Edshugeo The GodMoor

Good! Cause shit is about to get interesting...

Next month will supposedly see the launch of a third format, HD VMD. The players will cost about $150.00 US and use the traditional red laser used in regular dvd drives. If I understand correctly, these are just DVD drives with a different firmware. If this is true, can the XBox 360's regular disc drive (which handles DVDs as well as games) be converted to HD with a mere firmware update? Sounds unlikely, but exciting, especially as I just got a 360 a few days ago. More on that tomorrow or so.

A major drawback is that many studios are allied to either HD DVD, or Blue Ray, so this new format will likely have little Hollywood support at first. But it's very existence will make things more difficult for the "big" 2. People posting comments seem to have little faith that this will go very far, and perhaps they're correct. However, remember when the Wii was still called The Revolution, and so many thought that platform was gonna be way too lo-tech to compete with Sony and Microsoft?
More details at PC World and Team XBox.com

HD VMD would be enough to drive Sony execs to suicide, but there's more: The Chinese. Yes, the Chinese, who brought down the prices of HDTVs with prison labor (just joking - I Think), thus allowing me to own one*, may be about to do the same with their own HD disc format. Check this shit out...

Meanwhile in the comments, people who have already invested in their already dead formats continue their silly war as if it still mattered. They should'a read this article from last year, 10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed. I think I disagree with #10, though. I'll talk about that when I talk about the 360.

Stick with DVDs for the time being.

November 26th, 2007 - HD-VMD players appeared for a short while on Amazon, but not at the $150.00 price point. Was more like $200-250. As of this writing they're not available on Amazon, but are through their own site.

Now that HD-DVD players are available in the $200 and below price range, there is no advantage to HD-VMD except for the availability of Bollywood films on that format.

I don't know that the price drop for HD-DVD can offset Blu-Ray's main advantage of being built into PS3s, but I was tempted for a second. I held off. For now, I continue to stick with DVDs. But for how long? How long?

*Apparently my set is American made. If that's true, go Olevia!!! Screen's made out of plastic, though. Still happy with it.

Labels: DVD, funny-ass shit, HDTV, XBox 360