Well, we're packing up our bags here as our time at CES comes to an end. It has been, as always, an experience that is both exciting and bewildering in its humongousness, and it will be months (perhaps even years) before the products and services that have been launched here attain their full significance. But if there was one overarching theme to this year's show, it would be ... war.

There are several big battles looming on the horizon in the world of technology. The first and most obvious is Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD. It seemed that every booth at the show was paying lip service to one camp or the other—even if they had no real product to support it. Still, oodles of products have been promised from both technologies, from an $1800 Blu-ray player from Pioneer to an as-yet-unpriced HD-DVD player accessory coming (eventually) for the Xbox 360—and, how could we forget our PM Editor's Choice Award-winning HD-DVD player from Toshiba. It would seem, for the time being, that Blu-ray will have the resolution advantage (1080p), while HD-DVD will have a price advantage. But there is, as yet, no clear winner. In the end, it will be up to the consumer to choose—or not to choose at all.

The other clash of technologies looming on the horizon is gathering force a bit more quietly. It is the coming revolution in the way television is delivered. Cable television is beset on all sides with challengers. On one side, satellite providers such as the Dish Network are already starting to embrace the next generation of television compression: MPEG4 (most digital television is currently broadcast in MPEG2, the same format as DVDs). MPEG4 compression will allow both higher 1080p resolution and a greater number of HD channels than the cable companies can offer. And the Dish Network has promised to begin broadcasting MPEG4 next month.

On the other side, telecommunications companies such as Verizon and SBC are slowly rolling out Internet protocol television (IPTV) around the country. Instead of sending hundreds of channels down the pipeline at once, IPTV uses your Internet connection (such as a DSL line) to push only the channel you're watching down the pipe, maximizing bandwidth and effectively doing the television tuning at the service provider. This will allow HD video to travel over ordinary phone lines. A revolutionary and disruptive concept to be sure, but even these nascent IPTV services have their own challengers: Both Yahoo! and Google will be launching Internet-based video and TV services. The battle to provide digital television to your home probably won't produce a single winner. But more competition (and more choice) in the arena is almost always good for the customer.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io