Blue-ray vs HD-DVD.pngIf you are on the fence about which format to buy, HDDVD or Blu ray, it may be a little safer to pledge your bet and buy an HDDVD player and partake in all of the HD goodness of this next generation DVD format. Thats according to this article over at Digital Trends.

In that article, the author thinks that theres no way Blu ray can compete with HDDVD, with the lead that HDDVD has gotten and how the outlook of the 2 formats appear to be played out in the next few years. The first reasons that we all know if we’ve ever looked into the 2 formats are price. A stand alone Blu ray player right now starts at about $1000 bucks where as the entry model HDDVD drive start at about $500. Then when you look at the actual movies, most HDDVD titles are about $5 less than the Blu ray titles.

Then if you look at the launch of the 2 formats. the HDDVD format is very similar to the current DVD format as far as technology so it is a pretty standard productional item that was released and got going fairly easily. Blu ray on the other hand, has been quite problematic to manufacture, causing delays to market. With those delays, HDDVD has been gaining market share at a faster rate, lower price, already in stores. Sony has a lot of backing but its been so rough out of the gate that it might not matter how much backing they have.

According to the article, the proverbial nail in the coffin came as Microsoft released its $200 HDDVD addon for the Xbox 360. Sony included Blu ray with its PS3 console thinking that the 2 would push each other, but what it has done so far is made the PS3 a very expensive gaming system (although it is the cheapest Blu ray drive available) and it has held up the potential launch window of the PS3 giving Microsoft a year head start with the 360 and 20X the install base. The HDDVD addon that is available for the 360 currently only supports movie playback so every HDDVD sold is sold specifically to view HDDVDs, where as theres no way to tell if PS3 owners will ever watch one Blu ray movie on their PS3’s.

This article is pretty interesting and worth a read if you are on the fence or just want to get a perspective on how this format war is going at the moment. (click here to read)

Source: Digg, Digital trends