1. General
1.1 What is Blu-ray?
1.2 What is Blu-ray's official launch date?
1.3 Who is behind Blu-ray?
1.4 Are there different readable/writable
formats like with DVD/DVD-R/W?
1.5 What will be the capacities of these
types of discs?
1.6 What resolution will the video on a
movie BD be?
1.7 What kind of video compression will be
used?
1.8 What about the audio?
1.9 What can you tell me about the
recordable BD formats?
1.10 What kind of equipment will I need to
play back BD movies?
110.1 Blu-ray Hardware Profiles
1.11 What about my existing DVD collection?
Out the trash like my old VHS collection?
1.12 Will BD/HD DVD players be able to play
back the other high definition DVD formats?
1.13 What about copy protection? Will it be as weak as
DVD's CSS?
1.14 So why have AACS if it might not work?
1.15 What about region coding?
1.16 PlayStation 3
16.1 Why is the PS3
being mentioned in this FAQ?
1.16.2 Will the PS3 be
able to play back BD movies?
1.16.3 Why is PS3's
support for BD significant enough to warrant an entire chapter in this FAQ?
1.16.4 What about the
Xbox 360?
1.16.5 PS3 Blu-ray Playback Details
1.17 Technical details overview
1.18 Hardware availability
1.19 Software
(Movies) availability
2. Format Comparisons
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Blu-ray vs HD DVD
2.2.1 The Author's
Opinion
2.2.2 Opinion from www.dvdrs.net
2.2.3 Opinion from DVDHelp.us
3. The Future
3.1 Which format will
win the day?
3.2 Which format should I go for now (or
soon)?
3.3 How can I ensure there is only one
format?
A. Appendix
Terms and
Concepts
Acknowledgements
Blu-ray is one of the two major formats competing for the emerging high definition DVD market. The name "Blu-ray" comes from the use of a blue-violet laser to read and write data. The term Blu-ray discs is shortened to BD for simplicity.
Due to HD DVD's capitulation in February 2008, Blu-ray is now the dominant HD format (in the West, at least).
For additional information on Blu-ray, please refer to these documents/guides:
The official date has been set to Spring 2006, announced in December 2005. HD DVD's release date was earlier pushed back to early 2006 as well. The difference between HD DVD and Blu-ray's launch dates is probably not a major issue, because even DVDs, the most successful format ever, took a year to become a "must-have" item after its official launch date, so the difference of a few months between the official launch dates is probably insignificant.
A launch date of May 23, 2006 was first set in February of the same year, but has recently been delayed until June 25th.
As for media, the 2006 CES allowed several companies to make announcements in regards to media availability:
More dates will be posted when more announcements are made.
Blu-ray is now the only remaining HD format, after Toshiba announced in February 2008 that HD DVD will no longer be supported. And so technically, all companies are now backers of Blu-ray, but the list below is a list of the original backers of the format, before and during the format war.
Blu-ray is backed by the following list of companies:
The main backers are Sony, Matsushita (Panasonics) and Philips, with Sharp also playing an important role. Sony (formerly Columbia/Tri-Star, and also the new owner of MGM), Fox and Disney are the main studio backers.
Warner is now the only major studio to back both formats after Paramount/Dreamwork's decision in August 2007 to stop releasing movies for Blu-ray and to produce HD DVD releases only. Rumours suggest that this deal will only last 18 months, although official statements indicate it is indefinite.
Warner has also announced in January 2008 that they will end support for HD DVD in May 2008, becoming a Blu-ray exclusive studio.
In November 2005, HP has stated that it might shift its support to HD DVD if "managed copy" (see section 1.13) and "iHD" (see section 2.2) are not supported by Blu-ray. Subsequently, mandatory managed copy will now be part of Blu-ray specifications, but the decision to include iHD is being considered.
Blu-ray will come in three different formats, BD-ROM for read-only discs (similar to DVD-ROM), BD-R for write-once discs (similar to DVD-R) and BD-RE for rewritable discs (similar to DVD-RW). Why BD-RE instead of BD-RW is anyone's guess though.
At the 2006 International CES, Panasonic made several announcements in regards to pricing of BD-R/BD-RE media. A single layer BD-R will have the retail price of $17.99 (USD). A dual layer BD-R will have the retail price of $42.99. A single layer BD-RE will have the retail price of $24.99, while the dual layer variety will retail for $59.99.
Like DVDs, BDs will come in single layer and dual-layer versions, and eventually, multi-layer (3 or more layer) discs will be supported.
A single layer BD will store around 25GB, which is more than 5 times the capacity of a single layer DVD. For each additional layer, an additional 25GB of storage will be available. The reason for the dramatic capacity increase over DVD is obvious when you consider that a HD transmission will take up a lot more room than a typical DVD stream, although with 25GB and 50GB capacities, and better compression algorithms, capacity shouldn't be an issue (so no "flippers", or double sided disc). These two types of discs are often referred to as BD25 and BD50.
