Slowly but surely…
As more and more families find themselves with sizable HD tv’s occupying their living rooms, the format wars for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD seem to actually be taking off at long last. After a long stagnation on store shelves, including a period in which it looked like major chains were actually going to phase them out in favor of more DVD space, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are starting to move units. This despite a generally lousy selection of titles (really? Ultraviolet in hi-def? Why?) punctuated by a handful of truly stellar releases (Dr. Strangelove in HD? More, please!).
Would you believe that it was all the way back in January of this year (you know, the one about to end in my own time zone) that I linked to Variety’s report on a third alternative that had, at the time, only found support in Bollywood? I wonder whatever happened to that format…
The answer, apparently, is that it actually got released.
HD VMD is still flying under the radar, amazingly enough. But the players are out, and so are movies. And not just Bollywood, either. I was amazed to find in the HD VMD catalog such titles as El Cid, Alexander, Bridge to Terabithia, and Lord of War, to name just a few. Where, I wondered, did this come from? And what business do they have selling them in bundles with five movies (that you’ve probably never heard of) for a suggested price of $250 when the lowest-priced Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player I could find at Best Buy had an MSRP of $299.99 with no movies included?
Is HD VMD a viable alternative? Well, the technology is there and the price is right – but the movie support still needs work. While the catalog features titles from very strong players, it’s still pretty sparse – and I still haven’t seen them populating Best Buy shelves. For the moment, though, I’m tempted to keep watching…