HD-DVD Outpaces Blu-Ray

Ever since HD content started to spread, the 2 formats started a total war concerning popularity and sales. It doesn't matter if it's about players, recorders, PC units or simply disks, everything counts in this conflict. However, there seem to be some differences which might turn the dispute in favor of HD-DVD format.

First you have to understand that although both formats use a 405nm wavelength laser, the readable surface is just 0.1mm from the outer surface of the Blu-Ray disk, whereas HV-DVD's data surface lies deeper at almost 0.6 mm from the surface and that makes HD-DVD disks less sensitive when it comes to scratches. Then you have the fact that although Blu-Ray disks can hold more data (27GB vs. 15GB for a single layer and double that capacity if 2 layers are used) they are essentially more expensive to produce.

The availability of Blu-Ray players is also an issue since there are only three available products on the market: Panasonic (DMP-BD10), Philips (BDP9000), Samsung (BD-P1000) and they cost twice as much as comparable HD-DVD players. Toshiba for example has already shipped 6 models of HD-DVD players (HD-XA1 and HD-A1 - USA; HD-E1 and HD-XE1 - Europe; HD-XF2 and HD-XA2 - Japan). Moreover RCA (Thomson subsidiary) has sampled its first HD-DVD players in USA.

As for the disks, they are comparable in price, with a small advantage for HD-DVD format ($25 vs. $27). But when it comes to releases, Blu-Ray has only about 70 titles available while HD-DVD has more than 160 with even more to come. And considering that a low cost HD-DVD can cost $230 (which is less than half of the price you pay for the cheapest Blu-Ray player from Samsung - $799) you'll get the picture.

It seems that all the support in the world won't save Blu-Ray. The future launch of Playstation 3's Blu-Ray capable player may change that but Xbox 360 has already announced its support for HD-DVD with an external unit that costs about $199. For the moment, HD-DVD has got the goods.