REPOSTED FROM January 23, 2008 - I have updated the upcoming DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc calendar to reflect select upcoming genre film titles. You can click on the button above or here. I have been resistant toward discussing my feelings regarding Warner Home Video's decision to go Blu-ray Disc exclusive over the past few weeks partially because I was shocked and partially because I had personal affairs going on that demanded my attention outside of doing what I do here. Now that the dust is settling, I am going to state my personal feelings on this matter. First off I think Warner Brothers did the right thing in the long run because at some point this format war has to end one way or another. That stated while I will continue to review Universal HD DVD and Paramount/DreamWorks HD DVD titles, my main focus will be on Blu-ray Disc outside of these two distributors. I also will continue to cover DVD and television as I have in the past. If Paramount/DreamWorks and Universal go format neutral, then I will cease covering HD DVD all together since I just cannot see how the format will survive given the hard facts regarding sales and the availability of product as well as the larger software support Blu-ray Disc now has.
I think Toshiba has done a terrific job supporting their HD DVD players. I love my HD-XA1 and I'll probably keep using it as an upconverting DVD player since it does a fantastic job upconverting standard definition DVDs to near HD resolution. I think Microsoft's HDi interactivity technology as well as the web enabled features available now on HD DVD are superior to anything I have seen for the most part on Blu-ray Disc though the newer titles are catching up so I have no doubt that soon Blu-ray Disc will exceed what HD DVD has been able to do simply because it is an evolving high definition optical disc format while HD DVD will probably become extinct by the year's end. How quickly people adopt Blu-ray Disc depends greatly on how comfortable they are with investing in a higher resolution format after buying DVDs for nearly 11 years. As the quality of HDTVs improve and true 1080p sets from major manufacturers like Sony become more affordable, I think more people will see the difference between Blu-ray Disc and upconverted DVD. Now what Blu-ray Disc needs is a killer new film that will blow away people enough that they will buy the player just to get the movie on Blu-ray Disc. Blu-ray Disc needs a film that will impact the consumer the way DVD broke through into the mainstream when The Matrix came out in 1999. I believe it must be a new movie. Unfortunately films like The Matrix are rare, but I think we are about do for something new. What that will be is anyone's guess, but I hope it will be out very soon. In the meantime I'll be watching , waiting, and writing. Thank you.