After months of stonewalling, Sony has finally admitted that its next generation game console will be delayed by at least six months. For non-gamers, the news might well seem irrelevant, but the reasons behind the delay will affect anyone who watches DVDs.
Coming to confused consumers worldwide - whether they like it or not - are two new High Definition DVDs, one of them from Sony, called Blu-ray the other from a Toshiba-led consortium, known as HD-DVD.
Blu-Ray, due to be incorporated into the PS3 and the reason behind its delay, is late largely because a handful of powerful Hollywood executives is paranoid we'll all start burning copies if it doesn't have the digital equivalent of Godzilla protecting their interests.
If you connect your snazzy new high-def DVD to an HD capable TV with an HDMI connection it will play in all its 1000-plus lines finery. But if you want to watch on a PC or heaven forbid use your old analogue TV and you don't have the right copy protection software, then expect a degraded pic at best a blank screen at worst. Add two competing formats in a Betamax v VHS re-run, and you have a recipe for consumer confusion and disinterest.
There are other reasons why Blu-Ray and rival HD-DVD haven't apeared yet, but it's copy potection that's really holding things back.
Obsfucated by its own myopia, Hollywood is already losing billions from declining DVD sales. If it doesn't wake up and smell the coffee, the squillions it hopes to reap from next generation DVD sales could well disappear, as viewers look online to those illegal sites that the entertainment business has tried, but so far failed, to shut down.
