This is why I hate next-gen movie formats

[KBG29]

This is an awsome thread to show why Blu-ray is the best choice in this format war. Right know HD-DVD is basically at its max for storage, with 15GB more coming sometime down the road. So this little problem will never be solved with HD-DVD as the format of choice. The price would come down, that is a given. As more people by in to the format the chances for higher sales come which equals lower prices.

The nice thing about Blu-ray is it will one day have 150GB more room on each disc. That means that If Blu-ray becomes the format of choice not only will you see a price drop, but also a reduction of disc's throughout the life. George Lucas said that he would like to re-release all Six Star Wars films on 2 disc's by 2009. Some how I don't think this is possible unless it happens on Blu-Ray.Also Blu-Ray has a higher standared bit rate72Mbps compared to 48Mbps on HD-DVD. This gives it the ability to add more features over its lifetime than HD-DVD can. Basically Sony is trying to give consumers the same thing that is great about the Playstation in their optical disk format. They are makeing a product that will last a long time, and get better over the years. How can anyone not like a product that grows over time? I guess I will never know.

Their is one thing I am starting to fear in this format war though. With the current move by Paramount Isee a huge problem coming. With the strong stance Disney has in the Blu-ray market, and the inevitable success of the PS3 Blu-ray is here to stay. Now if this added support helps out HD-DVD enough HD-DVD will also be here to stay. I see a good posibility of jan 2009 having 30M blu-ray players and 20M HD-DVD players. At this point both formats will almost have to stay. This creates a few huge problems for the Movie industry, and leaves them with 3 options.

1. All studios support both formats, and you have the upper class people with the higher quality Bluray, and the lower class with HD-DVD.
2. They continue on the same path with to equaly priced formats, selling neck and neck, and noobs will get dual players, while current supporters will have to have 2 players.
3. They drop one of the formats and piss off a user base at least the size of the original Xbox.

In cases 1 & 2 movie prices will never be as low as they could be because everyone is not making a standard format, therefore, to little mass production. In case 3 on of the 2 sides is going to be pissed and many will stop buying movies, and worst case scenerio HD-DVD is the one that goes on.