Blu-Ray: At Least It Doesn't Explode Like That Laptop Your Friend E-Mailed You About.

There are few things more depressing than watching an electronics company shoot itself in the face, over and over again.

Sony's Blu-Ray high-definition DVD format continues to fumble towards a marketing crater, with two newish revelations combining to ruin their weekend.

First, it is confirmed that the budget-priced edition of the upcoming PlayStation 3 won't be equipped with an HDMI output, limiting its high-def output to component video only, and raising the possibility that discs will carry an image-inhibiting token that drops the component resolution down from high-def 1080p to standard-def 480p.

(Both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD allow for image-inhibition, which allows only the HDMI output to carry a 1080p signal, and while the studios have said they won't include the token on their initial releases, that doesn't preclude them from deciding that "initial" referred only to the first few titles on a given format.)

So much for the hope of a Blu-Ray player priced to compete with Toshiba's entry-level HD-DVD unit, rather than the $1300 set-top monster available from Samsung.

And now, Engadget reports that the Australian edition of Sony's new Blu-Ray DVD-ROM drive can't play Blu-Ray movies, due to the presence of high-definition copy protection (HDCP) that's incompatible with most DVD software.

If anyone was selling HD-DVD players around here, I'd say the format had a distinct advantage. As it is, it just has the appearance of being ahead by not screwing up as badly as its competition.

I'm suddenly very tired.

Technorati tags: DVD, HDTV, Blu-Ray, Sony, HD-DVD, High Definition