Present Tense: This week saw the culmination of a war that has seen nearly two years of bitter conflict: millions of dollars were spent by either side developing cutting-edge technology to gain the upper hand; and the main actors shifted allegiances more often than in Napoleonic Europe.
It was ruthless and brutal, but there could be only one winner in this battle, and an heir to the DVD throne has been decided: the announcement by Toshiba that it was to cease making HD-DVD players meant that Sony's Blu-ray is the victor in the first format war of the 21st century.
Now, how many people will actually be affected by this? After doing some quick calculations on the back of a postage stamp, it's probably no exaggeration to suggest that more Irish people will be disadvantaged by RTÉ's decision to cease its medium wave broadcasts in March than will have their movie viewing ruined by the death of HD-DVD. The slow death of an anachronistic radio wavelength plainly isn't as sexy as the sudden collapse of a shiny new movie disc, so medium wave will perish in obscurity while HD-DVD's passing will be portrayed as a defining step towards a brave new high-definition future.
As we were repeatedly reminded, the protracted battle between the two next-generation media formats was Betamax versus VHS, mark two. That format war, or course, is technology's own Vietnam - it definitely happened, but the lessons are lost to the fog of war, the errors destined to be repeated again and again. HD-DVD versus Blu-ray, on the other hand, is more like the US invasion of Panama - we know it happened, but we can't for the life of us remember why. It's not like millions of movie watchers have been tearing their eyes out at the relatively low-definition picture offered by DVD. Has anyone ever wished, while watching a movie on their surround-sound home cinema system, that Tom Cruise's pearly whites could be even more sharply defined, or that Angelina Jolie's tattoos could be even more convincingly airbrushed? Didn't think so. This format war is solving a problem nobody had.
Of course, this victory contains the sort of feel-good comeback story arc beloved of Hollywood movies, as it represents a kind of karmic revenge for Sony's bloody nose with Betamax. Full disclosure here: back in the early 1980s, my father, after full investigation and careful consideration, bought a Sony Betamax machine instead of a VHS player. It was, after all, widely considered the superior format. For years, however, this meant that instead of renting from the VHS-equipped video libraries, we had to record movies off the TV, a habit born of the natural stubbornness that such an investment in nascent technology can inspire. (Could this nonconformist video environment have influenced my own development? Is my Betamax baptism the reason I am a Mac user rather than a Windows sufferer? Why I prefer Family Guy to The Simpsons, or AC Milan to Manchester Utd? Why I'm a non-believer rather than a child of Abraham? Maybe technological determinism exists after all.)
Video cassettes of any variety evoke that bygone era of Ataris and boom boxes, and they're due an ironic-nostalgic renaissance - after all, how many stories do we see every year proclaiming the rebirth of vinyl? The release yesterday of French director Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, in which a video store clerk and his friend have to remake classic movies, DIY-style, should kick-start that trend. The fact that video cassettes were a royal pain in the ass will be conveniently forgotten.
Medium wave, on the other hand, looks like it will be inconveniently forgotten. According to RTÉ, the "MW service has brought the world into homes all over the country since 1926, capturing moments of history and life through decades of news, sport, features and entertainment". Why, that sounds delightful, but wait, there's more: "The technology offers poor value for money, is environmentally unsound and out of date, with poor quality reception and audio."
You'd think in this day and age that the environmentally unsound argument would seal MW's death warrant, but RTÉ goes on to point out that it will save more than €1 million a year by halting MW broadcasts, and that listeners in Britain or in our maritime regions can tune in on the more extensive long wave frequency. (When did we start calling the west coast "the maritime regions", by the way? Or did we secretly annex Nova Scotia?)
Opponents to MW's decommissioning point out that there are all sorts of listeners who simply can't listen to RTÉ Radio 1 any other way, from parts of the community in Northern Ireland to emigrants in Britain to elderly people in the furthest reaches of the country. Senator Denis O'Donovan, for instance, pointed out that many MW listeners "are people of modest means who might also be living in remote areas. They have been using this service for years and years."
This picture of MW listeners powerfully calls to mind a mythologised Irish archetype, still living off the stony soil or treacherous seas, most likely smoking Sweet Afton tobacco as they gaze out on the Atlantic through rheumy eyes, dependent yet on the wireless for the comforting company of Pat and Ryan and Joe and Marian. So trouble yourself not with the epic battles between new formats and shiny discs and glamorous movie studios, and take a moment to mourn instead the little radio wave that could.
Shane Hegarty is on leave