Personally, in the last week I have been a fly on a wall for 3-4 conversations about which format, HD-DVD or Blu-ray, will win the new media format war. Honestly, I don’t care who wins, because this is one thing I refuse to be an early adopter for. But if I had to chose today, HD-DVD will clearly win. Why?

Why HD-DVD will win the format war:

1. Of all the HD TV’s I have seen in use in people’s homes in the last year (ie. Not Showroom Models), exactly 2 have been properly set up and well calibrated. I think the jump from SD to HD is so great, most people think tuning HD is unnecessary. (Or don’t know how) So despite which format is “Higher Quality” in tech specs will be a moot point to the majority of consumers.
2. Someone this week said — “With Blu-Ray you can fit every Friends episode on 1 disc.” — Well, as neat as that may be … to some … Major Video manufactures/outlets don’t want that. Netflix and Blockbuster currently get 10 rents out of people who want to watch every Friends Episode. NBC got 10 individual DVD sales, one for each season. And personally, I don’t want to dish out 200$ for a single disc when I can get 10, for 10 easy payments of 20$ as I see fit. So I’m pretty sure media size will not be the defining factor.
3. Hybrid HD-DVD’s. These will play in new HD-DVD players and the Billion other DVD players already sold world wide. This means only a single media type needs to be sold/rented at retail outlets. Granted, There are talks about Hybrid DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-Ray disks / players. But that is more layers, more licensing, and more cost for the consumer.
4. HD-DVD will be the first to the two major consumer milestones. “Possibly” < 200$ Stand alone player before Christmas. (XBox Add on only 175$)
5. Porn Industry has chosen HD-DVD, because Sony won’t license Blu-Ray for XXX films.
6. Betamax and Minidisc. Nuff Said.

Ultimately, which ever media is the cheapest to market first will win. I don’t think the benefits of Blu-Ray are enough to out HD-DVD. And sadly, whichever of the formats manage to make it easy and cheap to “backup” (aka. pirate) first — That’ll put the icing on the cake.