This is a week old news, but I only just caught wind of it today. As you may or may not know, DVDs, as a format, are being replaced by HD-DVD & Blu-Ray discs. These discs offer higher resolution viewing than DVDs do (which is important for HDTV owners) and they offer larger storage capacities (wouldn't it be nice to have those The Simpsons box sets each coming on one disc instead of four). Here's the Press Release.
Now, of course, everyone following this has heard all of the VHS vs Beta horror stories and is aware that Blu-Ray will likely be the dominant media in the future, but until the consumers annoint Sony's Blu-Ray king and some sort of merger is made, HD-DVDs will be available.
I doubt I'll actually buy an HD-DVD player because by the time they have a large enoug library to make it worthwhile, the Playstation 3 will be available and the PS3 contains a Blu-Ray drive. Also, reports suggest that all movie houses distributing HD-DVD discs will also make those movies available on the Blu-Ray format. But not vice-versa.
Nevertheless, the fact that HD-DVD players are shipping in March and that Netflix is going to be on board with the new format immediately is pretty exciting. New formats are always fun.
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