Blu-ray and HD-DVD technologies are getting closer and movie studios have aligned themselves with the respective camps or both at the same time. What is becoming increasingly of concern to both movie studios and disc manufacturers are some of the manufacturing realities of the new formats.

For most of the year consumers have seen the occasional news item on the differences between the technologies and how both sides offer the better solution. One side claims more storage and the other comes out with a new specification in size and this cycle has continued throughout the year. Both formats will give a High Density (HD) level of picture and more features.

Blu-ray appears to have the edge in the market at the moment with movie studios telling us they will have movies for the consumer in 2006. HD-DVD has replied by saying they will give the technology to the Chinese mass producers to flood the market where a similar strategy gave VHS a win over Betamax.

For some time now my support has been behind the HD-DVD camp for a couple of simple reasons - compatibility and price - and it is this last that appears to now be gaining weight as a valid concern for the manufacturers. The Blu-ray product will be more expensive to produce and it will cost the consumer more. The questions are, by how much and for how long”

Let’s face it: When it comes to technology, especially the mass market kind, the bottom line for the consumer is cost. If a disc costs $20 (820 baht) for one and $30 (1,230 baht) for the other and they appear to be as good as each other, then the average consumer will chose the $20 version. If the machines are different prices and they do the same job then once again the consumer will go for the lower cost units. The big question is how much will this price difference be”

According to some tests, for example, an HD-DVD manufacturing line will pump out early twice as many useable discs as a similar Blu-ray line. When it comes to the hardware, component costs can also be nearly twice as much because some of the pieces required for the manufacturing process are still hard to find. Sony has challenged these figures but does not have any accurate cost estimates itself at this time but it claims that it will be small.

There are other concerns. The HD-DVD process uses very similar technologies to current DVD and CD production. The Blu-ray system uses a high-tech film layer currently produced only by Sony. Retooling estimates are currently about 10 times for Blu-ray over HD-DVD. Also without a clear winner in advance, supporting both formats for a few years is going to cost the whole industry billions of dollars over that period compared to a single clear winner.

As next year gets closer, the consumer should be wondering if all of the promises will come true, i.e., that Blu-ray units and media will eventually be the same price as HD-DVD, that movie studios will indeed manufacture discs with both formats at the same price or at least with an HD version on one side and a regular DVD version on the other.

Now consider that your TV will not be able to play the new discs or at least it will not support HD’s 1,000-line resolution. Take a walk around your local TV store and see how many units you are looking at support the high quality HD standards. Even if you have all the technology what is the new video codec (coder-decoder) going to be”

Microsoft wants to see its VC-1 technology used and until very recently the challenger was the patented technology, MPEG-4 AVC. Then as usual Sony dropped its standard spanner into the works and announced its own new codec. This means that Sony pictures at least will be releasing the first of its Blu-ray discs using the 11-year-old MPEG-2 standard, the same one you see in your current DVD player. If you don’t see any problems with this remember the MP3-vs-Sony proprietary codec that no one wanted to use.

Don’t decide right now because it is getting even more convoluted that this. The new codecs don’t necessarily give you any better picture quality, just allow you to compress more video information onto a disc. Sony tells us that their smallest disc will be 25GB, so a high compression codec isn’t required. However Warner is planning to release a modified “Blu-ray” disc with 9GB of storage, i.e., the same storage as a current dual-layer DVD, to keep costs down. Since 9GB isn’t enough storage to hold a full HD movie they will be considering the Microsoft VC-1 format. 20th Century Fox, on the other hand, is leaning towards the MPEG4-AVC format.

So where does that leave Jane and Johnny consumer” In a compete mess. When the dust finally settles sometime in the coming year there will be multiple choices for the consumer. They will need to get a better television set and they will have a number of choices to select from. If all things are equal, or close to it, then this will mean a clear standard or winner will not become obvious during 2006. If there is a price difference of more than say 20 per cent then the consumer will make their decision quite early and by Christmas 2006 we should know who lost the race.

At the very least it should be clear what a consumer needs to do, i.e., buy the right disc for the right machine and no matter what the technology it should play just as easily as a DVD does in current machines. What Sony executives seem not to have come to grips with over the past years is that it is no longer true that people will buy it just because it is a Sony. This latest decision to drop everything and build their own codec and so release the first batch of Blu-ray DVDs using MPEG-2 coding could again backfire on the electronics giant. Time will tell.

Industry news

If you haven’t heard, Firefox 1.5 is ready for download. This latest version has better security and performance features including a better pop-up blocker and regular security updates. As usual installation was quick and painless. The first time you use it, it takes a bit longer to start up as it is checking for compatibilities. One very nice feature was the detection in my case of an incompatible Yahoo bar. I was given the option to check for a newer version, which it found and installed for me, i.e., painless.

Even if you are not going to use any of the latest features, upgrade your current copy.

Bits and pieces of computer code that can be used for attacks on Windows are appearing on the Internet for download. By the time you read this someone will have released at least one Trojan or spyware product that attacks a flaw in a Windows component for transaction processing, security bulletin MS05-051, or the way Windows handles graphics files, security bulletin MS05-053, and be warned that the vulnerability could create an opening for spyware and Trojan horse attacks. This makes four exploits for these two issues over a one-week period.