That's interesting. In my opinion, and I could be wrong, hybrid players will favor HD-DVD. The reason I see it going this way is simple. The upfront cost of a hybrid unit will likely have to be at or around the cost of the most expensive version of the opposing formats. So at this point you're paying at least BD prices for the hardware, but effectively you have both options. So now it's all about the content. In order to win, BD content has to differeniate itself from HD-DVD. With the additional space DB could do some amazing stuff concering Extra content, but given the current standards I doubt that will happen. So it comes down to availability and cost. While I don't expect either format to greatly undercut the other, it seems HD-DVD has the edge in production costs in the near term to produce less expensive product. Add that to less expensive player products, then HD-DVD should theoretically sell more units and have greater pentration. The universal players would technically be a wash in terms of penetration, but then those owners would have to be swayed by cost or features. Neither format has shown me unique features that blow me away (not that it couldn't happen, I just haven't seen them yet) so if a move is available in both formats and one is less expensive, I'll pick the more affordable one. My guess is this will be HD-DVD.
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EdwardA @ Mar 14th 2006 11:27AM
That's interesting. In my opinion, and I could be wrong, hybrid players will favor HD-DVD. The reason I see it going this way is simple. The upfront cost of a hybrid unit will likely have to be at or around the cost of the most expensive version of the opposing formats. So at this point you're paying at least BD prices for the hardware, but effectively you have both options. So now it's all about the content. In order to win, BD content has to differeniate itself from HD-DVD. With the additional space DB could do some amazing stuff concering Extra content, but given the current standards I doubt that will happen. So it comes down to availability and cost. While I don't expect either format to greatly undercut the other, it seems HD-DVD has the edge in production costs in the near term to produce less expensive product. Add that to less expensive player products, then HD-DVD should theoretically sell more units and have greater pentration. The universal players would technically be a wash in terms of penetration, but then those owners would have to be swayed by cost or features. Neither format has shown me unique features that blow me away (not that it couldn't happen, I just haven't seen them yet) so if a move is available in both formats and one is less expensive, I'll pick the more affordable one. My guess is this will be HD-DVD.