There has been a battle brewing between 2 camps for dominance in the next-generation DVD format. Sony's Blu-Ray has battled Toshiba's HD DVD for 2 years for the top spot. Apparently, last week Toshiba announced that they are stopping production of the HD DVD disk, which hands the win to Sony and their more expensive Blu-Ray format.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/02/23/dlclaud123.xml

Some industry analysts say that the win will be short-lived; that DVD sales have been slumping and that movie content is already moving the <i>web.</i> And pretty soon discs of <i>any</i> kind will be obsolete.

So, do you buy a Blu-Ray machine? Is anyone already downloading their movies online? Any early HD DVD adopters a little miffed? Any Sony success prognosticators want to gloat? :D

Is this vindication for the Beta Max vs VHS war? :D

We don't have an HD TV, let alone a DVD player that can play HD DVD's or Blu_Ray so this means very little to me right now. I guess it could have an impact on me somewhere down the road, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I still have a BetaMax :D
Which is why this time I'm waiting to see who wins.
It depends on content in the consumer market.
Not capacity or technical quality, but content and price.
Assuming reliability of end-user units is comparable.

Although Blu-Ray holds more data, there was an expert on Leo Lapota's radio show the other day who brang up a disturbing fact - not all Blu-Ray players will play all blu-ray disks! There's apparently some sub-specs within the specification, and not even the newer players are guaranteed to play all the newer disks!

I have no personal stake, but for me, I'm glad the Sony format won b/c it holds almost double what HD DVD held. In the ever-expanding digital market of megapixels and resolution, that's a very important aspect.

Discs aren't dead yet... they're still the cheapest medium by which to convey large amounts of data in permanent, mobile form. The day may not be far off that flash memory catches up, but for now, discs still hold the edge.

I would imagine prices will come down a bit as the technology gains more use and more users.

I am more interested in the data storage uses, than the replacement for DVD-DL for video recording.
But once it settles down technically, and I can get a CD/DVD/DVD-D/BluRay multi-format drive, I@ll have one in the desktop box :)