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The war is over - Blu-ray claims victory over HD DVD

by Adam Turner

Wednesday, 10 January 2007

Only a few months after Blu-ray and HD DVD hit the shelves, the Blu-ray Disc Association has the audacity to declare Blu-ray victorious as "the premiere high definition DVD format of choice".

Right now the two formats are slugging it out, toe to toe, at CES for the hearts, minds and wallets of the masses. The format war has sparked a press release campaign, with each side claiming to be winning, yet Blu-ray has gone so far as to clear itself victorious.

"The success of Blu-ray Disc is unprecedented," said Andy Parsons, chair of the U.S. Promotions Committee for the Blu-ray Disc Association. "Consumers have voted with their wallets."

Reading over the latest propaganda coming out of each camp, here's the current state of play;

- Blu-ray has announced "almost 170 movie and music titles", while HD DVD has announced "more than 300 additional movie titles that will be available this year, for an expected total of more than 600 titles worldwide".

- HD DVD claims "more than 175,000 HD DVD players sold in North America" while Blu-ray insists "more than one million Sony PlayStation 3 units, each featuring a Blu-ray Disc drive, were shipped to the United States in 2006".

- Blu-ray enjoys the support of "seven of the eight major Hollywood studios and two biggest players in the music industry" while HD DVD boasts "more than 41 studios and distributors supporting HD DVD worldwide".

Despite all this, the Blu-ray camp has the nerve to kicks of its latest release with; "The Blu-ray Disc Association today declared its victory as the premiere high definition DVD format of choice".

They base the claim on an analyst's report; "Understanding & Solutions, Ltd., a leading market analyst projects continually increasing market share for Blu-ray Disc beginning in 2007, and predicts that by 2010 virtually all HD optical disc hardware sold will be Blu-ray hardware, with all but the smallest fraction of movie content also on Blu-ray only."

The rustling noise you can hear is the HD-DVD camp reaching deep into its bag of tricks to pull out its own analyst's report which, my psychic powers tell me, will declare HD DVD ahead of the game if not already over the line.

The shots are firing thick and fast in one of the most interesting format wars of our time, but only someone starting to believe their own press releases could declare the war is over.{moscomment}

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