The Brink of War

That’s where we’re at right now and the masses don’t even know it. Allegiances have already been established. The two camps are ready for battle. In a few months time, businesses will be destroyed, companies will strike each other with poisoned tongues, people will pick sides against their own brothers and sisters, and the destruction will not end until one side succeeds in obliterating the competition. I speak of none other than the format war with the next generation of DVDs: the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

If you’re one of the losers who hasn’t been following all the breaking developments, then you’ve come to the right place. For I, too, am a loser and I’d like to welcome you. You’ve been missed. So Sony and Phillips began developing the Blu-Ray while Toshiba and Hitachi have been working on the HD-DVD. Both formats, by the way, have plenty of support from major companies…but more on that later. When you get down to brass tacks, the Blu-Ray can hold almost twice as much data, which obviously makes it a lot more expensive to produce. There have been plenty of unsuccessful negotiations between the two parties to try and reach a compromise. There were even talks of a Summit being held with all the major players. It’s pretty much gotten to the point of no return though, with each assemblage of companies gearing up for this inevitable all-out brawl. Ultimately, you will be the deciding judge in a battle the likes of which have never been seen. Not even Aragorn and his army of the dead can help us now. .

From all that I’ve read so far, my bet would be on the Blu-Ray. However, I am strictly against gambling…so if anyone who is reading this isn’t, just put down some money on the Blu for me. Thanks. Here are some of the reasons for my prediction:

1. Sony, its developer, will be releasing their PlayStation 3 in a few months. This piece of hardware will be the first machine to make use of the Blu-Ray. And if the PS3 can do everything they’ve been bragging about, well then…it won’t be pretty for Toshiba. Microsoft has said that it will eventually develop an HD-DVD-compatible version of the Xbox 360.

2. Blu-Ray has the backing of Dell and Hewlett-Packard, who together control something like 30% of the computer industry. Oh, they’ve also got Apple on their side.

3. It can hold more. Somehow they’ll find a way to stuff over 40GB-worth of information on them and sell them by the buttload because that’s just what we like. There’s no such thing as “too much” in the technological and/or entertainment industry. Sad sad world.

Honestly though, I don’t see how the image quality can get any better for movies. How much more detail do we need to see? At what point does sharpness become ludicrous? It seems like a change in the ways movies are actually shot would also have to come about. Having to take into account the fact that audiences will be able to see the most tiniest of pimples on the super sexy female in a resolution of 1080 really changes things.

Right now, it would make more sense to me if it was just strictly a video game format. Especially since the Blu-Ray can hold such a ridiculous amount of data. Now that I think about it, it may very well end up that way. Maybe the HD-DVD will win in home theater and the Blu-Ray in video game entertainment. Only time will tell.

I don’t know man. It’s gonna be ugly. Money will be the only deciding factor in this war. Godspeed. May the best coalition win.



...do you think the average storm-trooper knows how to install a toilet main