Format Wars: Blu-Ray Vs. HD-DVD and a Possible Peaceful Co-Existence

Coming to an agreement on an industry standard for two (or three) competing recording or video devices on the market has been a contentious part of the American economy and the electronics world since, yes...the 1910's! Sooner or later, one format usually won out in these wars while confusing or angering consumers. Sometimes the end result would be utter disgust from the consumer who would take out their venom by not accepting the superior product and instead embracing the lesser-quality one for years. Most results from various competing formats were solved eventually--mainly because time had made a previous recording or video device seem archaic. But in more recent years, new hi-def formats in the DVD world seem too soon for some consumers who just finished a decades-worth of building a regular DVD movie library. Now that they'll have to buy their favorite movies all over again in Blu-Ray or HD-DVD--it'll only confuse and anger people even more as polls are starting to reflect. It might be more confusing (or maybe enlightening) if Blu-Ray and HD-DVD end up having an unprecedented decades-long stalemate in who should be the lone hi-def DVD format.

Because of the unpredictable patterns in the hi-tech and business world now--going by the history of past format wars may not necessarily be a good barometer for the direction of hi-def DVD's. Nevertheless, every single format war had competitors biting the dust...and it was more or less Thomas Edison in one of the first of these battles during the 1910's. When American inventor Emile Berliner invented the disk record (that eventually evolved into the LP record in the mid-20^th century)--Edison's tin cylinders were the standard for recording someone's voice starting already in the 1880's. Right before WWI started for America (1915)--families were faced with their first purchasing decision between two wonders of American audio recording invention: To keep buying the mainstay Edison cylinders, or buy Berliner's newly-improved recording disks that had been struggling to keep up with the popularity of cylinders in sales since the 1890's.