HD DVD format war turns to Blu-ray civil war
Blu-ray has all but sunk competitor HD DVD in the format war since Warner defected to other side to support the format exclusively. But the victory could be hollow as the limitations of Blu-ray players become all too apparent.
Audioholics’ David Waratuke has an interesting article proposing a format civil war within Blu-ray.
We know Blu-ray was an incomplete format when released to consumers. The governing body of the Blu-ray format, Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) invented a scheme called profiles. Profiles basically permitted the BDA to release the format before it was ready.
Everything you wanted to know about Blu-ray Profiles.
The depth of the profiles scam now becomes apparent to first generation Blu-ray players. You know - those guys who dished out a grand on the first Samsung BD-P1000 players that we KNEW would be the worst examples of the format for the most money.
We’re finding out that those early players aren’t simply incapable of playing special features (like picture in picture) found on the new generation of Blu-ray movies, they may be incapable of simply playing back some newer movies.
From my own testing and working with early Blu-ray players, many new movies that come out require a firmware upgrade to even see the menu system and playback the film. But what happens when the manufacturer stops supporting the player with updates?
The funny part is the quote included in the article by Waratuke - basically Blu-ray blames HD DVD for its problems.
"When BetaNews asked why these manufacturers rushed out players that were not fully capable and potentially buggy due to their BD-J implementation, the Blu-ray partner pointed blame across the room to HD DVD. "We should have waited another year to introduce Blu-ray to the public, but the format war changed the situation," he said. HD DVD was already coming and the BDA had no choice but to launch Blu-ray."
If you have HD-DVD - then you bought a lemon.. ha ha!