Dan Luke wrote:
"Sam Spade" wrote:


I'll bet you that consumers will sit on the fence long enough waiting for
prices to come down that either Blu-Ray or HD DVD will die quickly; maybe
they'll even wait long enough that both will flop.

There is an awesome amount of industry power behind both formats. It's
like the bullies on the 4th grade playground splitting and fighting each
other instead of the little kids us ;-

There is no difference in quality, unlike Betamax and VHS. So,
whichever one wins will make no difference in that respect.

The big players are being complete fools by not having adopted
standards. Then again, they probably wouldn't have adopted the ATSC
standards had not the over-the-air regulators (such as the FCC) forced
them to do it. As it was, they kicked and screamed long enough that
digital HiDef overtook analog HiDef (for the unending benefit of all of us).

Similar issues are at play with RNAV avionics and MFDs. Unlike VOR and
ILS, which had (and have) an over-the-air component, only the aviation
regulators are involved. And, being high-tech stuff, the aviation cert
folks cannot comprehend it all.