Are you old enough to remember when VHS and Beta slugged it out in the 80’s to see which format would become the standard for videotapes?

Right now, two high definition optical disc formats are waging a war in the marketplace and the media to see which will emerge victorious and eventually replace DVD. Will this format war more closely resemble the DVD-Audio vs. SACD battle that was silently fought and lost by both sides?

The consumer electronics industry is divided. The movie studios are divided. The media is divided. The end result of all this division is a confused consumer who is reluctant to buy into either side, and the only parties that are really happy with the way things are playing out are those that have an interest in high definition video-on-demand becoming the way we receive our high definition content in the future.

The adversaries in this struggle are Sony’s Blu Ray Disc and Toshiba’s HD DVD. Both utilize a blue laser as opposed to the red laser that DVD and compact disc use. Blue lasers operate at a shorter wavelength than red lasers, therefore more data can be stored in the same area as compared to conventional DVD. Blu Ray discs hold 50 gigabytes on a dual layer disc, while HD DVD holds 30 gigabytes on a dual layer disc. This compared to DVD’s 8.5 gigabytes on a dual layer disc. HD DVD just approved the specification for triple layer discs, upping HD DVD’s capacity to 51 gigabytes for triple layer discs, so the storage capacity advantage for Blu Ray is no longer an arguing point.

Even with the storage capacity advantage that Blu Ray currently enjoys, the fact is that both formats provide incredible sound and image, and on movies with good transfers that are encoded well, are indistinguishable from each other. Both Blu Ray and HD DVD discs are encoded at 1080p24 (1920×1080 resolution, 24 frames/second). Both look substantially better than over the air, cable and satellite high definition.

On the audio front is where these discs will really surprise you. Both formats support Dolby Digital+, which is Dolby’s new replacement for Dolby Digital. Dolby Digital plus has a higher bitrate than Dolby Digital, and even though it’s a lossy codec like it’s predecessor, the improvement in sound quality is somewhat of a surprise. Dolby Digital+ soundtracks sound more detailed and spacious than Dolby Digital, and it’s a noticeable difference.

However where these two formats really shine is their support for either uncompressed or lossless compressed audio tracks. On the Blu Ray side, most discs have an uncompressed LPCM audio track. The upside of this is compact disc-quality multi channel audio. The only downside is that uncompressed audio takes up more disc space, but with Blu Ray’s storage overhead, this isn’t an issue. Even HD DVD with it’s current 30 gigabyte ceiling provides a luscious image on 2+ hour movies with a lossless compressed soundtrack included.

On HD DVD, Dolby TrueHD decoding is a mandatory specification for players, optional for discs. Dolby TrueHD tracks are compressed, but the compression is lossless. Therefore, a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack should sound identical to it’s uncompressed counterpart. As good as Dolby Digital+ sounds, a Dolby TrueHD track sounds phenomenal. Ambient effects sound like they are in the room, and dialog is clear and true. Both formats provide excellent sound that is every bit as high definition as the image quality.

Of course, all the consumer really cares about is how good it looks and sounds, and both deliver in spades. However, the movie studios have other concerns. One of them is regional copyright protection. DVDs and videogames both support regional copyright protection. That means if you live in Cheltenham and you stick an American or Japanese DVD into your DVD player, it is not going to produce the desired result (unless you happen to have a region-free DVD player). The reason this is important to the producing studios is that regional distribution rights are sold. Regional copyright protection protects this source of revenue by ensuring that no movies are available in a region before a distribution deal is made. Blu Ray, like DVD, has regional copyright protection. HD DVD does not. Any HD DVD disc will play in any HD DVD player.

For consumers, lack of copyright protection is a good thing, because people can buy and play imports on their format. In the Blu Ray-HD DVD format war, it’s especially important to HD DVD owners, who can purchase movies that may be Blu Ray-only in their region, but have been released on HD DVD in another.

Of even more importance to the studios is content encryption. The studios want to protect their source of income. They do not want to see their blockbuster releases available for free download over peer to peer networks. That’s where encryption comes in. With encryption, even if someone copies a disc, the resulting copy will not function without a key. DVD proclaimed foolproof encryption, and we all know how long that lasted. HD DVD followed suit, with their disc encryption being compromised shortly after the launch of the platform.

Blu Ray utilizes a encryption Sony calls BD+. With BD+, the disc installs encryption software on the player. Each disc has it’s own key instead of one key assigned for all copies of a given disc. I know, I find it a little confusing as well. In any event, Sony claims it will be next to impossible for pirates to break BD+, and Disney and Fox are buying it, as both claim that Blu Ray’s encryption is one of their main attractions to the format. However, BD+ was not made available to the content providers until this last June, and as of this time, I don’t believe a movie has been released on Blu Ray that utilizes it.

Now that we’ve established the particulars, in Part 2 we’ll discuss the movie studios’ relationships with these players, as well as the impact retailer’s and service provider’s affiliations with them are having on the format war.

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