In his podcast for the week, Major Nelson interviewed the VP over digital media at Microsoft. The big discussion, HD DVD and why it is better than Blu-ray. He indicated that Blu-ray is more susceptible to scratches because the data layer is much closer to the surface of the disk. He also talked about the sub-par performance of the Blu-ray movies that have come out. Well, after looking at DigitalBits, they have confirmed that there appears to be a problem with the first round of Blu-ray titles. But they also indicated that there is a problem with the HDMI output on the only available Blu-ray player. This likely has a lot to do with the conception that Blu-ray movies just don’t look as good right now. The Microsoft exec attributed this to the fact that they can only make single layer Blu-ray disks right now.
Which one will win out? Probably neither. All Blu-ray players are going to support DVD which means that it won’t be difficult for them to be made to support HD-DVD. The downside? If you can only play one, you’ll have to go through the headache of returning disks because your not so techno-savvy relative gave you a Blu-ray disk instead of an HD-DVD disk (or vice-versa).