"When DVD first launched it was anything but the perfect product," said Andy Parsons, Pioneer executive and chairman of the Blu Ray Disc Association. "There were many doubters that said there was little chance of overtaking VHS." Now, he said, the same thing is happening with Blu Ray, the natural evolution in audio-video technology.
The Blu Ray vs HD DVD format war finally ended when the entertainment giants changed sides and Toshiba announced that it would no longer be manufacturing the HD DVD player. Some buyers are left wondering: Is it really worth it?
First of all, when looking at the Blu Ray vs HD DVD specifics, you'll notice that Blu Ray discs have far superior storage space. Traditionally, DVDs were first made to hold 4.7 GB of material on a single-layer, and later, the double layer boosted storage capacity up to 8.5 Gigs. HD DVD promised to more than triple that, delivering 15-30 GBs.
Blu Ray DVDs,can hold an astounding 25-50 GBs of data, meaning that they use more advanced coding to include more audio tracks and more stunning visual information, as well as adding more bonus features. You will notice the high definition of a HD DVD or Blu Ray disc at once. Regular DVDs supported a resolution of 720x480 pixels, while HDTV offers 1920x1080 pixels.
With Blu Ray discs and HD DVD discs looking almost identical, buyers would really have to scrutinize the packaging to be sure they were not buying the wrong thing. Traditional DVDs will still play on the new machines, but manufacturers are working on phasing out the old DVD format, releasing all new movies as Blu Ray discs. In the Blu Ray vs HD DVD war, Paramount/DreamWorks and Universal initially supported the HD DVD format, while Warner Brothers, Disney, Sony, Lions Gate, Fox and MGM signed exclusive deals with Blu Ray. Finally, Toshiba pulled the plug on HD DVD and conceded defeat.
While the Blu Ray vs HD DVD war has been won, consumers are well advised to hold off on any major Bluray player purchases until the dust has settled. Tech geeks still warn that other versions of the players are scheduled to come out.
Some advocates see the Blu Ray disc player as training wheels for the technologically illiterate. "We can use HD discs to train consumers to move into digital, but it's a transition," explains Dan Silverberg, vice president of high-definition media development at Warner Bros. "Downloaded content will come, but the consumer will get quicker tutorials into video-on-demand, etc. by owning a Blu-ray player or HD DVD." While the Blu Ray vs HD DVD war is officially over, the Blu Ray vs. downloading war may have just begun.
The current aim of blu-ray and HD-DVD is to get as much public support quickly as ultimately it is the consumer who will decide which format comes out on top. With the unification talks failing it is up to you to make the decision of which format to adopt. To help you with this tough decision is the lowdown on how each format matches below.
History
The blu-ray format’s head companies are Sony and Philips with Toshiba and Hitachi heading up the HD-DVD format. This situation isn’t the first time where these two sides have gone at each other with opposing formats. The DVD format was born from the co-operation of the Multimedia Compact Disc from Sony/Philips (MMCD) and the Super Density Disc (SD) from Toshiba. Though it ended well for the consumer with the DVD format being widely adopted and becoming the new standard, it was Toshiba’s camp who came out on top in regards to royalties. This led to the work on new formats by both sides with Sony aiming to regain some of its lost market. The two projects though had been in production but not really going anywhere at the time. Sony’s Professional Disc for Data (PDD) became the blu-ray format while Toshiba’s Advanced Optical Disc becoming HD-DVD. This leads us back to the original situation where there are two competing formats with a unification looking a lot less likely.
Technical
Both blu-ray and HD-DVD use a wavelength of 405nm however the smaller track pitch on blu-ray (see Blu-ray Disc) allows more information to be squeezed on and so gives the larger capacity. However it is the differing track pitch that makes these two formats incompatible. The surface layer of the two is different also as HD-DVD uses a 0.6mm layer similar to DVD whereas blu-ray uses a 0.1mm clear plastic layer. This difference is the main reason why costs are higher with blu-ray. Costly production methods are needed to be able to make the discs and a hard coating must be applied to make the discs suitably resilient to dust and fingerprints.
Capacity
Blu-ray currently offers discs in 25gb for single layer and 50gb for dual layer. However TDK has started work on a 200gb disc which is 6x33gb layers. HD-DVD comes in 15gb for the single layer and 30gb for the dual layer. Best tests so far have achieved 45gb but 60gb is the theoretical limit. This shows that the maximum for HD-DVD is only 10gb more than what blu-ray can already offer.
Codecs
Both formats use the same codecs to play video as they are both able to play standard and high-definition. This means that MPEG-2, Microsoft Video Codec 1 (aka VC1, WMV HD, etc.) and H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC are all supported on both formats.
Security
Both blu-ray and HD-DVD have to make use of HDCP encrypted output and the Advanced Access Content System (AACS). Both HDCP and AACS are mandatory for any discs with HD video. Blu-ray also incorporates ROM-Mark watermarking technology and BD dynamic crypto which generates special keys for batches of discs. HD-DVD uses a similar system in the Volume Identifying technology.
Support
Both formats are heavily supported in both the Consumer Electronics (CE) and Information Technology (IT) industries. However blu-ray has a better portion of the big name movie and game studios supporting it which is essential for there to be a ready amount of content at launch. See below for the list of Supporting studios:
Blu-ray
20th Century Fox Buena Vista Home Entertainment Electronic Arts MGM Studios Paramount Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment The Walt Disney Company Vivendi Universal Games Warner Bros.
HD-DVD
Buena Vista Home Entertainment New Line Cinema Paramount Pictures The Walt Disney Company Universal Studios Warner Bros.
Josh Biggs is the founder of Blu-ray-review.co.uk which gives the visitor a resource for all the latest blu-ray news and product reviews with community discussion.
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