The HD-DVD and Blu-ray format wars continue on, but a drastic development has recently occurred. Warner Bros. has decided, after support both formats for quite some time, that they will release their videos on Blu-ray exclusively. What does this mean? It means that it is time to forget about that HD-whatever format and look forward to what Blu-ray has to offer.

The HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats are not that different from one another. Blu-ray has advantages over HD-DVD in the areas of capacity, price, speed, and support. Check out this media format comparison by CNET for the detailed specs.

The History Of Blu-ray

The history of the Blu-ray disc is not all that hard to follow. A laser capable of reading/writing in shorter wavelengths was developed--this allowed more data to be written on the same surface area. The laser has to write closer towards the surface of the media, and this left the media vulnerable to scratches; this resulted in the Blu-ray discs initially having protective cartridges (shown on the right).

A single layer of a Blu-ray disc allows over five times more storage space than a DVD. Officially, their is support for two layers (with each layer supporting 25 GB), but there has been discussion of the capability to store upwards of 250 GB of data on a single disc--ten layers of data.

The Numbers

A report released by Nielsen VideoScan had revealed that 76% of the high-def market has gone to Blu-ray in a one week period in December. It would appear that the Blu-ray format is earning the nod by consumers. While HD-DVD was gaining strength, it might all be irrelevant now.
The studios are taking the side of Blu-ray, and that, in the end, is all that really matters. People that wish to take advantage of high-definition content will purchase Blu-ray media in the future.

The End Is Near?

A press conference by Toshiba, the primary supporter of HD-DVD, which took place yesterday morning at CES has revealed that the company is extremely disappointed with Warner Bros. decision to support the Blu-ray format exclusively.

The vice president of marketing for digital audio and video products, Jodi Salley, had little to say. CNET reported her statements:
"As you can imagine, this is a tough day for me," she said as she took the stage. "I fully expected to come here this morning to share with you the successes of the last year of HD DVD, (but) the events of the last few days have shifted the focus of my comments."

"It is difficult to read pundits declaring HD DVD dead...but we've been declared dead before," Sally said.
While the disappointment is warranted, it was not the best way to start the year by showing heavy remorse at the largest consumer electronics show. The future is looking grim for HD-DVD, and while their were still hints of optimism at the press conference, truth be told, the worst has yet to come.

The Future

The amount of people that will purchase Blu-ray media and players is very likely to grow, and I expect to hear some announcements from CES for improved devices. While there is still a slim possibility that some other format could pop up at anytime, the high-def market is likely to embrace Blu-ray as the format of choice; for now anyways.

We might hear of new camcorders that write to Blu-ray media, instead of DVD, in the future. This would be an incredible improvement as the storage limitations of a single DVD are far too low for high-def video.

New questions could be asked now: How long will the industry support Blu-ray before something else better comes along? How long before Blu-ray would be phased out? How will the Blu-ray format perform with copy protection? How will companies like Microsoft and Toshiba bounce back? I am sure we will be able to answer a few of those questions soon.