Originally posted by: zombie84
Well, that depends on when you define the war "over". If its the actual ceasing of production of HD-DVD products then it could be as late as early 2009. But in a practicaly sense it will be early 2008. Most stores don't even stock them anymore. Target doesn't, and Walmart is phasing out HD-DVD too IIRC. Blockbuster cancelled HD-DVD and now carries Blu Ray only. Hardware and software of Blu-Ray outsells its competitor by a 3-1 margin. All the studio's but one are behind Blu-Ray, while HD-DVD i believe only has one exclusive (and multiple studios that outright refuse to support it). Hardware price cuts have resulted in no third-party manufacturers. And Microsoft admitted that it wanted disk-based home video to die. Eek. And this is not only well before this holiday season but before many of the studios supporting Blu-Ray have begun releasing their gigantic classics catalog (The Searchers is the only one so far I believe)--when the software floodgates open this shopping season it will be Blu-Ray fever. So, in a practical sense, HD-DVD will be obsolete by the new year, but I would suspect that there will still be a faint trickle of releases up until the end of next year before the plug is officially pulled.
Well, that depends on when you define the war "over". If its the actual ceasing of production of HD-DVD products then it could be as late as early 2009. But in a practicaly sense it will be early 2008. Most stores don't even stock them anymore. Target doesn't, and Walmart is phasing out HD-DVD too IIRC. Blockbuster cancelled HD-DVD and now carries Blu Ray only. Hardware and software of Blu-Ray outsells its competitor by a 3-1 margin. All the studio's but one are behind Blu-Ray, while HD-DVD i believe only has one exclusive (and multiple studios that outright refuse to support it). Hardware price cuts have resulted in no third-party manufacturers. And Microsoft admitted that it wanted disk-based home video to die. Eek. And this is not only well before this holiday season but before many of the studios supporting Blu-Ray have begun releasing their gigantic classics catalog (The Searchers is the only one so far I believe)--when the software floodgates open this shopping season it will be Blu-Ray fever. So, in a practical sense, HD-DVD will be obsolete by the new year, but I would suspect that there will still be a faint trickle of releases up until the end of next year before the plug is officially pulled.
I hope that's true. Neither format truly excites me, but if I'm going to be stuck with one, Blu-ray is technically better and I'd rather have that dominate. It may come with more copy-protection crap, but that will still be bypassed quickly (I'm sure) and homemade content will be nicer on Blu-ray.