I Was This Close to Purchasing Blu-ray! However…

original.gifFor anyone who has been watching the movie high definition format war the last couple of months, will have noticed a distinct swing to the Blu-ray camp as clever press announcements, advertisements and consumer support was overflowing with interest and excitement.

As an Xbox 360 owner with the HD DVD add on, I was a little worried by this momentum and even considered buying either a stand alone Blu-ray player or PlayStation 3 to get the best of both worlds, however then the news came in that would be set to change this stance…

Paramount/DreamWorks Drops Blu-ray; Studio to Support HD DVD Exclusively! lit up the Internet as confused followers of the war tried to understand the decision. The bomb shell that sent ripples through the river dividing the two formats! Just when you think the war might be over, an absolute killer move has meant the war continues, but where does this leave the rest of us?

Well it means I will be no longer considering a PlayStation 3 or stand alone Blu-ray player for one. It does result though in a lengthened war that will aggravate the enthusiast, but will at least keep the stand alone player prices falling as the format war intensifies.

There are loop holes in the announcement, such as Steven Spielberg directed films not being included in the HD DVD exclusivity and Micheal Bay (Director of Transformers) going off on one and then backing down and supporting the decision to HD DVD, but however you look at it, the war may have actually just begun.

I personally hope that in a couple of years studios will go multi-format or all support a single format (hopefully HD DVD in my case, but you might be different, nothing wrong with that!).

If you haven’t jumped into high definition movies yet, what should you do? Well the sensible thing would be to buy an upscaling DVD player if you have an HDTV. Until the war stabilises (and not just for a few months!), sit this one out as it could get really messy now!

If you want more HD format war news and HD DVD, Blu-ray reviews… Visit High-Def Digest, which is a fantastic site for any HD movie follower.

James Woodcock
