HD DVD Gets a Leg Up

Related link: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=599&e=3&u=/nm/20041130/media_nm/…

Well, the next shot has been fired in Yet Another Standards War: HD DVD made a deal with several new studios giving it a bit of a jump over its rival, Blu-ray.

For those of you just catching up on this unfolding drama, both formats use blue lasers to achieve much higher storage capacities on discs the same size as current DVDs (about 50GB in the case of a dual-layer Blu-ray, 30GB in the case of a dual-layer HD DVD). The entertainment industry wants these to start delivering movies in High Definition--something the puny standard DVDs can't accomodate. (Wow...I know it's my age, but 5 gigabytes is puny? But let's not start the I remember when tangent.) Anyway, here's a good summary article you can check out as well.

While it's definitely too early to slap the VHS label on one and Betamax on the other, the format war is gearing up to be about the same. (I gather some companies are already looking at making players that work with both discs.) And it is a war. Think about how much money you spend on DVDs. Or if you're a video nut like me, think about how much money you spent upgrading your video library to DVD. You need to buy a new HDTV, a new player and then replace all of your DVDs with the new hi-def successor. Naturally, you're more than happy to pay more for the better quality, too. Lots of $$$ at stake, so don't expect either side to back down.

The easy early winners are the HD-capable software apps. Everyone will be falling over themselves to produce kick-ass demo discs. So fire up Final Cut Pro HD and Motion and prepare for the new world. Of course, you'll also need to look into some serious new gear to support the bandwidth for hi-def, but hey, I already mentioned the $$$ part, right?

So, any bets on the eventual winner?