Why there will be a combo player
Look, there is all this talk out there that there isn’t going to be a combo player. There are rumors of contracts that state that they can’t make players for both formats. Yada-Yada-Yada
There WILL be a combo player and this format war won’t go down like betamax/VHS.
Why?
Unlike Betamax/VHS the two formats competing use the same standard disk, also 95% of the parts for each of these players can be identical. This format war is almost all done through software.
Now how will this play out? One of the formats will see the writing on the wall, my vote is it will be HD DVD, but who knows. What most likely will happen is that a couple of studios will back out of the format. Once that happens I think the HD DVD camp will amend their contract to allow a combo player. The other camp will see lots of $$$ through a combo player and not having a format war, and they will capitulate. This will be similar to the DVD-R+R-RW. Eventually, most DVD drives today can read all the formats and most consumers don’t know the difference between DVD-R and DVD+R.
So will this happen tomorrow? No. Lets take a walk. This year will have limited availability of players and software on both sides. Next year will be the big push with name brand players. 2008 will be the year of cheap players for both camps. By this time the market penetration will be felt and I think we may see the first combo drives in 2009, maybe CES 2010.
No go on combo Blu-ray, HD DVD player: LG — Electronics NEWS - about-electronics.eu
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September 25th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
We whole-heartedly agree. No manufacture in their right mind is going to commit 6-9 months of production toward un-proven format. Seeing this battle may take us clear into 4th quarter of 2007. Leaders can not afford the lack of commitment.
Apple has taken the stance of leaving everything as an “Option”, until sales of these units warrant a re-visit. Someone down the food-chain is going to release a dual-product as a “test feeder”. Sales will be the determining factor on mass production.
But what needs watching closely is content development. Limited amount of titles released for each format, less than 100. Like that is going to give numbers…….