Making Sense of the Format War: HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc Technology

by Chris Taylor
10/10/2007

When DVD started becoming more popular about 10 years ago, people were raving up and down about how much better it was than VHS. DVDs lasted longer, looked better, and were a lot smaller and easier to store. Not to mention all the extras you could usually find on the disc.

In 2007, VHS is experiencing obsolescence. Very few people still purchase them, and many companies no longer even release them. So now that we’re all on board the DVD ship, what’s with these new formats butting in?

If you’ve been watching television commercials about movies being released on video, or walked into a Best Buy or Wal-Mart and seen funny-looking blue and red DVD cases, you might be wondering what they are and what they’re doing there.

The answer is fairly simple: the red ones are HD DVDs, and the blue ones are Blu-ray Discs. Now here’s the other thing: what exactly does that mean?

The one problem with DVD, for all its digital glory, is this: DVD is not a high definition (HD or HDTV) format. DVD was designed for standard television sets because that’s what was around at the time. And because of all the confusion about just what HDTV is, no one ever bothered to tell Joe TV Watcher that DVDs aren’t in HD.

Here is the simple, technical explanation: DVDs can hold up to about 9 gigabytes of space per disc. This is a lot of ones and zeros, but it just isn’t enough room for much HD video. You could maybe fit 30-45 minutes on there.

HD DVD can hold 30 GB per disc, and Blu-ray can hold up to 50 GB. This means that both HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs can accommodate feature-length films in the top quality High Definition formats. Basically, they’ve got 6 times the resolution of a DVD, meaning a picture up to 6 times as sharp. That extra space also allows them to have better sound quality; they support up to 8 channels of audio.

That’s the simple answer as to why the formats are here and what they do. If you’re still wondering why there are two of them instead of just one, read on.

When HDTVs started popping up, the electronics companies all agreed that it was time for an HD replacement for DVD. There’s this thing called the DVD Forum that’s in charge of the DVD format, and a lot of companies wanted the DVD Forum to be responsible for the HD discs so no single company could dominate the process.

Sony, however, had been developing its own HD disc format on the side before the DVD Forum got involved, and in lieu of sacrifice the money they’d already put into developing it, they kept working on their own format.

Sony was already in possession of several major movie studios: MGM, Columbia, TriStar, and Sony Pictures Classics. They began gathering other electronics companies and other studios to their side; some of the bigger names here include Panasonic, Apple, and Disney.

The DVD Forum kept developing its own format, though. They weren’t about to let one company take over the business. They rallied companies to their side, too, the biggest among these being Toshiba, Microsoft, and Universal Studios.

Eventually, the two groups finished their formats and unleashed them on the public. Since the DVD Forum was in possession of the DVD trademark, they have the privilege of naming their technology HD DVD. Since the new technologies use blue lasers, which sounds pretty cool, Sony named their product the Blu-ray Disc.

Ever since, they’ve been warring over market share, movie studios have been changing allegiances, going neutral, and some even refuse to put much of anything on either format. If you’re looking for your favorite movies in HD, here’s a list of how the big studios stand:

Blu-ray exclusive:

Sony Studios (Sony Pictures Classics, Columbia, TriStar, MGM, Sony Pictures)
Buena Vista (Disney, Touchstone, Miramax)
Lions Gate
20th Century Fox

HD DVD exclusive:

Universal (NBC, Universal, Working Title)
Weinstein (Dimension Films)
Studio Canal

Neutral:
Warner (Warner Bros., New Line, HBO)
Paramount

Not doing much at all:
Dreamworks

For consumers, the question of which format to buy comes down to which movies you want, and the studios you like to buy from and support. That assumes, of course, that you care about which studio makes what movie, rather than about whether the movie is good or not.