DVD Goes High-Def

High-definition DVD products are here, but consumers still face a thorny dilemma as two incompatible formats battle for their dollars.

After much bluster and several false starts, high-definition DVD products for home and PC have arrived--but in two incompatible formats, Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. That means buyers will have to carefully weigh their options as we wait to see which--if either--technology will inherit DVD's crown.

For the companies involved in developing the technologies, the stakes are high: In play is a lucrative pool of licensing fees, not to mention bragging rights for dominating the living room. Proponents in each camp are quick to point out the advantages of their format over the other, but in reality, the specs are more alike than not. (See our chart for a rundown of the differences between HD DVD and Blu-ray, as well as a list of released and upcoming products for each format.)

The most significant difference between the two is the number of high-definition Hollywood movies that should become available for each format. Blu-ray Disc has the support of six major studios--all of the majors except for Universal, which is one of three studios backing HD DVD (the other two, Paramount and Warner Brothers, are supporting both formats).

For now, early adopters have a clear choice--which format you pick depends on what you want to do with the device. The HD DVD camp's initial living-room players and read-only drives are solely for playing HD DVD movies. The first Blu-ray Disc products are PC-centric data recorders, though they'll also play Blu-ray Disc movies due out in June. We tested the first shipping products from each side, and found that they lived up to the hype.

The trickle of devices will turn into a landslide later this year. Blu-ray especially has an impressive array of announced offerings on the way--but the prices are almost twice that of comparable HD DVD devices. The first Blu-ray video players should cost $1000 and up; you can score Toshiba's HD DVD player, the HD-A1, for $500.

Also on the horizon: Microsoft will offer an external HD DVD drive for its Xbox 360 console, while Sony's highly anticipated PlayStation 3 will incorporate a Blu-ray drive.

The first HD DVD player to ship, Toshiba's HD-A1, both impressed and disappointed.

The HD-A1 produced video that was eye-catchingly brilliant, as we observed with HD DVD movies such as Serenity and The Phantom of the Opera. And once you've seen the quality that a high-def movie can deliver, you'll be hooked.

We attached the HD-A1 to a Samsung 32-inch plasma TV, whose maximum resolution of 1080i matches the top output of the HD-A1. In the first 15 minutes of Phantom, the high-def advantage was clear, as compared with an upconverted standard-def Phantom DVD. Viewing the HD DVD, we observed more depth, better facial textures and skin tones on the dancers, superior handling of light, fewer artifacts, and details like the individual toes on the chickens' feet, which the comparison DVD rendered as blurry blobs.

But in design and mechanical playback, the HD-A1 falters. The unit is bulky, its buttons felt slow to respond, jumping among different parts of a disc was sluggish, and, most critically, the time the unit took to begin playing after we inserted the disc seemed interminable. Plus, the unusually long remote is awkward to handle. These design quirks are the harder to swallow considering this is a next-generation product targeted at home theater lovers, who are used to the fast response and polished designs of today's DVD players.

We also got a sneak peek at Toshiba's $3000 Qosmio G35-AV650, the first notebook containing a read-only HD DVD drive. This model, shipping in June, is a hefty desktop replacement unit packing a 2-GHz Intel Core Duo T2500 chip, 1GB of RAM, 200GB of hard disk storage, a 17-inch, 1920-by-1200 display, nVidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics with 256MB of memory, an analog TV tuner, and HDMI output at 1080i.

The first Blu-ray offerings--Pioneer Electronics' BDR-101A ($1000) and Sony's AR Premium VGN-AR19G laptop ($3500)are intended more for video and data burning, not home entertainment.

We tested the production-level BDR-101A drive using BD-R media from TDK, and close-to-final software from Sonic Solutions. The unit's appeal for data and video burning is undeniable: In PC World's tests, we were able to pack about 22GB on a single write-once disc (nearly five times the 4.7GB capacity of a single-layer DVD disc), in around 45 minutes. We achieved a throughput of 67 megabits per second, which is very close to the theoretical maximum of 72 mbps--or 9 megabytes per second--for 2X BD-R. It took just a bit longer than that to copy the same disc back to the hard drive.

The promise of so much capacity on a single disc is alluring, not only for storing video and music, but also for streamlining data backups. Backing up your data with the Pioneer will take a little bit longer than burning five single-layer DVD-Rs, but you'll save time compared with burning the same capacity to double-layer DVD+R. And that's not counting the time for disc swaps. (Blu-ray movies were unavailable in time to test playback.)

However, Pioneer made some sacrifices to rush the BDR-101A to market. It does not read or write to CDs, and its write speeds to standard DVD formats are slower than with a dedicated DVD burner (8X DVD+R versus 16X for a standard DVD drive, for example). It also does not write to dual-layer 50GB BD media. The second wave of burners, due this summer, will handle CD writing and dual-layer writes, making those drives more appropriate for data pack rats who want maximum storage capacity.

Another drawback: The drive, geared for the professional authoring market, lacks any software for disc authoring and packet writing.

By contrast, the first laptop to boast a Blu-ray burner, Sony's VGN-AR19G, is clearly aimed at consumers. Out in June, the 8.8-pound unit had a preproduction drive, so we did not test its speed. But we had no problems playing discs we recorded in the Pioneer on the Sony, and vice versa.

For its price, you get a 2-GHz Core Duo T2500 processor, 1GB DDR2 memory, a 17-inch screen powered by nVidia GeForce Go 7600 GT graphics with 256MB of RAM, a TV tuner, and HDMI connectors, making it a well-equipped, if pricey, desktop replacement system.

Clearly, these new formats offer something beyond what today's DVDs can. As with any new format, however, change is already on the horizon--and you should be cautious before you leap.

For one thing, while the first Blu-ray Disc players for the living room, due out this summer, output at 1080p, none of the first-generation HD DVD players do so. 1080p produces smoother action sequences than 1080i. The latest HDTVs support 1080p, and Universal and Warner Brothers already encode their HD films at 1080p. Second-generation players will support 1080p, according to the HD DVD Promotion Group, but release dates are not set.

Another consideration: no managed content. All first-generation Blu-ray and HD DVD devices use an interim version of the copy-protection scheme, which doesn't support the ability to legally copy a movie from disc to disc, or to another device, like a portable player (click here for details).

Yet another gotcha: To enjoy the full-resolution HD image, you'll need a High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection connection over DVI or HDMI (click here for more on HDCP). Any HDTV with HDMI should be covered, but many PC monitors and older sets with DVI only may not. An HD copy-protection element allows Hollywood studios to degrade output over analog or non-HDCP video connections, to 960 by 540 pixels--half HD's full resolution. Most studios say they won't do this at the outset, but the capability exists--and many of those same studios made sure it was available.

And don't expect either camp to ship any living-room recorders until end of year or the beginning of 2007.

Too many factors are still up in the air to pick a winner in this format war. In terms of hardware, studio commitment, and pure specs, Blu-ray has the edge. However, HD DVD's significant price advantage may end up deciding the issue. If you don't need to be the first on your block with an HD movie player or you don't have dozens of gigabytes to archive, you may be best off waiting a bit to take the high-def DVD plunge.

Melissa J. Perenson

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