– The first guest blog post has been written by Martin, from MCT Images. –

Thanks to David for letting me be a guest blogger. I have been a regular reader since he got mentioned with ProBlogger.

My field is video production, but I also blog about the next-generation of high definition disc i.e. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. So I thought I would post about your options for the next generation of DVD. After all a lot of us have splurged on high-def flat screens, and our DVDs do look great on there, BUT they’re still not high-def. In other words your movies could be even clearer.

The Players

Unfortunately the powers that be could not decide on one particular format. Just lovely!

(And the reasons for that are beyond one post, I recommend reading Bill Hunt’s site The Digital Bits to find out why.)

On one hand you have HD-DVD developed by Toshiba.

And on the other hand Blu-Ray Disc developed by Sony.

Strengths for Each

Each format has one notable strength.

HD-DVD is cheaper because it uses current DVD technology and, as of this writing is, easier to produce.

Blu-Ray has considerably more exclusive studio support, in other words exclusive studios will only release their movies on Blu-Ray.

Cost Entry as of today

Cost wise you can enter the HD-DVD camp by purchasing a Toshiba HD-A2 player for less than $300.

On the Blu-Ray interestingly enough the most affordable entry is a Sony Playstation 3 currently at $500. (So you also get a gaming system as well.)

What to get

To put it bluntly, I cannot in good conscious recommend HD-DVD, there just isn’t enough support for it.

And for me it comes down to exclusive studio support:

HD-DVD:

- Universal (Jaws, Jurrasic Park, King Kong)

Editor’s Note: OI! You forgot a tonne of studios. Paramount, for instance. (Transformers, Heroes, etc)

Blu-Ray:

- Sony (All the James Bond Movies.)

- Disney (Do I really need to list them?)

- Pixar (Awesome movies!)

- Lionsgate (A lot of recent popular horror flicks)

- Fox (They released a little movie series called STAR WARS)

Cars will be the first Pixar movie to hit Blu-Ray and it arrives in November. Now think of all those moms and dads of little children that are going to pick up a new gadget for the whole family. If they want to include children in on the enjoyment they’re going to get the one which can play Pixar and Disney.

What happens if my format dies?

If you picked up an HD-DVD player and the format goes bust, it is not a total loss. You will still be able to watch your HD-DVD discs and your regular DVDs will be outputted to at least 720P and possibly 1080P depending on the model you get.

The same thing goes for Blu-Ray players. All Blu-Ray players are backwards compatible with your regular DVDs and they also get upcoverted.

Long Live Home Theater

This was certainly not an exhaustive coverage of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, but I hope it gives you enough information to begin looking at upgrading your home theater.

Please check out MCT Images Blog, where I blog about Blu-Ray, video production and Photoshop.

Editor’s note: Curse you, Martin! You actually put forward a pretty good argument for blu-ray. Microsoft recommends HD-DVD though, and when I can pick up an £80 add-on for my 360, I can easily watch play them pretty cheaply. Then there’s the cost of discs for (both) the formats. Expensive indeed. Great post though! - David