High def battle: Blu-ray vs. HD DVD

By Andy Patrizio

Update: On Feb. 21, 2008 all six major motion picture studios announced their intentions to support the Blu-ray Disc format, solidifying the Blu-ray Disc as the victor in the DVD format war.

So, have you heard about Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD, the new, competing DVD formats? If not, you're not alone. Just this past summer, the market research firm Parks Associates found that less than 10 percent of consumers surveyed were even aware of the two formats battling to replace your DVD player. And those who are aware of the competing formats are not happy about this format war in the least bit. That's not a formula for market success.

DVD aficionados like myself have been aware of the potential for dueling formats as far back as 2003 and were screaming on every Web site and blog we could find, begging the studios and consumer electronics firms not to split the market. But greed won out and it happened anyway, launching Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD in 2006.

Both formats have strengths and weaknesses. Here's some information about them, so you can make an educated decision.

Blu-ray Discs

Blu-ray is the creation of a consortium of consumer electronics firms, with Sony taking the lead. The name comes from the blue laser used in the player, and it was misspelled so Sony could trademark it. Blue lasers have shorter wavelengths, which means data can be packed closer on the disc. HD DVD uses a similar laser but the discs have structural differences.

Blu-ray discs have a capacity of 25 GB per layer, and like DVD, publishers are producing dual-layered discs, for 50 GB of storage. Standard DVD is 4.7 GB per layer, so the 5x difference really shows in both the high-resolution video and advanced audio. Engineers are working on four- and even eight-layer discs, for 100 GB and 200 GB of storage, respectively, but that's a ways off.

In addition to its movie playback capabilities, Blu-ray has a Java technology layer, called BD-J. It's still in the early stages, and Blu-ray DVD players will likely require some kind of upgrade when the code is finalized. Most players come with Ethernet ports, so upgrades won't be a problem.

BD-J allows for features such as accessing the menus while the movie is playing, something regular DVD can't do, and picture-in-picture features. For example, the upcoming release of "Master & Commander: The Far Side Of The World" will feature an on-screen map showing where the HMS Surprise is in the ocean and its course as the movie progresses.

Blu-ray has support from Sony Pictures, MGM, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate and Walt Disney Co. More than 300 titles have been released on Blu-ray, many of them released at the same time as the standard definition release.

Other studios haven't been as committed. Warner Bros., initially an HD DVD backer, decided to hedge its bets and cover both formats. It wisely released "300" on both formats and so far, that is the top selling high definition DVD of 2007. That is not unusual; action movies tend to sell well to early adopters. For example, in 1998, the first full year DVD was on the market, one of the top selling (but critically panned DVDs was "Godzilla." However, Warner has also held back on Blu-ray. Although it released "The Complete Matrix Trilogy" on HD DVD in May 2007, a Blu-ray version has yet to see the light of day and has no release date.

Blu-ray enjoys considerably support from consumer electronics manufacturers. Eighteen Blu-ray players are on the market from Sony, Pioneer, Philips, Panasonic and Samsung, plus Sony's unfortunate PlayStation 3 also has Blu-ray playback. (Unfortunately for PS3 owners, that's about all it's good for.)

 

HD DVD

HD DVD began life as a Toshiba creation called Advanced Optical Disc, or AOD. In the early days, it seemed like Blu-ray had all the momentum and would be anointed as the successor to DVD. AOD just had Toshiba and NEC behind it. So there was considerable shock in 2003 when the DVD Forum, the consortium that shepherded the original DVD format to the market, sided with AOD, and renamed it HD DVD.

Because it was an enhancement to the existing DVD design -- as opposed to a new, ground-up design like Blu-ray -- HD DVD only has 15 GB of capacity per layer – that's a 20 GB difference when comparing dual-layer HD DVD and Blu-ray discs.

For a long time it looked like HD DVD was languishing. It had one exclusive publisher, Universal Studios, while Blu-ray had four exclusives (Sony, MGM, Disney and Fox). Target began to heavily favor Blu-ray in its stores, and Blockbuster decided to roll out just Blu-ray.

