Blackmoor Vituperative

I have learned that there is a grassroots campaign asking for movie studios and DVD manufacturers to get their act together before dumping a pile of mutually incompatible high definition DVD (HD-DVD) formats on the market. I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, I wholeheartedly support any effort to get manufacturers to pull their heads out of their collective ass. The nonsense with DVD-R, DVD+R, ad nauseam is ridiculous: there was and is no need for the introduction 0f DVD+R or DVD+RW. DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD-RAM are the official standards, and they are completely adequate to the tasks they perform.

On the other hand, I do support technological diversity, because I think it permits consumers to participate in the weeding-out process. Would you rather have used Betamax videotapes during the 1990s, with their two-hour limit on tape length? I wouldn’t. I am also leery of the ongoing war that large media companies are waging against fair use — a war they are waging against you and me, using the courts, technology, propaganda, bullying, and any other tactic that they can get away with. If they are permitted to dictate the next DVD format, you can be sure that it will be so encumbered by “digital rights management” features that it will make the current “region code” nonsense seem a utopian dream by comparison. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually tried shackling each DVD to a specific player, and then charge you a fee every time you push “Play”. There’s simply no lower or more debased creature than a control freak.

So: do I want there to be a single, robust, universal HD-DVD standard? Yes. Do I trust the studios and large media companies to create it? Absolutely not. I want competing standards. I don’t want to see the next DivX become a success because it has no competition.