Sony like to have its own controlled proprietary media format for every single series of electronics devices that they make. Their hope being of course, that one of them will be the one that will catch on in the way that things like MP3, VHS and DVD have done, and in going so, they can make a stinking fat haul of cash from it.
They fail to see though, that the reason those formats were as stupendously successful as they were was nothing to do with technical specifications or marketing. It was because they were easily or freely availible to all users and manufacturors for a reasonable price, did their job properly and did it well within any claims that may have been made.
Each successive generation of this type of technology brings the consumer a greater degree of material, either in terms of qualities or extras or functionality or whatever you want to insert that people want (at least what we are told we need). The real reason that progress happens this way though, really, is because the major publishers of material and electronics need us to keep upgrading in some way shape or form or they lose their revenue.
I'm very much a follower of the "I bought the LP 30 years ago, I SHOULD be entitled to be able to use the CD/SACD/DAT/CASETTE/MP3 version" school of thought. But thats another issue entirely, and im continuing to drift further and further away from the point of this thread.
Even months and months ago when both of these products (Blu-ray and HD-DVD) were in development I had my money on HD-DVD. I hope that my initial and continuing beliefs are ratified. Blu-ray when compared to HD-DVD, draws an awful lot of comparisons to the Betamax vs VHS story.
Ill be interested to see which of the formats rental houses like Global and Blockbuster favour. Ill also be interested to see if flick and amazon dvd postal rental use one rather than the other. Given how fragile Blu-ray discs are supposed to be according to some people. I think that that puts the rental industry heavily in favour of HD-DVD, just as it was for VHS.
Bored of writing now.