HD-DVD may be feeling a little blu

I’d be feeling a little blue too, if I were competing against the world's leading electronics and media giants that include Apple, Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson).

All of these manufacturers will be bringing to market Blu-ray also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), the next-generation optical disc format developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA).

This super high capacity format provides rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. The format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs and can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc.

It may prove to be an effective and efficient way to back up artwork files, our small web and graphic design studio process can manage to generate up to 25 GB of data each week. I’d be happy pay up to $2.00 or more to back up the week’s works – “cheap insurance”, as Matt would say! (by the way, Matthew is one of our highly regarded designer’s, an established member of the Cyber team). Sorry!, I digress, back to the story.

Backward Compatibility a big +

Most players will be able to read/write CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs using a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical head, so you don't have to worry about your existing DVD collection becoming obsolete. In fact, most of the Blu-ray players coming out will support upscaling of DVDs to 1080p/1080i, so your existing DVD collection will look even better than before. While it's up to each manufacturer to decide if they want to make their products backwards compatible with DVD, the format is far too popular to not be supported. The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) expects every Blu-ray Disc device to be backward compatible with DVDs.

Blu-ray v/s HD-DVD

Although both Blu-ray and HD-DVD are similar in many aspects, there are some important differences between them.

The first is capacity. Because Blu-ray utilses a lens with a greater numerical aperture (NA) than HD-DVD, the laser spot can be focused with greater precision to fit more data on the same size disc. This allows Blu-ray to hold 25GB per layer (50GB on a dual-layer disc), whereas HD-DVD can only hold 15GB per layer (30GB on a dual-layer disc). Blu-ray has also adopted a higher data transfer rate for video and audio (54Mbps vs 36.55Mbps). The greater capacity and data transfer rates for Blu-ray will allow the movie studios to release their movies with higher quality video and audio than the HD-DVD format.

The second is content. The Blu-ray format has received broad support from the major movie studios as a successor to today's DVD format. Seven of the eight major movie studios (Warner, Paramount, Fox, Disney, Sony, MGM and Lionsgate) have already announced titles for Blu-ray, whereas HD-DVD only has support from three major movie studios (Warner, Paramount and Universal). This is an important difference because some of the studios might only support one of the formats, so you won't be able to get your favorite movies in the other format. Choosing the format with the most content support minimizes this risk.

The third is hardware support. The Blu-ray format has broad support from the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers, including Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Pioneer, Sharp, JVC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, TDK, Thomson, LG, Apple, HP and Dell. The Blu-ray format will also be supported in the next-generation PlayStation 3 (PS3) video game console. This means that you will have a lot of choice when it comes to players and hardware. The HD-DVD format has far less supporters, so the amount of players and hardware will be very limited. So far, Toshiba is the only company to officially announce a HD-DVD player and it will only support 1080i output, while the announced Blu-ray players will support 1080p.

Anyone remember Betamax?

In the early eighties, there was a stoush between two video formats Betamax and VHS, Betamax proved to be the better format, however, I recall, Sony and Toshiba were the only manufacturers that provided this format, where as the VHS format was offered to the market, by the likes of JVC, Phillips, NEC, Panasonic, Sanyo, Sharp, Pioneer and Hitashi, resulting in Betamax (the better format) losing out, it simply couldn’t get market penetration.

At this stage it appears that Blu-ray will have the leading edge over HD-DVD, it also appears it will have longevity due the vast amount of electronic manufacturers in the market providing the same format.

But there’s one thing I know for sure, I will not be paying $1,300 for a unit, I’d be happy to wait for a year or more when I’ll be able to buy one for a tad over $200.00 or maybe less.