The Battle for High Definition DVDs: HD DVD vs. blu ray

While you’ll soon be able to watch HD movies on DVD right in your living room, a battle is brewing between two competing formats: HD DVD and Blu-ray.

Toshiba leads the group committed to HD DVD, which also includes consumer electronics manufacturers Sanyo and NEC. HBO, New Line Cinema, Paramount Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video are also in the HD DVD camp, as are Intel and Microsoft, which recently announced that it has voted in favor of the HD DVD format.

Why does Microsoft support HD DVD?

Microsoft said it felt the 50 GB Blu-ray version was “not in the offing”, giving the 30 GB HD DVD the capacity advantage for the time being. Microsoft also said that HD DVD guarantees a feature they want called “manage copy,” which allows a computer user to copy a high-definition movie to a computer’s hard drive so it can be streamed around the house.

Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Pioneer, and LG Electronics all support Blu-ray. So do PC makers Dell, HP, and Apple Computer; video game maker Electronics Arts; and the entertainment companies Twentieth Century Fox, Vivendi Universal and Walt Disney.

These Blu-ray supporters say in response that 50GB discs will arrive in the spring, that HD DVD has no advantage in the area of ​​copy management, and that it also has hybrid disc technology.

Who is winning this war?

At this point, neither HD DVD nor Blu-ray is winning the war. You, as a consumer, will have to stake your investment in disc players and video collections on which format will prevail. Studios and video rental stores that will have to maintain duplicates of high-definition movies in both formats worry that one format might have all the content consumers want. And electronics retailers will have to carry and explain the different formats.

It’s kind of like Beta vs. VHS except that, in this case, there may not be a clear winner for years.