I stopped at the Samsung booth to interview DongSoo Jun, the executive vice president in charge of the digital AV division and digital media business at Samsung in Korea. My first question: Did the Warner Bros. decision to support Blu-ray over HD DVD mean that the next-generation DVD format war is just about over?
Not yet, he said. The studios and gadget makers have been battling for some time. When Warner was neutral, the movie title list was just about even split between Blu-ray and HD DVD. But now with Warner moving to Blu-ray exclusively by mid-year, he said maybe 70 percent to 80 percent of the content is likely to be on Blu-ray.
"On the movie side, BD has a better position than HD DVD," he said.
But he noted that HD DVD is strong in personal computers, thanks to the efforts of Microsoft, Toshiba, Hewlett-Packard and others on HD DVD. If you record a family movie on an HD DVD drive on your computer, you won't be able to play it on the family TV without an HD DVD movie player.
