With no particular winner, the war as to whether Blu-ray or HD-DVD would prevail as the next optical media format may be essentially over.
Apparently LG is supposedly going to debut a dual format Blu-ray & HD DVD player at CES next week. With still little adoption of either format by the public thus far, having dual format players becoming a general trend could be the savour needed for both formats. Much like how the war between DVD+RW and DVD-RW was solved, having a dual format player would allow the consumer to not worry about which format of disc they had -- either would work fine with his hardware.
Still, what if you own a PS3, which only has blu-ray capabilities? It seems a bit wasteful to need another player. Well, no problem! Warner Brothers is set to launch a dual format disc! An optical disc with both HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats of the movie on it. If this is a general trend by other companies too, then the entire problem with this format war can be completely ignored by the average consumer.
Very good news indeed for the average consumer. Partially good news for the early adopter. Better news for the industry, as otherwise I don't think consumers would bother with either format.
Comments