Digital Home Thoughts: Gizmodo Declares Blu-Ray the Winner

"And so, we're declaring Blu-Ray the winner. Sure, the fact we want to call our optical media "Blurry Discs" for the next 10 years or so is a factor, but that's far from the prevailing one—Blu-Ray is not only technically superior to HD DVD, it has a far stronger corporate backing, and has demonstrated the ability to have more content available to push the format. After the jump, we break down the three areas—technical, financial, and commercial—where Blu-Ray has set itself apart from its only competition."

This is a very detailed article that breaks down why they think Blu-Ray will be the next optical disc technology we all get hooked on. Cramming 25 GB onto a single disc sounds great to me, but I feel it's far too early to call Blu-Ray a winner. The Japanese markets might be buying up the technology, but on the world-wide scale, that means almost nothing - there are many technologies that never leave the shores of Japan. It's been said that a technology needs to be 10x better than a previous technology, and while 25GB is a 5x improvement over 5 GB, I don't think space alone will drive Blu-Ray forward. In terms of consumer adoption, the fact that Blu-Ray discs won't play on the huge installed base of red-laser DVD players is a huge problem - in fact, I think that singular issue will be the reason Blu-Ray is a failure in the market.