Standard issues

A bright Saturday morning and the guy’s driving up to the big electrical superstore in that brand new mall just off the highway. A man on a mission. Park the car, quick gulp of espresso at the coffee shop, and into the store.

“Need any help, sir?” asks Tony (the name on his bright blue smiley badge). “I’m after one of those new high definition DVD players I’ve been hearing about. Supposed to be so sharp and clear. Like nothing you ever seen before.”

“Well, certainly, sir. You want Blu-ray or HD?”

“I’m sorry? Blue what?”

“Blu-ray. That’s one of the disc formats, developed by Sony. HD’s the other one, that’s from Toshiba.”

“Well, I don’t know about no formats or nothing. What’s the difference?”

“Visually, there isn’t much. Especially now that both types use the same compression algorithm. I guess it’s down to what movies you want to watch,” said Tony.

“You mean I can’t watch all the movies I want?”

“No, not right now anyway. Most of the studios are only releasing titles for the player they support; like Universal’s gone HD, Disney’s in the Blu-ray camp …”

“That’s sounds pretty dumb to me. Isn’t it better for the customer if there’s just one standard?”

“Well, the two camps just couldn’t agree. Especially since they’d spent so much developing the technologies,” explained Tony.

“Sounds like just like the 1980s with VHS and Betamax.”

“Beta what?”

“Yeah, exactly, that was from Sony as well. But JVC won out – and made a killing.”

“The standard. I guess you sure can make a lot of money if you get to be the standard,” said Tony wistfully. “But anyway, let me show you some of the machines.”

“Hey, you know what, maybe I’ll wait a while. It’s kind of confusing right now, all these blue rays and HD thingies.”

“Sure, no problem. How about a plasma TV? There’s a Saturday special offer …..” Driving back, he got to thinking about the new HART 7 standard the network guys at the plant had been talking about all week. Seems there was some big fuss with Honeywell voting against it, something to do with WirelessHART and the other ISA100 standard that’s kicking around. Almost sounds like the old fieldbus wars from the ‘90s. Anyway, it’s Saturday, I should be relaxing, he thought. Maybe I’ll go catch a movie …..