squiggleslash @ May 16th 2008 10:57AM

BD+ supposedly doomed HD DVD because Fox refused to switch, or at least support, HD DVD if it didn't have BD+ or something similar. But it's my belief that BD+ will also, in the longer term, doom Blu-ray, because its complexity will be its downfall. It's pretty much impossible for every Blu-ray Disc player manufacturer to support BD+ in a way guaranteed to work with every Blu-ray BD+ disc. This hasn't been /much/ of an issue yet because there are only a handful of BD+ discs out there, and only a handful of players.

But in the longer term, the only way Blu-ray can become popular is for players to be cheap enough to be aimed at the mass market, and that's only going to happen with a vibrant, diverse, collection of player manufacturers. And suddenly we're looking at a situation where Hollywood's paranoia will make the current issue with Blu-ray, the fact you can't buy a player that is guaranteed to access all of the extras on a Blu-ray disc, look like a minor hitch. For every encumbered disc, there will be dozens of players completely unable to play the main feature. And with Hollywood putting pressure on retailers to refuse to take returns, it's improbable, to me, that most consumers will stick with the format, especially with online services becoming increasingly viable in the near future.

Ironically, that means that if Hollywood doesn't embrace "early VoD", then they'll be suffering way more than they would from anything caused by piracy.

The other option, of course, is for the studios and Blu-ray forum to admit BD+ is a massive screw up, and work on fixing Blu-ray. I'm having problems seeing it take off unless there are inexpensive players and every Blu-ray disc works identically on every player - as HD DVD, DVD and VHS worked before. BD+ and the current crop of pre-Profile 2.0 players work against that, and if Blu-ray's backers don't fix both, they're as dead as HD DVD.

And for what it's worth, publications like Engadget should stop declaring Blu-ray the "victor" of the HD war, and refer to HD DVD as "a loser". The war isn't over yet, it's just claimed one casualty.