| The last nail in the coffin was possibly hammered in by Wal-Mart when it announced it would only stock Blu-Ray disc players. The move was followed, or perhaps, came at the same time as similar statements from chains like Best Buy and rental services Netflix. |
| Wal-Mart said it was responding to consumer preferences in ejecting HD-DVD. Perhaps the rest were acting similarly. By way of background, Blu-Ray can store a full-length, high-definition movie on a single disc, as can HD-DVD. And when played out on a high definition television, the picture from both formats should appear noticeably superior than a 'standard definition' DVD. |
| Last month, I walked into a store belonging to electronics chain Best Buy somewhere in the vast American Midwest. Among the sections I visited (with the same approach and solemnity as a devotee in a temple), included the DVD section. |
| It was a little bizarre. You had HD-DVD players stacked up on one end and you had Blue Ray players on the other side. Somewhere in between, you had combo players which played both formats. They obviously costed more. Similarly, you had to choose from movies available on HD-DVD and others on Blu-Ray. Either costed more than standard DVDs. |
| If you were a home theatre enthusiast, then this was a nightmare. And despite the obvious duplicity, people were buying one or the other, or both, as I discovered. Like me, there was at least one more customer who was asking the Best Buy store guy which format to settle for. The answer was long and fleshed out but it boiled down to, "I don't know, you decide!" |
| In retrospect, if the battle was so conclusively resolved, its amazing that little over a month ago, very few people had a clue which way the pendulum was swinging. At least at the storefront. And yet, new high definition standards is what everyone is waiting for, to revive the home video market. |
| Obviously a huge amount of boardroom and backroom lobbying has led to this stage. Accompanied by reports of large chunks of money changing hands with studios. Sony had lots riding on it, considering it lost the Betamax race in the 1980s to VHS from the JVC group. Betamax was launched in 1975 and VHS in 1976. |
| All this has little to do with me, the consumer, except to say that I am not sure whether HD-DVD was better or Blu-Ray. Because lots of people have said HD-DVD too. I guess sometimes a choice made for you is better than 'two' many choices, which is clearly one lesson in format wars. Lots of folks believe Betamax was better, but lost out to a host of other reasons including the fact that VHS machines hit the markets faster. |
| The good news in India is that no film has really been created and sold in the High Definition format, at least that I know of. So, we have the advantage of starting from scratch, so to speak. The problem on the horizon is something else. |
| There is a distinct possibility that high speed movie downloads will take the battle to another camp. India is obviously nowhere near the kind of high speed data transfer environment that could enable the very leapfrogging of the player-disc equation. But then, sometimes we tend to surprise in the most unexpected of areas. |
| Meanwhile, if you do own a HD-DVD, you can surely watch your normal DVDs on them "� of which there will be quite a few for a long time. I don't expect your local DVD library to stock up on Blu-Rays too soon. Unless they are pirated. And that's another story. govindrajethiraj@gmail.com |
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