Will Hybrid Players End the Format War?

flyhalf writes "A new report says that hybrid players will force an early end to the HD DVD/Blu-ray format wars. Some of the projections seem optimistic: $200 hybrid players by 2009 and several manufacturers cranking them out. But reality will likely be different: 'standalone units of any format aren't selling terribly well. Recent research determined that 695,000 consumers owned either a Blu-ray or HD DVD player, but most of those are tied to a console — 400,000 of the 425,000 Blu-ray players sold by the end of 2007 were PlayStation 3s and 150,000 of the 270,000 HD DVD players were Xbox 360 add-ons.' Most importantly, consumers aren't early adopters: 'DVD players needed over a decade to supersede the VCR in the living rooms of the United States and there is little reason to believe that HD DVD and Blu-ray player adoption will outpace that of the DVD.'"

No!

[Anonymous Coward]

But hybrid players will reduce the carbon emissions of traditional players.

In fact, I predict we will look back on the age of gasoline-powered DVD players and laugh.

Re:Sony = Duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony has refused to license Blu-ray to the adult industry. So basically they are chopping their own leg off...maybe both legs. Blu-ray will be the loser out of the gate before the race even starts.

Case closed.

Re:Sony = Duh?

[smooth wombat]

It's not just that Sony won't license blue-ray to the adult industry, there is also the issue of HD being so sharp and clear that imperfections in the porn actors and actresses are causing problems [slashdot.org] in the industry.

Because of the clarity, the folks (mainly women) are having to undergo surgery, use mucho makeup to cover flaws or, in some cases, the studios are using software to soften the images. In other words, there's TOO much clarity and we have to somewhat downgrade the image. Ironic, no?

Uh, huh huh huh.... he said "blew"...

[Dogtanian]

Even though the BDA association isn't technically against porn, they sure are making it hard for any porn to get produced on Blu-ray

That's kind of ironic, considering "Blu Ray" sounds like a gay porn flick. I remember when Americans used to laugh at the name of the British TV show, "Blue Peter". :-/

Even more ironic that HD-DVD stands to reap the pornographic windfall, since "HDD VD" sounds like a rather nasty sexual infection that wipes all your data...