HDTV Forum

HDTV broadcast is about to kick into high gear for yet another season! Letterman is less than a week away and Saturday Night Live will be in HD this season.

The format wars are coming this holiday season but the press points to Toshiba having lost a little steam with some of Hollywood pulling back on their commitment to the HD-DVD format with everyone begging both Sony and Toshiba to pull it together for one format. That is very unlikely. Both formats will have an SD DVD layer for backwards compatibility and it is only the HD layers that are different. If you recall the big battle is over blue versus red laser.

Toshiba is not going to placate Sony because that would defeat the entire reason behind HD-DVD; same red laser plants making different red laser discs keeping the DVD related patents and DVD forum participants active and revenue producing. Blu-ray requires retooling of the red laser plants and has no need for the DVD forum HD-DVD patents or technology.

Sony appears to be hedging their bets on intelligence and common sense. It appears both are capable of using all the different technologies to expand their capacity yet no matter what Blu-ray will always have the technological advantage because the blue laser wavelength is smaller and will always have a higher storage capacity, period.

This capability is extremely important for what Hollywood has to offer. The video is expected to equal or exceed D-Theater. Up till now the audio has always been compressed even to your local theater. The difference is our SD-DVD format applies further compression to make it all fit. With D-Theater and these new formats we will be getting the same level of compression used at your local theater, the system minimum. The big news here is talk of providing the full 24/96 multichannel tracks without lossy compression just like ED audio and DTS is ready to provide it via DTS HD. On top of that the music industry is also looking at Blu-ray to replace DVD Audio with full 24/192 multichannel HD Audio offerings just like SACD HD Audio!

This months question is who will show up for HD DVD or Blu-ray? These formats do not offer a 10 times better response unlike HDTV versus your overly compressed satellite SD or RF noisy cable SD. DVD-Audio and SACD are in the same camp and have not faired well in the market place. Many have already stated their doubt that the mass market will even show up although they themselves intend to buy. Another question is what will you buy if you buy into any format at all?

Its much too earily to say. Its their race not ours. We're just in the stands. However, being in the stands, we will all be paying attention to the price of admission.

It going to come down to when and who will offer me HD Video at the best price.

I don't know why some folks keep using the term "red laser" in reference to Toshibas HD-DVD format...Sonys Blu-Ray and Toshibas HD-DVD both use BLUE LASER technology...Toshibas format should win this battle based on production costs being alot lower, which converts to a more affordable retail cost for the consumer. I will buy Toshibas recorder/player when it finally lands on the shelves...

Click here to learn more on the correct composition of Toshibas technology...

http://archive.chipcenter.com/knowledge ... D=10300891

This is a complicated business and thanks to one of the Major Contributers, Ken KQ6QV of www.hdtvprimer.com , I have been notified of an error in my newsletter yesterday.

If you recall the big battle is over blue versus red laser.

The battle is over blue laser but used in two very different applications. Incredible how .5mm can make such a difference. The good news is the conclusion remains intact. That .5mm difference requires major retooling of the plants.

The links from Ken

To quote from http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/AOD.html :

Short for Advanced Optical Disc, Blu-ray

from Rodolfo La Maestra...

Richard,

Although not exactly as you said, I would like to clarify in your defense that actually there is an
origin of the red laser technology from Toshiba in the Hi Def battle, that demo was at CES 2003 in
the Toshiba booth (check page 66 for the formats and page 67 for what Toshiba demo HD on both laser
colors, of the CES 2003 report, which is free to anyone).

Today, the incorporation of the MPEG-4 codec in both blue-laser players (the compression that was
demo on the red laser player of Toshiba in 2003), make both formats BD and HD-DVD able to handle the
3 video codecs (MPEG-4, WM9, and MPEG-2), but to be fair with you, your statements they were not
that way off if a reader cares to look at the historical transformations of both formats.

Now it is easy for everyone to concentrate on the multiple current capabilities of both formats but
the transformations for over the last 5-6 years present a wider perspective of just two blue-laser
formats.

Since the 2003 text is on pdf, if you want text to cut and paste I could send you the MS-Word text,
just let me know, but it is easy for anyone to click on the link of the HDTV magazine that offers
the 2003 report for free.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra