Blu-ray may very well be the last physical media we get when it comes to video content, but if history had gone just a little differently, it would be HD-DVDs being frantically collected by media nerds today, and not Sony's gift to image quality purists.So, why did Blu-ray win? Was it actually the right result? The forgotten format war Some people have never even heard of HD-DVD Before streaming became the way to watch TV shows and movies at home, the future of home entertainment seemed to hinge on shiny plastic discs.In an echo of the great BetaMax vs.
VHS format war, the world had to choose if its newfangled HD TVs would be powered by HD-DVD or Blu-ray discs.It was the DVD format that these new discs aimed to replace, and DVDs had been successful.So this was quite a tall order.
Both formats promised crisp audio and sharp 1080p footage.However, you'd have to invest in one player or the other, and neither was cheap.What followed was an intense battle, and at the time I would have put my money on HD-DVD as the obvious winner.
HD-DVD was technically smarter Simple and open Close Blu-ray has one major advantage over HD-DVD, and that's capacity.BDs offer 25GB of data per disc layer, while HD-DVDs only offer 15GB.However, that's not as impactful as it sounds, at least not at the time.
In every other way, HD-DVD was designed to win.The name was an advantage, in my opinion, as the average customer would simply see it as the new DVD standard.Sure, it might make some people think they can use the new disc on their old players, but overall, I think HD-DVD benefited from the strong "brand" of DVDs.
It's important that HD-DVDs were designed so that existing DVD factories could convert their existing equipment to HD-DVD at relatively low cost.Whereas Blu-ray needed expensive new manufacturing lines.HD-DVD also used common open standards like XML for its menus as part of Microsoft's HDi, while BDs used Java.
This was actually a key reason for the split into two formats in the first place.HD-DVDs were also region-free, a major plus over region-locked BDs.It was cheaper and ready first The contest was in HD-DVD's favor Toshiba and its partners launched HD-DVD a few months before the Sony-backed Blu-ray format.
So it had that major first-mover advantage.The ability to use existing DVD production facilities meant the technology could roll out faster, and, of course, keeping costs low helped.It wasn't just the discs that were cheaper, but the actual HD-DVD players were cheaper than Blu-ray machines.
According to one Bloomberg article (paywalled) from the time, early HD-DVD players could be as little has half the price of a new BD player.Given that these players hit the market months earlier than the other format, it seems logical that early adopters would pick up HD-DVD systems first, but just because they were cheaper doesn't mean they were cheap.Also,not that many movies were available yet, so the age old adoption chicken-and-egg game was in full effect.
Related Why I'm buying every DVD I can find (before they're all gone) Find out why buying DVDs now could be a smart move, as they may become collector's items in the future.Posts 10 By Sydney Butler The PS3 changed everything But Microsoft had a chance to secure the HD-DVD's success Then came the PlayStation 3.My least favorite PlayStation personally, and far too expensive, but I fell for Sony's strategy too.
You see, although the Xbox 360 was the better console, with a full year head start on the PS3, it did not include an HD-DVD drive.Despite Microsoft being one of the key backers of the format, it chose normal DVDs for game storage.If you wanted to watch HD-DVDs on your Xbox, you had to buy a separate external drive.
The PS3 had a Blu-ray player built in, the same trick Sony pulled with DVDs on the PlayStation 2.I bought my PS3 along with my first HD TV, and although the PS3 was very expensive, it was cheaper than buying a separate movie player.As the install base of the PS3 ballooned, the install base for Blu-ray was in lockstep.
By 2008 Toshiba threw in the towel, and declared it would no longer make HD-DVD players.Major studios who had been releasing movies on HD-DVD and were part of the HD-DVD group also abandoned ship, and it was over.A loss for consumers, not just Toshiba Toshiba's loss was our loss.
If HD-DVD had won, we might have enjoyed a smoother, more affordable transition to high-definition media.Discs would have been cheaper to produce, interactive features more consistent, and cross-region playback possible without hacks or workarounds.Instead, we walked the more premium path in terms of cost, without gaining any real advantage in picture quality.
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