HD DVD: Death Of a Format

Well, as expected, Toshiba threw in the towel today and dropped support for the HD DVD format. This announcement was expected and predicted here when Warner Brothers made their announcement at CES that they were only going to support Blu-Ray. Since then, all the dominoes began to fall in a row, from Wal-Mart to Best Buy to Target to Netflix, etc.

It is too bad, too, as the HD DVD format delivers excellent audio and video performance, as good as Blu-Ray. In fact, the best titles that I have seen are still mostly HD DVD. Regardless of your position on the format war and of the two formats, it is clear that the existence of HD DVD has been a benefit to consumers. Remember, Blu-Ray was originally conceived as a recording format and was designed to record an MPEG2 bit stream only. The announcement by HD DVD of their format and their inclusion of VC-1 and AVC resulted in them being adopted by Blu-Ray and completely changed the BD profile.

Even more importantly, the existence of HD DVD has resulted in far lower price points for BD players. Do you recall the price points of standalone BD players at inception? I think it is fair to say that we would not have sub $400 BD players at this juncture if not for HD DVD. I think even the most die hard BD supporter will have to concede that. Let's hope that the prices of BD players will continue to fall without the existence of a rival format.

While it is time to move forward with one format, I thought it appropriate to give HD DVD its props. I for one am looking for blow out prices on HD DVD players and have already added one additional player to my collection, to put in the closet in the event that my HD-A1 dies as I have about 100 HD DVD discs. After all, I do want to continue to enjoy them well into the future as I have no plans to repurchase all of those discs on BD at any time in the foreseeable future.

With the format war over, it will be interesting to track the growth of BD disc sales this year to see if they rally take off or whether DVD will continue to dominate as they are now. One key there will be the prices of the discs themselves. I have said it before and will say it again, it is time for the discs to be priced under $20. More reasonably priced discs will go a long way to increasing the acceptance of BD as a mass market item, especially given the current state of the economy. The same is true for the rental companies. It would be nice to see Blockbusters in my area actually carry BD titles for rental as they currently do not.

Let's face it, most consumers would rather rent a disc than buy it. Wide availability of BD discs for rental may even do more for sales of players than lower prices for hardware or software. Another key is portability. After all, none of the BD discs will play in any of the many DVD players in cars or laptops. I can imagine that many will still choose to buy DVD over BD for this very reason at the current price points, at least for movies that appeal primarily to kids. Who really wants to buy the same movie twice at the outset? Maybe they will include the DVD free with the BD? That would be an interesting idea.

In any event, it is time to move forward with one format while appreciating HD DVD for what is has given us movie lovers in its rather short existence.

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