Photo credit: DeclanTM

It’s funny the difference a few months can make when it comes to technology. A year ago, you couldn’t glance at business or technology news without reading something about the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD, each vying to become the new standard for next-generation disc-based media for high definition video content. Today, Sony’s Blu-ray is the only way you can watch a new high definition movie on a disc. Toshiba, who made the HD DVD, stopped production on February 19, 2008. The reason was simple: the PlayStation 3. But in order to understand that answer, you’re going to need a bit more context.

 

When the Pioneer-developed DVD became popular in the mid-to-late 90s, it had no real competition. VCRs were on their way out. They were large, clunky, noisy and had relatively lousy picture quality. Laserdiscs never caught on much and looked like a giant, clunkier version of the DVD. There was briefly competition from a format called DIVX, which allowed users to “rent” movies that would stop working after a certain period, but it died a quiet death.

The way in which DVD took over the market was rather unusual. In the late 70s and throughout the 80s, Sony and JVC bitterly fought for domination of the VCR market with their two rival formats, Betamax and VHS. Although Betamax was able to provide a better picture, VHS provided a superior combination of better picture and longer play. This made two things possible: recording sporting events and watching Hollywood movies without switching tapes. VHS crushed Betamax and the name of the failed unit became slang for technology that the public rejects.

As great as the DVD is, DVD has a major drawback for modern home theaters -- it lacks capacity. A single-layer DVD can store 4.7 gigabytes of information. A dual-layer DVD, like the ones most movies are on, can store up to 8.54 GB. That may seem like a lot, but it isn’t enough for high definition resolutions and 7.1 surround sound, both of which occupy vast amounts of data storage beyond standard definition video and either stereo or 5.1 surround sound audio. To understand why, it helps to know that a television’s pictures are actually made up of tiny lines stacked together. In the U.S., standard definition televisions are made up of 480 lines. That’s fine for DVD, but high definition televisions can have 720 or 1,080 lines, more than double a standard definition set -- and it takes more space to store the extra lines. In order to fill up the "extra" lines to display on a high definition TV, a television makers introduced the concept of "line doubling" which makes intelligent guesses about what the "missing" lines should look like. Progressive scanning was then developed to present a smoother image by displaying each line sequentially instead of in alternate order as interlaced scanning provides. The image looked better than standard definition, but it still wasn't true HD, which contains the actual information of the "missing" lines. Likewise, a DVD stores 5.1 surround sound natively. That means two speakers in the rear corners, two in the front corners, a center-front speaker and a subwoofer. Modern stereo receivers are now able to deliver 7.1 surround sound -- two in the front, two on the sides, two in the back, one in the front center and a subwoofer. Again, the extra two channels of audio require additional storage space -- together with high definition data, more data space than a DVD can typically provide for a full-length feature film.

In 2006, as high definition television sets were becoming more popular, Toshiba and Sony released the HD DVD and Blu-ray next-generation optical disc formats respectively to address the need for a higher capacity storage medium for high def video. Anticipation from the early adopter community was strong, but the general public was less than excited for a number of reasons. The players were very expensive, up to $1,500 in some cases, far more than the $50 for a DVD player. There weren’t a lot of movies available, and many of them people already owned on DVD. Adding to the confusion were the studio wars. Different movie studios exclusively backed different formats. Sony, Disney and Fox supported Blu-ray, while Warner Bros. and Paramount sided with HD DVD. That meant if you wanted to see “Transformers,” you either watched it on HD DVD, or you didn’t watch it in high definition.

For months, the two formats battled it out head-to-head. Early on, HD DVD had a slight lead, both critically and financially. Reviewers preferred early HD DVD discs and they held a slight edge on the market. Until November 2006.

That’s when Sony released the PlayStation 3 video game console, which used Blu-ray discs for games. Around the same time, an HD DVD player was released for Microsoft’s Xbox 360, but it was an external, optional add-on. Anyone who purchased a PS3 automatically had a Blu-ray by default, one that was cheaper than a stand-alone player no less.

Almost overnight, the number of Blu-ray owners increased dramatically. When Toshiba stopped production on HD DVD in early 2008, there were over 10.5 million PS3 owners, compared to just 1 million HD DVD owners. HD DVD still had some support, with former Blu-ray supporter Paramount going exclusively with HD DVD in August of 2007, but as more PS3s sold, HD DVD’s fate was cast. On January 4, 2008, Warner Bros. announced it would be dropping HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray. A little over a month later and the format war was officially over.

That doesn’t mean that Blu-ray is the new DVD, though. The format is still useless to anyone who owns a standard definition television, and DVD sales still far outstrip those of Blu-ray. There are also completely digital formats to contend with, such as digital downloads on the Xbox 360 Marketplace, or on-demand television. The war for high definition discs may be over, but the war over HD television has just begun.

 

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