Wow - I ventured into the news threads. Anyhow, one of the posters asked "Anyone offering a counter arguement for HD DVD? I'll be willing to listen." So, well, I sent it to him. Here's a copy of that.
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1. HD-DVD requires player makers to include ethernet for convenient updates (as opposed to downloading firmware, buring to cd, then installing on player) and for online/internet functionality.
2. HD-DVD requires movie to be region free. To be honest, this is consumer friendly feature is probably a turn off to the major companies who enjoy "normal" pricing in some regions then overcharge in others (usually blaming regulations, taxes, costs, etc).
3. HD-DVD is favored by smaller movie companies in Europe due to the lower costs associated with HD-DVD production side (its very similar to DVD's, so you don't need new facilities to make them like you do with Blu-Ray).
4a. 1 less layer of consumer unfriendly DRM. While both formats use AACS, Blu-Ray has BD+ on top of that. The first movies with BD+ only came out a while ago, and some Blu-Ray players couldn't play them without a firmware update (not provided on the disc, either). Manufacturers were slow getting out updates.
4b. HD-DVD's spec is finished. Blu-Ray finally implemented everything with the 1.1 release.
5. HD-DVD's spec allows for companies to make hybrid HD-DVD specs, so a consumer could by a hybrid disc, enjoy it on their DVD player, then when they moved to HD-DVD, already have the HD version. Sadly, this was highly under-utilized.
And reasons why we need HD-DVD to stick around, even if they ultimately lose:
1. To keep Blu-Ray manufacturers honest. The price of players on both sides have dropped by over half since they debuted. Without a real competitor, they won't continue to drop that quickly as the "winning" side will feel a lot more secure and can enjoy making a bigger profit off their high-end, luxury item. HD players are a niche still; Happy Feet on DVD sold more movies than ALL the HD movies sold last year; Blu-Ray and HD-DVD combined. HD is not even close to being mass market yet.
2a. The format war isn't what's holding back HD, no matter what Michael Bay (and others) say.
2b. The problem is that there's an expensive cost of entry; the price of the HDTV itself. You have to pay a pretty penny to get HDTV, and have to rationalize getting rid of your old TV as well. That big-screen TV is probably too big for the kids' room, after all.
2c. There's simply not enough HD content out there. Broadcast TV, Cable, Satellite, etc. Its there, but not in compelling, ubiquitous amounts.
2c. The variety of standards and their level of support is bewildering (480i, 480p, 720i, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, HDMI, HDCP, DVI, VGA, Component, etc). Many HDTV's, especially older or cheaper ones, won't support everything.
3. Having a competitor might force an evolution of features based on Blu-Ray's primary strength; storage space. Time Warner released Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix on DVD - what's noteworth is that it came with two extra copies of the movie! One for portable media players, one for the computer. You know good and well that the large media companies typically would rather double or even triple dip their movies (ie, make us buy the same thing repeatedly) if they can get away with it.
4. The success of HD-DVD might force the Blu-Ray camp to adopt some of its better policies in the future.
5. The success of HD-DVD would speed up the progress of hybrid players (HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players), which would have rendered the entire format war moot. Why pick when you can have both?
Competition is good. No format should ever be uncontested or get a free ride. Even DVD had a competitor before launch; the rival camps managed to settle on something, thankfully.
I hope you find this to be reasonable on both counts (pro-HD-DVD and pro-"The war needs to keep going on").
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Likewise, I hope all of you find these to be reasonable reasons as well.