This one's for the nerds

I've had a suspicion for about 9 months now that the high-definition DVD rollout was going to be a flop.

Short version of the story: Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD are very, very expensive and offer a image quality improvement that won't matter at all to anyone without a Hi-def TV. Even for people with a HDTV, most consumers will have a hard time understanding why they should choose one standard over the other.

Once the price of HD-DVD or Blu-ray burners comes down, I expect them to be snapped up for personal computer use, but until then I think most people will sit this out.