However, in an interview with a Microsoft representative, it was suggested that BD's 50GB discs may not be ready yet for mass production. In December, the Blu-ray group has official stated that dual layer discs will not be available at the official launch of the format, in Spring 2006. Buena Vista has expressed concern at the delay of dual layered BDs.
This could also lead to potential problems with early movie releases, as Sony has indicated that MPEG-2 compression is their preferred video compression format. A typical HD quality MPEG-2 compressed video would require more space than what a single layer 25 GB BD can offer. The good news is that Panasonic has started testing a production line for producing dual layer BDs, although most expect full production of dual layer BDs to be available in the second half of 2006. In comparison, HD DVD movies showcased at CES 2006 did not use MPEG-2 compression.
Most Blu-ray movies have moved on to using H.264 of VC-1, and with BD50 production now available, capacity is no longer an issue.
BD resolution will follow the standard HD resolution standards currently used for HDTV transmissions. This means, at least for the present, the maximum resolution will be 1080i/p, or 1920x1080 in either interlaced or progressive format (more information about the difference between interlaced/progressive video in section A.2). There is also 720p resolution (1280x720, progressive), which is the current native resolution of many home theatre displays, and also SD resolution support, similar to today's DVDs.
The first Blu-ray player from Samsung actually uses the same chip as the early HD DVD player (Broadcom), which only supports 1080i. The 1080p output from this player is achieved by Samsung adding another chip to convert the 1080i signal to 1080p.
The actual quality difference between 1080i and 1080p is actually an active debate, since it has to take into account various factors such as the source material, the native resolution of the display, and even the de-interlacer. For more information, please refer to section A.
BD will support MPEG-2 compression as found in DVDs, MPEG-4 AVC and also Microsoft's VC-1, the exact same set as HD DVD's support (gee, I wonder why we need two different formats then). Microsoft's VC-1 is based on their WMV-9 standard.
Out of the supported compression formats, MPEG-2 is the oldest and least efficient (larger file size/bitrate in order to achieve the same quality as MPEG-4 AVC or VC-1). But due to licensing issues, Sony has indicated that, at least at release, BD may use MPEG-2 compression instead. Using MPEG-2 compression for HD content could lead to disc capacity problems (see section 1.5). But since the early releases, most titles are now using the more efficient H.264 or VC-1 codecs, which Warner mostly using the same VC-1 transfer for both their Blu-ray and HD DVD releases.
MPEG-4 AVC is also known as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10. H.264 High Profile will be used for the encoding.
The supported mandatory formats will be the existing DVD audio formats of Dolby Digital AC3 and DTS. Linear PCM audio will be supported up to 7.1 channels. Dolby Digital Plus (DD+), Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD and DTS-HD Master Audio (lossless - see section A.2) are all part of the optional specifications.
The BD specification calls for the recordable function to be available in most hardware. The initial recording speed will only be 1x (for the BD 1.0 specification), at 36 Mbps, which is actually equal to about 30x in CD transfer terms (or 3.4x in DVD transfer terms). BD movies by their nature may require more than the 36 Mbps offered by 1x drives, so 2x or higher speed drives should be available by the time of launch.
The first thing you will need is a BD capable player. No existing DVD player will be able to read a BD, and there is no software or hardware upgrade that can be performed to enable BD playback. Buying a new player is, therefore, the only choice if you want BD playback.
To get the best out of BD and HD in general, you will need a TV that is not only "HD Ready" (accepts HD inputs, but may not display HD in full resolution), but a TV that can fully resolve and display 1080 lines of resolution, preferably in progressive fashion. Your HD display should also have HDMI (see section A.) or DVI input that supports HDCP (High Definition Copy Protection - see section A.), as otherwise you may be limited to standard definition (SD) pictures only.
The reason for this is a form of copy protection called ICT (Image Constraint Token). ICT is optional for Blu-ray movies (all movies with ICT activated must display a logo to warn consumers), which limits analog output (for example, through component output) to a maximum resolution of 960x540. Most movie studios have expressed that they will not use ICT in the near future (for fear of a public backlash, since many people have high quality analog only equipment).
The bias towards HDMI only HD output is a bit of a debating point amongst people that have been following the development of high definition DVD formats. A lot of people do have HD equipment that only have component/analog inputs, and even today, most of the cheaper displays do not have HDMI or DVI inputs. By the end of this year though, it is expected that most equipment will have HDMI/DVI inputs, and so this will become less of an issue to people over time. There are also (some quite valid) points being made about HDMI/DVI being inferior in quality to analog inputs (mainly in the area of colour reproduction).
For those that don't yet have HD displays, BD movies will still work on your existing television set, but only at SD definition. This isn't too bad, as the having a HD source to down-convert to SD will mean you will get the best possible looking SD picture there is.
There are three Blu-ray playback profiles. Blu-ray playback hardware must comply with one of these profiles. October 31st 2007 say the Blu-ray Profile 1.1 become mandatory, meaning all players released after this date must comply with Profile 1.1 specifications.
