My Official Endorsement of Blu-Ray

Submitted: Feb. 19, 2008 @ 4:35 pm by David Daines

At last the long-awaited day has arrived. Some of us thought this day may never come, but as the dust has begun to settle, it seems the Blu-Ray has emerged victorious. Now we can all enjoy our movie watching in HD without worrying about investing in the "Beta" of the digital age.

For those of you outside the loop, the past couple years have seen an epic battle between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray to become the successor to DVD. Since DVDs lack the storage capacity to contain an entire movie in HD, these two standards were created, each branding itself as the heir-apparent. Key endorsements on both sides of the fence have kept the respective standards in the contest, until recently. This holiday season, HD-DVD sales dropped to nearly zero, Blu-Ray sales were at an all time high, and in the months that followed, HD-DVD saw one of its biggest supporters (Warner Brothers) defect to Blu-Ray. Since then Net-Flix has decided to go all Blu-Ray, dropping its inventory of HD-DVDs.

While I was wary of prematurely declaring a winner of this war, I can now officially endorse Blu-Ray, and urge my readers to do the same. I now condone any and all purchases of Blu-Ray players, discs or related technologies that you may wish to make. I also declare Blu-Ray victor and undisputed champion of HD movie formats (despite what Toshiba, Microsoft, and Paramount might say).

Blu-Ray's victory is significant not just because it marks the end of this standards war, but because it is one of the few cases where the "superior" technology has won out. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are similar technologies, but Blu-Ray leaves less space between pits and tracks resulting in 67% more capacity than its rival. That means more deleted scenes, more interviews, and more directors' commentary. The downside: the space between the lacquer layer and the recording layer is 1/6 the space of HD-DVD, meaning that Blu-Ray discs are easier to damage.

So, does Blu-Ray's victory represent an increased tech-savvy-ness in the American consumer? I hope so.

Update (Feb. 19, 2008):
As you may have heard, now just a week and a half after I gave my endorsement to Blu-ray, HD-DVD has surrendered. Even I am surprised at how fast the market has responded to this blog. Wondering what to do with your HD-DVD player? Look here for some suggestions.