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The Format War

The Format War is a war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. They are both a new disc formats. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are the predecessor of DVDs, just like DVDs are in some ways the predecessor of the CD. The amount of storage on these new format discs are somewhere around 5x greater than the DVD’s. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD hold about 25 GB, and DVDs hold about 4.7 GB. This allows higher video quality the ability to fit onto these discs. The quality and resolution is much high than that of the DVD’s and is more enjoyable on a new HDTV. Unfortunately, there isn't enough room for both formats to live on in this world which is why this Format War seems to be coming to an end soon.
It started with Warner Bros. announcing that they will exclusively use the Blu-Ray Format for their movie releases. That was big news because they are one of the biggest movie companies out. Some of the other companies like Sony Pictures and MGM were already on Blu-Ray. That would make Blu-Ray the leading High Definition Video format. One of the last big name Movie company that wasn't on Blu-Ray was Universal, they were exclusively using HD-DVD. Until CES happened.

CES is the Consumer Electronic Show. It’s where a lot of companies show off their new gadgets and technology stuff. The HD-DVD company was suppose to have a press conference there, but it was suddenly canceled when news about Warner Bros. going Blu was announced, or something like that. Then Universal said that their contract “ended” with HD-DVD and they are not renewing it. Are they going Blu?

Those were non-finalized announcements I guess because as of right now, Universal is still on HD-DVD and Warner Bros. is supporting both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, at least until June 1, 2008 when they willl finally be exclusive to Blu-ray. That doesn’t change the fact a little over half of the movie companies are using Blu-ray right now.

Rumors that I’ve heard say 20^th Century Fox was about to go HD-DVD when Blu-ray jumped in and offered a lot of money for Fox to go Blu. Warner was waiting on their move before deciding where they would go. Fox went Blu so Warner followed. Then HD-DVD canceled their press conference because their trump card to win everyone over was bought out… lol.
The other rumor I heard that was influenced by this turn of events is about the X-Box 360 Ultimate. There were rumors floating around about Microsoft announcing this 360 Ultimate at CES. It was suppose to have a built in HD-DVD player and a bunch of other cool new features I’m sure. But since news was going around saying HD-DVD will soon be dead, Microsoft decided to drop the announcement and keep it as a false rumor.

You know… this whole Format War might be thanks to the PS3. I think the battle between the two formats started when Sony decided to use Blu-Ray in their PS3.
IMO, I think Blu-Ray won when Disney went Blu-Ray, but that’s just me... lol.