Profile 1.0 is used by the first generation of Blu-ray players, but notably lacks a secondary video processor (needed for Picture-in-Picture content) and only requires 64 KB of Persistent Storage. Internet connectivity is also not required.
Profile 1.1 adds the requirement for a secondary video and audio processors, requires 256 MB of persistent storage. All players manufactured after October 31 2007 must comply with this profile.
Profile 2.0 adds network connectivity to the list of requirements, and persistent storage requirement is increased to 1 GB.
There is no official standard that says DVDs will have to be supported by BD devices, but the general consensus is that all BD devices will supports DVDs, without requiring any major modifications on the manufacturer's part. It will be stupid for manufacturers not to put support for such a popular and established format into their BD players.
Yes and no. No in that the official specifications obviously won't mention rival formats, unless it's to slag them off, but as with support for DVDs, it would be stupid for many manufacturers (especially those that haven't strongly backed any single format) to not support all the major formats, just like how DVD recordable multi-drives (DVD+ and DVD- support in one drive) is the de-facto standard at the moment.
One major lesson that the movie studios have learnt with DVD is that copy protection is something they should take much more seriously, and they have done just that with the next generation formats, although some would argue that there are still inherent weaknesses in the copy protection scheme chosen.
BD and HD DVD will both use AACS (Advanced Access Content System) to protect its digital data. It is very similar to the flawed CSS, but the "key" difference is in how the various decryption keys are distributed. AES encryption is to be used.
There is actually a lot of computer science behind this, including binary trees, public/private keys and what have you, so I won't bore you with it. Basically, a key is like the normal use of the word: a device used to unlock something. All BD/HD DVD players will have sets of keys that can unlock the data on BDs/HD DVDs. Studios have the power to revoke keys, or prevent certain keys from being used to unlock the data (e.g. keys that have been posted publicly after being hacked). So far so good (or bad), as this is how CSS functions as well, although it's much harder for CSS to revoke keys because the keys are not structured properly like with AACS. Once a key is revoked, future discs will not carry this key, and players using this key will can no longer play back these new discs. The real intention here is not to disable players, but rather, stop ripping software that uses a set of "leaked" or "hacked" keys to rip disc. There might be a situation where a particular hardware player's keys have all been leaked, and it will no longer be able to play back new discs.
Now, there have been a lot of discussion about AACS requiring an Internet connection to update keys and so forth, as well as checking for content authorisation (pay per play, etc...), but this is not really true of standalone hardware players, at least not right now (although by launch time, this may change, but it's hard to imagine Internet connections being required by default, as this would wipe out a huge segment of the consumer base). Only software based players will require this key update, as it isn't really practical to implement an "Internet connection" requirement for hardware. An Internet connection might be useful if say a hardware player's keys have all been leaked and revoked, so a new set can be issued to the player through an Internet update. Although allowing updates through the Internet opens up a whole other set of issues, like security. Besides, this kind of copy protection can be implemented without an Internet connection, as in the case of SPDC (see below).
And as long as hackers don't post keys publicly, or produce tools which randomly generates working keys, this scheme won't even work to provide any protection. Even if there was a large scale leak, say if all the keys of a certain hardware manufacturer are leaked, a mass revocation may not work either because this would cause big problems for existing players of said manufacturer (assuming it is an "established" name), and a lot of headaches to a lot of normal consumers (but we'll probably have to get used to this sooner or later). If a "minor" manufacturer has its keys revoked (e.g. a small manufacturer that did not pay licensing fees), then people who have purchased this player might be in a bit of bother, but this is probably one of the intended effects of this new copy protection scheme.
Worst yet, work on AACS has been delayed meaning that a delay on the launch dates of both Blu-ray and HD DVD hardware is a strong possibility.
AACS will also feature analogue copy protection (Macrovision), a way to force lower resolution video on analogue outputs, audio watermarks to prevent non watermarked audio from being played back, and the possibility of forcing digital output only (digital output is easier to "protect" than analogue output).
Unfortunately, the Blu-Ray Disc Association has deemed AACS insufficient, and has also added support for Self-Protecting Digital Content (SPDC), or what it calls BD+, and "ROM Mark". Starting with ROM Mark, it is a unique and undetectable identifier produced in the manufacturing phase that prevents mass piracy. Fair enough. BD+ or SPDC, on the other hand, has come under some criticism. BD+ allows discs to carry title specific security logic, basically means that each disc can contain code that can be run on a BD player to allow or disallow playback (although the player's behaviour is not modified, and will return to normal once the disc is ejected). Whether this code can be used maliciously by hackers (e.g. a pirated disc distributed on the Internet, which can shut down a player, forcing the user to reboot and quickly eject the malicious disc before the code is run again), we can only wait to find out.
More information on SPDC can be found here: http://www.cryptography.com/technology/spdc/
As expected, the various AACS versions that have been present on discs since release have all been cracked, sometimes before the discs themselves were available for general sale. BD+ implementations have been rumoured to be hacked too with the first commercial cracking solution to be available before the end of 2007.
