I think someone is out there to purposely confuse the general public.

Everyone I know seems to be in the market for a fancy new High Definition (HD) TV these days, but without the proper source, your new TV will hardly look better than your old one. Just because your television has the ability to show you a crystal clear HD image, doesn't mean that you can simply plug in the old VCR, slide in a peanut butter & jelly encrusted tape, leftover from your child's lunch 4 years ago, to show off your '80s home-movies in HD glory.

To take advantage of what your new TV has the ability to do, you will need to upgrade that old VCR to an HD format. A regular DVD is not HD. The best picture quality a regular DVD can give you is approximately 500 progressive lines of information (or resolution). 720p, 1080i, 1080p; these are all resolutions widely accepted as High Definition. But this form of video takes up a ton of information and previously, there was no widely accepted format with the capability to record or playback HD content… until now.

Welcome HD-DVD & Blu-ray Disc; two competing formats to fill the void and once again muddy the waters. On the plus side, both formats can playback most regular DVD and music CDs as they share the same dimensions. Both of these formats became available in early 2006. Both offer the ability to playback most, if not all, of the high definition resolutions listed above. Both were similarly packed with features. Of course, shortly after their release a format war ensued, we all shared the same thoughts: ‘Oh great, now I am expected to toss my DVD collection (which recently replaced my VHS collection) and spend big bucks to move to another format (that may not last).’ Remember, Betamax (aka: Beta), S-VHS, Laser disc, Video Single Disc (VSD) and Digital VHS? Good luck trying to find a movie in any of those formats these days.

Just as in previous battles, there was a clash of the titans and the more widely accepted format has now won. HD-DVD was mainly backed by Toshiba, Microsoft, Universal & Paramount Studios (to name a few). Their demise began in 2007 when Blu-ray Disc (BD) outsold HD-DVD by a 2 to 1 margin, mostly thanks to the launch of Sony’s PlayStation 3 gaming console that also dubbed as a BD player. In early January 2008, Warner Brothers announced they would only launch new movie releases in the Blu-ray format as of May ‘08. This prompted Toshiba to announce the following: “Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.” A tough pill to swallow but Universal and Paramount Studios also have since jumped ship.

And so the clear winner is Blu-ray. Or is it?

Now there are different versions of Blu-ray. Aargh! The latest and greatest version being Blu-ray Disc Java (BD-J), that allows for picture-in-picture and bonus content not previously available on regular DVDs. BD-Live is the same but adds Internet access. And right around the corner there is Holographic Versatile Discs, 3D optical data storage and Fluorescent Multilayer Discs.

Now that I have both you and even myself utterly confused, I am truly convinced that it is someone’s job to ensure we can’t make sense of it all.