The Format War is Over. Blu-Ray Won.
Just this week, Toshiba has announced that it will no longer support the HD-DVD format of high definition DVD technology, which it had been developing. This means that the only option for high definition DVD watching is the Blu-Ray format, and consumers will no longer have to choose between two very similar but incompatible formats. It’s good news for the movie industry, too, since they can now focus on only one format to produce their high definition movies in, and will not have to risk choosing an unpopular format.
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray were equally matched at first, so there was no clearly better technology. Consumers had a hard time choosing which format to invest in, and so did the studios. Each format depended almost completely of the support of the major studios, so when big ones like Warner Brothers chose to support Blu-Ray exclusively, it was only a matter of time before HD-DVD went down. Another big factor was the popularity of the Sony Playstation, which doubles as a Blu-Ray player.
