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End of Format War near?

With Warner Brothers decision to now exclusively support the Blu-ray format, is the format war coming to an end? According to Toshiba, which is the major supporter of HD-DVD, the war isn’t over just yet. Sales figures and consumer reports all point to a clear win for Blu-ray, however. Toshiba will be introducing heavily discounted players this year, with the cheapest selling at 199 USD. The question is whether consumers can be convinced that HD-DVD is still a viable format. According to BusinessWeek there have been many returns of HD-DVD players after buyers found out that many of the movies they want to see are only available on Blu-ray.The content industry is clearly leaning towards Blu-ray, will the consumer follow?

There was some negative news for Blu-ray : Buyers of older Blu-ray players could be limited in what features are available to them due to their players not being upgradable. Click here for the news article at the BBC.

Tags: Blu-ray by webmaster
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Ultra-Thin Blu-ray Disc Drive

Panasonic has been sending out samples of it’s new ultra-thin Blu-ray disc drive. The flat drive will be useful for notebooks, and weights way less than regular drives. At 0.37 inch it is billed as the thinnest Blu-ray disc drive in the world. Panasonic previously produced a 0.50 inch drive. The new drive can be used to read high definition Blu-ray discs, and burn information to them. Toshiba will be trying to manufacture a similarly thin drive, but instead for the competing HD-DVD format, which Toshiba is a supporter of.

Click here to read the original article at Yahoo News.

2007 was a dynamic year for high definition multimedia. Blu-ray took the lead in the war for the next generation DVD format. But both Blu-ray and HD-DVD still account for a tiny amount of DVD disc sales. This is not at all surprising as the consumer is still confused, players are rather expensive, and new hybrid HD players are becoming available more steadily. 2008 might just be the year in which a clear winner will be revealed. You can find a small review of 2007, and a look into the future, here.

Have a good and HD-rich 2008.

Tags: Blu-ray by webmaster
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