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to your HDTV- and the maximum length of that cable is limited to less than 20 feet. If you're like me, you've moved your living room around so many times it's starting to feel like Tetris in there, and now, apparently, you're going to have to move no more than 20 feet away from the wall socket where your cable comes in? Ouch!

High Definition DVD players are a particularly sticky problem. There are DVD players that are "HDTV compatible" which merely means they will plug into your HDTV, not that you can play any high definition movies on them. There are DVDs that are sold as "high definition," which is a meaningless designation. There are DVDs that people think are high definition because they are in widescreen format, and HDTVs look like widescreen TVs, right? Sure, but widescreen format does not magically turn a DVD into a high definition disc.

The key here is that there are two major competing "brands" of high definition DVDs: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. HD-DVDs are generally inexpensive, and the technology is available on many players, particularly the cheap ones. Blu-Ray is owned by Sony and its proprietary format is such that discs are more expensive and the players are more expensive (often by a factor of 3-4 times). So why is it that a bunch of studios are saying they will only release movies in Blu-Ray? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm going with the "economic recovery package" theory.

Learn more about this author, Stephanie Bryant.
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