Well, if you think about it this whole war is about a format that entertainment is stored on. Entertainment. Most people like to throw on a movie to entertain themselves, to laugh, or to see a drama, or whatever.

The fact that the industry is so focused on dollar signs really doesn't have a place in the supposedly stress-free world of consumer entertainment.

Seeing people posture and position their companies over a entertainment storage format, looking at this from a distance, really seems like bad PR and really bad marketing. It's not really the ideal image you would want for your company or brand.

Guess the point is that even if one wins there's still going to be residual sourness around their brand image. If one group wouldn't budge it would probably be better just to give in, retreat. The industry could have been better public stewards and just went with whatever format worked.

You bet it was bad PR, HDM is in danger of having overplayed it's hand for a innovation who's merits are highly suspect to some. The war may leave a bad taste in the mouth about HD period. That's why I think BD has to "go positive" in a major way.

Don't forget the are at least a half-a-million crabby HD DVD owners out there now.

Deja-Vu all over again. 1975-1977 saw similar events unfold with Beta and VHS as Sony gather partners around Beta and JVC gathered partners around VHS. I remember our family talking to other families about what they used and how they liked their format etc. Most people we knew had VHS primarily due to recording time. Betas were like Saabs (cool but quirky). It was not until the mid 1980s that we actually rented movies to watch on our darn $1000 top loading mono VHS.

I remember DAT and other failed formats. At the end of the day all of these formats are just carriers of content.

If there is one big plus that BLu-Ray has it is Disney. Disney does a great job of family friendly marketing. Sony's recent humble press releases and comments fortel a friendlier BDA that will put a nice, welcoming face to Blu-Ray and HDM. My hope is that the specs get ironed out soon and the Java and BD+ issues get resolved so that firmware updates will only be needed to get new audio codec support and not to play movies. Mainstream buyers need "plug and play" machines. The BDA needs to ensure that future Blu-Ray machines work like DVD players and boot up content in a reasonable amount of time and work very stable.