With the war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD soon exhausting how much can be done on paper and set to be seen battling on the store shelves, more people and businesses are coming out of the woodwork to voice support for one or the other. For as much heat as Microsoft has taken for things such as product activation, "Windows Genuine Advantage" and crazy licensing, it's strange to hear Bill Gates speaking about consumer rights for digital content. Microsoft is backing HD-DVD technology, and has made some critical comments about Blu-Ray's protection schemes. Though both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have built-in DRM-style capabilities, Gates prefers HD-DVD. The end of the article includes him stating:
" It's not the physical format that we have the issue with, it's that the protection scheme on Blu is very anti-consumer. If [the Blu-ray group] would fix that one thing, you know, that'd be fine."
Like any other software company, however, Microsoft is going to be supporting both. Though with huge players such as Intel and Microsoft lending their support to HD-DVD, Blu-Ray may be facing an uphill battle in the actual market. In its defense, Dell and HP have criticized Microsoft in the past for their comments about the two formats. Let's just hope we don't see DVD discs with activation and expiration built-in.