NextGen DVD wars: Everyone Loses

The upcoming war between HD-DVD and Blue-Ray DVD is heating up now that players are starting to hit the market. I myself will be waiting this battle out and choosing whomever the winner is. Usually, I’m an early adopter of tech, but in this case the price you might pay for adopting to early is a useless piece of junk sitting in your den. This whole thing brings back memories of the BetaMax VHS wars of the early eighties. I’m barely old enough to remember that. What I do remember is the first time my dad rented a movie, it was Robocop, for our brand new VHS VCR. Man, it was soooo cool to watch that one guys hand get blown off with a shotgun in slow mo, or to watch that one dude explode when the car hit him.

At any rate, I found an interesting article on Business Week that sums up why we all might be big losers if Blue Ray, and Sony, win the next-gen format war. This is a big deal for anyone who likes to fiddle with electronics like I do, and for videophiles in general. Sony and their clandestine copy protection just downright scares me, as they did with their rootkit fiasco last year.

-Steve