Another day, another format war. Just when we've begun coming to terms with Blu-ray's victory over HD-DVD, another conflict may be on the horizon: Blu-ray vs....DivX?

Last week DivX, Inc. and LG Electronics announced production of a new LG DVD player that will play DivX files in high definition. The newly certified DivX player could give a high definition experience to users who have burned high definition DivX files to a DVD or USB drive, all while maintaining high definition audio and visual quality.

Almost exactly a decade ago, pundits were examining a parallel argument; could DivX eradicate the DVD? In an article dated August 13, 1998, SF Chronicle writer Dan Fost took a gander at both sides of the debate; DVDs were fairly new on the scene, and only just beginning to push out the antiquated, vulnerable VHS format. ("The long-awaited DVD revolution appears poised to catch on.") Ten years ago, opponents to DivX cited its "self-destruct" mechanism - the condition that pay-per-view downloaders would only have a limited window to view their movies. But what if the time window point was moot? What if, in today's age of Netflixing and video-on-demand, viewers embraced a high definition alternative to buying or renting Blu-ray discs?

Meanwhile, Toshiba's got a nifty upconverting player on the market - not official HD quality, but darn near it, according to one reviewer...

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