In November 2005, HP has requested "Managed Copy" to be added to the Blu-ray specifications as a mandatory features. That request was subsequently approved, so now both Blu-ray and HD DVD will have mandatory managed copy support. Managed copy refers to the part of the copy protection system that allows backups to be made, as well as the content to be played back remotely (eg. over a home network). Microsoft has recently cited this to be one of the main reasons for its shift of support towards HD DVD, before Blu-ray made it mandatory as well.
The very same reasons why the (non-working) CSS and (non-working) region protection schemes are still in place today.
Licensing is the cash cow of the 21st century. By only providing working keys to manufacturers that pay you licensing fees (at your own schedule/price), every time a device capable of playing BD/HD DVD is produced, a licensing fee is paid to the founders of the formats. This is also why there are two major and two minor high definition DVD formats, as opposed to just the one.
So in actual fact, AACS is more of a licensing protection scheme, than a copy protection scheme, and any inconvenience consumers have to suffer as a result is much less important, in the eye of the format founders, than the billions in income that licensing will generate in the lifetime of these high definition formats.
By all accounts, region coding for DVDs should be considered a failure, with region-free hacked firmware available for DVD-ROM drives, and remote control hacks for standalones (not to mention the great number of players manufactured to be region-free). However, this is not stopping region coding to be included in Blu-ray, even if the boundaries of the regions are different to that for DVDs.
An announcement in December 2005 specified the regions for Blu-ray discs:
3.16.1 Why is the PS3 being mentioned in this FAQ? Did you copy and paste the wrong section into the wrong FAQ?
The Sony PS3 is indeed important to the success or failure of the BD format. As mentioned above, Sony is one of the major backers of the BD format, and so it is no surprise that the next generation game console, the PS3, will use BD as its primary format. As for November 2007, the PS3 represents the best Blu-ray player available on the market due to its versatile and powerful hardware, which allows it to be eventually upgraded to conform with the most advanced Blu-ray playback profile (see section 1.10.1).
But thanks for assuming that it was a mistake on my part.
1.16.2 Will the PS3 be able to play back BD movies?
Yes.
The PS3 is capable of 1080p output, so full resolution BD playback is supported.
Because the PS3 has an Ethernet port, large quantities of storage and a powerful processor, firmware updates will eventually be able to bring the PS3 up to the most advanced Blu-ray playback profile (see section 1.10.1).
1.16.3 Why is PS3's support for BD significant enough to warrant an entire chapter in this FAQ?
Because people like playing games, and the PS3 will most likely be the most popular game console once it is released, and if not, it will still be in the top 3. If anything, this could tip the format race in favour of BD over HD DVD, and certainly doesn't hurt Sony, which had the choice of having a proprietary format for its game console, or something just as good.
As of November 2007, the PS3 is the most popular Blu-ray player on the market and it has helped Blu-ray to have a lead in terms of movie sales in the US.
1.16.4 What about the Xbox 360?
The Xbox 360 did not include a HD DVD drive nor were there plans to have support for HD DVD at launch, although Bill Gates has hinted that an updated Xbox 360 with HD DVD support may be available in the future (see update below). At the time of release, however, Xbox 360 will rely on the DVD format for distribution, with no support for any of the future high definition formats. The game console itself will be able to output high definition pictures (at 1080i), so the exclusion of HD movie playback support is a bit confusing. But this is probably the price Microsoft has to pay in order to release their console earlier than the competition, and without having to choose one format over another (Microsoft's VC-1 codec is supported by both major high definition formats, and this gives you an indication of the fence-sitting attitude that Microsoft will take towards this issue).
Update (October 2nd, 2005): Microsoft has officially backed the HD DVD format, along with Intel. While there is still no official news that the Xbox 360 will have HD DVD capabilities, this news does suggest that the Xbox 360 will have this capability in the future if the HD DVD format is not a total failure.
Update (January 8th, 2006): At the CES 2006, Microsoft announced that it will provide HD DVD support for the Xbox 360 in the form of an external drive/add-on, to be release later in 2006.
Update (August, 2006). Microsoft has announced that the HD DVD add on drive will be available for Christmas at around $200. The drive would only be used for HD DVD movie playback, with no support for HD DVD games.
The Xbox 360 HD DVD drive is now available for sale and it has become the most popular Xbox 360 accessory on sale to date (November 2007).
1.16.5 PS3 Blu-ray Playback Details
This section briefly goes over the details of PS3's Blu-ray playback capabilities. For a more detailed report and comparison with Xbox 360's HD DVD playback capabilities, please refer to this article.
For the time being, navigation of Blu-ray titles is done through the PS3's controller. A remote control add-on will be available in time though.
Disc loading and menu access is quite quick, and comparable if not better than the Samsung BD-P1000 standalone player. The operation is also near silent, unlike the noise from the Xbox 360's internal cooling fan.
