How Crypto Won the DVD War - Via Threat Level:
Sony's victory in the DVD format wars was largely due to its embrace and Toshiba's rejection of a sophisticated anti-copying scheme that promises to be relockable should it be cracked at some point in the future.
Toshiba earlier this week announced that it will stop making HD DVD players, surrendering the field in a five-year battle with Sony's Blu-ray to become the disc format of the future.
Support from studios has been widely cited as the reason for Blu-ray's victory, but few consumers know that the studios were likely won over by the presence of a digital lock on movies called BD+, a far more sophisticated and resilient digital rights management, or DRM, system than that offered by HD DVD.
“The adoption of BD+ as part of the Blu-ray disc specification … was a key factor in our decision to publish on the format,” Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment executive Mike Dunn said in a 2007 press release. “This added layer of content protection gives Blu-ray yet another distinct competitive advantage.” read more... »
Michael Gartenberg - The Best is Still the Enemy of the Good: "I just finished a report on future of next generation optical disks that will be published shortly with a few surprises. It's really looking that both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray may well turn out to become the laserdisk for the 21st century. read more... »