Then in August, the wind shifted. Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Animation, a Paramount subsidiary, announced an 18 month exclusive deal to support HD DVD only. Blu-ray supporters were stunned, as Paramount had been releasing Blu-ray titles. With a huge summer hit in "Transformers," it seemed momentum had swung in HD DVD's favor.

HD DVD has had an uphill battle. It's got one consumer electronics supporter, Toshiba. But Microsoft is a big supporter of HD DVD and its video codec, VC-1, us used on HD DVD discs (and it looks quite good). HD DVD's answer to BD-J is HDi, an XML-based technology that offers interactive functionality similar to BD-J.

HD DVD has the Xbox 360 drive and three decks, all from Toshiba. Microsoft released an add-on drive for its Xbox 360 that would allow for HD DVD playback, and that proved quite a hit, selling more than 100,000 units at last estimate.

With no cease-fire between the two formats on the horizon, Samsung has come up with the only viable solution: one deck that plays both formats. (LG Electronics attempted to make a dual forma drive but it had compatibility problems.) The BD-UP5000 is just reaching stores at this writing and the early reviews loos good, but it won't reach many home stereo cabinets with a suggested price of $999.

Common And Uncommon Ground

Here's the one factor the two have in common: Their fates are inextricably linked to the success of HDTV. Blu-ray and HD DVD display their video in the same high-resolution format as HDTV, 1920 x 1080 pixels per inch. DVD is displayed in 720 x 480, and because a CRT/standard definition TV can display up to 480 pixels, an old TV works just fine for DVD.

To get the benefits of HD DVD or Blu-ray, though, an HDTV-capable set is a must. Your standard definition TV set can't get the full resolution. Sure, you could play back an HD DVD movie on a standard definition TV, but that would be like listening to a symphony orchestra on a mono speaker.

The two formats also share 1080i/p resolution. Warner Bros. is in both camps, releasing movies on both formats, and numerous DVD review sites have noted there is no discernable difference in video quality. From there, though, things change.

One area of difference is audio. Standard DVDs use Dolby Digital or DTS audio. While quite immersive, these formats use "lossy" compression, where the audio is compressed to save space and when reassembled, it's not quite the same as it was before compression. That means there's a minor degradation in quality. HD DVD and Blu-ray can support Dolby TrueHD, which is a lossless format. Audio stored in TrueHD is identical to the original studio master.

However, that means a lot of space, and this is where the differences between HD and Blu-ray start to show. Paramount Pictures could not use TrueHD for its HD DVD release of "Transformers" because of "space limitations."

One thing in HD DVD's favor is price. At $179, the Xbox drive is $179 and the cheapest HD DVD player, Toshiba's HD-A2 (which has gotten good reviews as both an HD and standard definition player) is $199. Blu-ray's cheapest deck is the $399 BD-P1000 from Samsung, plus a few $450 decks from Sony and Panasonic.

Both sides have released approximately 300 titles and are rushing their back catalogues out as fast as they can. In desperation to jump-start sales, the two sides are in a race to give away the store. It started earlier this year with the HD DVD camp giving away three HD movies if you bought a deck. Blu-ray upped it to five free movies, and now it's up to seven freebies from either, through retailer Best Buy. That aggressive campaign will continue through Christmas.

However, it can't erase the overwhelming sentiment that standard DVD is good enough, which is what consumers say in many surveys. However, high definition DVD's problem may not be that DVD is good enough, but rather, that HD is too good.

HD's quality exposes many things that you should otherwise not see. It exposes makeup and special effects, especially in older movies. Many old horror movies are said to lose their effectiveness in standard and high def because the fakeness becomes obvious, thus diminishing their impact. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or "Evil Dead" work better on grainy home video than high definition.

Also, in today's computer graphics-obsessed cinema, it's amazing how much high definition DVD exposes. You may be surprised – and disappointed – to see your favorite actor/actress in high def because they may not be quite as attractive as you remember!

Some market analysts have said neither format will win. We will go to an on-demand world and packaged media will go away like it did with the iPod. I tend to disagree. It was one thing for CD to fall out of favor in the iPod world, but home theater is entirely different. iPod was perfect for people on the go. When you watch a movie, you sit in front of your 50–in. HDTV. Time will tell which prediction comes true.