The “Break it Down” Blog

There are rumors that CES (huge Consumer Electronics Expo/Symposium in Vegas each year) this year will decide the HD Disk format wars for consumers (HD-DVD versus BluRay)… thank the gods.

The argument goes something like this: In 2006, especially near the end, so many consumers purchased HD devices, and are not finding hooking up the devices to display HD content is turning into a nightmare. Not just from the head-spinning technology that is uselessly forced on consumers, but also from the lack of HD content. So the hope is that providers now feel the distribution of HD devices is far and wide enough to justify the huge costs in upgrading their equipment to broadcast and produce more and better HD content.

I’ve personally taken the HD-DVD dive because I was able to get the XBox 360 HD-DVD Player for $99 from Amazon (had $100 in gift cards) and I can’t argue the technical props of either format… they both support all the same HD encoding technologies… the only difference seems to be the size (BluRay wins here) and scriptability of the disks (BluRay supports Java, which is slick). Then again… do you really care what format you are watching as long as it’s in HD? I sure don’t.

Be sure to check out the DL.TV coverage of CES, Robert and Patrick always do a great job.

Update #1: Looks like Warner will be unveiling a HD-DVD/BluRay Hybrid disk at CES this year (called TotalHD disks)…

Update #2: Nice, LG will be debuting HD-DVD/BluRay dual-format players at CES as well. So I guess the winner, as decided by CES, is… everyone. We all get stars!