Will CES showcase a solution to the Blu-ray/HD DVD war?

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 02 January 2008 06:16

Opinion and Analysis

With days to go until the annual CES tech show in Las Vegas, the Blu-ray and HD DVD format war shows little sign of abating – with cheap upscaling DVD players their true short-term opponent.
Everyone knows that the battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD is the most boring battle since VHS and Beta, and won’t be won by either format, but will instead be won by downloads direct to hard disks.

Already the download war has winners and losers, with companies such as Apple winning thanks to iTunes and losing thanks to the Apple TV, and Microsoft winning with the Xbox 360 Video download service and ‘losing’ thanks to the low interest in Vista and its inbuilt Media Center.

Plenty of other download services are also available – both legal and illegal – and 2008 will see more activity in video downloading that ever before.

But when it comes to next-gen DVDs, CES will undoubtedly feature a raft of new Blu-ray and HD DVD players, with some able to play either disc, but prices for players and movies on disc are still far too expensive to overtake the humble DVD player and universally available DVD movies.

DVD players are dirt cheap, but the real action seems to be with ever-cheaper ‘upscaling’ DVD players that take the standard definition picture supplied by DVD and sharpen it up so it looks smoother and clearer on big HDTV screens.

Naturally the resulting image isn’t as sharp or as clear as you’ll get on a true Blu-ray or HD DVD movie, but it comes at a much lower cost – and you don’t need to buy an entire new library of movies in a format that might be dead in 18 to 24 months.

Of course, Blu-ray and HD DVD players are getting cheaper, with Amazon having sold a US $99 HD DVD player in late 2007 with great success, and although that ‘introductory price’ is no longer available, it'll surely be back this year.

Still, at least most expensive Blu-ray and HD DVD players can upscale DVDs too - but why all the focus on simple playback? Please read onto page 2 for the conclusion...