RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
MORNING EDITION's tech guru is Mario Armstrong. We called him to help in figuring out what this means for the consumer. Morning, Mario.
MARIO ARMSTRONG: Good morning, Renee. How are you?
MONTAGNE: Pretty good. Now that Warner Brothers is backing the Blu-ray - so Blu-ray must be feeling pretty good, is it a done deal? Will Blu-ray become the industry's standard format?
ARMSTRONG: Yeah, I don't think right now we can claim that HD-DVD, the rival format of Blu-ray, is out for the count at this point. This is a significant blow against the HD-DVD movement. And this only leaves now, Renee, Paramount and Universal Studios as the only two exclusive studios left to HD-DVD. And the big winner in this whole format war really is going to come down to who can attract more of the studios. And right now Blu-ray is winning.
MONTAGNE: And is Blu-ray any better or different than HD-DVD?
ARMSTRONG: But the average consumer doesn't really care, I think, about the technical standards more than will the movie that I want to watch be available on the format that I can view.
MONTAGNE: Well, if Blu-ray wins this war of the formats and becomes a standard, is that better for the consumers in the sense that there is a standard?
ARMSTRONG: Yes and no, because - yes, in the sense that there is a standard because now studios and hardware manufacturers, people that make the devices that would play these disks, can now focus on one format. And that would be great. The bad side would be no competition. And that could drive up market prices, not drive them down.
MONTAGNE: Mario, thank you.
ARMSTRONG: Thank you, Renee.
MONTAGNE: Mario Armstrong is MORNING EDITION's regular commentator on technology. He also hosts the technology show, "Armstrong's Digital Spin" on member station WEAA in Baltimore.