That’s it folks, the war is over — the format war, that is. After nearly two years of battles waged on store shelves across the world, Blu-ray Disc officially defeated HD DVD for supremacy in the next generation of optical discs. The killing blow came on Tuesday when HD DVD backer Toshiba announced that it was suspending production and development of the fledgling standard.
As most of us college students were born during or after the late 1980s, our memory of the last format war is virtually non-existent. However, for those who do remember, Sony, the primary backer of Blu-ray, clearly received a very healthy dose of vindication this week. Back in the ’70s, Sony introduced a revolutionary new product known as Betamax. At the time, the Japanese electronics behemoth reckoned that its dominant position in the industry, combined with (allegedly) superior technical specs, would allow it to impose its new standard on the world.
However, Betamax was sadly short-lived. JVC introduced VHS a year later, and due to some highly debated combination of price, flexibility to work with manufacturers and other factors, it caught on like wild fire. The rest is history; VHS dominated the market until the introduction of the DVD standard in the late ’90s heralded its inevitable demise at the hands of progress.
The victory of Blu-ray will bring immediate relief to a badly fractured market. The few holdout studios producing only in HD DVD — I’m looking at you, Paramount! — can finally unite their movie libraries with the rest of the industry under one great, big, Blu roof. Device manufacturers can focus all their research and development on one format, which will hopefully bring more variety and lower prices to consumers. Of course, early HD DVD adopters have been burned, but such is the risk one takes with purchasing first-generation consumer electronics.
Ultimately, however, I don’t believe that Blu-ray’s moment in the sun will last for too long. In all likelihood, Blu-ray represents the last hurrah in the era of optical discs. As the advance of broadband Internet access marches on into every last crevice and nook on the face of the planet, downloadable media will quickly replace cheap, fragile plastic saucers as the life-blood of data exchange, both in the entertainment industry and beyond. The music and television industries have already seen this shift begin to take effect with the rise of services such as iTunes and various web-based, on-demand video services. And in the software industry, more and more firms are providing download options as alternatives to shipping physical boxes with installation media.
Since we live in the present, though, you can now officially feel safe in going to your local electronics store to purchase a Blu-ray player to complement your new high-definition television. The best bet for intrepid consumers at this point is actually not an obvious one: Sony’s Playstation 3 video game console. While stand-alone players are still relatively expensive, PS3 remains the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market, and it provides the added benefit of being able to play PS3 video games. Another great feature that PS3 has for Blu-ray aficionados is forwards compatibility. PS3 supports the current Blu-ray Profile 1.1 standard, but due to its ability to go online over Ethernet or WiFi, it will also likely be upgradeable to Profile 2.0 with a simple software patch. Many Profile 1.1 stand-alone players do not have online connectivity or sufficient storage space to make such an upgrade possible. Thus, going with a PS3 will ensure that you are able to use the latest and greatest Blu-ray features as they are released.
If you’re really forward-looking, however, consider paying out for a digital video device such as a TiVo or Apple TV instead of a Blu-ray player. You can use these devices to obtain content from online providers — Amazon’s Unbox service for the former (in addition to recordings of over-the-air television programming) and Apple’s iTunes store for the latter — and then watch it in full high-definition glory on your TV screen. By getting one of these, you’ve eliminated the need to either schlep out to a store or to wait for delivery services like Netflix to watch your movie, plus you’re instantly all set to ride the wave of the future; how cool is that?
In closing: rest in peace, HD DVD. Your existence was short and tumultuous, but we consumers now have a brighter, digital future to which we can look forward with optimism. And fret not, you’ll always have Betamax to keep you company.