HDDVD and Blue-Ray: Santa still setting on the fence

We have a HDTV (1080p) but we haven’t purchased a media player mainly due to the current “format war” (HDDVD vs. BlueRay) that is underway. You might remember when a similar battle was fought at a lower resolution between the Beta and VHS formats. Those early adopters of the technological superior Beta products were soon left to repurchase in VHS and store there Beta player in the closet with the old 8-Track music player.

There hasn’t yet been a full commitment by the public to a particular format. There are big technology backers of both. Sony backs the Blue-ray format and has a Blue-ray drive as part of their PS3 game console while Microsoft supports HDDVD with the X-Box 360 having a compatible drive. Both are hoping to slip them into the publics living room with their game consoles and perhaps score a supporter of their favored format.

HDDVD players seem to be a little cheaper then Blue-ray players for the moment but both prices are coming down. You can even buy a player that will play both formats, if you’d like to hedge your bet, but you’ll pay a premium for that privilege.

At some point one format will no doubt be the victor. A tipping point will be reached via industry support or user adoption and that format will become the new “VHS” standard. Sony was also the main backer of the Beta format so I don’t know if that speaks well for Blue-ray or not.

Whichever format becomes dominate I’d like to have a drive capable of reading it in my computer as well as at my HDTV, so I’ve been watching to see what Apple includes as an option with their upper end computers. Apple seems to be in the Blue-ray camp but hasn’t made that total commitment.

When releasing information collected from our sources yesterday about future Mac Pro, we were mentioning BD burning, but also playback. According to additional information, it seems that the latest feature will NOT be included for the time being, due to the current conflict between Apple and AACS LA… Apple: No Blu-ray Playback Yet, HardMac

I hope this format conflict is settled before another year passes so we the consumers can get down to the business of enjoying HD media without second thought…and at a reduced price.

And Santa…hold on that delivery for just a while longer.