While no one who has watched a movie via Blu-Ray or HD-DVD will dispute their superiority over standard DVD, history reminds us that the Edsel was better than the Ford. And Betamax was a step beyond VHS.

But while the battle over the next-generation home video format is simmering to a boil in the U.S., the prevailing mood from Hollywood North is a mix of preparation without commitment.

An online survey conducted last summer by research firm Ipsos asked 1,063 adults from across the U.S. how they anticipated watching movies in 2007. Nearly one-quarter of those polled planned to watch DVDs they own, while just 6% to 7% said they would increase movie-watching on their PCs or portable devices.

Canada is in the upper tier of countries in broadband Internet penetration. At 67.9% as of Dec. 19, 2006, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, we’re only slightly behind the U.S., and number 12 in the world – and if you hurry, you can trade your tube TV in at Future Shop for $100 towards an HD model. But many consumers haven’t heard of Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, let alone understand the difference between them, or why they should care, when DVDs are ubiquitous and cheaper than a latte.

‘From a marketing angle, more work needs to be done to reach the general public to explain what HD and Blu-Ray are all about before you’re going to see it take over DVD,’ says Ian Goggins, SVP of sales and operations at Maple Pictures, which is shipping an average of 1,000 Blu-Ray units per title to retailers, apart from above-average Lionsgate titles like Crash and the Jason Statham actioner Crank.

‘DVD isn’t going away,’ he adds. ‘We’re committed to supporting that format. But you don’t want to be caught behind either.’

Besides Sony, which developed the technology, Blu-Ray has the support of every major Hollywood studio except Universal, which backs HD-DVD. Toshiba’s disc got out of the gate in the fall of 2006 and is supported by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming console. But although HD-DVD has released more than 100 titles and several players, the Blu-Ray Disc Association – a consortium with 170 member companies – made some landmark announcements at CES.

In addition to a slate of 300 titles set for release in 2007 – from Casino Royale to both Pirates of the Caribbean movies – the BDA claims 6.2 million Blu-Ray-capable devices will be in homes in 2007, as opposed to 2.5 million for HD-DVD. Blu-Ray also has the advantage of being integrated into Sony’s Playstation 3 gaming system. These are impressive numbers given that they project there will be 55 million HDTV households by year-end. In comparison, by the end of DVD’s rookie year there were only 1.9 million players sold.

Warner Bros., which has the most extensive library of titles of any major, will debut a ‘Total HD’ disc in the second half of 2007 capable of playing either format, adding to the ‘combo’ disc it rolled out recently with both HD-DVD and DVD capabilities. More than anything, this signifies the commitment from Hollywood to a drawn-out format war.

Understandably, most Canuck studios are slow to commit to a side in the format war and will likely follow Hollywood’s lead.

‘We haven’t been in the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray camp,’ says Noah Segal, senior VP of home entertainment at Alliance Atlantis, which has output deals with New Line (Blu-Ray), Focus Features (HD-DVD), Miramax (Blu-Ray, via Disney) and The Weinstein Company (HD-DVD). ‘We’re very agnostic. We’ll go with whatever they’re releasing.’

When asked whether we’ll be seeing Bon Cop, Bad Cop on either format, Segal stresses that it’s not the titles that will drive the market, but the consumers themselves who have to embrace the technology.

‘We’re not there yet,’ he says. ‘As far as mastering up here for HD, the market is still not 100% established. We’re looking at catalogue initiatives, but we haven’t quite been able to justify the numbers. At this point, going with stuff that’s homegrown is just too big an expense.’

Mark Chandler, production manager at DVD authoring house Juice Productions in Toronto, agrees.

‘The cost of authoring the titles is very high because the development tools are stupidly expensive right now,’ he says. ‘To buy just the software to do one of the formats is in the six figures. If you want to have a deck in-house to capture a feature and then transcode it, the decks are also at least $100,000. And there’s more than one format that’s used. You’re looking at a lot of money to get into a game where at least one format is going to lose.’

If Bon Cop, with record DVD sales of more than 250,000, can’t justify a retooling, what will spur change in Canada?

‘It’s going to be the innovative studios and retailers who navigate their way through – just as they did with the VHS to DVD transition,’ says Goggins. ‘We do need for the players to come down in price, and for the titles to be out there to entice everybody who is hesitant about embracing the format.’

But Chandler says another scenario is more likely in the short term at least.

‘To author a title in Canada, most of the Canadian distributors are going to say, ‘Instead of us doing a high-def version of Lord of the Rings up here, let’s just find out who did it in the States and pay them to modify their existing project and spit out a new master for us.’ That happens with DVD, but often it’s cheaper for them to develop it from scratch [up here] because they’ve got a lot of the assets. I don’t think you’re going to see anyone developing [HD-DVD or Blu-Ray] in Canada in the next year.’

But there may be another dark horse on the horizon that could leapfrog both HD discs. Despite the dearth of long-form content presently available to Canadians on iTunes Canada, downloading may steal the race to the connected living room. It’s no secret that everyone wants to cut a deal with iTunes, but as with the current ACTRA contract gridlock with producers, negotiations hinge on complicated rights issues.

Segal is bullish on all new formats, including broadband, but he notes that even the BlackBerry took five years to crack the culture.

‘When video came [nearly 30 years ago], nobody quite understood how it was going to work,’ he says. ‘You’re going to have stores? How is that going to operate? It morphed and morphed. You’re going to find that in online for the next three, five, eight years. But I think you’re still going to see content as a hard good on discs for the next five to 10 years. It’s still the pre-eminent medium.’

At Macworld Expo in January, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled his version of IPTV (Internet protocol television) called AppleTV, a set-top box that will allow users to stream content wirelessly that they’ve downloaded from the iTunes store onto an HDTV.

Meanwhile, one day earlier at CES, Microsoft chief Bill Gates promised a revamped Xbox 360 gaming console that will act as a portal to web-based content.

‘If people with Xbox 360s and PS3s can just download the stuff and watch it,’ says Chandler, ‘then in the long run that would be a preferable experience. It just depends on how ridiculous the download times are.’

Given the R&D money being thrown behind IPTV by telcos, download times will no doubt decrease exponentially – and sooner than later.

‘I’m not 100% convinced that HD-DVD or Blu-Ray is going to totally dominate the market before downloading takes over,’ says Chandler, who believes the Canadian industry will want to get in on the action. ‘For most visual entertainment, that’s going to be your most likely scenario. People are just going to download it and watch it.’