LG Blu-ray and HD-DVD Players

CES 2007 – At Ubergizmo, we largely ignored the HD-DVD vs. BluRay war and it turns out we were right. With LG’s announcement of optical drives and player supporting both formats, this makes the whole debate obsolete: from a compatibility point of view, it does not matter which format wins, if the hardware supports both. It will just end up like the DVD-R+ and R- “war”: nobody cares about it today.

People keep referring to VHS vs. Betamax but recent history shows that optical discs compatibility is not a technology issue: it is a licensing issue.

Now, from a storage capacity point of view, BluRay is still superior to HD-DVD, but unless the blank discs prices come down very quickly, I will not care. I think that it is cheaper and more practical (for me) to buy hard drives. With street prices of $69 for 300GB, hard drives are very practical and fast. Unless your hobby is to download illegal stuff, I do not see why you would stash BluRay discs. Opinions?

Hubert Nguyen
Categories: Computers, Photo-Video