I’m a big movie fan. I love to watch movies at home, even more than I do in the theater. I’ve found that I can enjoy a movie more in the comfort of my own home with superior picture and sound, no lines, rude viewers, sticky floors, etc...

I’ve also always been on the bleeding edge of technology. I bought an HD-DVD player when they were first released and a PS3 when they became available. At the time, the PS3 was the least expensive way to get into Blu-ray. I didn’t intend to do any gaming on it... Really, I didn’t... I sold all of my DVDs, because once you go HD, standard definition DVD just doesn’t cut it... (Don’t worry, I’m not replacing my entire DVD collection - that’s what NetFlix is for...)

Since I own both formats that are competing to be the next-gen disc standard, I don’t have a particular stake in which one wins. I’d like to see Blu-ray win because using my PS3 is so much more fun than the clunky HD-DVD player that Toshiba has released, but both formats are capable of outstanding picture and sound quality.

From an objective point of view, it appeared that the format war might be over by the end of the year. Blu-ray software was outselling HD-DVD software by a 2:1 margin. The only HD-DVD exclusive studio was Universal, and who really cared to own Evan Almighty on HD-DVD? Then came in the spoiler of all that is easy, clean, simple and good in the world, Microsoft. Apparently, they paid Paramount and Dreamworks a combined $150 million to go HD-DVD exclusive for the next 18 months (Stephen Spielberg films excluded - he likes Blu-ray). The really annoying thing is that Microsoft could care less about which format wins this war. They just want to kill the PS3 (therefore further establishing the Xbox 360) and move everything toward downloads and away from physical media anyway. I know - business is business, but seriously. If anything pushes you toward buying a Mac as your next computer, this should... That is if you care about movies... and goodness... and little cute puppies... I heard that Microsoft tortures puppies for fun... I’m just sayin’...

As I wrote earlier, I honestly don’t care who wins this war, but this type of thing (while driving down prices on hardware and software) will only serve to further confuse consumers, and therefore will keep the available software library limited and shallow, because people won’t buy into either format. This just extends the inevitable victory of Blu-ray a couple years into the future, but it hurts both formats in the meantime. At least I’ll get a little more use out of my HD-DVD player...