I’m sure we’re all up to speed with the HD DVD / BLU-RAY battle that’s been hitting the headlines for the last few months. Toshiba (creators of the HD DVD format) have pretty much announced they’re stepping down … so that’s it, we can all relax and go back to buying our films on BLU-RAY. But …
… i can’t help think, it’s all been a colossal waste of time. Just imagine … if they had agreed at the start of this. Several months when we could have been advancing or improving technology in general.
So if you are a big tech company (or maybe you work for one), please pass this message up the chain. Put aside your difference and your plans for global domination and work together, ultimately we will all benefit. Here are a few suggestions were we can make a start and i’d love it if other people could leave comments with their ideas too.
1. Make all mobile phone power adapters the same.
2. One power plug and socket that could be fitted world wide.
3. Get rid of PAL, NTSC and Secam TV formats and create a new single format.
4. Let’s ditch all the cable types … Composite, Component, S-VHS, Scart, HDMI … create a new one that’s high quality, sound and vision in one cable.
5. Create one digital video format that’s high quality, small files and free to use.
6. Make Internet access free for everyone.
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Stephen Pirrie 19 Feb 2008
ReportSo whilst Toshiba and Sony have been playing silly buggers for an unsustainable format, certain others have leapt ahead by making rentals and films available online and wirelessly, in an environment where watching trailers is easy and free, bypassing tanglible formats altogether. I am not going to get sucked into another format. VHS, DVD, Blu Ray… Cassette, CD, MiniDisc… (I learnt my lesson with MiniDiscs!) Surely digital files will make it easiest and survive the longest. Blu Ray? Who cares. Not me!
Doc 19 Feb 2008
Reporthi sp thanks for the comment … i don’t disagree, except … well what format should those digital files be in mp3, mp4, divx, aac, quicktime, avi, wmv or wma to name a few.
Jonny 19 Feb 2008
ReportHeadphone jacks should all be the small stereo mini-jack style … why do planes have their own two pinned thing? Just to score $2 when you need their headphones!
Stephen Pirrie 19 Feb 2008
ReportGood call. I agree on settling a digital file format up front. But lets get over the tangible formats now rather than let it become another hole in our pockets, before we return to laserdiscs! From a practical POV though, it’s impossible to settle on one digital format because they are constantly improving them. It’s a competitive advantage like any patented innovation - and it’s cheaper to develop and easier to distribute so we can expect more of them. Wouldnt you be a bit cheesed off if you couldnt access the higher compression yet lossless codec DivX just released because you had agreed to stick with a different one previously? If we did that we’d all be stuck with bitmaps rather than jpegs… Where is the incentive for the companies who develop the codecs and come up with the real innovations? What’s the process for choosing which is best? The problem is that there doesnt seem to be a great deal of difference between some of them and then they become used to ransom us into using different file types on certain players. Maybe the money is where the player is? Someone just needs to create a player that covers all the bases. Any format at all. If only…