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Blu-ray Wins 21st Century Betamax Battle
Submitted by Scott Hettrick on 週二, 02/19/2008 - 1:00am.You have probably been hearing in the last days and weeks about some sort of battle over high-def discs and something called Blu-ray.
In a nutshell, as the 10-year-old DVD market began to plateau, consumer electronics makers and studios began to devise a new device to replace the DVD, just as DVD replaced the VHS/VCR. But just as two competing companies came up with two incompatible and competing home videocassette tape formats back in the 1970s – VHS and Betamax – two competing companies did so again a few years ago. In both cases, Sony was on one side, this time with a format called Blu-ray Disc. Whereas Panasonic was the opposition with the VHS, this time it was Toshiba with something called HD DVD (a better name, and a name Toshiba was allowed to use because it uses the underlying architecture of the DVD).
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Blu-ray WINS 21ST CENTURY BETAMAX BATTLE
by Scott Hettrick
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Blu-ray, which looks identical to a DVD, initially had the backing of every studio except Universal and DreamWorks, every electronics company except Toshiba, most computer makers except Microsoft, and the weight of the Sony PlayStation 3, which uses Blu-ray as its core system.
After two long years of battle, Toshiba finally threw in the towel on its HD DVD system this week and Universal has declared it will begin putting its movies out on Blu-ray for the first time.
I’d love to hear/read comments here from those of you who have Blu-ray or just high-def TVs and cable/satellite services. Help the rest of us navigate this new world that can be a little complex and sometimes seem overwhelming.
For those who would like a quick summary of the benefits of Blu-ray, here are a few quick bullet points:
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Best picture quality you can deliver to your new high-def TV. Six times the resolution of DVD. Better than any cable/satellite high-def. 1080p (1,080 lines of resolution, compared to 480 on DVD, and “progressive scan” line-by-line picture-building for each frame of the movie like your computer monitor as opposed to “interlaced” – every other line on the screen). TV delivered via broadcast/cable/satellite offers a lower standard of high-definition, such as 720p and 1080i.
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Next-generation interactivity. Cool new menus that allow you to check out all the scene lists, audio options, and bonus features on the screen as the movie is playing. Far more elaborate interactive games and picture-in-picture and Internet-connected features.
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Tremendous storage capacity. 50GB of storage space – 25GB on each layer of the dual-layer disc, as opposed to 9GB on DVD, meaning far more content on each disc and far more space for recording/storing computer programs. A 100GB Blu-ray Disc is already being developed.
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Durability. A special hardcoat layer offers better protection than DVDs from scratches and breaks.
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Blu-ray machines play your old DVDs. Unlike the transition from VHS to DVD, during which you had to re-buy your entire library of VHS tapes on DVD, Blu-ray allows you to make the transition at your own pace, buying only those new and favorite titles you choose in high-def Blu-ray.
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Superior Sound. High-def sound means up to 7.1 channels or surround sound and 32 streams of audio.
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More than 500 movies on Blu-ray now. With every studio except a couple on board for the past two years, Blu-ray has already amassed a wide selection of new blockbusters and classic movies to offer new customers, including Disney/Pixar and Ice Age animated movies and the entire Pirates of the Caribbean, Spider-Man, Harry Potter, Die Hard and Rocky series, as well as the likes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 2001. With Universal on board, we will likely see twice that number being added to the mix this year.
Be forewarned that Blu-ray discs take longer to load than DVDs, partly because the laser has to read through that extra protective coating layer, and also because there is more information to read.
For those who want to know more about Blu-ray, I write a blog and do text and video interviews with filmmakers and executives and take readers to big events like Comic-Con via video at a Blu-ray site called www.hollywoodinhidef.com. I also recently posted a video interview with producer/writer Dean Devlin (Independence Day, Stargate, etc.) on YouTube
during which he says Blu-ray provides the only true and best representation of his movies (even better than movie theaters).
during which he says Blu-ray provides the only true and best representation of his movies (even better than movie theaters).
Don’t forget, give us your feedback on your Blu-ray and high-def experiences, and ask any questions you like. Either someone will respond here or we’ll do our best to find the answer for you.