DVD Format War Officially a Draw
DVD Format War Officially a Draw
by , 12:35 PM EST, January 28th, 2008
The format war for recordable DVDs, DVD-R and DVD+R, is officially over. Last week, the DVD6C consortium added DVD+R and DVD+RW to its list of licensable products, according to The Register on Monday. The wide availability of dual format DVD players/writers, in practice, terminated the war long ago.
Ten years ago, Pioneer developed the DVD-R format. I was officially backed by the DVD forum. In 2001, Philips decided to roll out DVD+RW and later DVD+R even though it didn't have the official support of the DVD forum.
Just as in the current high-definition TV disc format war, each supporting camp tried to persuade customers that their format was somehow better. In the end, however, it was the widespread availability of dual format players/writers that made the choice of DVD format irrelevant.
Toshiba may be hoping that the same happy fate will come to their HD DVD format. However, Phillip Swann at TVPredictions doubts that the price of dual format Blu-ray/HD DVD players can come down faster than the momentum Blu-ray is now gaining. In addition, Mr. Swann suggested that Toshiba's Super Bowl commercial may be a Hail Mary for the HD DVD format in his e-mail to subscribers on Monday.
Observer Comments
Unfortunately, since the war never actually ended (or, as stated here, ended in a draw), we've been paying higher prices for media. While this may be moot, since it is easy to find DVD-+R blank discs for as low as $0.08 per piece, it is pretty much obvious that they would have been even cheaper had the manufacturers been able to build single product lines for just one type. This way, instead of two (DVD R, DVD RW), they must have four, in order to compete in all markets.
Let's hope Toshiba throws in the towel in the coming months and we end up with one single standard for HD.
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