High Definition DVDs Ready To Go
Spinner
Birmingham, UK
A consortium of manufacturers has announced its readiness to begin volume production of high definition recordable DVDs (HD DVDs). The first HD DVDR discs will go on sale next year, at around the same time as rivals in the Blu-Ray camp expect to launch their write-once discs.
Source: Vnunet.com"HD DVD's basic feature of sharing the same disc structure as DVD made a large contribution to this success, and offers more and compelling evidence of our design policy's validity," said Hisashi Yamada, chief fellow at Toshiba's Digital Media Network Company.
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VHS and Betamax had both mechanical (different size cartridges, different distance between tape reels) and electrical (different recording schemes) that prevented the cartridge from one from playing in the other's player. The technology existing at the time would have made software fixes for adapter cartridges cumbersome and the units prohibitively expensive.
Then came digital formats: CD, VCD, and SVCD. All used the same media and a laser emitting infrared light at 785nm wavelengths. Soon there wasn't enough room on CDs and their larger Laserdisc cousins so DVD came along. DVD uses a *gasp* different laser than CD does, a red laser at 660nm. Early DVD players and DVD-ROM used two discrete lasers, one for CD and one for DVD. Many newer devices use one special laser that can emit both wavelengths (not an easy feat). Even though DVD uses a different wavelength and recording format than CD, nearly all DVD players can still play CDs through the aforementioned lasers and the magic of software (firmware).
Suddenly, DVD no longer has enough space to describe modern media, so enter BD-ROM and HD-DVD. Interestingly enough, both formats use the same laser: a blue laser at 405nm. It is presumed that BD-ROM and HD-DVD drives will continue the trend of being backwards-compatible, that is, to be able to do things with the older generation media. This means that both BD-ROM and HD-DVD discs will be physically compatible with current CD's and DVD's, that is, they will be identically-sized plastic discs with a very standard hole in the middle.
Bones of contention: Even though BD-ROM and HD-DVD use the same wavelength laser, the HD-DVD media is buried deeper in the substrate than BD-ROM. Engineers seeking to make drives compatible with both formats will need to include either a pair of blue lasers with different focusing elements or a single laser with dual-focus. In any case, I have confidence that the engineers in Japan and China will be able to work something out as they have so many times in the past with seemingly incompatible formats and hardware.
My point: barring some asinine licensing schemes on the part of Sony, nearly all blue laser drives will support both HD-DVD and BD-ROM within one year of both formats going mainstream.
-drasnor
Sources:
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/article.asp?section_id=7&article_id=826&page_number=1
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200405/04-026E/
I don't mean to say that there won't be a format war, because there will be. My point is that said format war will be completely transparent to the end user. The real format war will take place at the content provider level where the movie industry et al are forced to decide which format to use. My guess is that people that need the extra space afforded by BD-ROM and companies partly owned by Sony or that have stock in Sony will go with BD-ROM, all else will go HD-DVD.
Either way, for customers like us unless you're trying to watch HD-DVD movies on your PlayStation3 the format question will likely be a non-issue.
-drasnor