The New Year of DVD
That’s one way to describe how 2006 will likely unfold. Both of the new DVD formats, HD DVD and Blue-ray, are expected to become available to consumers this year. The two formats will likely create some confusion to consumers and it will be interesting to see which one of the formats ultimately prevails in the long run. What will also be interesting is to see how these new DVD formats work with computer systems. One thing that is apparent, however, is that the HD content will probably not be accessible to applications like SSP. It is my understanding that HD content will be encrypted all the way to the display monitor. Yep, that means that if you are going to play HD content of any kind from one of these new DVDs, you will need new monitors and projectors that can properly decrypt the video stream. It also means the applications like SSP will probably not be able to capture the video stream and alter it (such as adding effects or positioning the video). However, it is also my understanding that a non-HD video stream will also be available (at the discretion of the publishers) that will also not be encrypted. This is good because it may be a while before we all upgrade our monitors and projectors.
It's interesing to me that DVDs have been around for less than 10 years and are already making a significant change. CDs have been around for over 20 years and probably won't change until they are completely obsoleted by music downloading services.
(BE46)