Wait for cheaper Blu-ray players

Yay! We have a winner in the high-definition DVD wars. So what now?

Toshiba announced on Tuesday it was dropping its HD DVD format and dropping out of the next-generation DVD race, making Sony’s Blu-ray high-definition DVD format the de facto industry standard.

This is presumably good news for consumers, most of whom have been sitting out this fight, lest they end up with a $400 paperweight.

Like highdefinition TV, high-def DVDs are a leap forward in image and sound quality. A Bluray disc can hold six times as much information as a standard DVD. Of course, you need a highdefinition TV to take advantage of that clarity.

I still have questions, though.

First off, although more and more people are jumping in and buying high-definition TVs, ordinary DVDs still look pretty good on a high-def screen. If you don’t yet own a high-definition TV, there’s no point at all in upgrading your DVD player first.

Certainly, home-theater aficionados will want to make the switch, but for an average viewer, there’s no overriding need to change until prices drop further.

Most Blu-ray players still cost north of $300 (Sony’s Play-Station 3 video game console also plays Blu-ray DVDs and costs about $400). Wait a few months or a year, and prices will fall, and players will come with ever-more features.

The bigger question is, can any kind of DVD player survive in an age of online streaming and movie downloads?

For the moment, I’d argue that owning a DVD player still makes sense, but the window is closing quickly.

Cable companies are pushing video on demand and now offer thousands of hours of movies and programs in highdefinition, available with the touch of a button (the satellite services have high-definition movie channels, but the selection is far more limited).

Internet streaming video holds unlimited potential, and the quality is making great strides, but it’s still a far cry from even ordinary DVD quality, much less high-definition Blu-ray. Plus, the selection is still limited, and you may have to hunt between different sites to find the film or program you want.

Several services allow you to instead download movies and TV shows, which generally offers higher quality. Downloading can be a slow and cumbersome process, though, even over a high-speed broadband connection. Downloading a high-definition movie takes hours, and some experts think its insatiable demand for bandwidth will melt down the entire Internet if the practice becomes widespread. And once you’ve got the movie downloaded, you still have to get it from your computer to your television.

I think those objections are going to be overcome; it’s just going to take a few more years for faster Internet speeds and more-user-friendly technology to appear. Cable companies may eventually offer a Netflixsize library in their on-demand choices.

Nevertheless, there’s plenty of time for movie lovers to get a good return on their investment for a new DVD player, if prices drop another $100 or so.

A word of caution: There are still thousands of HD DVD players sitting on store shelves, most of them now marked down to fire-sale prices. Buying a discontinued technology is never a bargain.

If you’re one of the unfortunate few who already own an HD DVD player, take heart. Netflix and Wal-Mart should be practically giving away their supply of HD DVD titles.

Back in the 1980s, a friend of mine bought every Betamax movie from the local video store after VHS triumphed in that earlier format war. Years later, we could still peruse his library for weird and wonderful films from the back shelf.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0275 or awineke@gazette.com