The battle for DVD format went into a stalemate

A market research firm predicts, the battle between the two formats of high definition HD DVD and Blu-ray DVD will come to a standstill.

Blu-ray and HD-DVD are the two new DVD formats that are being promoted globally over the past 12 months. Sony is the main supporter of Blu-ray while Toshiba-supported HD-DVD.

But Screen Digest predicts that no format will prevail and competition will jeopardize the high-definition DVD market.

Ben Keen, Screen Digest's chief analyst, said: " We believe that it seems that eventually both formats will coexist until acceptable dual format solutions appear. , the end result of the format war and the public impact it creates will make the customer 's interest in high - definition discs much reduced . "

Screen Digest predicts that by 2010, spending in the US, European and Japanese markets for high-definition DVD formats will only reach about 11 billion USD compared to 39 billion USD as expected. The company also said that the high price of new disc formats will increase the value of the DVD market. This means that by 2010, the total revenue from DVDs will be 15 to 20% higher than in the absence of high-definition DVDs.

Starting in the 1990s, DVD has exploded into a billion-dollar industry. This success is due in large part to a common disk format that has made it much more convenient than the previous media of VHS tape storage.

At that time, customers were tired of the low quality of most VHS tapes and longed for a better storage format.

Mr. Graham Sharpless, who wrote the report, said: " At this time, both disk formats support the same features ."

New disk formats were released to the market just when DVD sales were declining. However, some observers question whether customers really want a new generation of disk formats. Screen Digest predicts that very few families will choose to replace the entire DVD library they own.

All Hollywood studios, except Universal, say they will release movies on Blu-ray discs, with the first readers and movies introduced earlier this year. Only three major studios say they will release movies in HD-DVD format.

Microsoft supports HD-DVD, while Sony plans to integrate the Blu-ray drive into its PlayStation 3 game console.

At this point, a Blu-ray reader is twice as expensive as an HD-DVD reader, about $ 1,000 compared to $ 500. However, there have been reports that Sony and Samsung Blu-ray disc players have significantly lower video quality than HD-DVD players. Explaining this, Samsung said that a chip in the first models failed and the company later adjusted.