One of HD-DVD's best features is about to be taken away
Posted by Some Guy at 10:51am on Fri May 26th 2006
Arguably one of the best features of HD-DVD is the fact that it lacks region encoding (more info at wikipedia). DVD's have had this since introduction, much to the dismay of all foreign film and anime fans. Blu-ray also will have it. But, HD-DVD currently lacks this "feature", leading some to believe that maybe HD-DVD actually "got it", that they understood region encoding does nothing but frustrate movie fans everywhere. Well, nevermind. In a DVD Forum meeting held earlier this week, it was decided to move forward with a region encoding scheme. Obviously this won't happen overnight, but it's yet another reason not to support this technology. With all players capable of being connected to the internet, it can probably be assumed that this will be downloaded to all existing players as a forced update. Thanks, DVD Forum! You're the best!

My question for you is this: what HD alternative do you suggest? Standard Def DVDs look like crap compared to HDTV ... I want DVDs to look that good. I think instead of depricating both formats, we should try to start an anti-blu-ray movement so HDDVD can prevail. Why HDDVD? Cheaper, better for the consumer in the long run. Is Blu Ray's superior capacity really that important? I don't think so. I think compression is always getting better, and HDDVD will be enough, and will be more accessible for more people.
I say screw Blu Ray.