Chiming in on HD-DVD v. Blu Ray. The "format wars" won't be "won" by the actions of anyone who really cares.

At the root, the only ones who care if there is actually an HD-DVD versus Blu Ray format war are those who've taken sides already and are really worried that they've made the wrong choice--or worse, feel the need to make others see that the choice they made for themselves is The Right Choice for everyone else. This is the bane of the early adopter. So in the first few months I can see their angst. Because an overwhelming tide (I'm thinking MS-DOS versus CP/M) will just crush the opposition and early capitulation before large capital investment is a likely reality.

But we're past that point in history now. The war, if you can characterize it as such, would have to be of type trench. As in "down in the trenches" or "an entrenched position". They're both in for the long fight. Both sides claim better numbers, in actual and in trends than the other. More units, by geo, in title sales, in number of committed studios providing content, by user rentals, etc., etc. To cut to the chase here, I strongly believe that both formats will be here for a while.
More about what "a while" is, below. But lets dig into the arguments in this "war". A little battlefield analysis, if you will.

Posts on Cnet Reviews makes me wonder if the Blockbuster Blu-Ray rental numbers are because people had PS3 w/players and realized, "Hey! I can play a movie on this, let's go rent one." Versus a person who buys a standalone player with the idea they'll be building a library. For Blockbuster it doesn't matter, they just need to stay on the trends and offer the right rentals for their customers, but for those who are trying to look into their crystal balls and figure out the future of Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, it does matter how PS/3s are counted. Which is to say, as long as (or if ever) game console owners buy a significant % of movies as standalone player buyers, then the whole "which is better" discussion for Xbox360 v. PS3, has to be a part of this one. I suppose what may eventually drive which standalone HD disk player I buy will be what game player I buy. If there's a game on the PS3 or on XBox360 I REALLY want to play (GT-5 or Halo-3?) I might pick up that console--and it doesn't make sense to get it without the highly-subsized HD disk player. But then, after having it, possesion will be a great reason to buy the other format in a standalone player! So PS3 sales might drive HD-DVD player sales! What a crazy world.

Another tack in the battlefield is to focus on the formats and relative merits of each. There's the size argument. Blu-Ray holds more--but riposte: HD-DVD 2 or 4-layer can hold more or both DVD and an HD version on the same disk. As for me, size doesn't matter (no jokes, please). I don't look at a movie title and see how much free space is left-over on the disk. The movie producers aren't going to edit their films for the theater with disk space in mind. And Lucas and Scorcese might care if their 7.1 had to be thunked down to mere 5.1, but few consumers will. What percentage of DVDs still play out of two speakers? VHS has had to deal with limited length, as does DVD, as will any capacity media. Pournelle's rule: Content grows to exceed capacity. Corners will be cut, compromises will be made, few will notice. Do I care if an HD disk also has DVD on it? Maybe, if my old DVD player will play that disk and I haven't bought an HD-DVD player yet, and there's some other compelling reason to get the HD version given that I don't have the player yet.

I do agree with some arguments made about 2nd disks and extra content. I agree in that they are valid observations: HD-DVDs will probably have to (for a while) bundle a second piece of media for extra features to not skimp on the sound and encoding possibilities for the main feature. But I disagree that that is a liability in the war. Already in the current DVD titles there are single disk movie-only versions and multi-disk special editions for a few $ more. Some of this has to do with Wal-Tar-Cost-mart wanting to keep that $15.99 price point. Some of it has to do with Blockbuster and Netflix shipping one disk or two. At some point in the future this won't be an issue, but I'll return to that later.

Quality is an issue to many early adopters, those who believe their purchases and opinions might sway the tide, but we're just climbing to the middle of the adoption curve and they and the long tail that follows is who the market will pay attention to. Look at DVD Superbit sales or other high-quality encodings. They don't outsell the other versions. I guess I'd pick the high quality version of a DVD if it were near the same price, but I wouldn't pay a lot more for the difference, because generally I don't notice the difference! You have to watch these versions side-by-side or look at screen captures to notice the differences. Ditto 5.1 v. 7.1 Dolby Tru-Dolby or 1.3HDMI SuperDooperDoolby-THX-whatever.

Perhaps a better comparison would be between Pan-Scan and widescreen editions (when on separate disks). Both are available at the same price. The choice by the discriminating consumer is always for the "higher quality" widescreen (fidelity to the original). But I bet many fullscreen titles still outsell widescreen because of perceived value. Parents want Bambi to fill the screen, and don't care about the director's vision for framing. Nor the audio quality, for that matter (portable, or in-car DVD players, anyone?). Early adopters of HD players will cringe, but they've already demonstrated their interest in the higher quality format, so they're not representative of The Great Unwashed Indiscriminate Viewer. A super-size fast food meal doesn't sell because it is better, after all.

Consider the generally mediocre quality of digital music. The biggest seller (via iTunes) isn't the best quality. Mediocre digital music sells because of price and availability, irrespective of the rants of cognescenti who'd only listen to a ripped CD if it was in lossless .wav format (only to be trumped by vinyl-draggers and tube amplifier snobs).

So if, and I think we can all agree on this, volume will ultimately be the self-reinforcing feedback in the market, then it won't be number of disks or features or two more channels of sound or lossless versus lossy. It will come down to price and availability. Availability of the players, and Cost-Wal-Tar-co are going to have a lot to do with that. And availability of the titles. So far, I'm seeing that the titles I would replace in my DVD collection are on HD-DVD, but that's just my past tastes showing. Of the new titles coming out, it is a pretty even split, and that's too bad for me. Because after all, all said and done, its really about the movies you want to watch and having something to watch them on.

My gut is that neither of these formats is going to go away. Seems to be plenty of room for three game consoles. Seems to be plenty of room for iMacs and PCs to be in the market. Cell phone technologies, iTunes and MP3s. The world is big enough and there are enough consumers now that it doesn't have to boil down to one standard. One may grow to be bigger (due to price and availability, not specifications), but the other will still be around. Uh, unless Sony quits altogether, that is. Hmmm... where would we be if they had just stuck it out on the Betamax thing?

And to further put the idea that the format "wars" are going to result in a winner, consider what happens if both get supplanted? Does anyone really think that either of these formats will last a "long time"? Certainly not as long as DVD, nor even VHS. Because we all know that network capacity is growing and magnetic disk prices are falling much faster than the optical disk formats can change. Sony and MS both know this. As does Comcast and AT&T. Media questions will drop out of the picture in a few years and then we really can have a debate about encoding and compression and quality as effect delivery times. Watch it realtime, starting Right Now, in LowDef, or let it start streaming to store and your cell phone will ring when you can start watching it. Or you can call your microwave back and tell it to go ahead and start the popcorn.

So the prescription is to buy one or the other for The Now, or at some price, to get some specific content, or features, or quality, or fewer disks, or whatever floats your boat, and enjoy! Because just like my 8-track player, and my VHS deck, and my SNES, they'll all be relegated to the recycler (or to the grandkids room) well before their usefulness has run out to make room for The Next Big Deal.