Well, the DVD forum has done it again (and again, and again, and again). On November 19th the DVD Forum steering committee approved the blue-laser HD-DVD "standard" (I put that in quotes for good reason) for continued work. This action (supposedly) creates one standard for HD-DVD, but as it was last time their action is non-authoritative and meaningless.

As the DVD Forum likes to showcase on their web site, they are not responsible for the current mess we have regarding DVD formats. (For those of you who are not familiar with just how messed up the "standards" are should read this article as it is a good DVD 101. As stated in this article, "The DVD-ROM and DVD-Video formats are well established and completely standardized. Unfortunately, things are not so clear-cut on the recordable side. There are four recordable versions of DVD-ROM: DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW" and things are only getting worse.) The DVD Forum claims that they never supported the creation of a DVD+R or DVD+RW format in the first place, so they say (after pulling their head out of the sand to speak) that there is really no problem. In their words, "Please note that the "+RW" format, also known as DVD+RW was neither developed nor approved by the DVD Forum. The approved recordable formats are DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM." Ok, whatever you say guys. Anyway, I digress. My point is that the competing DVD formats made a mess of the industry and slowed the adoption of recordable DVD drives into the PC industry because no one knew which format would "win". Most manufacturers could not sell drives because the consumers were waiting to see what format became standard. None has so far so drive manufacturers finally just started creating drives that record all four formats. Case closed, problem solved, right? No so fast.

The "new" HD DVD "standard" will hold 15-20GB a disk. This new format (sometimes called blue-laser HD-DVD) seems like shoe-in for the replacement. Current DVD recordables only fit around 4.7 GIGS on a blank DVD so this would be a boon for high definition video, personal data storage and data/audio/video "back-ups" . The problem with the "standard" however is that, for over a year, many companies (Sony, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Pioneer, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Sony and Thomson to name the founders) have been pouring money into another standard called "Blu-Ray" (actually there are about 5 contenders, but this seems to be the front runner). This standard will hold around 25 GIGS on a DVD. The thing that amazes me about this conundrum is that most of the companies that founded the "Blu-ray" format participate on the DVD forum that just voted on the "new" standard. One probably evident point, but I feel it needs mentioning is that these two formats are not compatible. Looks like the "Blu-ray" founders lost the vote eh? I am sure there is a long sorted story that includes many back room conversations that I would love to hear if anyone knows what really happened.

So here we are AGAIN, with two (at least) "next gen" DVD format standards. What appears like it would be a boon to the industry will again turn out to be an all out war that only serves to do two things:

1) Confuse the consumer
2) Stall product implementation

What can we do? Not much.

Well, I am not the only person a little put out by this state of affairs. Quasar Tech has already started a HD-DVD: ONE FORMAT ONLY CAMPAIGN. Check out their site. I don't know what impact they will have, but the site has everything you ever wanted to know about this issue so it will be a good seat from which you can watch the carnage.

I guess if push comes to shove we could all march their next conference wearing ONE FORMAT t-shirts (their last few meetings have been in warm climates, so judging from their track record at least it will probably be a nice destination) but that might be a bit overkill. A petition would be good, but I think it will fall on deaf ears as the problem really lies in the fact that this all boils down to a return on R&D money which is even more of a desperate struggle than peace in our time. Which is sad, very sad. So I guess we just sit and bitch, er I mean wait.

I guess we should be happy that there are new advances in this technology that hold more data. However I can't but stop and observe how capitalism gives with one hand and takes away with another. There doesn't seem to be a good solution to that problem, but if I come up with one you will definately be the last to know. After all, a guys gotta make a living right?

Whew. Well, I am happy I got that off my chest. Thanks for listening, and good night.