HDMI 1.3 output is included in both version of the console, making it the first Blu-ray player to feature HDMI 1.3. 1080p output is supported, as is internal decoding of audio up to 7.1 channels. Dolby Digital, DTS, SACD and Dolby TrueHD can all be decoded by the PS3. Pass-through of these formats is also supported through HDMI or through Sony's optical "MultiOut" audio output system. HDMI cable and Sony's proprietary PS3 to component cables are sold separately.
Playback quality appears to favour the PS3 over the Samsung BD-P1000, especially in the area of detail. Video output is at 1080p/60, with no support for 1080p/24 as of yet. The latest PS3 1.80 firmware adds 1080p upscaling for both games and movies (including DVD movies)!
| Laser Type: | Blue-violet laser |
| Laser Wavelength: | 405nm |
| Track Pitch: | 0.32µm |
| Read Power: | 0.35mW |
| Disc size: | 120mm |
| Capacity: | |
| Single Layer: | 25GB |
| Dual Layer: | 50GB |
| Transfer Rate: | 1x => 36 Mbps |
| Video Resolution: | 1080i (1920x1080 HD, 50i, 60i) |
| 1080p (1920x1080 HD, 24p) | |
| 720p (1280x720, 50p, 60p, 24p) | |
| SD (720x576/480, 50i, 60i) | |
| Video Compression: | MPEG-2 |
| MPEG-4 AVC | |
| Microsoft VC-1 | |
| Audio Resolution/Compression: | Dolby Digital AC3 |
| DTS | |
| Linear PCM | |
| Optional: Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) | |
| Optional: Dolby TrueHD | |
| Optional: DTS-HD High Resolution Audio | |
| Optional: DTS-HD Master Audio (lossless) | |
| Copy Protection | AACS |
| ROM Mark | |
| BD+ | |
| File System: | DF 2.6 |
This section will provide some details of early Blu-ray hardware (for computers or standalone devices) that will be available around launch. This section is not meant to be an all inclusive list of all available hardware, but rather, a list that is designed to give you a general idea of the specifications (and if available, costs) of the early generation hardware.
This section list some software (currently only movies) that have been scheduled for release. This is not a complete list of all available BD movies - for the latest releases BD movies, please visit our home page.
List of initial releases for 2006:
This section will offer a brief comparison between the various high definition DVD formats mentioned in this FAQ. The comparison will be between BD/HD DVD, and EVD/FVD, as it does not make sense to compare BD/HD DVD and EVD/FVD, since they are aimed at different market segments.
As the format war has now officially ended, following Toshiba's drop of HD DVD support in February 2008, much of the information presented here is of no value, other than historical value. Please treat the following information as such.
For a more technical analysis of Blu-ray and HD DVD differences, please refer to our Blu-ray and HD DVD Buyer's Guide.
Blu-ray and HD DVD are much more similar than both lobby groups would like to admit (this is why a movement to release a unified format was created, although it looks like it now has failed), but there exists a few main differences, most of them already outlined in detail above.
The first main difference is the capacity. With BD, at least at the time of launch, there will be two choices (single/dual layer) in capacities for movie studios to choose from, both of them quite large (25 and 50 GB). With HD DVD, there will most likely be 3 choices (single, dual and triple layer), each with smaller capacities than their BD equivalents (at the same layer count). Some people might prefer having more choice over larger capacities per choice, as it provides more flexibility (in producing movie discs or buying blank media for home use), especially if the reduced capacity means lower cost. Another problem is that 50GB BDs are expensive to produce, and so most discs rely on BD25. For example, Warner Bros's releases on both formats often use identical transfers and content, the Blu-ray release using the full BD25 and the HD DVD release using most of the space on a HD30. With modern compression codecs such as H.264 or VC-1, even 25 GB is enough to store the movie plus extra features in excellent quality.
The second main difference could perhaps be the most important difference, although not directly for you and me, but for disc manufacturers. HD DVD has been designed to be as close to current DVDs as possible, and so, production lines do not have to be changed to produce HD DVD media. BD, on the other hand, will require changes to be made, and this could mean high media costs (which won't really affect sell-through movie sales/pricing, but will affect blank media pricing), as manufacturers try to recoup the money invested in new production lines. But Blu-ray has already responded by producing equipment which aims to bring production costs more in line with HD DVD production.
The third main difference at the moment is copy protection, in that BD has BD+ or SPDC, which HD DVD doesn't have (yet). As mentioned in section 1.13, SPDC will allow individual BDs to carry code to prevent playback if it detects something is not right. Also, Managed Copy (see section 1.13) is mandatory on HD DVD (users are allowed to make at least one copy), and was only made mandatory for Blu-ray in November 2005 (following pressure from members of the BDA).
Interactive content for HD DVD will be provided by iHD, which is a creation of Microsoft and Toshiba, and will be implemented in Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system as well. Blu-ray has opted for Sun Microsystem's Java for interactive features. HP, part of the Blu-ray alliance, has requested iHD support to be added to the Blu-ray specifications, and the request is being considered. iHD is considered to be superior to Java due to its support for greater interactivity.
