Who’s Winning the HD Video Format War?

IF YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT IT, THE FORMAT “WAR” between Blu-ray and HD DVD has been going on for over two years. Likened to the VHS vs. Beta competition 20 yrs. ago, the two formats are incompatible on each other’s machines and one has got to give.

We’re talking about DVD player formats that will be used on High-definition video disks to play for your HD television. There are two competing brands like there were for the video tapes. But this time they’re playing rougher. In the videotape war the movie studios ended up releasing their flicks on both formats and they let the consumer decide the outcome.

This time around, the format warriors are signing the studios up for exclusive usage. So now you’re really stuck. If you buy one brand’s player, you will miss out on half of the new releases. But does anybody really care? Firegeezer’s current dvd player has the “upconvert” built into it (just about all of them do now) that upgrades the signal from the standard dvd’s to one that is compatible with the HD-tv sets. You don’t need this new stuff.

Gizmodo.com has just made a comparison chart showing who supports which format HERE.