THE RED RIVER SAGA: NEWSCENTER - Mach Five Productions

BEYOND THE FORMAT WARS
(Continued from NEWSCENTER)

I've been running this blue ray hd dvd war over in my head for about six months. I'd formed an opinion on the subject last
may, and tonight I had my theory supported by a stranger without me having given him my dissertation.

My theory is this: the blue ray vs. hddvd war is not the same as what we witnessed with VHS vs. Beta. Technology moves
much faster than it did back then. In the digital age, mainstream media in HD will not be stuck on a single platform. Youtube,
myspace, google, the MP3, and the invention of the Iphone all force media to peruse a variety of different formats at high
resolutions and bit rates.

Pay attention to the writers strike. The writers are fighting because they know that television, and the internet will
merge very soon. They want their royalty contracts before this happens. Already we see Netflix, blockbuster, Itunes, and
several others offering their movies and TV shows through streaming media. The invention of the apple TV allows one to catch
any video format from the web and wirelessly shoot it to your HD television. Why is this important? It's important because
HD video will become streaming video very soon. When this happens, it won't matter what kind of HD optical media you're
buying, because you can get stream it with a touch of a button over the internet, store it on a hard drive, etc.

I spoke to a tech guy at a gamestop store today, and asked him about buying a game console. I asked him about whether he
preferred Sony's PS3 or Microsoft's XBOX 360. He preferred the 360. I immediately asked about HD DVD or BLUE ray support.
Now the PS3 has blue ray support, and the xbox only has HD DVD support if you buy a special unit to attach (extra money).
The question is why would the xbox not be engineered to naturally accept one of these formats out of the box. The guy in
the store told me that his opinion from watching the tech media news was that Microsoft wasn't so much interested in the
HD disk format as it was in its online internet support and connectivity. Now I'm not sure but this might be where it has a
one up on the ps3. Once HD media becomes streaming over the internet (and its going to happen soon: my prediction is less
than 18 months), this guys' theory was that xbox would catch HD movies from streaming sources and pump them directly
on to your tv.

Whether or not this guy is correct or full of crap doesn't really matter. What is interesting is that he and many other
people have come to accept what I also believe about this sony vs Toshiba format war. By the time the war is over,
Microsoft and apple (the secret armies offstage of the Sony/Toshiba war) will be ahead in providing dozens of hardware
and software devices to catch and store streaming HD video. Blue ray and HD DVD won't matter.

Take music as an example. Sure you can still go buy a CD from the store if you want music, but more than likely you're going
to turn it into an MP3 anyway in order to listen to it at your convenience. That's why you can get it from dozens of internet
websites in the MP3 format already. You don't have to go the store and you don't have to have a physical disk to use the music.

HD video will follow a similar route. The disk won't matter once the internet and TV merge. Just wait it out before buying a
player. When the HD streaming happens, regardless of which optical disk format remains, one thing is certain. Prices on those
players and on the disks will drop dramatically when there is competition from direct online downloading and streaming.