HD Wars are Over

And no I’m not talking about the CES Warner Announcement of going to Blu-Ray only. I’m talking about Steve Job’s Keynote at MacWorld today.

Most people (including me) have been waiting for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to win before making the HD Media plunge. No one wants to support a dying or dead medium and having to re-invest in the other. Everyone has been waiting for all of the Studios to support one.

It looked like Blu-Ray was going to win with the Warner Studios announcement of Blu only. I heard Warner’s announcement and thought the last two studios would surely cave toward the Blu camp, and I think they still will make the move to Blu.

Let me Tarantino a bit. I’ve been using a hacked XBox and XBox Media Center for a few years now. I rip all most of my DVD’s on a cheap linux server, soon to become a NAS. I can view  all of my movies without getting up from the couch and sorting through 600 or so Discs. As HD-DVD and Blu-Ray started closing in on release dates, I started to think about the possibility of using physical media again. I’ve gotta say,  I’m pretty opposed to it. The idea of not having all of my content at my finger tips sounds antiquated. Having to run through the house to find out which room I left a disc in is worse. I am a quality freak. I like the best stuff (at least what I can afford), so I was constantly waiting for a HD format to win. Which by the way is taking forever.

Here comes an announcement from Apple. They’re updating their Apple TV along with a price drop that brings the price lower than Blu-Ray and almost as low as the lowest priced HD-DVD unit. Not only that, but with their new rental service offering HD movies and content from all the major studios, they’re offering exactly what I wanted. All the studio’s content, not having to leave the couch to watch content, or the house to rent it.  All of this at a lower price than the current HD competitors.

Apple has it, they have the right combination of offerings to make it work. If they push it correctly it will be a major contender in the HD format. I do think that Blu-Ray will still do well after all the studios commit to the format. Mostly because people are creatures of habit, they will continue to go to blockbuster and rent; they understand – put some sort of media in a machine, press play and it works. Some people just want to do things the way they always have, touch physical media.