A major problem for early Blu-ray adopters has been the confusing nature of the specifications of early Blu-ray players (see section 1.10.1). The first Blu-ray players use what is called the "Grace Period Profile", which lacks several features such as Ethernet connectivity for Internet based content and secondary video/audio decoders for features such as picture-in-picture. Profile 1.0 players also have limited storage space for persistent content, such as downloads and bookmarks. Profile 1.1 adds the secondary decoders and increases persistent storage size, but still does not require an Ethernet port. Only profile 2.0 players require Ethernet ports, and also increases persistent storage to 1 GB. As for October 31st 2007, all Blu-ray players manufactured must support Profile 1.1. In comparison, the very first HD DVD players includes all the features of Blu-ray profile 2.0 (with less required minimum persistent storage), and many HD DVD movies have already been produced to use advanced features such as picture-in-picture and Internet content.
Standalone prices for HD DVD is currently (November 2007) much lower than that of Blu-ray, with recent sales that saw the Toshiba HD-A2 being sold for as little as $98. In comparison, the cheapest Blu-ray player currently (November 2007) is retailing for around $400. The HD DVD groups hopes that standalone pricing for HD DVD player can remain lower than Blu-ray due to productions of CH DVD players.
And finally, the support of movie studios will be very important if sell-through movie sales, which is the driving force behind the success of DVDs, is to be the most important factor in determining the success and failure of either format. As of November 2007, Blu-ray still have the greater studio support, although the situation has improved for HD DVD now that Paramount/Dreamworks have gone HD DVD exclusive. Warner Bros. is currently committed to supporting both formats and is the only major studio to have this stance - but this stance will end in May 2008, as Warner announced in January of the same year.
In late September 2005, Microsoft (and Intel) decided to back HD DVD over Blu-ray, and many of the above factors were key reasons for this backing (Microsoft had stayed neutral up until this point, and there were even signs that it might back Blu-ray in the end). Interestingly, both Microsoft and Intel believe that less rigid copy protection that allows copies of a movie to be made is essential for their home networking/media streaming vision.
2.2.1 The Author's Opinion:
When I first wrote the guide in September of 2005, it wasn't the case of one format having significantly more support than the other. But it later changed and as of October 2005, with Warner and Paramount both shifting towards the Blu-ray camp (while still maintaining their support for HD DVD). Judging by my existing DVD collection statistics, the break-down was 139 (57%) to 35 (15%) in favour of the BD camp, with a further 67 (28%) DVDs belonging to studios that have backed both formats. The situation continued to change in August 2007 when Paramount/Dreamworks broke away from Blu-ray to be HD DVD exclusive. My collection statistics now stand at 184 (52%) for Blu-ray, 99 (28%) for HD DVD and 72 (20%) supporting both. I suspect the situation will continue to change in this area. Of course, this is just my collection and your collection might have a different ratio.
The PS3 could be a major factor in all this, although the PS3 is aimed at an entirely different market to high definition movies, and the support for the PS3 may not translate well to the home video market. So far (November 2007), the PS3 has proved to be the most popular Blu-ray player. But as expected, the attachment rate (the number of movies sold per player) for the PS3 is much lower than standalones, and reports suggest many PS3 owners are unaware or just simply don't care about the Blu-ray playback feature.
Copy protection is something I take seriously, and I have to say I'm leaning towards HD DVD due to its lack of BD+ and generally more consumer friendly approach (although it is still far from being perfect). HD DVD being region-free is also very attractive for me, since I can import movies from the US to get them quicker (and cheaper).
One factor that people often overlook (and I did too, so thanks to D. Chambers for pointing this out to me) is the porn industry. Adult DVDs were one of the reasons the uptake of the DVD format was so quick (I seem to remember a time when adult DVDs outnumbered Hollywood movie DVDs 5 to 1, at a time when DVD uptake was still comparatively low). So far, pretty much all the porn studios have backed HD DVD, due to Sony DADC's (the disc replication arm of Sony) hesitancy towards offering support for pornographic films. Only one studio, Vivid, supports both formats.
Another factor in the success of DVD was the available of cheap players made by Asian manufacturers, particularly China. HD DVD has embraced the Chinese market by offering the CH DVD format, which is semi-compatible with HD DVD. It is hoped that CH DVD player sales in China can drive down prices for HD DVD players, and if recent (November 2007) sales are of any indication (where Chinese made $98 Toshiba HD DVD players were being sold), then it seems this strategy is working.
So in conclusion, both formats have their advantages and disadvantages. It's almost impossible to say which format will be the ultimate winner, and most likely, there won't be an outright winner at all. If we really do have to live with both formats, as it looks more and more likely, then the best thing is to either not buy into HD just yet (wait for dual-format players), or not to get involved in the HD war silliness by making yourself format neutral (having players of both formats). Whether it's having a PS3 plus a $98 HD DVD player, or having a $399 Blu-ray player plus the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive, format neutral is the safest route to take at the moment.
