Digital Home Thoughts: Blu-ray Rushed to Market Before It's Ready

"Well... I've had my first experience with Blu-ray Disc, and Samsung's BD-P1000 Blu-ray Disc player. For the record, I have four titles on hand... The Fifth Element and The Terminator (from Sony and MGM) and Lord of War and Crash (from Lionsgate)... I think I may end up giving Round One of this format war to HD-DVD, and that surprises the hell out of me. Sure, that Tosh HD-DVD player was a lemon until the firmware upgrade, but it's worked like a charm since. And the first 25 or so HD-DVD discs I've viewed just look better overall than the first 4 Blu-ray Discs I've seen. The HD-DVDs also have a LOT more extra features than the Blu-ray Discs (even if you consider that most of the extras are recycled from standard DVD)... I've heard from more than a few industry sources that Blu-ray is having trouble getting the dual-layered BD media to work, which means that discs with lots of extras and good video quality aren't an option now. It also means that longer movies aren't an option now either. Both are problems for this format that don't seem to be troubling HD-DVD at the moment - at least not at first glance, based on the initial title offering."

OK, now there's actual evidence that Blu-ray sucks compared with HD-DVD. Now, it's still early in the game, too early I think to really be making comparisons, but the results so far are pretty conclusive. The results may very well change in the next couple months, so I'm taking this report with a small grain of salt. I'd like to see the first 3 HD-DVD players pitted against the first 3 Blu-ray players. I'd like to see them play the same movie in SD-DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Then we'll really be able to start making comparisons. Until then, I agree with the author that you should probably stay away from either format for another 6 months or so until the dust clears...