by kellie abrahamson kabrahamson1@aol.com
I was a little late on the whole DVD thing. I had a healthy VHS collection that took up most of the space in my entertainment center and was extremely skeptical about upgrading to DVD for fear that the trend just wouldn’t catch on. Of course now I have far too many DVDs to count and my VHS collection is a dusty memory, half boxed up in our storage unit, the other half taking up space in a landfill somewhere. As my luck would have it, my beloved DVDs may just be going the way of the buffalo, what with the growing popularity of competing technologies like HD, DVD and Blu-ray. If you happened to be lucky enough to get a fancy new HDTV for Christmas, you may need to consider picking up some new discs to go along with it. What’s the difference? And do you really need to go out and replace all your movies?
HD DVDs and players use blue lasers to read and write information, an upgrade to standard DVDs because blue has a shorter wavelength, allowing information to be more densely packed. As a result, HD DVD can store roughly 3-4 times more information than regular DVDs. That means your standard single-layer copy of Bridget Jones’s Diary is 4.7GB while the HD DVD equivalent has 15GB, resulting in a clearer, sharper picture of a slightly overweight Renée Zellweger in a barely-there bunny suit.
There are currently 128 films available on HD DVD in the United States (sorry folks, Bridget Jones’s Diary hasn’t made it to the format yet). If you own an Xbox 360 you can purchase a HD DVD drive for around $200 and play your new discs on that. If not, stand alone players are available starting at around $500.
Much like its competitor, Blu-Ray discs use blue lasers to read and write data, meaning they can hold a lot more information compared to current DVDs. In fact, Blu-ray discs actually have more information capacity than HD DVDs, with single-layer discs holding 25GB and dual-layer discs with 50GB.
Blu-Ray players are currently running at around $1000, but if you happened to get your hands on a Playstation 3, you’ve already got everything you need to play the discs. As of December 12th, 123 films are available on Blu-Ray.
If you happened to be around during the great VHS/Betamax format war in the early 80s, you may be feeling a bit of déjà vu right about now. Currently manufacturers are at a standoff as to which new-gen disc will reign supreme. HD DVD supporters include Toshiba, NEC, Sanyo, Microsoft, Intel, HBO, New Line Cinema, Paramount Home Entertainment and Universal Studios Home Entertainment. Blu-Ray backers are Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Pioneer and LG Electronics, Dell, HP, Apple Computer, Twentieth Century Fox, Vivendi Universal and Walt Disney and video game maker Electronic Arts. Warner Bros and Viacom have said they will support both.
Many people like Blu-Ray because of the higher data capacity but others say HD DVD is better because it is a less expensive option. While this is currently the case, prices are expected to drop at the end of next year, perhaps paving the way for Blu-Ray to pull into the lead.
With all this talk of format wars, are our precious DVDs being phased out? Not quite yet. Today’s conventional single-layer DVDs can hold around 4.7 gigabytes of information which is plenty for most TVs to handle. The consumer want for pitch perfect picture quality and sound is what is driving companies to look for new technology and find a suitable next generation replacement. We still have a long time until either of the new formats will make standard DVDs obsolete so those with hundreds of movies on DVD can rest easy. And, thankfully, HD DVD and Blu-Ray players are able to read current-generation DVDs, meaning you can continue to watch your discs long after you upgrade your equipment.
The winner of the battle for technological supremacy remains to be seen and the war could very well last another couple of years. The bottom line is if you’re satisfied with your plain ol’ DVDs, there’s no reason to up and switch until all the dust settles. Existing DVD players and discs will work perfectly with HDTV sets and will look great. Still, if you have an HDTV and you want to see what it can really do, you may want to pick up a next generation player and a few discs and take it for a spin. It’ll almost be worth money to take a look at what home entertainment in the future will look like.
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