The discs may look the same, but there are several physical differences which might have given HD-DVD a practical advantage. For one, it keeps the same .6mm distance between the disc surface and the data layer as regular DVDs, thus they both can use the same player optics (though both red and blue laser diodes are required) and the discs can be produced in the same plants using the same materials. Blu-ray, on the other hand, shifted the data layer up to .1mm, requiring that a harder, more scratch-resistant material be used with new production facilities and different (and more expensive) player optics. Since compatibility with standard DVD's is a given for any HD player, this adds considerable complexity and cost to Blu-ray players vs. HD-DVD.

Now these physical differences give Blu-ray an advantage of 25GB per layer versus 15GB per layer, but with VC-1 or AVC compression (which close to doubles the compression possible with standard DVD's MPEG2) 15 or 30GB is likely quite enough. (Blu-ray discs have tended to waste the extra bandwidth by using MPEG2 and uncompressed -- rather than losslessly-compressed -- multichannel audio.)

What's recorded on the discs can differ as much. Blu-ray uses embedded Java (BD-J) while HD-DVD uses Web technology such as HTML and CSS (HDi) for interactive content. Blu-ray supports region-limited playback, while HD-DVD drops support for regions.

It didn't need to happen this way. Sony's new CEO is on record as saying that Sony's refusal to work with the HD-DVD camp on a common standard was a mistake, but that by the time he had anything to say about it Blu-ray was too far along to back off.

"Don't be too proud of these technological terrors you have created. The power to fill retail stores with unaffordable electronics is meaningless, compared to the power of the Bush Depression."

(apologies for not continuing with your SW theme)

Never underestimate the love people have for TV. Health care and food can go by the wayside, but people don't cancel their cable to save money, and while they can't buy a fancy HDTV and B-R player with what they have now, stores offering 36-month, interest-free credit will make the temptation irresistible. I think that with the new HDTV prices, they're selling tons of the things, and obviously lots of those sales are to people who really shouldn't buy them.

And yes, B-R players will drop in price considerably. That doesn't even count as a prediction, it's so obvious. But anyone buying an HDTV today has to buy a Blu-Ray player at the same time, right?

By the way, speaking of 36-month interest-free credit, I read the fine print on Circuit City's 24-month agreement. If you miss a single payment, not only does the 20+% interest kick in, but it's backdated to the original purchase date. So, you buy a $2000 TV/B-R system, pay it off dutifully for 2 years, but if you're late with the last payment, some huge number gets tacked onto the bill.

I was wondering how they could afford to loan out money interest-free, and now I know.

I hear Cuba needs a new leader.

Vulva La Revolucion!

Where we'll all be working, and unable to buy them, because too much of our money will be going for duct tape to try to waterproof the cardboard boxes in which we will be living.

Get real. Don't be too proud of these technological terrors you have created. The power to fill retail stores with unaffordable electronics is meaningless, compared to the power of the Bush Depression.

Beyond that, the stuff that runs on these systems is the same old crap the megacorporations have decided is perfect fodder for us peons. Gee, seeing the whores of Desperate Housewives in 1080i is so much more fulfilling than seeing them on my old standard TV set.

So Blu-Ray has "won", but I predict a Pyrrhic victory. Who needs another spinning disc in the budding era of high-capacity solid-state memory?

As the NY Times notes in it's article "Toshiba Concedes Defeat in the DVD Wars": (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/technology/20disc.html)

"On Tuesday, [Toshiba’s chief executive Atsutoshi Nishida] announced that Toshiba and an American partner, SanDisk, would spend at least $16 billion to build two flash memory plants in Japan."

The spinning disc is a legacy of Edison and his wax-cylinder sound recording technology of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Already, companies like Nokia are shipping films like "Spiderman 3" on flash memory with their leading mobile phone offerings here in the UK. Samsung are already offering 64GB flash memory laptop SATA drives. And a company called BitMicro has announced an 832GB flash drive at CES last month.

A movie (HD or otherwise) on disc is just bits and it makes no difference to the film where it's stored, on a DVD, Blu-Ray, flash drive or hard drive...you just need capacity to store it.

The future is, once again, Star Trek. Think Spock, or Uhuru, and of the brightly coloured data units they plugged into the Enterprise computers.

In a few years time, you'll be buying your movies on what looks like a credit card and you'll plug it into your computer or your TV, or your dedicated player and storage for your films won't take bookshelves.

And THAT will be a worthwhile reason to upgrade. And I'll bet Toshiba will be making the chips and a lot more money than Sony will ever make off of Blu-Ray.

Little known factlet - VHS was developed by 3M, who made the corporate decision to give the technology to Matsushita (Panasonic) for free and only make media. Why? Because of the Sony Syndrome. Sony spends millions on R&D to develop new technology. Sharp sends a guy down to Best Buy to pick up a new Sony and tear it apart. Sony spends tens of millions on physical plant to manufacture the new technology. Sharp hires the guys who built Sony's factory and gets everything at a discount. Sharp has a much lower break-even point than Sony, so prices plummet. So 3M decided that building a factory and making all that investment was a losing proposition.

The existence of Wal-Mart and their pricing practices on electronics virtually guarantees that there will be a $150 Blu-Ray player for Christmas. They have demonstrated their ability to set the market on consumer electronics in the past (a lot of mid-tier electronics stores are gone or fading fast thanks to their flat screen TV stunt a while back) and I have no doubt they will do the same with Blu-Ray.

What constitutes a successful format and/or form factor? How long does it have to stick around? Depends on the size of your collection and how much you spent on your equipment, I suppose. Problems I see with Blu-Ray with for the long term is that the discs are big, they are relatively fragile, and they spin around very fast (which requires a lot of small moving parts in the players and makes playing them in your car problematic). Optical media is being attacked from 2 sides - ever increasing bandwidth (my BellSouth guy told me to expect a 10Gb do-everything connection to my house within 10 years) and ever decreasing prices and increasing capacity for solid state media.

So if Blu-Ray gets replaced by super-cheap SD (or some other larger-scale form factor that is still smaller and sturdier than optical disk) media in 10 years (or less), will it have been a success? Can Sony actually make money on this with price pressure from one side and new tech coming from the other? The window has already started closing.