In what has become a depressingly common ritual, three major Hollywood studios–Viacom Inc.’s Paramount, General Electric Co.’s Universal and Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros.–recently committed themselves to issuing movies for home viewing in a new high-definition video format known as HD-DVD.
What’s depressing about that? Namely that three other studios (Walt Disney Co., Columbia/Tri-Star and Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Inc.) have thrown in their lot with a different format known as Blu-Ray.
Both systems use blue-light lasers to record the increased resolution and fidelity of high-definition video on discs and play them back. But their similarities end there; each will be incompatible with players made for the other.
Consumers will be faced with choosing either a Blu-Ray or an HD-DVD player, and therefore with being deprived of a full catalog of videos from the opposing camp’s studios. This is sure to delay the market’s embrace of the new technology until many Yuletides from now.
Nevertheless, both camps are shunning compromise. The Blu-Ray Disc Association, led by Sony Corp. (owner of Columbia/Tri-Star and, in short order, MGM), says its discs will have greater capacity than the competition–five times as much as today’s conventional DVDs and about 66 percent more than HD-DVD. The latter’s supporters, led by Toshiba Corp., say HD-DVDs will be cheaper to produce and will reach the market as early as 2005, as much as a year ahead of Blu-Ray.
The home video field seems to be ridiculously vulnerable to such costly format wars. The classic case was the clash between Betamax videotape technology, which was developed by Sony, and VHS. Despite being arguably superior, Betamax lost the marketing joust and was reduced to a historical footnote, resurrected periodically by reporters for cautionary paragraphs like this one.
A wireless network that reliably connects three computers and a video-game console to a single broadband account is based on an industry standard known familiarly as Wi-Fi and technically as 802.11g.
Wi-Fi was created in 1999 by a working group of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Any Wi-Fi unit is designed to work with equipment from any manufacturer in the business; you can build a single home network without using the same brand twice.
Wi-Fi’s interoperability is one reason the technology has taken off, with wireless hotspots now available in coffeehouses public parks, hotels–even churches.
Ironically, the popularity of the original DVD standard itself arose from a competitive compromise. One format had been developed by Sony and Philips Electronics, another by Toshiba and its partners. Hollywood refused to commit itself to movies on DVD unless they got together. Thanks to the resulting hybrid, DVD players became the fastest-selling consumer electronics product in history.
But memories must be short in Hollywood and high-tech. This time, it will be up to wise consumers to keep their hands in their pockets until these industries get their act together.
