October 30, 2006

Next on my list to supplement the newly purchased 61" Samsung DLP television was a new DVD player. Since the TV supports full 1080p resolution, I could go no less than a DVD player that outputs at 1080p. The 1080p world of DVD players is fairly brand new in the United States with two different technologies to choose from: HD-DVD or Blu-ray. These technologies are so brand new that my recommendation to most people would be to wait... don't buy into any of these until atleast 6 months from now. However, being the person that I am... I had to buy into one of these pretty quickly. But which one to decide on...?

We've been through a bunch of format wars before in the past - most notably: VHS vs Betamax, DVD+R vs DVD-R, etc... HD-DVD vs Blu-ray is simply our latest competition. Both formats are similar with the following characteristics:

• Both use a blue laser (instead of a red laser) to read DVD media. The blue laser is more precisioned and is able to read more tightly packed data. So studios are able to use larger capacity DVDs and pack more content. More capacity = more High Definition content that can be stored.
• Since HD content can be stored on these higher capacity DVDs, everything can be outputted at full 1080p resolution.
• Both have a technology that allows output of different video panes on a television set. Which basically allows you to watch a movie and then bring up a pop-up menu that overlays on top of the movie. So you dont have to stop a movie to go back into the main menu.
• Due to the higher capacity, most DVD movies are able to include uncompressed audio soundtracks. These are the direct audio transfer from the master - without any loss of quality

The main differences between the formats are as follows:

• The total capacity. HD-DVD claims 15GB for a single-layer disc, 30GB for a dual-layer disc. Blu-ray claims 25GB for a single-layer disc and 50GB for a dual-layer disc. Easy winner here right...? Well, continue on
• Studio/Company support. This is where it gets annoying. Sony is the creator of Blu-ray... and Toshiba is behind HD-DVD. Sony's new playstation 3 comes out in November which will have Blu-ray support obviously. So where does that leave Microsoft... supporting HD-DVD only. Studios for the most part have accepted both formats and will tend to release DVD movies in both formats. However, a few have only chosen one or the other. Most notable ones include Universal (only releasing DVD movies on the HD-DVD format), Disney (only releasing DVD movies on the Blu-ray format) and Fox (also releasing on Blu-ray only). Overall it looks as if Blu-ray has more support from companies and studios.

So, you might think it sounds clear that Blu-ray should be the way to go. It definitely seems so on paper. However, here's how the past couple of months played out so far:

• HD-DVD came out first. Probably a good two months prior than Blu-ray so they've had the head start. Right now HD-DVD has a ton of movie releases already out
• Blu-ray is released but with a very slow start. Direct comparisons showed that it looked as if HD-DVD was better quality. Later was revealed that the only Blu-ray player on the market right now has a bad chip in it... that to date still hasn't been truly fixed (but will be fixed via firmware update soon). The DVD Player (Samsung BD-P1000) was and still is the only Blu-ray DVD player on the market (although a couple of new players just hit the market recently if not soon).
• Initial Blu-ray DVD releases all used an older video codec (MPEG2) opposed to a newer codec used on HD-DVD movies (VC-1). VC-1 codec, not surprisingly - was created/developed by Microsoft
• Lastly Blu-ray fails to perfect the 50GB dual-layer disc

Despite the bad start from Blu-ray I ended up going with Blu-ray mainly because of it's wide industry support and higher capacity discs. I truly believe those are huge factors. So, I ended up buying the only blu-ray player on the market at the time, which was the Samsung BD-P1000. When I bought the DVD player, I was unaware of the 'problem' that a lot of people reported on. The problem is basically a noise reduction alogorithm chip (something like that) that is defaulted to on... and for some reason or another is causing a softer picture than wanted. I personally do not see a major picture degradation. The picture quality is a sight to behold. Granted I dont have an HD-DVD box right next to it to compare. It's been reported that Samsung should be releasing a fix soon... so I hope to get my hands on that shortly. Other than that... all other issues seem to have been resolved at this point. The movie Click was the first movie that was released from Blu-ray as a 50GB dual-layer version - so that problem seems to be resolved. Studios are now starting to use different video codecs as well. So deciding on Blu-ray left me little choice but to go with the Samsung BD-P1000:

As far as pricing goes... DVD movies in both camps range from $25 to $30... so roughly $10 more than regular DVDs. The initial HD-DVD player is roughly $500 cheaper than the initial Blu-ray dvd player... but that's all about to change soon. HD-DVD has gone through it's own fair share of first-generation mishaps. Their next DVD player will be on par with Blu-ray's pricing of a whopping $1000 price tag. Yea, pricey indeed. The image and sound is a sight to behold though. Truly amazing. My future prediction - studios will continue to release on both, or one or the other - but players will be released a year from now at the most that will be able to play and write to both formats. Next up ... Audio System!