Tech express

Today I had the idea of creating a ratings system to gauge simply whether I think something will fail or not. Dont worry, it wont have a cheesy name like "the fail-o-meter" although it was tempting! I will base my ratings on the following aspects:-

1. Development. Has it stood still and been overtaken by competing technology, or are there 100's of eager scientists and companies all over the world trying to make this work?

2. Practical uses. Is this some overly pretentious piece of equipment that claims to do everything we "need" it to do, or is it going to save us time, money and possibly the environment while its at it?

3. Future cost. Most technology to begin with has a high production cost, mainly because of research and development, but once mass production begins we should see a more pocket friendly price.

The ratings will be 1-10 on each category - 1 being a failure and 10 being a success. I will then take each of these figures and create an average final rating.

If you havent already heard theres a war going on out there, and no this one has nothing to do with terrorism! This is a war between two competing high-def formats HD DVD and Blu-Ray, and its a fight to the death! Or something like that. Whatever the outcome the chances are hi-def content is here to stay. But who will win you ask? Well read on to find out what the competitors offer!

First off, I would like to give a brief explanation of DVD, as it will be alot easier to see the advantages of the HD formats if theres something to compare it to:-

The physical size of a DVD is identical to a CD, the difference is how the information is stored. A DVD laser has a wavelength of 650 nanometers which allows a single sided DVD to store 4.7GB (compared to 700mb on a CD) and a dual layer DVD can store 9.4GB and read/write speeds start at 1.4MB/sec (1x) and peaks at just over 21MB/sec (16x).

With dvd briefly explained we'll move on to the new formats. In the red corner we have HD DVD with a wavelengh of 405 nanometers which allows for a storage capacity of 15GB for single layer and 30GB for dual layer with read/write speeds of 4.5MB/sec (1x) and 9.0MB/sec (2x) but as with DVD these times will get faster as 4x, 8x, 16x (and possibly beyond) drives and discs become available. HD DVD is promoted by Toshiba, NEC, Sanyo, Microsoft, RCA and Intel but the only movie studios that will be exclusively publishing their titles on HD DVD is Universal Studios and The Weinstein Company.

Now for Blu-Ray in the blue (ahem) corner. Using a blue-violet laser diode with a 405 nanometer wavelengh they manage to squeeze 25gb per layer and 6.5MB/sec (1x) and as with HD DVD faster speeds are in development. Blu-ray has a huge amount of industry support, the list of board of directors are as follows:- Apple Computer Inc., Dell Inc., Hewlett Packard Company, Hitachi Ltd., LG Electronics Inc., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Pioneer Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sharp Corporation, Sony Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Inc., TDK Corporation, Thomson Multimedia, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures and Warner Bros. Entertainment. Not only that but there are 180 member companies.

What about content, how much of this glorious HD content can each medium store? I have made a table below to show the differences.

Cost
I've taken these prices from Amazon.co.uk for a price comparison
Blu-ray: Samsung BD-P1000/XEU Blu Ray DVD Player for £537.99
HD DVD: Toshiba HD-E1 for £319.00
These are the only two players I could find as at 26/03/07 and as you can see theres over £200 difference at the moment between players. Alternatively you can buy a Playstation 3 for £425.00 which plays Blu-ray out of the box or an XBOX360 for £279.99 plus £130 for the add-on HD DVD drive.

As with any new standard trying to make its way into the consumer world there are some things under development that I thought I should bring up. First up Toshiba (camp HD DVD) are working on a triple layer disc with 17gb a layer for 51GB total storage. Also on the cards is a 200GB Blu-ray disc with 6 layers of 33GB each. Very promising for anyone looking for a new backup measure.

Don't worry if you have just bought yourself an expensive new DVD player, this war isnt going to be won this year. DVD's arent going anywhere for at least 5 years and the format war may take just as long, even then we may still have all 3 formats to choose from.

What about downloadable content? While I believe in the coming years this will become a big part of the revenue for the movie studios I don't think it will have enough clout to overtake physical media. People like their collections, and the fact any download service will feature heavy copyright protections in the form of DRM which wont allow you to transfer your movies anywhere will have a big impact on online sales.

So who decides who wins this war? Ultimately it's down to you and me, the average consumer, because we are the ones who will be reaching into our pockets and buying into this new tech. My personal choice would be Blu-ray, although it may be more expensive at the moment it has more potential for the future and the price gap will narrow over time.

P. Smith

I read alot of blogs and news sites about technology and everyone has thier opinions and insights and most people make these public and I think its my time to do the same.

Perhaps nobody will read any of my blarb but then I see this more of a diary of sorts, maybe a journal of thoughts that I think should be written down before they are forgotten and the next thing comes and takes its place.

I guess the best place to start is with the eventual release of the PS3.  I was pretty shocked when I read Sony were giving away free 46" HDTV's to everyone who was at their launch at the Oxford Street branch of Virgin Megastores. Not only that but a free taxi home!

Shocked and stunned I ask the question, why did they do it? My guess is publicity although this can go both ways - the American and Japanese PS3 owners who were at their respective console lunches must be at least a bit peeved, I mean they got nothing!  Although its still to be seen how well any of the consoles will do at this point, maybe Sony of America and Japan should have taken a page out of Sony of Europe's book and had a giveaway of their own.

Perhaps Sony's giveaway was a sorry aimed at lulling the disappointed fans who had heard about the gimped backwards compatibility.  Whatever the reason it was quite generous and I have to say I am jealous!

Nothing much else to write at the moment, but it is 11.20 on a Saturday night. 

(source of information www.bbc.co.uk, www.kotaku.com)