Consider this.. HD DVD / Blu-ray

Controversy... the process of missing the point.

... more need-to-know about the format situation, since in many ways and very soon, the disc HD format will become a focal point for content that you will see on that new HDTV widescreen beauty that displays crappy tv and marginal DVD quality in all it's requisite ugliness.

Toshiba = HD DVD
READ: http://www.toshiba.co.jp/hddvd/eng/faq/index.htm
they cannot event spell, hence the current link title:
HD DVD Promortion Group site's FAQ ( http://www.hddvdprg.com/faq/index.html )
oh yes I am so filled with confidence when i see such stuff.

Current gossip and here-say: The Market-space intention of HD DVD is lower price in the DVD media costs and mass produced media and players made in China. ( can you say WalMart? )

This market tactic has near-term advantages:

1) HD DVD uses basically the same production-line tooling and materials as current single-side DVD's : The Good - the better - and the really bad.

-- the good is that its quick, proven and optimized to be cheap.
-- even better they have an HD DVD-R writeable, so you can save your stuff in the HD format.
-- the bad , in that soft plastics are used in mass DVD replication. Visible surface scratches and the dvd of today can cause playback trouble, and they scratch easily. The ultimate worse is that you buy a $50 HD DVD title and your kids or drunk friend whatever gets a scrape or 2 into the surface. Oops/. That made in china player is going to hang / get stuck / not play. ... beep ... beeep ... hello Netflix?, this movie wont run.

2) Like Printer cartridges, the holy water here is the $$ in the consumable media of the technology, and not the technology itself, the content of an HD-DVD is the profit, so the Made in China benefit of low cost is right in line with smart corporate-think... right?... And with yet further incomplete reasoning, CHINA is the worst abuser of copyright replication knock-off illegal DVD content on the planet... and Toshiba is going to hand them the keys to the safe so they can make this stuff. Hollywood cringe. Nightmare on Melrose Ave.


3) CEO confidence in format wars is low. All players are now hedging thier bets with dual format announcements, most of them are backing down from HD-DVD by adding blu-ray support to the on-paper-planning. I dont blame them.

Dont get me wrong, i want HD DVD to work out, its just that basic reasoning is falling apart at a fundamental level here... the HD-DVD camp actually has the freedom of the user in mind more than anyone does, and they are actually the good guys, wanting affordable HD for joe-sixpack and his kids.

Blu-ray - Slower to market & smarter in doing it.
BUT!!! This is also not the happy-camper crowd, since they have yet to see a true 50-gig production worthy sample, and they are taking a lot on faith, but hey it is not rocket science and they will make it work, even though there are issues ...:

1) Good for Hollywood - The BDMV is a movie distribution-specific format of the blu-ray disc. MADE to make hollywood happy, and it will... basically those deals are nearing done at a decent pace. It was the right thing to do all along, didnt happen on regular DVD, and finally it's going to be real, since they know a lot more now about how to get it right.

2) Good for ME - blu-ray discs are made with a rock hard scratch proof plastic. The people in my house would mangle my current DVD's if they werent safely locked up in the jukebox,
but i still seem to have a collection of unplayable DVDs and video games lost to mishandling and scratches/gouges.

3) Sony Ps3. A whole mega-conglomerate with its eyes on this... problem is they do not yet have a media-center operating system that is adoptable, so they will have to offer a layer on top of Miscrosoft Media Center which is the xbox 360 game machine and HD-DVD at the moment. This is where the lack of happy-campers is an issue, but fortunately the media center wars are not an impact until much farther downline in the evolution of all this.

From what i can see - and i want it all, both have strong reasons to own:, my Feature films will probably be playing off my blu-ray PS3 and my media center will use HD-DVD-Rs, since the PS3 wont burn a disc and the media center PC will, and i still get what i want, cheap burnable media and high quality DVD movies. I wont be caring that there are 2 formats since i will have 2 purposes covered at the price-point and functionality that I want.

Tally-ho the Fox... Release the hounds... call me - i would be happy to Beta Test whatever you have.