High Definition DVD: The Promise and The Format War

by Edward B. Driscoll, Jr.
Digital Editition March 2005

In 1997, the 4.75-inch DVD arrived in retail stores, 19 years after the 12-inch laser disc was introduced. The successor to the DVD will arrive in less than half that time: quite probably in a year or two. So hold on your to your hat--and your HDTV set--because a high definition DVD format is on the way.

Several demographic trends are driving the launch of the format. The first is that it's estimated that there will be approximately 60 million high definition TVs in American homes by the end of 2006, and a goodly number of HDTV owners will want to own entertainment whose quality matches the off-the-air broadcasts their TVs can receive. The other trend is that between the US and Canada, consumer electronics manufacturers have already sold almost 70 million conventional DVD players. And while sales remain brisk, manufacturers see future sales as flattening out. Combined, they're excellent reasons why a high definition format will be appearing in your local consumer electronics store in a year or so.

Well, maybe two formats, actually. Of course, no new consumer electronics video technology would be complete without a format war. Laser discs began with RCA's CED format as a brief competitor; videotape started with Beta versus VHS. And who can forget Divx's 15 minutes of fame as a DVD challenger?

The Format War du Jour
For high definition DVD, the format war du jour is Blu-ray versus HD-DVD. The former is the brainchild of Sony Corp. and several other giants of the electronics, computer and movie industries. The latter is backed by a consortium called the DVD Forum that includes Toshiba, Sanyo, and NEC. The name of their format, HD-DVD might make things a bit confusing, as HD-DVD is the most natural generic name for any high definition video-disc.

There are essentially two possible outcomes to this battle: the first possibility is that one of the consortiums will blink--that is, back down and support the other format. That's essentially what happened during the creation of the original DVD, as Sony and Philips joined with rivals Toshiba, Matsushita and others to avoid a Beta/VHS-style format war (although such actually did erupt in the very early days of DVD's rollout, until Circuit City dropped its competing Divx pay-per-view format after getting bombarded with negative feedback from early DVD adopters.)

In late October, Bob Chapek, president of Buena Vista Home Entertainment, hoped that somebody in the imminent high-def DVD wars would back down. "We can't have two groups screaming disparate messages to consumers--this could make for a disappointing launch where neither side dominates," Chapek said. "Maybe we should be asking ourselves not how big our piece of the pie will be, but how big the pie [itself] will be." If that doesn't happen, prepare for option two: the possibility that hardware manufacturers will concentrate on building players that will play both formats. That's what's happening now with high definition audio, where there are two successors vying to replace the compact disc: Super Audio CD and DVD-A, and several component manufacturers have built machines that play both types. Of course, the fact that there is a format war is one of the reasons why your local Best Buy or Tower Records has thousands upon thousands of compact discs, and its successor is still relegated to a few shelves in a remote corner somewhere.

Despite the names of the competing formats, both technologies use a blue laser to produce a high definition image on a disc with the same exterior dimensions as the CD and DVD. The difference is that the HD-DVD format reuses much of the existing technology that powers the current generation of DVD--and it apparently uses the same physical structure as current discs, all of which helps to keep manufacturing costs low. But while the current DVD format can hold a little over four gigabytes per layer, the HD-DVD format can hold up to 20 gigabytes on each layer.

The competing Blu-ray format can hold an additional five gigabytes of information per layer, which is more than enough to hold three hours of a high definition TV show. Moreover, the folks backing Blu-ray promise that their discs will hold even more data in the future, helping to future-proof the format. Sony has announced that it could be possible to place up to eight layers of information on a Blu-ray disc, giving such a disc the ability to hold about 200 gigabytes--larger than the hard drives in most consumer PCs.

Feeding Your Habit: What Will the Software Be Like?
So should you plan to junk the collection of hundreds of DVDs you may have amassed since the late 1990s? Not at all. You'll probably want to replace your favorite movies with high definition versions as they emerge, but standards call for both versions of high definition disc players to support the original DVD format. (Much like today's DVD players happily support the 20-year old audio CD format.)

