So which format would you like to win?

[menthel]

Its a shame that Michael Bay is a raving looney!

And I still think that bluray will win. PS3 here I come!

[Deadlight]

It seems that Wal-Mart have now said that they well not stock any more JD-DVD players or films, and only stock BD-Ray stuff.

I'm sad in a way, but reality it that the HD war is all but won.

Some say that Toshiba will announce in a few weeks they now longer plead allegiance to the HD-DVD format exclusivly.

Wal-Mart puts stake through HD DVD's heart | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Wal-Mart blogger claims retailer will ditch HD DVD | Reg Hardware

[Jay]

Both.... My player plays both so who cares?

IF we all get players that can play both then there is no war.

[Deadlight]

Which player have you got m8? I saw a Samsung dual player that cost about 600 quid - I hope theyre cheaper than that!

[TooNice]

Well, it's pretty much game over for HD-DVD. Remains to be seen if HD will in it's lifetime manage to chip away the sales of DVDs and eventually take the majority sales. A lot of people are skeptical that HD formats will get anywhere (over DVDs). My own stance was, if they can settle a winner without too much delay (whereas many people were 'sick' of the war - it seems to be coming to a close much earlier than I thought), then HD movies have a good chance. The industry could now start promoting one (the winning) HD format, and consumers won't need to sit on the fence between the two warring formats either.

[PenguinJim]

Quick post-mortem for HD-DVD here. I hadn't really considered both formats co-existing, but it's nice to see someone remind us that consumers lost this HD disc war. I'm surprised to see so many votes for Blu-Ray in this thread's poll - do so many people here really own a PS3? Who else would vote for region-locking and DRM?

The only other consumers I can imagine supporting Blu-Ray over HD-DVD would be the ones who believe per-layer capacity to be the be-all and end-all - the exact same consumers at whom graphics cards like the 1GB 8500GT are targetted. "It's 1GB! It's twice as fast as a 512MB 8800GTS!"

[pauldarkside]

I'm surprised to see so many votes for Blu-Ray in this thread's poll - do so many people here really own a PS3? Who else would vote for region-locking and DRM?

Eh? The pole currently shows 23 members have voted for BluRay. I'd understand your comment if those numbers were in the hundreds.

The only other consumers I can imagine supporting Blu-Ray over HD-DVD would be the ones who believe per-layer capacity to be the be-all and end-all - the exact same consumers at whom graphics cards like the 1GB 8500GT are targetted. "It's 1GB! It's twice as fast as a 512MB 8800GTS!"

What about those of whom saw BR outselling HD and simply wanted the format "war" to end? You're coming across, to me at least, as someone who believes BR/PS3 supporters are idiotic/naive.

I didn't vote for either format. I'm still very happy viewing upscaled DVDs on my HD TV; the price is a lot more consumer friendly and content availability is far greater. It'll do for me until digital downloads are feasible and aren't overly DRM restrictive - I still want to view the content on a device of my chosing, not the suppliers.

[PenguinJim]

Eh? The pole currently shows 23 members have voted for BluRay. I'd understand your comment if those numbers were in the hundreds.

23 members voted for the region-locked format from a largely UK-based forum. 23 members voted for a DRM-infested multi-standard format with inferior features from a largely tech-based forum. I was surprised on both counts.

What about those of whom saw BR outselling HD and simply wanted the format "war" to end? You're coming across, to me at least, as someone who believes BR/PS3 supporters are idiotic/naive.

PS3 owners have a Blu-Ray player already - I'm sure a lot of them would want Blu-Ray to win. That makes sense in my head, anyway... have I got it wrong somewhere? You really think they'd want to spend money on an HD-DVD player too? I don't think all PS3 owners are naive or idiots, by the way, despite gtech. But a lot of people bring the technical HD disc argument down to capacity - 30GB vs 50GB... don't they?

You're right, though - that's a third lot of people who would have voted for Blu-Ray. People who aren't bothered by DRM or region-locking, don't own either format, but want Blu-Ray to win because they just want the disc war to end (and Blu-Ray disc sales have been consistently higher, so that's the format they chose).

And I also didn't vote for either format. HD-DVD is fairly dull but acceptable, I guess; it's just that Blu-Ray is quite obviously inferior as a consumer-friendly disc-based HD format. If Blu-Ray 2.0 is doing well in two years, though, I doubt many people will be complaining... it's got almost all the features of HD-DVD, after all. I certainly won't mind. Although I imagine that, like you, I'll go DVD -> Digital Download.

Edit: apologies in advance if you ask me anything else and I don't respond for months - I tend to frequent the Bargains forum and pop by Games and Hardware occasionally.