when joe six-pack buys an HD-DVD and then discovers that his $30 DVD player won't play it? Will the retail people even understand how to explain all this stuff? The entire thing will cause so much confusion, that HD disc players (both HD-DVD and BD) will probably be kept in the demonstration rooms, and the media will be kept in big racks with disclaimers like "THESE DO NOT PLAY IN NORMAL DVD PLAYERS" once the retailers find out what a pain in the ass this all is.

The whole thing reminds me of the old days, when I had to visit specialty shops to get my hands on LaserDiscs, just so I could enjoy a film in letterbox. Part of me wishes that these new technologies will go the same way, but at the same time it has been nice to see normal consumers embracing widescreen, dolby surround, and high quality in general. It still sucks when I come across the person who asks why they "cut off the top and bottom of the picture." Ugh. On the other hand, even the guy with an HDTV and an HD TiVo is still gonna ask how he can stretch the SD channels to fill the screen. Ugh again. They need to make you pass a class before you can buy electronics.

Syllable count

HD-DVD = 5 syllables
Blu-ray = 2 syllables

No contest: Blu-ray wins.

Why both may fail

Neither format may make huge inroads. Why? Because resolution doesn't matter. Notice the popularity of the iPod - does it have higher fidelity than a portable CD player? Not hardly. MP3s and AACs are lower in sound quality than even FM radio, but people are willing to put up with the lower quality because of the convenience factor.

My wife and I haven't rented a DVD since we bought our TiVo last year. We record at basic quality, so there are lots of artifacts in the video. Do we care? No - we hardly notice the artifacts as we enjoy all the great old movies TiVo'ed from TCM.

I think we'll find that DVD is more than good enough for most consumers. As long as DVD players and DVD movies are significantly cheaper than HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, DVD will continue to be the preferred format. The advantages of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray over DVD are not enough to justify the higher costs they will demand at the beginning, and if you don't have enough early adopters paying the initial premium, you'll never see the economies of scale that will let the prices come down. It'll be laser disks all over again.

It's simple backwards compatibility

I hear HD-DVD and I thinks: "yeah, that'll probably play my existing DVD collection"

I hear Blu-Ray and I thinks: "um.... what?"

It doesn't really matter which drive is backwards compatible or not. It's all about association.

Backups

I'm going to have a Blu-Ray drive for computer backups before long. I suspect many consumers will a year later - there aren't many good backup options for the home users.

So, I might as well have the same technology in the living room as I do in the office.

And I can't see any of this becoming mainstream before the players hit $199, which is a couple years out yet. Most satellite and cable companies will be in full-swing with HD by then as well. That's when we'll start to see a real market reaction. This is 1996 in DVD terms.

Good point

I have found that many of my friends, most of who are NOT tech savy, understand what HD-DVD is, although they really cannot see the point of upgrading. Most still have SD TVs from the 90s, and really do not see a reason to upgrade. Videophiles make up a small percentage of the market. Everyone I know however who does have an HDTV understands that there are two formats out there.

So what do I think? I think Blu-Ray will win, but not for its technical specifications. Blu-Ray will win because its the format of the PS3, if Sony can deliver it on time, that is, before the Christmas rush. If Sony misses Christmas of 2006 with the release of the PS3, Blu-Ray will be dead. No simpler way of putting it. The PS3 will be the biggest pusher of Blu-Ray there is.

So what if the average consumer does not know the difference between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. So what if the average consumer knows that HD-DVD stands for High Definition DVD and does not know what Blu-Ray is. Your average consumer is not going to be buying these players to begin with. It will be years before the average consumer buys into high def one way or the other, and by then, the early adopters will be the ones who have decided the outcome of the format war.

With that being said, I cannot stress the importance of the PS3 coming out on time. Look at the XBox 360. Many people understand that the PS3 is going to be a better system, but Microsoft has a year head start. The same will be true with the format war. Regardless of wheter the Blu Ray players actually come out in May, until Sony and other manufactorors can produce a player in a similar price range as HD-DVD and until they can push the format on users (with the PS3), HD-DVD is going to have the upper hand. Oh, I do not want to hear about capacities and such, a dual layer can hold 30 gig, and even my transport stream 1080i rip of Return of the King is not that big. HD-DVD uses VC1 compression, which I do not know a lot about, but I am sure uses some type of MPEG4 compression, which will make the movies much smaller than the source transport stream. You can fit a movie and all its extras on an HDDVD without a hit to quality. So with quality side by side, and looking at the price tag, HD-DVD has a major advantage. The PS3 WILL be the deciding factor in this battle. End of comment.

OCD/OCPD

Those of us that are borderline obsessive-compulsive are certainly backing HD-DVD. I'm backing it simply because of what the article says ... because it seems like the logical successor to DVD. I really don't care too much about the actual specifications of either medium (actually it appears that Blu-Ray is technologically superior). I just see the "DVD" at the end of "HD-DVD" and that does enough for me.

What about the data side of usage?

It makes sense to use the same physical disks for movies and data, just as DVDs are used now but, at this point, I could care less about these new formats for the purpose of playing movies. Like many other people have pointed out, it isn't worth the money to get equipment good enough to show the difference in quality between either of these new formats and DVD.

What I really care about is having higher capacity data disks that are available as a comodity item like CD and DVD media are now. If the choice between Blu-ray and HD-DVD doesn't make that much difference for movies then I hope they consider that it does make a difference for burning data disks on a computer and pick the higher capacity format for that reason. I suppose this shows just how much of a geek I am but still, I wonder if the market for plain computer data storage can make all the difference in the broader market.

Over 35?

I dunno what you mean by "this line of work", as posting crap on a website isn't much of a career. But if you mean say, unix/network admin, then everyone should know, regardless of their age. Hell, my jr admins fresh out of high school know who DEC was.

Re:Hope they both fail

Blu-Ray's Durabis coating is MUCH MUCH more durable than CDs or DVD's ever were. It's been widely reported to be able to withstand screwdriver attacks and steel wool pads and still be playable.