HD-DVD Is Dead

It’s official, HD-DVD is dead, which sadly means that Sony’s Blu-Ray format has won the war. I wasn’t a fan of Blu-Ray for the simple fact that I don’t like Sony. None-the-less, this is good news for the consumers as now there is only one high definition disk format.

Of course many still believe that HD downloads will triumph over physical media. You know, they might be right. Look at the success iTunes, Napster, and other services have had with downloadable music. Only recently have I jumped on the iTunes bandwagon. I’ve always been a fan of having the physical CD and book, but why? iTunes now offers the same book in a PDF format.

Digital storage space is so cheap these days, and once you’ve purchased several hundred DVDs, CDs, and other disks you’ll probably end up in a predicament like me. Where to put everything. With digital space, I can just add more. That’s a bit harder to do for physical media, unless I want to add on to my house.

So yes, I’d have to side with digital downloads. It looks like the way things are headed.

Blu-Ray Triumpuent Over HD-DVD?

In case you haven’t heard, on Friday it was announced that Warner Bro would be releasing content exclusively on Blu-Ray. The next day New Line Cinemas (owned by AOL Time Warner) announced that they too would be going exclusively Blu. This is a major blow to the HD-DVD community.

While it’s bad news for HD-DVD fans and supporters, this could be a good thing for consumers. With two competing high definition disk formats (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) things were a tad bit confusing for the average consumer. You’ll still be able to pick up WB and NLC movies on both formats until May, which is when WB’s contract ends with HD-DVD.

This pretty much only leaves Paramount and NBC Universal supporting the HD-DVD format.