I will never buy a movie on Blu-Ray. Sony and the Blu-Ray Association made numerous mistakes in the format’s development and had to resort to unethical tactics to eliminate superior competition. I refuse to reward them.
HD DVD was essentially the official successor to DVD. Everyone involved with DVD was involved in the development of HD DVD. That includes Sony and the other members of the Blu-Ray Association. It is a clear disadvantage to a format when people trying to kill it are influencing development. Of course, this also indicates that HD DVD had more support overall. If Blu-Ray really had the support that their fan base frequently portrayed, they could have easily killed the HD DVD format before launch.
On the consumer end, support seemed overwhelmingly in favor of HD DVD… at least among those who actually decided for themselves. Sony had a trick up their sleeves. Sony learned that brand loyalty and marketing would be enough to sell the PlayStation 3 to their mindless consumers. (If you look at Sony’s business practices, the company clearly views their fan base as unintelligent. They are a lot like Apple in that regard.) Sony decided to bundle a Blu-Ray player with the PlayStation 3.
The early adopters for Blu-Ray didn’t choose Blu-Ray, they had Blu-Ray chosen for them. The fact that the PlayStation 3 included Blu-Ray playback was enough to convince people that the format was superior. I read through numerous comments about how the visuals of Blu-Ray blew HD DVD out of the water. Eventually, the Blu-Ray Association switched to the VC-1 codec. They told us that this was why HD DVD had better video quality and that they were correcting the problem. Obviously, early adopters were letting their bias influence how they perceived image quality. These early adopters lost all credibility.
HD DVD added capacity and features when compared to DVD. Blu-Ray added capacity. While Blu-Ray held more data than HD DVD, it was more of the evolution. The new ideas in HD DVD were more of a revolution. Sony insisted that it was the other way around in hopes that consumers could justify the higher price tag. Of course, the Blu-Ray Association would eventually add some of the HD DVD features to Blu-Ray.
One of the big differences between these formats is that Blu-Ray targeted the studios, and HD DVD targeted consumers. While the studios were initially split over who they would support, two key studios switched from supporting HD DVD to supporting both due to the expectations of the PlayStation 3’s impact on the format war. Meanwhile, HD DVD included region-free playback and mandatory DVD compatibility (DVD compatibility is optional on Blu-Ray). The format was finalized (including features that the Blu-Ray Association could not yet match) before being launched and was considerably more affordable. Blu-Ray was bragging about extra capacity, but all movies released were fitting onto a single HD DVD. Why should consumers fixate on the amount of unused disc space?
To avoid problems that they would face had HD DVD been given a significant head start, the Blu-Ray Association launched their format with a “grace period” specification. What does that mean? All Blu-Ray players being manufactured were obsolete before they were available. With the exception of the PlayStation 3, none of the grace period players could be upgraded to final specification.
The ability of Sony to force consumers to buy Blu-Ray in addition to Sony’s deep pockets and weak movie production from the various studios convinced Toshiba to pull the plug on their HD DVD players. Even though most people who did their research and chose a format seemed to overwhelmingly side with HD DVD, Toshiba didn't have any way to force consumers to buy their products the way that Sony could. With the largest backer of HD DVD giving up on the format, HD DVD was effectively a dead format.
What some people might forget is that shortly before Toshiba pulled the plug, they added a third layer to their discs that could be read with a simple firmware update. This brought the capacity of HD DVD beyond Blu-Ray and took away Blu-Ray’s only advantage to consumers. Since grace period Blu-Ray didn’t support firmware updates, they could not see a similar upgrade.
Even with the competition eliminated, Blu-Ray is not out of the woods. The movie studios are still in an enormous slump. Blu-Ray has a limited window of opportunity before bandwidth improves, and digital distribution of high-definition content becomes more commonplace. DVD is still going strong, and I’m still not convinced that DVD will be replaced by Blu-Ray. The way things are looking right now, DVD has a stronger future ahead of it than Blu-Ray.
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