Update (January 2008): This is an update in response to Warner's decision to go Blu-ray exclusive from May 2008. This decision is a major blow on HD DVD, and if there is going to be one winner, it looks more and more likely to be Blu-ray at this stage. HD DVD still has many advantages over Blu-ray especially for the consumer, but without sufficient studio support, it's all pretty meaningless.
Update (February 2008): As expected, Blu-ray is now victorious after the biggest HD DVD backer, Toshiba, decided to drop support for the format. The final analysis shows that stronger studio support, stronger support from electronics manufacturers, and the PS3 were all likely contributing factors to Blu-ray's success.
2.2.2 Opinion from www.dvdrs.net:
Technology is sometimes beyond the comprehension of the consumer and although all these standards are far better than the current DVD MPEG2 we have now I cannot see the uptake of yet another hardware change so quickly.
Consumers are still making the change from VHS to DVD and its unlikely they'll understand the true benefits of HD for some time.
Forcing all these standards and further hardware updates on a market that has only truly accepted the DVD standard recently is crazy. Most users are only interested in getting their favourite films on seemingly lossless media and they believe that DVD is currently that. Granted its not lossless in the true sense of the actual content but consumers see it that way as no matter how many times you play the media it doesn't degrade like older technology of VHS or BETAMAX.
Personally I think all this is currently in the high realms of the real enthusiast and I cannot see a standard being reached properly for sometime. And by the time its accepted we will be forced yet another standard to adopt and upgrade to.
2.2.3 Opinion from DVDHelp.us:
The difference in technologies used for HD-DVD/AOD and Blu-Ray are significant enough that they will likely play a major factor in the battle. While both camps have corporations behind them with extremely deep pockets, I believe that the eventual victory will go to HD-DVD/AOD. Blu-Ray may be able to hold slightly more data, but ultimately, that isn't enough. New and improved future codecs will eventually be able to fit more and more on a disc, so raw storage space will always be a moot point. HD-DVD drives and discs can be more easily created on current assembly lines, saving the manufacturers a lot of money. Likewise, the discs will be backwards compatible, so consumers won't have to immediately rush out and buy all new discs and players. Historically, consumers have always been more likely to accept a new product when it became a natural progression from their current product, as compared to having to throw away a perfectly good (but outdated) product in favour of the new one.
In the end, it will be the cost, not to features, that win this battle. Simply put, HD-DVD is cheaper to make, cheaper to buy, and cheaper to upgrade from your current setup. With the exception of the lucky few to whom money isn't a concern, the rest of us will have to support the one that represents the lower cost to us.
That's impossible to tell at the moment. What is quite likely is that all the formats mentioned in this FAQ will fail, and this will be because of greed (licensing/royalty) and utter lack of understanding of the consumer base (copy protection, user needs). Or both formats will have some qualified success, in that both will survive and we'll just have to live with both formats.
I hope that one format does win the day or that the two camps settle down and come up with a single specification, and hopefully with the support of everyone involved, much like the current DVD format. But I fear I might be hoping for too much.
Update (February 2008): It looks like my wish has come true, and that one format has won the day. Blu-ray is now the winner of the HD format war.
Obviously after Blu-ray's victory, your choices are now pretty limited. It's either Blu-ray or Blu-ray or Blu-ray. Those with HD DVD discs already might still want to continue buying dual format players, but for new users, there is no longer the need to make any choice.
If you are reading this, and you are the President of Sony or Toshiba, then there is a lot you can do to ensure there is only one format. But in the end, the Blu-ray and HD DVD camps will do whatever they think they have to do to ensure maximum profits. If I have to put money on it, I would say the chances of one format have come and gone and that we are stuck with two formats, even if one format might have a larger share of the market.
Update (Febuary 2008): Well, whatever you did to ensuer only one format survives, it looks to have worked! Blu-ray is now the only remaining HD format (in the West, at least). My slightly pessimistic prediction of two formats seems to have been wrong, with Toshiba doing the right thing and ending the format war in quick fashion.
Below are some terms and concepts mentioned in this FAQ, but not fully explained:
Codec - Coder Decoder. Basically a way to describe a piece of software or hardware that can decode or encode compressed video or audio.
CSS - Content Scrambling System. The form of copy protection used by DVDs, and famously (or is that infamously) hacked, which led to the MPAA DeCSS trials.
HDCP - High Definition Copy Protection. Now standard with every DVI/HDMI connection, HDCP requires both the source (player) and destination (display) to support HDCP if HD video is to be played, otherwise playback will fail or a low resolution image may be shown only.
HDMI - High Definition Multimedia Interface. HDMI is essentially DVI with (digital) audio. Ever popular with high end home theatre devices, it is starting to find its way onto mid-end and even some budget systems. Most devices, including some next generation game consoles (like the Sony PS3).
