Technobabble: What Blu-ray's high-def victory means

Well, so much for the war of the high-definition discs.

Warner Home Video's unexpected decision to back only Blu-ray over HD DVD caused an industry uproar at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Just a few weeks ago, knowledgeable observers were saying that hybrid players capable of playing both formats would end the war. So much for knowledgeable observers.

If you've been ignoring high-def discs, now's the time to start paying attention. With Blu-ray as the apparent winner, you no longer have the excuse of rival formats to justify your apathy or fence-sitting. Here are the answers to some of your Blu-ray questions.

What is Blu-ray? Wow, you really haven't been paying attention, have you?

In short, Blu-ray Discs resemble regular DVDs, but have a higher storage capacity that allows them to play high-definition movies, which have a filmlike quality. To view the discs, you must have a Blu-ray player and an HDTV display.

The major studios that have backed Blu-ray are Sony, Fox, MGM, Disney and Lions Gate. Warner, which is the largest home-video company, had released titles in both formats, but abandoned HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray. Read more background at www.startribune.com/a3858.

Is HD DVD really dead? At best, the rival high-def format is on life support.

Retailers could hasten HD DVD's demise by refusing to stock the discs or players -- or simply not replacing sold inventory. The first full-week sales figures since Warner's announcement showed a dramatic leap in Blu-ray sales.

Did the better disc win? For consumers, it's a draw. Neither format is superior. Although some specs differ between Blu-ray and HD DVD, they both produce the same high-quality picture. From a business standpoint, ironically, HD DVDs are actually cheaper and easier to produce because they can be made using retooled equipment at existing DVD plants. Blu-ray discs require new manufacturing equipment, which is more expensive and has caused production shortages due to a lack of facilities. Blu-ray's victory points to behind-the-scenes dealmaking.

What if I already bought into HD DVD? You can't play a Blu-ray Disc on an HD DVD player. But you still have a library of about 400 HD DVD titles available to watch. Prices for those discs will drop dramatically as retailers inevitably start selling them at clearance prices. If you bought a Toshiba player, you also have a high-quality unit that can make standard DVDs look much better on high-def displays than they would if played on a regular player.

What's available on Blu-ray? About 400 Blu-ray titles have come out so far, and dozens more have been announced for the coming months. Eye-grabbing titles include Disney's "Ratatouille" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, Sony's "Spider-Man" movies and "Casino Royale," and Fox's "Die Hard" series and "The Simpsons Movie." Many of Warner's biggest sellers, such as "300," are already out in Blu-ray. Some of Warner's prestige titles that were available solely in HD DVD -- a clear sign that it was once the studio's format of choice -- such as the "Matrix" trilogy, "Casablanca" and "Forbidden Planet" are bound to come out eventually in Blu-ray.

What's a good Blu-ray player? There's only one that's truly worth recommending, Sony's PlayStation 3. Yes, it's a video-game system, but no stand-alone Blu-ray player comes close to matching its power and versatility. More important, the evolving spec of Blu-ray software mandates that a player be able to connect to the Internet, and the PS3 is the only device that can do that now. If you buy a new stand-alone Blu-ray player, eventually it will not be able to handle some features on future Web-enabled discs. (No such titles exist now.) If you don't want to buy a PS3, starting at $399, you should wait until Blu-ray players with so-called Profile 2.0 compliancy hit the market -- probably in the spring.

Will Blu-ray really catch on? That's the big question. Even with one high-def format, Blu-ray might remain a niche product with people happily getting along with up-converted standard DVDs on their HDTVs. Also, many industry observers believe that high-def discs are just a stopgap for a few years until electronics makers figure out an easy way for viewers to download high-def programming directly to their HDTV, with no need for software. Check back in a year for a better answer.