Rumours coming out of Toshiba are that they will be dropping HD-DVD soon, ending the Hi-Def war. With nearly all the major film studios backing Blu-Ray, and Toshiba claiming a massive loss on its HD-DVD players, it seems the only option is for them to give up.
So what does this actually mean? Well, having used both technologies, not a lot. If I’m honest, I’ve never noticed much of a difference between the formats, quality wise. The only difference has been price. HD-DVD has always been the cheapest of the two rivals, but it may be emerging that the reason for this is Toshiba was selling its hardware at a loss, to make HD-DVD players more attractive. Of course, if Blu-Ray does win, then Sony is almost sure to keep Blu-Ray prices as they are, for a while yet, because of the lack of competition. That means the players will remain out of a lot of consumers budgets.
Although this has been referred to as a war, really its a battle, there is a much bigger battle brewing, and that’s between the actual film on disk industry and On Demand films. With broadband speeds increasing, renting or buying HD movies online will become the norm, so Sony may have won this battle, but it may only be years before even Blu-Ray is out of date!
One last thing, if Toshiba does drop HD-DVD, all is not lost for those with players as the cost of the disks will plummit, therefore allowing you to get yourself a nice little collection of films, probably for less than a normal DVD!
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