Format Wars

The high definition disk format war sucks. Blu Ray vs HD DvD makes me toss and turn in bed at night. Every time a netflix dvd arrives in the mail I cringe at the old formats short comings in an HD world. Even with upscaling. I hate that my cable HD channels look better than any DvD I put in. Even with HDMI cables.

The scales seem to be tipping towards Blu Ray (as seen above), but unless the major studios aligned with HD DvD are willing to switch then that is neither here nor there. It is either 100% compatible or it isn't. There are rumors and speculation about studios switching, but unless they actually have I will keep my nose out of it. Both formats are essentially the same, which leads me to think that alternatives have a big opportunity in the space.

The major alternative that has caught my attention is HD content delivered via streaming devices. Off hand Xbox live and iTunes come to mind, but there many more players players fighting for your television time. I think it is a safe assumption to say that HD disk won't be the smash hit that DvD was when replacing VHS. If anything once the format war is settled in 1-2 years they (Blu Ray) will make a modest profit and end up competing primarily with streaming media.

Site Watch
Over the years I have become a bit of a vocab geek. If I hear I new word I get excited and either ask the user or get the web and go hunting for origins and definitions. Definr has be come my go to in recent weeks for quick definitions. It is web 2.0ish in name and function and does everything I want it to do. The auto suggestion upon each letter added is the coolest feature and often helps me discover new words.