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I found this particular format war MOST interesting

Posted by DavidLD (A) on February 18, 2008 at 05:03:38

Having lived through 4 track versus 8 track, and betamax vs VHS I found this particular format war most interesting.

First, the company that was able to bring the least expensive players to market didn't win.

Second, the probable technologically superior format won.

Third, this time it seemed that most of the game was played by the success of the competitors in lining up studios, not consumer preference.

Will this new world bring less expensive blu-ray players to market faster than when there was a format war, or will monopoly power now mean that prices can stay higher than they would have been had the battle raged on for awhile longer?

I still say the Blu-ray format has a long ways to go. Right now I can pick up a $25 480p player at Wal Mart and pick a movie out of the $5 cut-out bin there, and for 95 % of the people out there the quality is more than enough. Convincing most of these people that what they need is a $350 player and a $30 movie is going to continue to be an uphill battle--a novelty for the wealthy.

I feel most for the people who not only invested in an HD player, but also in a pile of HD movies that cost more than the player did. Now they have to keep a player supporting an obsolete format running in order to rewatch these expensive disks. And I suspect interest in developing players that can support both formats will soon subside, as overall there are not that many HD disks out there.

I guess it was ultimately better the format wars ended before the number of HD formatted movies in the hands of the public got any larger.
The studios never really cared who won this battle except that they didn't really want to make disks in both formats and thus were interested in selling high definition disks at wider than normal profit margins and thus betting on whoever would sell the most disks and therefore being the eventual winner.

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