Blu-ray wins either way?

[Iron Man]

Blu-ray wins either way?

I think everybody knows, that the war is going last a little while longer, after Paramount's decision of going HD-DVD exclusive. Personally I think we are going to end up in a situation with combo players.

On the software side both formats survive and just as an example HD-DVD movies will be from Paramount, Universal, Warner and Blu-ray movies from SONY, FOX……

But on the hardware side Blu-ray will turn out as the winner because the combo player basically is a Blu-ray player. Today you can make a combo player by using a chip like the one NEC makes. It doesn't require two laser optics as the LG player. The Blu-ray optic is already capable of reading in a 0.6mm distance and has the capacity to support HD-DVD in any other way.

On the other the laser optic from HD-DVD can't read Blu-ray discs, doesn't support the bandwidth, regional encoding, BD+ and so on. A combo player simply can't be based on HD-DVD.

Of course SONY isn't interested in combo players now, because they wan't as many studios and other related firms to support Blu-ray, but they do have combo as a contingency plan.

Toshiba will never be able to make a combo player without embracing the Blu-ray technology.

What do You think??