BILL GATES SPEAKS OUT ON DVD FORMAT WARS....a quick look at one of my favorite sites Slashdot www.slashdot.org today and I see a link to several stories covering Bill Gates opinion on the latest DVD format wars: Bill Gates Speaks Out Against Next-Gen DVDs Here is a brief excerpt from the DAILY PRINCETONIAN on the current entertainment industry combat between the two formats for future DVDs -- Blue Ray and HD DVD. This debate is not unlike the debate that went on at the start of the VCR industry when the question was which format BETA of VHS will be adopted by consumers.
HOLLYWOOD2020 Blogger Joyce Schwarz on her opinions on the FORMAT WARS: Because Hollywood2020 has not covered all of this DVD controversy previously since the mainstream media is covering it practically every day, we want to note that this blogger, Joyce Schwarz, author/consultant JCOM, www.joycecom.com and an emerging entertainment guru is not ignoring the debate, but rather following it on her own at many of the important trade shows. At the presentation at CES (CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW) in January,2005, Schwarz asked the Philips execs on the dais at their "press conference/lunch" why we need these new digital disk formats at all. At that time the response by the Philips execs and the audience in general was that consumers want and expect to be able to store their digital media in a permanent format such as Blu Ray or HD-DVD. Quite, frankly, we agree with Bill Gates that the format may not really matter in the long run --being 5-10 years. It's our opinion that digital media will be sold, swapped and downloaded digitally or beamed to our handheld devices via infrared or Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or other wireless connectivity systems. The portable drive seems to be the current portable storage solution for Hollywood studios, post-production and music companies for transferring and updating content and data. What makes these other formats think that they will win out vs a portable drive which can hang on my key chain.
SERVER IN THE SKY....at the National Cable Show in New Orleans in 2004, the president of Scientific Atlanta said during his press confab that the future is all about storage. Which is certainly true. The question is what kind of storage. I want my stuff when I want it. And the next generation of Tweens born into the digital consumer era and MP3 music players just may agree with me -- why buy CDs of songs, why buy DVDs when you can download content, beam it swap it, mix it and customize it for you and your posse. I'm one of those who wants a SERVER IN THE SKY -- pull down what I want when I want it. Store my "stuff" somewhere safe in the sky to pull it down on whatever device I want. Or even better pull it down to see it, watch it (watching may turn out to be different than seeing which may mean just glance or use as a reference tool ie maps, phone numbers, data etc) and hear it when I want to 24/7/365.
SAFE AND SKY -- of course the key issues here are what makes the content SAFE to pull down. Who stores it for me? What price do I have to pay beyond my preference of FREE! and what SKY means -- satellites, community servers, Cable, telcos, cellcos or ? See what you think of these comments by Gates and kudos to the Princetonian reporter for his sage questions...and a thousand thanks to Slashdot for watching the world from thousands of perspectives...and sharing it with me and millions on the edge of FUTURETAINMENT:
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