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Thursday, April 22, 2004
Ng: Next-generation discs pack more information
By WILSON NG
WIRED DESKTOP
GONE SOON. It may not be long before the VCD format disappears. The primary thing is that DVD is coming on strong, and its advantages are clear.
A few years ago, a DVD player would come at upwards of P15,000, but now you can buy one for about P2,000, which is almost the same price as a VCD player.
Moreover, DVD discs are much clearer, more convenient to use, plus the DVD discs have a lot of extras like additional film footage, or the choice of many language audio or subtitles.
Also compare that to watching a three-hour movie, you use either three CDs or just one DVD. So in the long run, DVDs can also be cheaper to produce.
In the computer side, the same things are happening, and the DVD drives now which can also read the CD format are also rapidly going down in price.
The DVD disc can store about 4.7 gigabytes, or at least six times the conventional CD.
However, just as fast as DVD became a standard, it may itself be overshadowed by new developments.
CONTENDERS. The main contender of the next-generation disc is Sony, which is backing up the Blu-ray Consortium. This has the backing of almost all major Japanese companies like Matsushita, Pioneer, Sharp, and also companies like Philips, LG and Samsung. It is also backed by HP and Dell in the computer side.
What this technology does is to use a blue laser ray to store more data.
While CD and DVD use red laser technology, the blue laser can pack more information, and enable a disc to store as much as 27 gigabytes. There are even some new developments which allow up to 50 gigabytes per disc.
The other main contender is headed by Toshiba, NEC and supported by Microsoft, which is called High Definition DVD.
This standard is more evolutionary, and the disc is of the same thickness and size as existing DVDs. The capacity is about 15 gigabytes per side.
Most of the advantages come from advances in software compression technology. This format is supported by the DVD forum, the industry group that created the DVD, for which the support also came from players like IBM, Intel, and Time Warner.
Hollywood may view the HD DVD favorably because it allows them to maintain their production lines.
The Blu-ray discs are slightly thicker, and therefore need new equipment to replicate and produce. However, they may favor blu-ray because of its supposedly better copy protection technology.
In both instances, the contending players are saying new players will be able to read existing CD and DVD formats.
HIGH STAKES. The stakes are high, and consumer electronics manufacturers are trying to gain control of the technology that will give them better pricing than existing DVD systems which are now largely manufactured by Chinese OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), and whose prices have rapidly gone down.
Both new formats are a prelude to advances to support high definition TV.
(email: wilson@esprint.com.)
(April 22, 2004 issue)
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