Awesome post on "Format War"

[hyperdine]

Great post today from thedigitalbits.com. Finally, a fair and objective perspective on the whole HD Format War from a reliable source. It's so good, I just had to quote it directly here...

"One last bit of high-def news today. There's apparently a report that's been issued by the marketing research firm Cymfony, in which "enthusiast sentiment" about both high-def formats has been measured... sort of. "Blu-ray drowning in negative buzz" says the headline at arstechnica. Basically, Cymfony conducted an informal survey of enthusiast websites, blogs and other places where people are talking about the new HD formats, and found 46 percent more "positive discussions" about HD-DVD than about Blu-ray. Reportedly, this is not because of any complaints about technical deficiencies of the Blu-ray format, but rather because home theater enthusiasts and gamers seem to have a more negative attitude towards Sony right now (for having launched many failed formats in the past, for delaying the PS3 and bumping up the cost, and for a general perception of corporate arrogance). I've had a few people e-mail this to me this morning, some of them claiming it as proof that HD-DVD is winning the format war (in the same way that select people regularly e-mail me the list top selling high-def titles on Amazon as proof of one format or the other winning - I can tell you from personal experience that the Amazon numbers are almost meaningless in terms of judging actual strength of sales). Frankly, I wouldn't read too much into any of this, though I'm sure some folks will anyway.

This report is certainly interesting, but it's not really anything new or surprising. It's also not really a fair comparison. The fact is, HD-DVD beat Blu-ray to the market by several months and the HD-DVD supporting studios have released more titles on that format, so it's only naturally going to have more positive buzz. What's more, not only has the Blu-ray camp been slower with both hardware and software, the delay and higher price of the PS3 has drawn loud complaints from gamers, which has skewed the buzz negative. Frankly, I'll be more interested to see measurements of enthusiast sentiment next year, once Warner's Blu-ray slate has caught up to its HD-DVD slate, once Fox, Disney, MGM, Sony and Lionsgate have begun releasing many more exclusive Blu-ray Disc titles (major catalog releases along the lines of the Bond films, Alien, ID4 and the Disney animated films), once there are several million PS3s sold, once Sony and Pioneer's players have finally arrived in stores and once you start to see hardware prices come down a bit.

As I've said before, BOTH format can (and usually do) deliver outstanding picture and sound quality. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The slight differences in video quality some perceive between the two have less to do with individual format specs, and more to do with quirks or deficiencies of the early players and the different video compression schemes being used to encode the films. Personally, I've discovered that I tend to have a preference for AVC and VC1, which HD-DVD uses exclusively. Most early Blu-ray Discs have been encoded in MPEG-2 which, while adequate, seems to lend a slightly softer look to the resulting image. But more and more Blu-ray titles are being encoded in AVC and VC1 these days, so that difference is starting to become irrelevant. And the more hardware that becomes available for each format, the better one is able to judge overall format quality vs. hardware issues.

Based on what I'm being told by industry sources, Blu-ray Disc should start to close the gap in early 2007, both in terms of hardware availability and the sheer number of titles released. Sales of Blu-ray software are reportedly already on the rise, likely triggered by the debut of the PS3 (although NEITHER camp is yet willing to release specific hardware or software sales figures yet, which tells you a lot about consumer interest in HD discs overall).

I'll be the first to admit that, prior to either format launching, I felt Blu-ray Disc had the clear edge in studio and hardware support. I'll also be the first to admit that I've been VERY impressed with HD-DVD so far, and in particular with the efforts of Warner and Universal to release tons of great catalog titles on the format. However, the Blu-ray studios are only now just starting to really ramp up their catalog release slates, so we haven't yet seen a level playing field between the two formats. That will change in 2007, when both camps will be finally be bringing their A-games to this competition. Only then will enthusiasts be able to make truly fair comparisons between the two formats in terms of hardware and software... and we'll see what happens. It's certainly going to be interesting."

Amen, brother!!!