Mojo - because of the terrible dark secret of HD DVD. It worked. It was, capacity aside, the technically superior format, having at the time a whole bunch of features that Blu-ray didn't and, even today, the vast majority of Blu-ray players (by model - naturally, because everyone buys the PS3, in terms of installed base the majority can) don't. And not everyone at Hollywood is an utter imbecile which meant many realized that BD's touted advantages in the hacker-proof field were not as positive as they were made out to be.
The two formats really ended up trying to appeal by going in radically different directions. HD DVD tried to be as versatile as possible, both to create a platform that allowed publishers to add a lot of value to each disk and make it a genuine step-up from DVD in every area, not just quality, and also creating a platform that would neatly scale well when the inevitable transfer from hard media to downloads would come about.
Blu-ray focussed on copy-control issues, listening to Hollywood's concerns that HD meant the death of cinema and, thus, that piracy would invade every area of revenue, not just DVD sales which are little more than sugar in terms of how you build revenue to fund a movie. The problem, for me, is that Blu-ray went too far. Things that should have been mandatory - such as managed copy - were made optional. Things that should be optional - such as AACS - were made mandatory. Options were given to publishers that can and will cause hardship for customers. Essentially, the only way Blu-ray - in its present form - can work is if everyone buys the PS3 and no other model of Blu-ray player, because it's safe to say Hollywood will always make BD+ work with the most popular player.
So, in practical terms, until the online systems are settled and standardized, there's no reliable HD media format available right now that everyone supports. And that's a crying shame.
Region-free players? Prepare for everything to get worse before it gets better. About the best we can hope for now is for things to get so bad, they'll be forced to announce "Blu-ray lite", with the excesses of the access controls removed, at some point in the near future.
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Mojo - because of the terrible dark secret of HD DVD. It worked. It was, capacity aside, the technically superior format, having at the time a whole bunch of features that Blu-ray didn't and, even today, the vast majority of Blu-ray players (by model - naturally, because everyone buys the PS3, in terms of installed base the majority can) don't. And not everyone at Hollywood is an utter imbecile which meant many realized that BD's touted advantages in the hacker-proof field were not as positive as they were made out to be.
The two formats really ended up trying to appeal by going in radically different directions. HD DVD tried to be as versatile as possible, both to create a platform that allowed publishers to add a lot of value to each disk and make it a genuine step-up from DVD in every area, not just quality, and also creating a platform that would neatly scale well when the inevitable transfer from hard media to downloads would come about.
Blu-ray focussed on copy-control issues, listening to Hollywood's concerns that HD meant the death of cinema and, thus, that piracy would invade every area of revenue, not just DVD sales which are little more than sugar in terms of how you build revenue to fund a movie. The problem, for me, is that Blu-ray went too far. Things that should have been mandatory - such as managed copy - were made optional. Things that should be optional - such as AACS - were made mandatory. Options were given to publishers that can and will cause hardship for customers. Essentially, the only way Blu-ray - in its present form - can work is if everyone buys the PS3 and no other model of Blu-ray player, because it's safe to say Hollywood will always make BD+ work with the most popular player.
So, in practical terms, until the online systems are settled and standardized, there's no reliable HD media format available right now that everyone supports. And that's a crying shame.
Region-free players? Prepare for everything to get worse before it gets better. About the best we can hope for now is for things to get so bad, they'll be forced to announce "Blu-ray lite", with the excesses of the access controls removed, at some point in the near future.