Initially, I really didn't get why there was even a conflict over the format of the next generation of optical media, the mode through which high definition video recordings could be sold. The primary advantage of seemed HD-DVD I understood to be that it's cheaper to run an assembly line that can switch from HD-DVD and normal DVD, which frankly didn't sound all that great. In terms of space, HD-DVD would also be a minor improvement over regular DVD, whereas a DVD holds multiple times what a CD can. Blu-Ray makes a much bigger jump, and like DVD, should allow more things that weren't possible in existing media. HD-DVD would have to be replaced with something else much sooner. Then I found out why HD-DVD is winning the format war: Sony is stupid.
Obviously we already knew this, with their stupid anti-piracy software their CDs secretly install on computers, and the exploding laptop batteries don't help. But they're at it again, announcing that they're selling the first Blu-Ray drives, which will be usable for storage, since they can read data from blu-ray discs. However, you won't be able to play Blu-ray movies on them, because they haven't sorted out what DRM they'll use, but they're selling the things anyways (you can burn a pirated movie onto a Blu-ray disc and play it on one of these drives, though). Seriously, Sony Electronics have a superior product, but are holding it back because Sony Media hasn't figured out how to break it yet. This has apparently happened multiple times in the US at least, with stuff like MiniDisc, which apparently the rest of the world thought was great but we missed out on. The Sony Playstation which got DVD players into a lot of homes won't play Blu-ray (not enough anti-piracy hardware), so nobody's going to buy Blu-ray discs because they have a player already. Meanwhile HD-DVD is showing signs of actually being available, like Netflix is planning on renting HD-DVDs.
The other stupid thing is Sony is limiting the licensing, to control who puts out content in their format. Having a Sony-only format that only plays on Sony equipment and is entirely controlled by Sony helped kill Betamax, but apparently it's better to lose money than to lose control. This explained one thing I'd really been curious about, why the porn industry was behind HD-DVD. Apparently it's because Sony doesn't want to allow any porn producers to put anything out on Blu-Ray. So basically they have an electronics product you can't buy anything for in the immediate future, that will only have limited content as time goes by, and a format that requires very specific DRM-capable equipment.
The great thing about all of this is, nobody can tell the difference. VHS to DVD is huge, DVD to high definition is... not so huge. The only thing that really blows your mind in high def is sporting events, and you can't really sell a lot of recordings of live sporting events. Also, there are formats with better compression already spreading that make the DRM'ed Sony format obsolete. However, the real irony is Sony has now put out a product that can only play pirated movies, that really brightened my day.
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