über-definition

So the dvd replacement format war has begun and many are comparing it to VHS vs. Betamax, but I don't think that such a clear winner will emerge in this case. Firstly a good quality dvd player connected to a decent wide screen tv with some decent wiring (absoloutly nothing lsee than £20 here guys) looks pretty fucking sweet. Adding a high definition player to your current set up will not yield any noticable difference unless you buy a new tv that supports it. Dvd players did not recieved wide spread adoption until fairly recently, and the transition was comparitivly smooth. HD-DVD and Blu-ray will take a lot longer to achieve similar market penetration.

Let us also consider the darker side of the home theatre market. Video piracy is now ubiquitos. It is extremly easy to copy dvds, and full dvd images are increasingly available to download. We would have to observe an increase in private bandwidth to see similar availability for the new formats, but more importantly as the copyright owners move over to a primaraly digital medium there will become more aware of piracy and will enforce a much more stringent policy (drm, fairplay etc.) And what about pr0n? It's hard to deny that the availability the vhs lead to the complete obliteration of the "seedy private theatre" and the dvd provided the same content with a massive quality boost, but with competition from the internet this market is not crying out for a new format.

Sony have made a calculated desicion by including a Blu-ray player in the soon to be release PS3 and most new high-end tvs are "HD-TV ready". It seems more likely that these new technologies will gradualy make there way into consumer's homes due to the attrition and replacement of their current setup, and because of this slow uptake neither will achieve a monopoly. More likely is that we will see multi format players that will support DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray, and the only winners will be people like me who watch shit loads of movies and tv.