A new format war is upon us. I speak of course of the HD video war. In one corner is the storage heavyweight Blue-ray, and in the other the slightly familiar HD-DVD. To the naked eye both look identical, shiny and round, just like a regular DVD. But beneath the surface of each lie different technologies, and a whole lot of politics.
Before consumers were in this mess it was DVD Vs DIVX. We all know how that panned out. Even before the optical disc wars Betamax and VHS were slugging it out over which format would dominate tape. However, this time it’s different. This time there is a third contender, and it’s not a format at all, it’s a delivery method.
With the advent of affordable high speed Internet, content can be delivered right to the consumer, cutting out the need for optical discs entirely. Apple, Amazon, TiVo, and others have launched services where users can purchase and download content online. No trips to the store, no discs to get scratched, no problem.
I believe when the dust settles on this war neither Blue-ray or HD-DVD will be standing. Hopefully, when a victor does emerge, there will be something decent to watch.
If you have been following the console wars you are surly aware of Nintendo’s success with the uniquely named, and marketed Wii. Although I don’t own one yet, my son and I stop at our local GameStop every chance we get to play.
Before we started doing these freeloading recreational excursions, my son had never played a video game. He immediately picked up the Wii, and was able to play games without instruction or frustration.
This got me thinking about how the Wii was different from other gaming systems. By making the game controls a natural extension of the user, Nintendo has tapped into a very powerful control mechanism: the human body.
Although my son had not yet mastered a mouse, keyboard, or complicated button combinations, he had already mastered his body, and therefore the Wii.
Here is a video of my four year old playing a racing game on the Wii:
Vimeo, a video sharing site akin to YouTube but for a more discriminating user, has now launched HD video streams in gloriously sharp 720p. For those of you stuck in the analog, rabbit-ears age, that is 1,280 by 720 pixels of resolution.
I sampled some of their fare, and was quite impressed with the quality and speed of the video. The content however, like most video sites, still leaves something to be desired.
Other sites will probably follow suit and start offering higher video quality. It won’t be long before we have a regular resolution arms race on our hands. Alas gentle readers, this leaves me wondering: do we really need to see aunt Deloris’s 80th birthday party, or a montage of groin smashing shenanigans in high resolution?
It also appears that the move to higher quality video is in part inspired by a lucrative advertising contract with Canon. Throughout the site you can see ads promoting the obvious superiority of HD video, and Canon’s logo is even watermarked over select videos.
I have selected from the cream of the crop a video for your sampling (you still need to visit Vimeo for the HD version):
Cursed with a little bit of free time this weekend, a need for a break from coding, and no desire to go out, I went to Borders on Saturday night to buy a book on Java (the incomparable Thinking in Java), since I discovered after a few hours of coding it on Friday that I’ve gotten a bit rusty (more on that later). Somehow, I ended up with all four “Revenge of the Nerds” movies, bundled to sell at $19.99. The original is a favorite of mine, but I hadn’t seen the other three, so I figured, why not? Then I watched them all in a row. Read the rest of this entry »
