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DVD has
been one of the greatest success and also
one of the biggest failures in the
recordable media format. Let me explain, yes
following on from
CD recordable everyone wanted the same
format of a disc in their hands so along
came DVD recordable and even sortly after
the DVD-RW rewritable format.
However the industry missed a massive
selling opportunity. DVD players were
launched - these only played movies, it
generated a massive demand for DVDR discs
for piracy and blew hollywood apart -
something the movie industry is desparate to
solve with the new Bluray and
HD DVD formats.
But with the launch of the DVD Player
consumers were quickly conditioned not to
record from their TV, as they had been
happily using VHS to do in the past. That
was where the trick was missed, had the DVD
Player not been launched and instead a DVD
Recorder / Player taken its place then today
most home users would still be recording and
consuming media. Following its 1997 debut,
it took the DVD format just a few years to
completely take 100% share of the home-video
market.
Now DVD is nearing its 10th birthday there
are two rival next-generation formats
Blu-ray and HD DVD media - both are vying to
become the successor to DVD and both have
very pretty global branding with very
recognisable differences in the
Bluray dvd case and HD DVD case. The big
question is will the industry make the same
mistake again, my guess is the probably
will.
Both will display movies in full high
definition resolution (HD), addressing one
shortfall of the current DVD format, which
is lower standard resolution, however it may
take some time for the uptake as the formats
do demand a premium price and will do for
the forseeable future, until the price comes
down we are looking at these formats being
for the enthusiast and not joe public. The
video and audio quality of both formats can
be truly spectacular when shown on a true
HDTV with a quality home theater audio
system, surpassing even high-def television
itself in fidelity and impact.
Which one should you choose? With the
current format war, most HDTV owners should
think very carefully before buying a Blu-ray
or an HD DVD player in the short term, my
personal advice wait till 2008 and the
prices should come tumbling down as the
format war hots up!
What is HD DVD?
HD DVD (not to be
confused with the general concept of high
definition DVD formats, although the
confusion is probably intentional) is one of
the two major formats competing for the
emerging high definition DVD market. The
name "HD DVD" is obviously
an extension of the existing DVD naming
scheme, and while it's the usual marketing
ploy, it does make a little sense in that HD
DVD is a lot closer to the current DVD
format than Blu-ray discs (BD).
What is AOD?
AOD is Advanced Optical
Disc, another name for HD-DVD. The only
difference between AOD and HD-DVD is that
AOD is shorter and easier to say, which may
be a potential marketing advantage.
What is HD DVD's
official launch date?
An announcement in late
September 2005 from Toshiba has indicated
that the U.S launch will be delayed until
February or March 2006. And in December
2005, Blu-ray's launch date has been set for
Spring 2006.
The actual official
launch in the U.S came on the 17th of April,
2006.
As for media, the 2006
CES allowed several companies to make
annoucements in regards to media
availability:
- Fujifilm:
Blu-ray and HD DVD media available in
mid 2006
- Verbatim: Single
layer BD-R and HD DVD-R media available
early 2006, dual layer HD DVD-R by the
end of 2006
More dates will be posted
when more announcements are made.
The major backers are
Toshiba and NEC. The main studio backers are
Universal, Warner and Paramount, although in
October 2005, Warner and Paramount both
stated that they will support Blu-ray as
well as HD DVD.
Sony (the major backer of
Blu-ray) announced in late November that it
will merge its optical disc-drive unit with
that of NEC's, with operations under the
leadership of Sony. This has led to
speculation that NEC may pull out of HD DVD
production, but the most likely outcome
could be that the merged unit will produce
both Blu-ray and HD DVD drives, as a Sony
spokesman has said that "It is conceivable
that there could be a variety of disk-drive
requests produced ... perhaps even that
other format" (the "other format" being HD
DVD, one presumes).
An announcement in late
September 2005 from Microsoft and Intel has
stated that they would now officially
support HD DVD. The reasons for this
support, taken from an interview with a
Microsoft representative by Tom's Hardware
Guide , seems to be that it would be easier
to make authorised copies of legally
obtained discs with HD DVD (Managed Copy),
which is important in the context of home
media streaming.
Are there different
readable/writable formats like with
DVD/DVD-R/W?
HD DVD will come in three
different formats, HD DVD-ROM for read-only
(similar to DVD-ROM), HD DVD-R for
write-once discs (similar to DVD-R) and HD
DVD-Rewritable for rewritable discs (similar
to DVD-RW)
What will be the
capacities of these types of discs?
Like DVDs, HD DVDs will
come in single layer and dual-layer
versions, and new is a triple-layer version
just recently announced (BD may support
multi-layer discs, but nothing has yet been
announced).
