04.09.2008 — The HD DVD/Blu-ray battle may have been hell for consumers, integrators, retailers, the studios … well, just about everyone, but, quite frankly, it was great for us.

Our Internet traffic soared. Ad revenues for both CE Pro and Electronic House increased as each camp tried to out-spend the other, in the hopes of winning the big prize.

Then, poof—it’s gone, thanks to that one fateful announcement by Warner Bros. in January.

So what are we to do? Another format war is definitely in order, but I can’t imagine any will be as fruitful as the one that just expired.

Still, there is hope, if we can inflame some of players in these emerging battles:

Zigbee vs. Z-Wave: This is about the closest thing we’ve got to that old battle between X10, CEBus and LonWorks. EH Publishing did pretty well by that one.

Both Z-Wave and Zigbee are great low-cost, two-way RF protocols for lightweight devices, such as home controls. Unfortunately, Zigbee isn’t quite a “standard” that encourages interoperability among disparate products, but it’s getting there.

Z-Wave, on the other hand, is all about interoperability. Before we get a real battle going, we need to get those Zigbee guys (Control4, Crestron, Centralite, AMX, Colorado vNet, etc.) to embrace a true standard so that the costly “Battle of the Zs” can begin.

Blu-ray vs. VoD: Blu-ray triumphed in one battle, but there will be a bigger war to wage once Internet TV hits the big leagues.

Most video pundits agree that Blu-ray players eventually will give way to other HD content delivery systems, such as IPTV and video-on-demand (VoD) from cable, satellite and other providers. But few agree on when this transition will occur.

Why wait? I say digital content providers should start getting the word out now! Let our readers know that there is an alternative to disc players.

NAHB vs. USGBC: In January, the National Association of Home Builders rolled out its National Green Building Program, an education, verification and certification program that allows builders to toot their green horns.

But the program is not yet a nationally recognized “standard,” like the government’s Energy Star program and LEED for Homes, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council.

With all the green in “green” these days, you’d think the NAHB and USGBC would duke it out in the pages of Electronic House, CE Pro and TecHome Builder. What the heck, let’s throw GE in the mix, and let’s see if we can’t give its Ecomagination program a little boost.

HDMI vs. DisplayPort: I never thought it would get this far, but it looks like we may yet see DisplayPort (developed primarily for the PC sector) making its way into CE devices.

Our friends at Ethereal, staunch HDMI loyalists, introduced a DisplayPort cable at CES. Other CE manufacturers are taking notice.

Both camps should invest in sizeable print and Web advertising campaigns to win the hearts of consumers and integrators—before it’s too late!

Please consider what you can do to rally some of these foes, because when EH Publishing benefits, our readers benefit. Thank you.

Please don’t flame us with ridiculous comments. The preceding article is obviously tongue-in-cheek.