This year is shaping up to be a year of technology battles-Microsoft vs. Google, iPhone vs. Android-but just last month, we saw the end to a momentous tech showdown. On Feb. 19, the high ...

The format promised a four-fold increase in resolution over VHS and the permanence of music CDs, in that the video would not degrade as you played it. The DVD had a lot of promise.

DVD-ROM drives for PCs and consumer DVD-Video players are currently the only two volume markets for DVD. However, the Divx controversy has hampered consumer-player sales (see sidebar ” Divx slows DVD ...

On the video side, the last four most viable formats to date -- VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and Ultra HD Blu-ray -- all had to outlast a bunch of other formats that stood in their way.

Its rival, the DVD+RW Alliance, supports the DVD+RW format. Its member companies, which also manufacture discs and drives, include Hewlett-Packard, Dell Computer and Sony.

Among the technologies that were battling to become the industry standard in the multibillion-dollar home entertainment market, Blu-ray as a video format appears to have won out over HD DVD.

Universal was the only studio to exclusively support HD DVD. Paramount and Warner Home Video supported HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, while 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Walt ...

The war over next-gen video disc formats -- Blu-ray vs. HD DVD -- often feels like attrition combat: Both sides frequently announce major victories, but to the non-combatants, the whole silly ...

What happens to all the old stuff? Discarded computers, cell phones and televisions are often stripped for parts, reconditioned and resold or melted down in some end-of-life electronics processing ...

Of the two competing high-definition disc formats, Blu-ray Disc might be getting the most traction — and the most hype, with its Tuesday release of the first two "Pirates of the Caribbean" films.