Begun this Format War has.
Wicked Pictures has announced that it has chosen the HD DVD format over Blu-Ray and will re-release its Camp Cuddly Pines Power Tool Massacre using the feature-rich and less expensive next-generation technology.
Digital Playground this year announced that it was siding with Blu-Ray and that Pirates will be re-released in that format some time in 2007.
The cartels behind HD DVD and Blu-Ray, including but not limited to Apple, Microsoft, Toshiba, Philips, and the Walt Disney Corporation (the latter giving money to both formats) was unable to come up with a compromise that would benefit the consumer, so you, too, will have to choose or just not buy next-gen DVDs out of spite until you have no choice, which will be at least five years or until one of the formats dies.
I asked a colleague at Hustler which side Larry Flynt would fall on, and he said, “Whichever is least expensive” (which is, at the moment, HD DVD).
A standard DVD holds about five gigabytes of data. HD DVDs hold between 45 and 60 GB. Blu Ray discs boast up to 200 GB, but the cost of retooling replication facilities for the particulars of the Blu-Ray disc process will be passed on to the consumer, whereas HD DVD technology is, simply put, easier and less costly.
Previously: Pirates: “For the love of God let me die.”
See also: Wicked Pictures, The Best HD-DVD: “Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift” (gizmodo), Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD: State of the Division (engadget)
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