Blu-ray vs HD-DVD; let the games begin

A run down of the pros and cons

24 July 2006 13:35 GMT / By Amber Maitland

PC Advisor has published a report that examines the pros and cons of the two rival formats in an attempt to foresee which will emerge on top. In this particular article, it seems that Blu-ray may have the edge.

The biggest weakness of HD-DVD is purely a question of space. It maxes out at 30GB, versus Blu-ray's dual-layer 50GB capacity.

The article points out that when they researched the latest releases on HD-DVD, four out of eight came within 5GB of totally filling the 30GB discs, and all were using the most efficient video compression codecs.

Being that movie studios plan to add more interactive content and HD extras to the films, it's worrying that they've only got 5GB to play with.

However, the fact that the writers were only able to view HD-DVDs points to the fact that Blu-ray is lagging behind in releases, from players to films on discs, at the moment.

HD-DVD came to market in the US in April, while Blu-ray has fallen behind a bit. Pioneer pushed back the release date for its Blu-ray player from early summer to September, and has dropped the price by $300.

Sony has also moved back the release date for the BD-SP1 player to a later date in July.

But Blu-ray has the edge over HD-DVD in terms of recording, as Pioneer and I-O Data are shipping burners already, and Sony will integrate a recorder into its Premium Blu-ray laptop.

HD-DVD also wins out in price: compare Toshiba's $499 player with the cheapest player from the Blu-ray camp, Samsung's $1,000 BD-P1000.

Although Sony's PlayStation 3 will be cheaper than the Samsung standalone Blu-ray player, it should be noted that it lacks HDMI, so there's no chance of displaying 1080p content.

So the waters are still fairly murky, and the race for dominance is still hotly contested by both formats.

Via PC Advisor

Full tags

Home Cinema, Blu-ray, HD DVD