Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Format Wars II: Attack of the standards

Let us now consider the advantages of having multi formats.
For one thing, since more people work on more standards you get the standard diversification benefits. And then there are the technological bottlenecks that some technologies bring with them from birth- it's much easier to rectify these in a totally new format rather than working on fixing the bug through countless debugging sessions. The thing is after you realize there is a bug you can figure out what went wrong where rather easily, but since software and codecs are huge intermingled webs of solvatory code you can't be entirely sure what else might go wrong if you rectify that small problem that faces you.
Then you come to realize that average consumers being able to work their way around next gen media like pros will have a lot of cautious people weary(but most geeks and hackers out there always find a way around the ever increasing barriers that corporations impose consistently).

AV Formats: which will prevail?

Be you a hardcore technophile or just an average electronics consumer, you're sure to have come across a plethora of compatibility problems with digital media.In its submission digital media promised a whole new take on what was accepted as standard in that day and age. But has it really made life simpler? Not really.I admit the past few months have had tremendous impact on these issues, but that was with new hardware which left pioneers on the consumer front wondering whether they made the right decision in persuing new technologies at their submission. In turn they may be discouraged from taking interest in future products at their time of debut and when corporations don't see the pouring in of money they expected with the new product they may decide to discontinue production, no matter how intuitive the technology behind the product is.Such technology usually ends up in archives gathering dust, the more fortunate companies manage to sell-off to government run operations which keep it discreet and away from further innovation, thereby effectively limiting its audience.Hence, it is conclusive that commercial value reigns supreme in any market- which effectively explains the net boom and unfortunately subsequent net bust.Another point to bear in mind is that the emergent support for current-generation multi formats is because tech vendors are trying to focus on the next generation of digital media. If you have come across anything with regard to the new DVD standards in particular you'll be given the impression of a wrong footing yet again. It's a fair question- why would the industry-leaders yet again take sides and go for two mainsteam standards when a unified standard will mean less trouble for consumers?It's all down to supply and demand, you see in most cases in the IT sector supply far overweighs demand and hence a company attempting to be the best in a particular area finds itself bombarded with competition. It has quite a few options out of this problem, among which one option is to promote proprietary technologies. Another is to collaborate with competitors and in a manner of speaking 'share each others' best attributes'. Combined we see the prominance of tech-alliances, two of which are behind the Blu-ray vs. HD saga.However, it isn't as bad for consumers as one would initially speculate (though no one's arguing it is annoying non-the-less)...How? Stay tuned for my next post: )

Intro