How To Pick Your HD Format

High definition TV is not complete without a playback system, and that means DVD's. Two formats have emerged -- HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have been competing for consumer dollars for a while, and a lot of people are wondering which system they should get. No one wants the next Betamax.

So, here's a hint. Buried in this otherwise-amusing article, we find that Sony, holding on to Blu-Ray proprietary technology and controlling its use. Since they will not allow their technology to be used in this manner, if you were of a mind to do so, you could not buy a Blu-Ray format porno DVD. But the more open technology of HD-DVD is being used for that purpose.

Whether you consume* pornography or not, it's a ten billion dollar industry that drove demand for emerging technology in the past. And Blu-Ray won't be a part of it unless Sony decides to get on board with peddling smut. That means that a lot of consumers will be buying HD-DVD's because of the availability of porn -- and they will therefore also need their mainstream movies to be in that format. So we can safely assume that the HD-DVD format is going to have more demand because of this, and therefore that more mainstream movies will also be produced in HD-DVD.

Note that whatever technological superiority Blu-Ray may offer is completely irrelevant to the issue of which format is going to prevail. Sorry, techno-geeks. So the question is... will you buy your HD-DVD in order to watch porn, or will porn force you to buy an HD-DVD?

* Why is the phrase "consume pornography"? If you stop and think about it, porno is more of a durable good than a consumable. You don't "consume" a mainstream movie, you "purchase" it or you "watch" it.