> This whole +/- thing is stupid. So, what, now they're going to do it > again, worse, with HDDVD/BlueRay or whatever? Peh. I'm unfortunately not up to date with the new technologies that are coming. If you could describe their differences in a simple way, I'd be very grateful.
I'm not well versed in the technical differences, either, but I've been hearing about two incompatible standards and it doesn't sound like a good thing to me. Betamax VS VHS was before my time, but I can see how thefrustrations that must've been present in the early days will happen all overagain. Unless I'm terribly misinformed. :-)
BlueRay and HDDVD are the next generation of High Definition recordable media, with expected capacities of up tp 50gb per disc (4 layers). This is achieved by using a new smaller Blue laser, hence the name :). BluRay is being developed primarily by Sony and HDDVD is being led by Toshiba. The problem is that different movie companies have backed different formats which has led to somewhat of a stalemate, and it looks like you will need to have a player for both types of disc in the future.
For those of you who are interested to find out more, I learnt all about this from http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139511&page=1&pp=15, a great forum for all things AV related (www.avsforums.com in the US I think).
The concensus on this forum is that DVD-R is probably the best recordable media for compatibility purposes, but the manufacturer is important too.
Just my 2pWackojacko