Just thought that maybe there'd be a few people who are interested in this Yahoo News story titled [B] Companies approve New High-Capacity Disc Format.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...tech_bluray_dc

God, I don't want a format war. One of these formats needs to die really quickly.

Format wars just make people wait longer before buying and dont help anyone, hopefully we wont have to experience it again. VHS vs Betamax was bad enough

Yeah, and the wrong format won

I have a strong feeling that this format war will weigh heavily on the next generation videogame console wars.

Sony has stated that they'll be putting Blu Ray in the PS3.

MS has not said if they will be putting HD-DVD into the Xbox 2.

If MS does, then the Xbox 2 will sell like crazy. It will be the first next generation system to the market. People will want an affordable HD-DVD player, and it will also play video games.

If they don't include it, Sony will have a leg up on them. The PS3 and Blu Ray would become the dominant format/consoles.

No argument there In the end it comes down to price and software available. VHS had the best of both (at least where I lived).

Luckily this format war will involve a mostly-interchangable format. So there will be multi-players.

With VHS/Beta this was impossible.

Still, one format will be less confusing- but SACD and DVD-A both still exist, even though most of us thought one would go away by now.

interesting, in several ways, that video game (systems) are probably what is going to determine the dominant HD optical format for everyone.

It also comes down to content and BLU-RAY already has a major advantage with Sony owning Columbia and possibly even MGM if they outbid Warners. With next-gen consoles including these formats I think we'll be seeing this take off much sooner than expected.

I thought both of them had...

I sure as heck won't be buying one of the formats until we are assured a winner. I'm not going to get stuck with a dead and dying format right off the HD bat.

Will HD DVD and Blu Ray both be able to play the DVD's we have now? If not,I'm so sure either format will take off. Everyone has already bought DVD's to replace their VHS videos and laserdisc. I can't see people embracing a new format so quickly if they have to buy everything all over again in such a short period of time.

From what I remember, HD DVD will be backwards compatible while Blu Ray will not be.

No, they're both backwards compatible. It's not a requirement but it's a pretty good bet most if not all Blu-Ray players will have it.

Making one of the new players backward compatible with existing DVDs will probably add less than $10 to the cost of the unit, and guarantee at least ten times as many sales as a non-compatible player. Anyone working in the consumer electronics industry ignorant enough to allow a non-compatible machine to go to market deserves to be fired.

Try to imagine a DVD player that didn't also play CDs. Has anyone ever seen one? Why would the move to HD-DVD or Blu Ray be any different?

Aren't CDs and DVDs ( and in the future HD-DVDs ) read by a laser in the red end of the light spectrum , while Blue Ray will/does read in the blue end ? I wonder how easy , or cheep , it is to manufacture lasers that can swithch from one to the other .

HD-DVD looks like more of a software solution making it easier to be backwards compatible , while Blue Ray is more of a hardware change .

As ckolchak said it's kinda wierd that this could all be decided by X-BOX vs Playstation . Should be one hell of a fight .

BTW, Blu-ray and HD-DVD both use a blue-laser technology.
I'd like all this backwards compatibility stuff proves to be real but if it is not, I can't see enough reasons as to reject one format or another.

Raise your hand if you EVER use your DVD player to play cd's?

Is it just me? I don't think I ever have.

me either. When listening to CD's there is nothing like a stand-alone CD player

I do when I am cleaning house. Or I put in the U2 live from Boston DVD and let that play.

I have a 5 disc DVD player, so I do use them for audio CDs as well. I also use it for MP3 discs.

Blu-Ray players will have two laser assemblies, one with a blue laser for Blu-Ray and another with a red laser for regular DVDs.

Thank you. I really don't understand why some people are making such an issue over this non-issue. Red laser assemblies have gotten very inexpensive over the past 5 years. How else would you be able to see DVD players on sale for $29-39?

Every Blu Ray and HD-DVD deck manufactured, at least for the first 5 years, will include a red laser assembly and full DVD/CD compatibility, guaranteed.

There is still a big part of me that views Blu-ray turning into the same niche market that laserdisc was, but of course, I could be wrong.

I wouldn't transition over until it was the standard, though, so I view that as being many, many years down the line, if at all.

As usual ill wait till the price drops enough to make it worth while. i dont like buying the first release of any new technology as it's usually got bugs and is stupidly expensive (and out of date before you get it out of the box )