A New DVD Format War
An Article by Roger Faraway
Just when you thought it was safe to buy a nice new all-singing all
dancing DVD player/recorder, along comes a new format war to add to an
already confusing marketplace.
Once the original DVD standard settled down, DVD players quickly became
one of the most successful consumer items of all time. The new format
revitalised the home entertainment market, and hardware manufacturers
benefited both directly and indirectly, as enthusiasts clamoured to buy
bigger and better televisions and sound equipment to get the best from
their new DVD players.
Then came recordable DVD, but the problem, as is so often the case, was
that there were a number of different recording standards, all of them
incompatible. It was just like Betamax versus VHS all over again. Now
low-cost multi-format recorders supporting all the standards are hitting
the streets, the recording problem is becoming less of an issue, and so
one could be forgiven for thinking that�s the end of the format wars.
But technology has a habit of advancing at a relentless pace, and now a
new battle is set to commence. The hi-tech companies are fighting it out
to establish the standard for next-generation �high capacity� DVDs.
Higher capacities will allow for even better picture and sound quality
than the existing standard, and will become more popular as high
definition televisions really start to take off.
There are two competing high capacity DVD technologies, HD-DVD (High
Definition DVD) and Blu-Ray. HD-DVD works by using multiple layers on a
single disk, and its main advantage is its low production costs. Blu-Ray
is technically superior � it uses blue laser light instead of the red
light used by existing players. This blue light has a smaller
wavelength, and so the pits that it creates on the surface of the DVD to
encode the data, are smaller. Smaller pits means more pits in the same
space, which means higher capacity. Blu-Ray can store more information
than HD-DVD, but presently is more expensive to implement. When Blu-Ray
is combined with the multi-layering technology behind the competing
format, it will see capacities rise to as much as 200 Gigabytes.
Existing DVDs hold only 4.7 Gigabytes.
The battle will most likely be won by the format that gets the most
support from the big Hollywood studios � nobody is going to opt for a
DVD standard with a small catalogue of titles. With Blu-Ray being backed
by the likes of Hitachi, HP, and Sony (who own MGM studios), it would
appear to have the edge. Hollywood however, is remaining non-committal,
afraid of backing a losing horse. For now then at least, the formats are
caught in something of a chicken-and-egg situation. As has been the case
so many times in the past, only time will tell which format will come
out on top.
