TV on DVD Buzz

In light of Paramount & DreamWorks announcement, the Washington Post’s Rob Pegoraro published a good article last week with his opinion on the whole issue. Here’s Rob’s take on the debate:

Here’s what I know:

* Blu-Ray discs can store more data, but until I can record TV programs on a Blu-Ray recorder, it’s a meaningless attribute to me as a customer. Not a single electronics manufacturer seems to have noticed that people like to record TV shows, not just watch them live since only players have reached U.S. stores, even though recorder models have been available in Japan for years. In the meantime, both formats have enough room to accommodate a movie and plenty of interactive hoo-ha (deleted scenes, director’s commentary, making-of features and so on).

* HD DVD’s single most appealing feature is its hybrid-disc option, in which a single disc can contain both a DVD and a high-def version of the movie, meaning you don’t have to buy one copy of the movie for viewing at home and another to watch on your computer. But it’s been half-ignored in practice, with studios either failing to support it at all or reserving it for new releases.

* HD DVD media is supposed to be cheaper to manufacture, but that cost advantage has yet to show up in retail prices.

* Blu-Ray has the more restrictive copying restrictions, but HD DVD’s copy controls are nothing to applaud either. Computing experts cringe at what it will take to incorporate them into new computers. (Of course, these digital locks have already been cracked.)

* Blu-Ray is an extraordinarily lame product name (even if it’s no “Xohm”).

The only safe move continues to be DVD. Get an “upconverting” player and connect it to an HDTV with high-def video cables, and you’ll have a risk-free solution with video quality that falls short of what’s capable, but which should also be good enough for most people.

If enough customers do this, the entire format war might end in the most fitting manner possible: a nothing-nothing tie, with lots of injuries on both teams.

I tend to agree with Rob. Right now, there is too much at stake to invest in one format over the other. I’m waiting this one out. If you’d like to read more, you can find the entire article here.

TV on DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-ray