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So we're not going to get just one recordable DVD format. We're going to get three, all mutually incompatible. There are subtle differences between them but they're not dramatic and any of the three would be acceptable if it were universal; the real reason they're incompatible is because each has been proposed by a different company or group of companies who want to get rich off everyone else's sales. There are two lessons from history which need to be observed. The first lesson is from the great VHS-Beta war: VHS didn't take off until after it had already defeated Beta and become the de-facto standard. The second lesson is from Digital Audio Tape (DAT). Based on blackmail from the recording industry, DAT was designed (crippled would be a better word) with severe copy protection mechanisms, so that it could not be used to reasonably record from CDs. DAT died and vanished without hardly leaving a ripple, even though it was technically vastly superior to the audio cassette. The lesson is this: customers want one format and won't buy a copy-protected format. They want to record anything and everything and be able to give the copies to any of their friends without having to worry about standards compatibility. (For all its quality problems, VHS gives them that.) Without that, none of these standards is going to succeed. Recordable DVD doesn't offer enough over CDs and VHS tapes to make it worthwhile to customers if it is severely restricted by copy-protection mechanisms and incompatible formats. (discuss) |
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