Former Apple director calls for boycott of next-gen HD video products
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Feb 24, 2006 at 12:14pm
Mike Evangelist, former director of video product marketing at Apple, is calling for a boycott of next-generation HD video products, including HD-DVD and Blu-ray. In a Writer’s Block Live column, he says the companies involved are trying to engineer a “complete removal of the concept of fair use.”
“They are setting up systems that will completely control how, when and where you can use content that you buy,” he writes. “Even worse, they can retroactively change the rules!”
Blu-ray (BD) is the name of a next-generation optical disc format jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, a group of leading consumer electronics and PC companies (including Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson). The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. A single-layer Blu-ray Disc can hold 25GB, which can be used to record over two hours of HDTV or more than 13 hours of standard-definition TV. There are also dual-layer versions of the discs that can hold 50GB.
The competing format is HD-DVD format, developed by Toshiba. It’s based in large part on existing DVD technology and could well turn out to be less expensive to produce than the Blu-ray. In fact, Toshiba claims it can make HD-DVDs disks for about the same price as current DVDs. Also, players of disks based on Toshiba’s HD DVD technology would be able to play current DVDs as well as those in high-definition, according to Toshiba. Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, Disney, Warner Brothers and how HP have all backed the HD-DVD format.
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Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
