Blu-ray is looking great.
On top of the news that Warner Brothers is dropping support for HD-DVD this week, rumors abound that Paramount is about to execute its escape clause in its contract for exclusive HD-DVD releases. What this means for you and me, is that Michael Bay may finally get Transformers on Blu-ray just as he desired. What this also could mean, is a potential nail in the coffin for the HD-DVD format, which is great because consumers have been very soft on purchases in either next gen format, in spite of the fact that blu-ray sales are outrunning HD-DVD sales two to one. The players just aren’t flying off the shelves the way that retailers want them to, and the movie studios could care less about the players. Warner brothers bowed out of releasing HD-DVDs because they just weren’t selling enough of them. Blu-ray was making them more money.
It will be interesting to see where all of this goes, but I suspect that if Paramount throws in the towel, Universal will follow and the HD-DVD format will be dead.
January 8, 2008 11:34 am 
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By Tsykoduk, January 8, 2008 @ 2:26 pm
Sadly, I think that it really does not matter. With Comcast’s announcement of 160mbt Internet service today at CES, along with Verizons current offering of 50mbt FiOS (easily upgradeable to gigabit and beyond) – the days of buying a piece of plastic are numbered. Heck, I really don’t buy CD’s anymore, and if I actually do (cause some one got me a gift card to some place that does not offer iTunes cards) it goes right into the ‘puter for ripping.
Bandwith concerns are going to be a thing of the past…
I really belive that we are reaching a tipping point – digital media is pretty much maxed out in quality, and most gains are going to be coupled with increases in compression – hard drives are staggeringly large (just got 2 1Tb HDD’s for work – a few hundred bucks each). Digital media is here to stay!
By Random Gemini, January 8, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
I think that you are probably like about 50% of consumers out there right now. The other 50% still want media. I know that my parents would never be able to manage a digital media collection unless somehow, Sony or Apple managed to make it so easy that a monkey could do it and provided those consumers with a guarantee that their media collections will not disappear when a software update comes out.
Also, as regards the way that digital media is currently managed, I’m not sure I ever would have been able to set up the digital media set up we have going on in our house that involves a media server hooked up to our ps3 that is also accessible from our psp’s, laptops and iphones. It took my husband an entire weekend to do it, and he does this geek stuff for a living. I would have gotten frustrated after an hour and thrown a shoe at it.
In order for digital media to truly become a success, the whole thing is going to have to go the route that I see Sony heading with the ps3 and psp, but the solution needs to be more elegant and more user friendly than it currently is for it to truly take flight.
Ideally, Sony would get into bed with Apple and start releasing iPod encoded video along with psp encoded video (which, to my understanding both use the same video format anyway, so this should be a no-brainer) on blu-ray movies, and in addition, allow folks at home to be able to sync their iPods with their digital media on their ps3.
iTunes for PS3.
Dude, I really like the sound of that.