Arcam are well-known for their high-quality AV equipment, including several upscaling DVD players (such as the DV137, DV139, and DIVA AVR350), but they haven't yet entered the true high definition market.
They may well not for quite some time, either, if CEO Charlie Brennan has anything to do with it. During his Australian tour, launching Arcam's Solo Movie 5.1 home cinema system, he likened the HD DVD/Blu-ray war to the situation in Iraq.
It's "already a mighty mess with no real winner," he claims, and there's "no exit strategy".
"In the next one to two years, neither format will attain critical mass to achieve the public's confidence enough to spend their hard-earned cash," he said.
Advising consumers to stick with what they've got (presumably upgrading to an Arcam system doesn't count) he suggested that many of the current crop of high definition equipment would end up on the scrap heap.
He also said that the majority of consumers won't be able to tell the difference between standard definition and high definition broadcasts, except on large TV's. That's something we've seen before. Nevertheless, it won't stop Arcam pushing their 'near HD quality' DVD upscaling equipment.
I'm not deliberately knocking what Brennan has said, but I think that it's wise to separate the HD optical disc war from 'high definition' itself. The mess of formats is a big problem for consumers, but the advent of high definition itself is highly significant and important.
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