Inside Information: Format wars trump Star Wars

In the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray technology, it could be a matter of personal film taste that decides the winner

Have you bought into Blu-ray or HD DVD yet? Maybe you’re waiting to see how it pans out.

Perhaps you’re not bothered. Consumer electronics trade shows often mark significant points in format wars, so I hoped we’d see some defining action at this year’s giant IFA event in Berlin. Sadly that wasn’t the case.

There were the usual briefings from each camp highlighting the figures that made their format look the strongest, but little news came out of the show to convince me we’re any closer to a resolution.

One thing has become clear though: in terms of hardware, HD DVD is significantly cheaper. Dedicated players are available from about £200 and Toshiba recently announced a budget model that will cost $299 (about £150) in the US. In contrast, you’re looking at spending £400 or more on a Playstation 3 or a standalone Blu-ray player.

If you want the cheapest point of entry, you could equip your PC with a suitable drive. Here Blu-ray always had a disadvantage in pricing because, while the drives could write Blu-ray media, this made them expensive.

Recognising that home cinema enthusiasts are more interested in watching movies than backing up gigabytes of data, Pioneer earlier this year launched the BDC-202 drive, which combines Blu-ray playback capabilities with CD and DVD writing. That’s a nice solution for media PCs at about £150, but trumping it is Microsoft’s HD-DVD drive, which, while designed for the Xbox 360, works fine on PCs. It offers only playback of high-definition discs, but can be picked up for £90.

The cost of hardware is a significant factor, but arguably more crucial still is the availability and variety of software, and in this respect at least one recent announcement raised eyebrows. In late August Hollywood studios Paramount and Dreamworks announced they would exclusively support HD DVD.

Whatever the reason for the switch, one thing’s for certain: if you’re after Shrek, Indiana Jones or Star Trek in high-definition, you’ll need an HD DVD player.

The mention of specific titles inevitably results in groaning but there will always be one that gets you going, and when this becomes available in a better version than ever before, it’s hard for any fan to resist. For me Star Wars can easily sell me into a new format. Increasingly definitive versions saw me buy into Laserdisc and I’d jump at the chance to own the trilogy on high-definition disc.

Fox has signed with Blu-ray, which should make it a simple decision which player to introduce to my home.

But so far there’s no sign of Darth Vader on Blu-ray and, while we’re at it, why are we waiting so long for the best Disney and Pixar titles?

Ratatouille and Cars are due on Blu-ray (in the US anyway) before Christmas, but what about Toy Story and the other big hitters?

Titles that are exclusive to Blu-ray could end up being the format’s only chance of winning the war, as these are the only times you’ll see its technological or capacity advantages.

Casino Royale and Spiderman are cases in point, but does this mean we’re only going to see the advantage of Blu-ray for Sony movies and a handful of other exclusive deals?

After all, if you’re a studio releasing a title on both HD DVD and Blu-ray, you’re unlikely to author two different versions, easing up the compression and squeezing more extras onto the Blu-ray version. You’ll almost always author to the lowest common denominator in terms of capacity and therefore the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions will invariably be identical.

So with a limited number of titles to uniquely show off Blu-ray’s advantages, combined with relatively pricey hardware, changing specification and a continued absence of key movies from so-called exclusive partners, I’d say Sony’s format isn’t looking as strong as its rival.

Of course as I’m the man who bought into Betamax, Dat and Laserdisc, I’ll understand if you seek a second opinion. I can tell you one thing though ­ my Xbox HD DVD drive remains one of my best buys. It’s a shame it’ll probably never play Star Wars, but at least The Matrix looks pretty good.

This article appeared in the December 2007 issue of PCW.