subject: Computer Software And Blue Ray Video [print this page] Format wars have been around about as long as there has been hardware and software. And even with almost two decades inside the marketplace, DVDs remain an occasional source of confusion for the typical consumer of home electronics. It would appear, nonetheless, that the Dvd format wars have now been relegated to the past with HD-DVD's recent abdication with the market to Blue-Ray Disc.
The now defunct HD-DVD Promotion Group had begun as a somewhat rebellious outgrowth with the earlier Dvd Forum. The Digital video disc Forum was an alliance of industry titans dedicated for the promotion of and advocacy for the Dvd format. When the march of technological progress saw the growth of cliques all around different competing standards or formats, a split ensued where member businesses coalesced around new organizations dedicated to a particular format. The HD-DVD Promotion Group was 1 such result of that schism, in reaction towards the earlier Blue-Ray Disc Association.
Blue-Ray Disc had been developed by Sony although continuing research into the laser technology behind the Dvd. Although virtually identical to a standard Dvd today, at the time of their introduction Blue-Ray Discs needed to become housed in an expensive caddy, and they also necessary special players that would accept them. The Dvd Forum eventually decided on a proposal endorsed by Warner Brothers and numerous other motion picture studios called DVD-9. But cliques managed to form around the numerous formats anyway, with Toshiba and NEC themselves promoting 1 of their own known as Advanced Optical Disc, which is what came to be adopted by the Dvd Forum as HD-DVD.
Attempts were made to avoid the kind of costly format war that Sony had engaged in with Panasonic during the late '70s and early '80s over Betamax versus VHS. Unfortunately, the Blue-Ray Disc Association and the Digital video disc Forum's negotiations at a compromise had been not successful. Aside from the aforementioned matter of physical incompatibility, an additional stumbling block had been each and every side's insistence on utilizing different software program platforms for interactivity, with the Blue-Ray Disc Association favoring the 1 based on Sun Microsystems' Java language while HD-DVD advocates wanted Microsoft's iHD (later renamed "HDi").
As neither side was able to compromise enough and each side was comprised of important business leaders, the stage for a costly format war was set. However that only means the release of more formats to tamper with that can function in respect to previous formats that have been not excelled.
