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The format war is over...
February 20, 2008

Wait...you knew we were embroiled in a war for the last two years, right? You know, the epic struggle between two competing DVD formats: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Well, it seems that the final disc has been hurled in this conflict. The winner is...

Well, let's be really honest. The winner is of course the corporate greed that led to the format war in the first place. The loser is the poor person who invested in the now defunct format that, like those wonderful Betamax tapes of yore, will slowly drift into obscurity. The real loser is the person who didn't follow the technology blogs and so went and bought a new entertainment system built around the failed format. That format, it is important to add, was the basis of a drive for the very popular XBox 360 platform, computer DVD drives, and quite a few standalone players. And let us not forget the massive loss of people who bought movies in the discontinued format who will certainly enjoy the privilege of buying those movies all over again. Maybe we need a new word for this, deja-tech? The feeling that you already bought that content in a different proprietary format?

Oh, and the format that you had better hope you went with if you took the plunge during the format war? I give you the new VHS, Blu-Ray DVDs. Engadget has a great roundup with all the details.

Posted by Chris Harris on February 20, 2008 | Comments (1)