Originally posted by: Fang Zei
Actually, my whole point was that it has become a joke and I think the reason this format race is happening is that the studios on either side realize just how much they have to lose by not winning. Whoever wins will control the format that will be around for far longer than ten years because please tell me, what exactly is going to step in to sweep away 1080p?

I have no idea. But do you think people even considered that when DVD was introduced? Do you think people stopped and thought "It can't possibly get better than this" or "This looks terrific, there's no way we'll ever need anything better". I'm betting the average consumer might have thought that, but the average techie knew that eventually, something else would pop up.

If I was a betting man, I'd say that downloadable content is going to sweep away physical media. People will have DVRs hooked up to home networks and they'll be able to access their content from anywhere in the world. Going to your in-laws for Christmas? No problem, you can access all your movies from anywhere.

Who really knows though. 50 years ago, a 13" tv set was probably considered huge. 50 years from now that could be up to a wall sized display (it wouldn't surprise me if that happened within the next 20 years though).

This format war really has less to do with long term profit and more to do with short term profit. If it really had to do with the long term, Paramount and DreamWorks would've thumbed their noses at Microsoft. Instead, they took the quick, short term payment with an 18 month contract, which is just enough time to kill both formats. The studios would do nothing but gain if they chose a single format. They're losing everything right now by being split.