High-Definition Recording: What's the Hold-Up?

Via PC World

No one will question that the high definition format war will be full-tilt this holiday season. However, I must say that in many ways, I'm unimpressed by what I'm hearing coming soon, from either Blu-ray or HD DVD. Still no news of a high-definition recorder here in the U.S.--even though Japan already has an HD DVD recorder from Toshiba, and a selection of Blu-ray Disc recorders (new Sony models were introduced in Japan today).

A year ago, I'd heard whispers of a high-definition recorder conceivably coming in time for the holiday season this year. At this point, I think we'll be lucky to hear about recorders at CES--for next year's holiday season.

So why the delay? For one thing, we're still waiting on the final version of the Advanced Access Content System, the copy protection scheme used by both Blu-ray and HD DVD, and which will govern things like recording and the oft-talked about yet currently non-existant managed copy (which will enable legal copies of movies from disc).