Fans of political thrillers, murder mysteries and the 'Jerry Springer Show' surely have been keeping up with the latest high-tech skirmish. We’re speaking, of course, about the polite-on-the-surface but oh-so-tacky-behind-the-scenes face-off between emerging technologies for the next generation of optical storage: Blu-ray Disc versus HD-DVD.
Blu-ray, proposed by Sony, is a high-definition DVD format that gets its name from the blue-violet laser used to etch content onto a medium’s surface. Rewritable Blu-ray discs can store up to 27 gigabytes of data on a single-sided, single-layer disc (compared to a traditional DVD’s 4.7GB capacity under red laser). That’s approximately 12 hours of standard video, or more than two hours of high-definition video.
In contrast, HD-DVD’s current standard uses the same blue laser but houses only about 15GB of data. Proposed by Sony rivals Toshiba and NEC, HD-DVDs have significantly less capacity than the Blu-ray standard but are claimed to require fewer modifications to existing DVD production equipment, making them less expensive to create and, consequently, more affordable for consumers.
Both standards remained under consideration by their respective supporting consortiums (the Blu-ray Disc Association and the HD-DVD Promotion Group) at this writing, but observers expected them to be finalized and released in time for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. The 2006 CES should be an interesting place, as most analysts predict a flurry of new product announcements from both camps in conjunction with the show. Toshiba plans to market its first commercial, consumer-level HD-DVD player in the U.S. in early 2006. Although Blu-ray supporters haven’t revealed production dates for their products yet, Panasonic and Sony unveiled prototype Blu-ray recorders for the consumer market at CEATAC Japan 2005 in October.
Competition between the two formats has been fierce, with each side attempting to convince manufacturers and consumers that its standard is superior. For the briefest of intervals in late summer, the two camps seemed like they might be able to merge the competing specifications into a single standard, but that hope disappeared quickly, leaving the Blu-ray-ers and the HD-DVD-ers sniping at each other from their respective islands. HD-DVD extols the supremacy of its less-costly specification and more user-friendly, Microsoft-based encoding, while Blu-ray touts its capacity and content security features.
A similar battle took place in the late 1970s and early ’80s between Japan Victor Corporation’s VHS and Sony’s Betamax videocassette formats. Although Betamax was seen by many as the product that produced higher-quality results, VHS nonetheless won the market because JVC was eager to license the format to everyone who asked while Sony retained proprietary control over Betamax. In the end, quality gave way to mass availability and price, and Sony has rued the loss ever since.
This time out, Sony is determined not to be the loser, and it appears, at least for the moment, that its Blu-ray technology is leading HD-DVD. So far, five of the six major Hollywood studios — representing 80 percent of the consumer market for movies on DVD — back Blu-ray: Paramount, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Others supporting the Blu-Ray initiative include computing giants Hewlett-Packard, Apple and Dell; electronics powerhouses Hitachi, Samsung and Panasonic; gaming heavyweight Electronic Arts, and music behemoth Universal Music Group.
Among those backing HD-DVD, on the other hand, are goliaths The DVD Forum (the overseer of the current DVD format), Microsoft Corp. and Intel, in addition to Konica Minolta Opto Inc., Canon Inc., Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd., Universal Pictures (the sixth Hollywood powerhouse) and (at last count) three other major Hollywood studios that also support Blu-ray. HD-DVD’s list of supporters doesn’t come near the length or breadth of Blu-ray’s, although it does contain some of the same names: Companies like Warner and Paramount already have vowed they prefer Blu-ray, but if both formats make it to the market, they will produce content for both — thereby circumventing the nasty trap in which consumer devotees of one videocassette format or another found themselves in decades past.
That’s where the majority of the adult entertainment industry seems to be, too. In a quick and very unscientific survey of adult video companies, AVN discovered there is no clear concensus about which format is likely to be victorious, or even which format is preferred. Unlike in the case of the videocassette dichotomy, no performance or quality benefit clearly outweighs what the other side has to offer, so adoption is largely an issue of which side can make the most friends first. The adult industry seems to be waiting for a winner to be declared before it enters the fray.
“The direction we’re leaning is right down the middle,” said Video Team President Christian Mann, echoing the sentiments of most of his colleagues in adult. “Whichever one ends up winning, we’re ready to go with it.”
Mann said three of every four movies produced by Video Team are shot in high-definition format, primarily because that’s the format cable and satellite broadcasters and hotel on-demand entertainment providers want. That being the case, the format eventually determined to be the medium of choice for retail distribution doesn’t really make much difference to content producers, he said, although he added, “I’m guessing HD-DVD is going to get more cooperation from major studios [eventually].”
Joone, co-founder of Digital Playground and the director of the big-budget Pirates, disagrees. “Blu-ray is going to be the winner, because Sony’s PlayStation 3 [due out in 2006] will have Blu-ray built into it,” he said. “That’ll get [Blu-ray] into everybody’s living room.”
To be sure, consumer acceptance and adoption of a format often play a powerful role in the triumph of one technology over another (VHS vs. Betamax and Windows vs. Macintosh, for example), and Sony’s PlayStation platform currently leads the electronic gaming market.
Like Video Team, Digital Playground is ready to go whichever way the chips fall. “Everything is shot, edited and mastered in high-def,” Joone said. “For the past two years, we’ve even been encoding menus in HD.”
Like everyone else AVN spoke with, Anabolic Video Productions owner Christopher Alexander said his company has high-def movies just aching to be transferred to whichever medium comes out on top. “We’re in the waiting-to-see stage,” Alexander said.
That about sums it up for everyone.
Kathee Brewer is Editor at Large for AVN Online. She finds behind-the-scenes machinations in the DVD format war interesting from a political perspective, but she’s easily amused. Contact her at [email protected].