Interlaced/Progressive - On an interlaced display device (e.g. 1080i), at any one time, only half of the horizontal lines are displayed. This means that for each frame, every other line of information is displayed first (usually the odd numbered lines, called a "field"), and then the other lines, to make up the complete frame. For progressive display devices (or progressive scan), all the lines of information are displayed at the same time.
Similarly, when a BD/HD DVD player has interlaced output (eg. 1080i), half of the information for a frame is sent, then the other half. With progressive output, all the information for a frame is transmitted in one go.
The big debate is whether 1080p is better than 1080i, but there is no simple answer for this.
Well, there is a simple answer and basically for film based material connected to a 1080p display, in most cases, there is no difference in quality between using a 1080i connection or 1080p connection. The only difference is the order in which the information is sent to the display - the display should in most cases reassemble the information and produce identical outputs on the screen. This is for native 1080p displays. For lower resolution displays where down-scaling is required, this is where the confusion comes from.
The confusion comes from the fact that many displays supporting 1080i (for example, many plasma screens) have a native resolution of 720p - this means that no matter what kind of signal you send to the display (480p, 576i, 1080i ...), it will be converted internally to 720p by the scaler and de-interlacer chip (if the input is interlaced) and displayed as such. Digital displays like plasmas and LCDs are all progressive displays.
Then you also have the resolution of the source and how the source was captured.
For content shot on film (movies), the image is captured in a progressive fashion. When this is stored in progressive fashion in an optical format like Blu-ray or HD DVD, then transmitting the signal over 1080i output simply means that the player will be sending 540 lines (half) of information per frame first and then the other half, and a good de-interlacer should be able to recombine (weave) the information again to form a 1080p picture. When the same signal is sent over 1080p, the display device does not need to do any combining and you also get a 1080p picture. However, if the de-interlacer on the display device is the cheap sort, then it might take the 540 lines and upconvert it to the native resolution, meaning you are only seeing half the resolution of the source at any one time - in this situation, 1080p is clearly better than 1080i - even 720p might be better. This AVS Forum thread might be of interest. This article goes into some more technical details.
Confused yet? To best illustrate what all the above means, here are some examples (focusing on high definition DVDs only playing back movies shot on film):
Playing back a Blu-ray/HD DVD movie on a 720p display through the player's 1080i output. This is the most common scenario for current home setups (eg. high def DVD player connected to a plasma screen). The good de-interlacer on the display recombines the picture into a full 1080p picture. The scaler then scales down the picture to 720p resolution. If the de-interlacer was a cheap one, then you can get a fake 1080p picture by upconverting a half-resolution field, and then downconvert back to 720p - you are still not seeing more than 540 lines of information, half of what was stored on the disc. If the same display (with the cheap de-interlacer) somehow accepted a 1080p signal, then it would look better than the 1080i signal.
Playing back a Blu-ray/HD DVD movie on a 1080p display through the player's 1080i output. The good de-interlacer on the display recombines the picture into a full 1080p picture. Picture is displayed as 1080p and looks just like it would if the player's output was 1080p. If the display's de-interlacer was a bad one (doesn't do the proper recombining), then the 1080p signal would look better than the 1080i signal.
When every display accepts 1080p input, has a 1080p native resolution and your Blu-ray/HD DVD player outputs a proper 1080p signal, then things will be a whole lot simpler. Until then, a 1080p native resolution display with a good de-interlacer + 1080i input will give you a great 1080p picture. Of course there is still the matter of interlaced content (eg. HDTV), IVTC and the difference between NTSC/PAL displays, but let's just leave it at that.
Sometimes you also see the 50i, 60i or 24p terms used after indicating a resolution. The number (50, 60 or 24) represents the frames per second (FPS), the i or p represents interlaced or progressive frames. PAL is 50i, NTSC is 60i and FILM is 24p.
Lossless/Lossy Compression - With normal types of compression, quality lost in favour of conserving space. This is called lossy compression, because the quality loss is gone forever. With lossless compression, the original quality is preserved when the audio/video is uncompressed, although this does mean that file sizes for lossless compressed content is much larger than that for lossy compression.
A simple analogy which can be used is the difference between JPEGs, which is lossy, and a ZIP file, which is lossless.
The author of this FAQ wishes to acknowledge the following websites for providing information that contributed to this FAQ, listed in alphabetical order:
http://www.avsforum.com/
http://www.blu-raydisc.com/
http://www.cdfreaks.com/
http://www.dvdsite.org/
http://www.hddvdprg.com/
http://www.lsilogic.com/
http://www.oes.itri.org.tw/
http://slashdot.org/
http://wikipedia.org/
This FAQ is presented as is. This FAQ can only be distributed without any monetary cost involved, and by specific permission from the author.
No parts of this FAQ can be reproduced without the permission of the author.
Author: Xiao Fang
Version: 0.8.1
Creation Date: 14th September 2005
Last Updated: 20th February 2008
Text Version:
http://www.digital-digest.com/highdefdvd/faq.txt
Contact Details:
http://www.digital-digest.com/highdefdvd/faq_contact.php
