Blu-ray Vs HD DVD
Dear Gary,
I found the article in the March issue by yourself and Amir Majidimehr rather fascinating! As a simpleton, I find the likely outcome to be straightforward. Amir mentioned most of the salient points, e.g., lower cost of HD DVD media, lower cost of HD DVD players, strong support by Microsoft®, billions of ordinary DVD players, the inability of Blu-ray™ media to be backwards compatible with DVD players, whereas HD DVD media could be made to play on ordinary DVD players, the digital acquisition of content, e.g. films over the Internet and onto PC, etc. I would add another level, those millions of potential users for family records of camcorders of which HD versions using SD cards are beginning to become highly popular and relatively inexpensive.
So, as an ordinary family man, what do I see as the best route for me? Simple, HD DVD. This route allows me to download films cheaply, make family records cheaply, buy cheap media, buy cheap stand-alone players and PC HD DVD writers, cheaply archive camcorder recordings and the downloaded films instead of buying expensive packaged films, and still be able to use both my new HD DVD and existing DVD players. The best of everything. Blu-ray will, I believe, be for the top 5 percent of the pyramid, i.e., those able and willing to splash out on expensive components and media, which has a limited all-around use; they will probably dump perfectly good and hitherto expensive DVD players because they cannot play back the Blu-ray media. For the rest of us, we will have an equally superior viewing experience, which is cheaper and less exclusive. My memory goes back to the Sony Elcaset, which was masterful in its time but lost out to the cheaper mini-cassette tape. The safest bet for all concerned is surely to make dual HD players, dual HD discs with single HD DVD options for backwards compatible use on non-HD players.
Or am I really a simpleton?
John Jefferis, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
Managing Editor Danny Richelieu Comments:
While it is true that HD DVD media and players were/are cheaper to manufacture than Blu-ray media and players, that won’t always be the case. And while HD DVD media could be made to play on ordinary DVD players, the majority of HD DVDs released did not take advantage of this feature and were only compatible with HD DVD players. If studios truly wanted their Blu-ray releases to be compatible with DVD, they could easily include an additional DVD in the Blu-ray packaging, at a relatively minor additional cost. In fact, the Blu-ray Disc release of Hitman (reviewed on Page 72) includes an additional DVD that holds a “digital copy” of the movie that can be downloaded to your computer, and the Hitman’s MSRP is no higher than other Fox BD releases (this digital copy has a 853 x 365 resolution and 2.0-channel stereo audio, and was obviously meant to be viewed on a portable device). If they felt it was worth including a standard-definition DVD in the Blu-ray packaging, they easily could, just as they could with HD DVD.
And once digital downloads become more popular, with
current DRM schemes (read “Connecting Dots...” beginning on Page 50 for more on DRM), it is unlikely the studios will allow users to archive those movies onto physical media, whether using HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc (or even DVD). There will undoubtedly be workarounds to these restrictions—albeit illegal workarounds.
But even if they do allow these digital downloads to be archived to physical discs, Blu-ray Disc-writing drives for PCs are already selling at prices comparable to the price HD DVD burners were selling for, and blank 25 gigabyte Blu-ray media is selling at prices very close to that of blank 30 gigabyte HD DVD media (blank 50 gigabyte Blu-ray Discs are currently almost double the price), and those prices will only drop going forward.
While I agree that high-definition source material will someday come from Internet downloads, it will be some time before that happens. That digital copy included with Hitman, at 853 x 365 resolution and lossy stereo audio, is over 1 gigabyte in size and would take about an hour and a half to download using a typical home broadband connection in the United States today.
So, what I’m saying is, while Blu-ray Disc is the more expensive proposition between it and HD DVD right now, I don’t think that Blu-ray’s current pricing will dictate that the format will forever be limited to the top 5 percent of the pyramid only. The price of stand-alone players will drop significantly by as soon as the 2008 holiday shopping season, now that the Blu-ray-supporting manufacturers will be competing against each other rather than as a group competing against another group, and as high-definition televisions continue to saturate the market, the thirst for high-definition source material will only grow.
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