It was bound to happen: the major studios are releasing videos in both formats and just letting the market shake things out — mostly in the direction of hybrid players. Ultimately, I think the question will become moot but until then, folks like Warner Bros (I Am Legend) and Universal (Charlie Wilson’s War) will release in both formats.
I think the biggest decider will be Toshiba’s move to sell HD DVD players for $149, a little more than the Coby DVD players you can get at Wal-Mart. Seed the market with those and Sony — or someone like HUMAX — will concede and release hybrids at about $200 and we’ll never have to think about this ever again.
Publishers say screw it, choose both in HD DVD vs Blu-ray war [Blorge]
I’m usually a fan of your reporting, but here you picked the wrong article to quote. Universal is NOT releasing any Blu-ray movies, or at least has not announced such. Toshiba’s $149 HD-DVD player news is over 2 weeks old, though the recent Super Bowl Ad might make folks think otherwise, and it just makes official the pre-Christmas discounts that retailers were anyway dispensing.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but even Peter Ha would concede that Warner’s switch to Blu-ray signalled the death of HD-DVD. Or at least the beginning of the end. For more accurate HD media news, I’d stick to reading highdefdigest in the future.