Mp4 - Consumer Electronics

 Battle of the HD Formats

Blu-ray was created by the Blu ray Disc Association, an association of major electronic companies including , Panasonic as well as Sony, the intention was to produce a high capacity alternative to DVD's

HD DVD was developed along similar lines by the DVD forum, another association of high level electronic manufacturing companies in the opposing camp we have companies including Toshiba and NEC, HD DVD is there replacement for standard DVD's.

If cost was not a factor in the equation Blu Ray would win hands down due to its lager size, a Blue ray Disc can store up to 50 GB of data where a HD DVD can store up to 30 GB of data this gives the Blu Ray an approximate 40% capacity advantage over the HD DVD

Unfortunately, cost is included in the equation and the HD DVD is Cheaper to produce then its lager counterpart, latest information hints that the of production of a Blu Ray disk is approximately double that of a HD DVD disk. As with any new technologies, the cost normally start out expensive and come down in price as the manufacturing process becomes streamlined. This I would imagine happening with both HD DVD and Blu Ray

Ultimately it is the consumer that will decide the fate of these two new technologies as they did in the VHS and Betamax wars with VHS coming out as the victor ( Sony also developed the Betamax format). Sony may have leaned a lesson from that time as the betamax tapes did not have the storage capacity but supposedly produced a better quality then the VHS Tapes. At the time it wasn't the quality that mattered to the public they wanted to store as much as they could on one tape. Now Sony is backing the larger capacity storage medium.

The Sony Playstation 3 comes with a built in Blu Ray player with the ability to go right up to 1080p resolution, having this inbuilt in its next generation Games console is a great way of getting the format accepted by the general public. The PS3 is not a great games machine it's also a great Blu Ray player with outstanding picture quality. Microsoft who is batting for the HD DVD format has released an add on HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 to try to even the score.