Blu-ray Verses HD-DVD at CES: Another Format War?

By Guy Wright
At this year’s CES there was an awful lot of talk and debate about the two new high definition DVD formats that are scheduled to hit the markets this spring. The Blu-ray Disc Association and HD- DVD Promotion Group both made sure that their members were properly promoted. Most of the big consumer electronic companies at the show were either talking about or showing off their players, recorders, software, or blank media. But for every diehard Blue-ray or HD- DVD company there were also companies supporting both formats.

Now you might think that the DVD industry would have learned its lesson a few years back when competing formats ended up delaying the launch of DVDs by a number of years, but apparently not. Back in November 2003, the DVD Forum officially adopted the HD- DVD format as the next-generation, post- DVD standard for high capacity, high definition optical discs and that should have been the end of it. But the Blu-ray folks went ahead and announced their new "standard" anyway.

Perhaps they figure that like DVD -R and DVD +R, both formats will end up being incorporated into future products and they’re probably right. In fact, Broadcom has already announced a single chip that will decode both Blu-ray and HD- DVD formats as well as the current DVD formats. Most of the DVD authoring software companies have already announced they’ll support both formats and a number of Hollywood studios will be releasing new titles in both formats at the same time.