HD-DVD and Blu-Ray: from the past to the future

Lately, we've
been reading a lot of controversial statements on a unified disc format for the
upcoming new generation optical storage discs. At the top of these discussions
is Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, both trying to get the consumer support as soon as
possible.  On
April 21, the first rumors about a possible unified format started to circulate
on the net. This was just a week after the announcement of Sony being
"open for a unified format". Of course Toshiba denied all this, 
but the company "recognizes a single format is best for consumers, but that
doesn't necessarily mean executives are prepared to agree on a hybrid",
spokesman Keisuke Omori said.

On April 30, we related a story that
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were finally one format. Both companies, Sony and
Toshiba, were designing the new format with the best features from both of them.
This would be the storage capacity of Blu-Ray (up to 200GB with 8 layers) and
cost-effectiveness of HD-DVD.

Ten days later, Toshiba releases a press release
denying, again, the talks between them and Sony. Once again, Toshiba
'believes a single format for next generation DVD is most beneficial for
consumers" and recognizes 'that the key factors for a unified format
are large capacity, reasonable cost, and backward compatibility with DVD that
maximizes consumer benefit". Surprisingly, they were about to present a new
HD DVD-ROM with a larger capacity - could this be the end of the
discussion?

The
specifications of the new HD DVD-ROM were released to the net, and
the storage size revealed: 45GB! HD-DVD was now very close to the 50GB of
Blu-Ray, filling the space that many criticised about HD-DVD: storage capacity,
especially for the new
generation HDTV (High Definition TV) content. Many considered this bad, due
to the use of 3 layers of 15GB each, when Blu-Ray starts with 25GB for each
layer. The Blu-Ray Association had to show the world what Blu-Ray was capable
off, in terms of storage. We started to see a 'falling apart' of discussion with
these notices, ultimately leading to a separate road for each company (no
unified format).

Just 4 days later, Sony and Toshiba were said
to have closed the talks due to technical issues. One of them was disc
structure. Toshiba wanted the data layer to be placed at 0.6mm from the surface,
while Sony wanted it to be just 0.1mm. While some say 0.6mm is better because of
less scratching problems, others say 0.1mm is enough if using TDK
Coating. As this is one reason that Blu-ray can offer the highest capacity
due to the closeness of the data to the surface of the disc. Toshiba would also
benefit from the launch of PlayStation 3, because it co-developed with Sony the
semiconductor chips used on the machine.

With this new tension, Toshiba publicly ends the
talk with an official reaction: Yoshihide Fujii, Toshiba's top negotiator,
told reporters today that "the Sony side failed to provide enough evidence
that its format has a clear advantage over ours in terms of cost and range of
applications." Fujii also mentioned that further discussions would be a
waste of time.

Blu-Ray tries to continue their argument, and the
Association wants to give evidence to Toshiba. First, a superior protective
coating developed by Degussa: which is in short, more economical and
superior to earlier protective films. This technique is said to make the Blu-ray
discs very economical to produce, yet we do not know how it compares to HD-DVD
manufacturing costs. This technology would be able to provide a workaround for
the 0.1mm data structure issue of Blu-Ray. How will we be affected by
this?

Consumers will have to pay for this extra
protection, if it is used on Blu-Ray discs.
Second, and most important, TDK announces a 100GB Blu-Ray Prototype, using 4 layers and with
better record performance (36Mbit/s vs. 72Mbit/s). The competition was coming on
strong, and Toshiba was left to a "mere" 45GB HD-DVD disc, for now. Last, but
not least, Blu-Ray was
now ready for cost effective manufacturing. A new  mastering process,
easier and much better than the current DVD ones, and the new cover-layer,
developed by Degussa - Blu-Ray was getting stronger.

When both
sides take separate paths like this, Blu-Ray announcing so many improvements,
HD-DVD reaching the 45GB capacity, no one can really believe that Sony and
Toshiba will still reach a compromise on the unified format. Then yesterday, May
26, a new report was
released, with Toshiba saying that the future will reserve an unique unified
format. However, before that agreement is reached, the two concurrent
products, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, would already be on stores.

The two sides have been engaged in a last-ditch effort to forge a common
format, but no substantial progress has been made so far. Both sides say that
reaching a unified format would be ideal to avoid confusion and inconvenience,
which occurred with the VHS-Beta battle over video tape formats two decades ago.
But the clock is ticking. Toshiba plans to launch HD DVD-based players by the
end of 2005, and Sony
plans to put a Blu-ray disc drive in its new PlayStation game console next
year.This HD-DVD
vs. Blu-ray article, by two staff members, spath & H3rB3i, might help
you choose which format to support, but will it be enough if the two formats go
ahead separately? Sony and Toshiba are not making life easier in regards to
consumers, and in the end, most agree that only one format will rule. Not very
long ago, we saw the DVD-R/DVD+R competition - ask the average consumer if he
knows there are two different DVDR formats, and what the difference is between
the formats. I think we all know the answer...but at CD Freaks, we care about
the optical future 😉 If you want to share your opinion about
this issue, then you should have a look at the Satellite, HD-TV, Blu-ray
and HD-DVD Forum.

Personal greets to Dan Bell, from CD Freaks, for the
help on writing this article.

Source: CD Freaks