High Definition - A Growing Technology

With the proliferation of high-definition TVs and content and the FCC's HDTV mandate only a few years away, new high-density optical disc formats are beginning to take shape. With Blu-ray having hit stores in roughly 2007, manufacturers are beginning to assess the P&L of HD disc production. As is always the case, multiple formats-two in this case, both capable of delivering DVD-length HD content--are vying to become the standard, and both have powerful backers.

HD-DVD, supported by the DVD Forum, is blue laser-based. The other format, Blu-ray, is based on blue violet lasers and is supported by Sony, Matsushita, Thomson, Philips, Pioneer, and others. Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and LG Electronics offered up products based on Blu-ray technology during the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. (Sony has been shipping a Blu-ray drive in Japan since April 2003.) Meanwhile, Toshiba and NEC demo'd HD-DVD players. Both new formats are still in development, but pilot lines already exist. It's worth noting that while HD-DVD is the authorized format of the DVD Forum, key Blu-ray backers such as Pioneer and Panasonic are Forum members. If nothing else, this suggests that the HD-on-DVD battle won't be fought along the familiar Forum vs. +RW Alliance lines.

As the High Definition battle wages on, new technologies will be formed very quickly. There is only limited information available on which technologies will come out on top with which companies. The lines are relatively split still, but Blu-ray is gaining serious momentum. The larger battle will be fought with consumers as advertising leans one way or the other. Movies are becoming much more widely available in Blu-ray, but which are we buying, and the Blu-ray shelf at the local video store is still pretty small. A boon to the Blu-ray crowd is that the Playstation 3 system will play Blu-ray disks without need for a separate machine. This could cause college students and gamers to avoid updating that DVD player when it breaks. What is evident is the formats are very different from each other, and therefore difficult to compare. HD-DVD is more like an upgraded DVD, whereas Blu-ray is on a different course altogether. HD-DVD seems to have momentum in the United States, but Blu-ray has a lot of support in Japan.

The big question is with HD-DVD being still a new form of technology, how long will it take Blu-ray to completely replace DVDs? While Blu-ray selection in the United States is still limited, it is a growing technology.