The Practical Superiority of HD-DVD:

Then there are the politics of this - the most interesting aspect. First, the DVD Forum has endorsed HD-DVD and not Blu-ray. The Sony-led Blu-ray consortium probably didn’t think this was important, after witnessing the emergence of DVD+RW without any support from the DVD Forum.

Another subtext is the copy-protection mechanism. The HD-DVD system is being sold as uncrackable. True or not, it sounds good to Hollywood. Blu-ray seems more liberal in its approach, with “limited-copy” mechanisms similar to those found on DAT recorders. This factor alone could kill Blu-ray among the paranoid Hollywood types. One copy, even if legal, is to be avoided as far as they are concerned.

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When you put these factors together, along with Sony’s track record for being on the wrong side of the technology split, it’s hard to see Blu-ray winning this one. Hello, HD-DVD!

So Sony’s on the “wrong side of the technology split” and Disney isn’t a “paranoid Hollywood type”. I disagree. I have yet to read a technical article that explains why dual-format HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players can’t be produced. Let the content providers worry about aspects like what discs are cheaper to produce and what format customers like better. This seems more like Dolby Digital vs. DTS than Beta vs. VHS to me.

(Note: First manual use of “nofollow”.)