A single layer HD DVD
will store around 15GB, which is more than 3
times the capacity of a single layer DVD.
For each additional layer, an additional
15GB of storage will be available. The
reason for the dramatic capacity increase
over DVD is obvious when you consider that a
HD transmission will take up a lot more room
than a typical DVD stream, although with
15/30/45GB capacities, and better
compression algorithms, capacity shouldn't
be an issue (so no "flippers", or double
sided disc).
What resolution will the
video on a movie HD DVD be?
HD DVD resolution will
follow the standard HD resolution standards
currently used for HDTV transmissions. This
means, at least for the present, the maximum
output resolution will be 1080i (see below
for updated information on this issue), or
1920x1080 in interlaced format only (not
many displays can support 1080p, and even
less can resolve or display the full 1080
lines. There is also 720p resolution
(1280x720, progressive), which is the
current native resolution of many home
theatre displays, and also SD resolution
support, similar to today's DVDs.
The lack of 1080p support
was something that even supporters of HD DVD
are complaining about. At the time movies
were to be stored in 1080i format, even if
1080p output in players were planned to be
supported in the future - requiring a bit of
de-interlacing to produce a progressive
picture, as opposed to BD's progressive
source.
But the situation has
since changed. In an interview with
Microsoft in the Audioholics magazine in
January 2006 indicated that HD DVD movies
will be stored in 1080p format like BD, even
if initial players can only output at 1080i.
So far, all of the HD DVD
movie releases have been in 1080p as
promised. One of the reason for the lack of
1080p HD DVD players seemed to have been the
lack of HDMI 1.3 specifications at the time
of launch (the interview above seems to
refer to this as well). This does not seem
to be true as 1080p is supported by all
version of HDMI (Dolby and DTS's lossless
audio, on the other hand, is only supported
by HDMI 1.3). The reasons for the lack of
1080p HD DVD hardware is that the Broadcom
chip used is limited to 1080i output. In
fact, Samsung's first Blu-ray player also
uses the same chip and then uses another
chip to de-interlace the 1080i signal
produced by the Broadcom chip to 1080p.
The actual quality
difference between 1080i and 1080p is
actually an active debate, since it has to
take into account various factors such as
the source material, the native resolution
of the display, and even the de-interlacer.
What kind of video
compression will be used?
HD DVD will use the same
set of video compression codecs as BD. And
just approved by the DVD Forum (14th
September 2005), China will have its own HD
DVD sub-format, that will use the Advanced
Audio Video Coding Standard (AVS), as
opposed to the more expensive to license
MPEG and VC-1 codecs.
What about the audio?
Unlike BD, HD DVD
currently has an approved audio
specification scheme. The supported
mandatory formats will be Dolby Digital Plus
(DD+), DTS-HD, MLP 2-Channel and DTS-HD
Lossless (optional).
Existing DVD audio
formats will be supported by the above
approved formats.
What can you tell me
about the recordable HD DVD formats?
The initial recording
speed will only be 1x at 36.55 Mbps, which
is actually equal to about 30x in CD
transfer terms (or 3.4x in DVD transfer
terms). Faster recording speeds will be
available, possibly at launch time.
The DVD Forum steering
committee meeting on the 14th of September
also agreed on the specifications for 1x
dual layer recording, suggesting that dual
layer recording (for standalone or computer
based recorders) may be available at launch
or shortly after.
Toshiba has already
demonstrated player/recorders at electronic
shows.
What kind of equipment
will I need to play back HD DVD movies?
The first thing you will
need is a HD DVD capable player. No existing
DVD player will be able to read a HD DVD,
and there is no software or hardware upgrade
that can be performed to enable HD DVD
playback. Buying a new player is, therefore,
the only choice if you want HD DVD playback.
Initially, all HD DVD
players will only output to 1080i, meaning
that your display will only need to support
this resolution as opposed to 1080p. HD DVD
movies are encoded on the disc in 1080p
format and in time, 1080p HD DVD players
will become available.
Otherwise the
requirements for HD DVD is very similar to
that for Blu-ray.
What about my existing
DVD collection? In the bin like my old VHS
collection?
HD DVD is marketing
itself as the natural successor to DVD (both
approved by the DVD Forum, although the DVD
Forum is not as official as it sounds), and
so, DVD playback should not be an issue for
HD DVD players.
What about region
coding?
It appears (at least from
statements made in October 2005, by the DVD
Forum) that HD DVD will be region free. This
is not a total surprise as DVD region coding
can only be considered a failure, as it
achieved none of the goals it set out to. |
