Today, the BBC is reporting that Bigchoice, err.. Blockbuster Video has lined up on the Blu-Ray side of the HD video disc war. It seems that BD titles were rented quite a bit more than HD-DVD titles at the 250 Blockbuster test locations.

In general, I don’t particular care one way or another who wins the format war, but I’ll say that HD-DVD does have some things in their favor, even if they’re the 2007 equivalent of VHS to BD’s Beta. For instance, HD-DVD’s don’t seem to be suffering from the disc rot problems currently being reported over on the AVS Forums. Further, HD-DVD lacks the extra layer of DRM, BD+ that is available on the BD side of the house.  In my book, the less DRM, the better, preferably, none.

Why no DRM?  It has nothing to do with piracy.  Pirates already have proven themselves wildly successful at circumventing copy controls on all sorts of media (VHS, CD-ROM, DVD, various digital music formats even).  DRM has to do with you & me, the consumers.  The ones that pay for their content.  You see, according to the RIAA or MPAA, if we want to shift our media to a different format, preserving our investment, we should have to re-purchase the media.  Don’t even get me started on the commercials urging you to “own it on DVD today!“  You know what you own?  A disc and the box it came in.  What you don’t own is the content that you were led to buy.

In a perfect world, what would I choose?  Blu-Ray’s technical superiority, no DRM, and the dual-format publication system that lots of HD-DVDs are using now (standard def DVD on one side, HD-DVD on the other).  Why?  I’ve seriously pondered buying those, and I don’t even own an HDTV, let alone hi-def player of any format.  But I will.  Why re-purchase the movie?  So, I pay a bit more up front, but (hopefully) save on the back end, and have the ability to play the movies I’ve already got in 1080p, rather than just 480p.