Earlier, I mentioned that Popular Mechanics had some of the best coverage I’ve seen of this year’s CES. Of course, they weren’t the only crew covering the show–my second place vote goes to the gang at Gizmodo, who get a special nod for doing a super job at the MacWorld Expo while CES was going on. In particular, if you’re interested in the new Apple iPhone, they’ve got blanket coverage going, including hands-on impressions.

It was interesting seeing these two shows run concurrently. By any objective measure CES is by far the larger show, but MacWorld had the big news splash based on the iPhone and an SEC investigation of stock options awarded to Steve Jobs. That these two things dominated electronics news this week says a lot about the industry and its product cycles. Here’s what I think:

It’s getting easier for “just folks” to create high quality audio and video. CES saw scores of companies presenting their small form-factor HD camcorders, podcast kits, solid-state camcorders, and digital cameras. The result is a rising corps of people who are learning audio and video production, just as desktop publishing tools in the 1980s brought out an army of paginators and publication designers. As was the case with desktop publishing, 90% of the audio and video produced will be crap, but with so much to sample, we’re in for a great world of creativity and citizen journalism.

I’m like a lot of people in that I’ve had an HD television for a good while and have yet to receive an HD feed. The DVD vendors are ready to fix this, though first there’s the small matter of which HD DVD format to adopt. This edition of the CES didn’t do anything to resolve the issue. Sony is pushing Blu-Ray as hard as it can, while a consortium of other manufacturers wants the world to watch HD DVD. If you’re old enough to remember the Beta-VHS wars, this has a disturbingly familiar ring. Since I don’t have to own one or the other right now I’m going to wait for things to settle out, but if I had to bet it would be on HD DVD. Why? It seems to be the format of choice for the early adopters in “adult films”, and that market can drive an awful lot of hardware sales.

Between increasing LCD yields and improved HD projectors, home theatre screens just get bigger and bigger. Me, I want to be the first on my block with a drive-in screen. If you know a good source for the awful-quality speakers that clip onto your driver door window, let me know…

There’s more to come, in the consumer market and in the blog. More of both, later.

Categories: Entertainment, Media