In any case, both new formats should have plentiful offerings: Warner Brothers, Universal and Paramount are backing the Toshiba HD-DVD standard. Sony, on the other hand, can supply a pretty fair amount of titles itself for its Blu-ray format. Why? Because it owns Columbia Studios, and recently bought the rights to the fantastic MGM back catalog, which stretches from Hollywood's golden era of the 1930s and 40s to the early 1970s. It also includes United Artists' films, as well. (UA's diverse catalog ranges from most of the James Bond movies to Woody Allen's most popular films.) Fox appears to be splitting its bet, joining both the Blu-ray Association and also the DVD Forum, which is backing rival HD-DVD.

While both high definition disc formats will feature Dolby Digital sound, many will also have a DTS track as well, the surround sound format emerging as an increasingly popular competitor to Dolby. Additionally, standards call for a DTS decoder built into every next-generation Blu-ray and HD-DVD player.

Is There Already A Winner?
It's tempting to say that its more forward-looking technology gives a slight boost to the Blu-ray format, and indeed, some are already speculating that Blu-ray has the market sewn up. On October 22, 2004, the popular Gizmodo consumer electronics Weblog (www.gizmodo.com) wrote: "Technically, financially, and commercially, Blu-ray already has HD-DVD beaten. Unless NEC and Toshiba pull out some trump card for HD-DVD within the next year--and clearly, we don't see it happening--expect Blu-ray to replace DVD."

Are they correct? Does Blu-ray have it in the bag? Not so fast, say the HD-DVD consortium: in November 2004, Video Business magazine reported that while details weren't yet finalized, Warner, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Entertainment were close to announcing plans to begin releasing movies in high def on the HD-DVD format by the end of 2005. The publication quoted former Warner Home Video chief Warren Lieberfarb, who was instrumental in getting the original DVD format off the ground, as stressing that speed was of the essence. "Waiting to make a decision until 2005 means that product is not in the market at a mass price point until 2007." By then, sales of standard definition DVDs could very well flatten out. To head off such a scenario, Lieberfarb believes that the same mass market prices that helped launch the original DVD's sales into the stratosphere must be achieved by 2006.

In terms of sheer sales, VHS blew the doors off Beta, even if Beta was the better technology. On the other hand, in the music world, the lack of a resolution between the competing SACD and DVD-A formats has clearly hurt the growth of both formats. In any case, we'll know in a few years if there's a clear-cut winner in the high definition DVD format wars. In the meantime, if your current DVD player is shaking whenever you turn it on, it's probably because it knows its days are numbered.

Ed Driscoll is a freelance journalist who has covered home theater and the media for the past decade.

[Sidebar: Beyond Video Discs]
Just as the compact disc has seen almost two decades of use in both stereos and computers, no matter which format emerges as the de facto winner in the high-def disc wars, the next generation of DVDs will do far more than just hold movies.

HD-DVD drives are selling in Japan, and will be available eventually for PCs in the US. Toshiba announced that laptops with built-in HD-DVD drives would start shipping in the last quarter of 2005. Meanwhile, Sony has announced that it intends to use its Blu-ray format for its PlayStation video games.

But it is with recordable high definition DVDs that the format's true versatility may emerge. In the 1990s, the recordable CD emerged as an enormously popular home media. If you've ever used the format, you probably already know that it will copy pre-recorded audio compact discs, allow for music compilations, and record computer data, amongst its many functions. Already, though, DVD-Rs are becoming increasingly popular alternatives to CDRs for consumer data storage. (I love being able to fit 4.7 gigabytes on a disc, as opposed to the 670 megabytes that a CD-R holds. And I'll happily take the 20 gigs that will fit on a high definition disc.)

Right now, there are two Blu-ray based recorders already available in Japan: the Sony BDZ-S77, released in mid-2003; and the Matsushita Electric Industrial (AKA Panasonic) DMR-E700BD, released about a year later. Each model also supports playback of existing optical formats--DVD-Video, DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW, DVD-RAM (Panasonic only), and audio CDs. They currently sell for about $2700, and they only work with Japan's HDTV standard, not America's. Eventually, there'll be a high definition DVD drive in your computer--and it will burn high-capacity data discs as well.