Sony Lurches Ahead with Blu-ray

Sony is taking two steps forward and one step back as the company tries to deliver on the promise of Blu-ray high-definition digital video and keep pace with Toshiba and the rival HD DVD format.

With the release of a Blu-ray-capable laptop and the first collection of Blu-ray film titles expected within the week, Sony is serving notice that its premium digital video format is coming closer to prime time.

But those developments are tempered by the company's decision to push back delivery of its standalone Blu-ray disc player by about a month to August 15. Pioneer also has reportedly announced a delay in the delivery of its own Blu-ray player.

Laptop Unveiled

Sony's $3,500 Vaio AR laptop arrives months after rival Toshiba began selling HD DVD players and portable PCs with HD DVD drives built in, although any advantage for Toshiba might end up being short-lived, analysts say.

The 17-inch Vaio AR has a Blu-ray drive, is powered by Intel's Core Duo processor, and has 1 GB of memory and a 17-inch screen.

The first Blu-ray movies, set for a June 20 release, include "50 First Dates," "The Fifth Element," "House of Flying Daggers," and "The Terminator." More titles are expected in the coming weeks.

Most experts watching the battle over next-generation DVD give the edge to Blu-ray players because of support from the film industry and the inclusion of Blu-ray in the forthcoming PlayStation 3 game console.

Despite earlier plans to deliver HD DVD hardware last year, Toshiba's $500 HD-A1 and $800 HD-XA1 players, along with an HD DVD-enabled laptop, arrived in April.

Anyone's Game

"It's still anyone's game," said Michael Goodman, a Yankee Group analyst. "Sony may have more studios lined up, but the players are more expensive and they've had to clear a lot of hurdles to deliver the new products."

Goodman said that Toshiba and its partners must be pleased, given that they were first out of the gate and that Microsoft will provide an HD DVD peripheral for the
Xbox 360 gaming machine.

Gartner analyst Laura Behrens pointed out that while Toshiba is touting the fact that its discs are less expensive to produce than Blu-ray, the early-to-market advantage for HD DVD has not worked out because the players have arrived about a year later than expected.

"With the delays, other sources for high-definition will have a chance to get into the market, including cable and satellite TV providers, as well as online video outlets," Behrens said.

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How Blu-ray Discs Work

In 1997, a new technology emerged that brought digital sound and video into homes all over the world. It was called DVD, and it revolutionized the movie industry.

The industry is set for yet another revolution with the introduction of Blu-ray Discs (BD). With their high storage capacity, Blu-ray discs can hold and playback large quantities of high-definition video and audio, as well as photos, data and other digital content.

In this, you will learn how the Blu-ray disc works and how it was developed, and we'll see how it stacks up against some other new digital video formats on the horizon.

The Name
The Blu-ray name is a combination of "blue," for the color of the laser that is used, and "ray," for optical ray. The "e" in "blue" was purposefully left off, according to the manufacturers, because an everyday word cannot be trademarked.

What is a Blu-ray Disc?
A current, single-sided, standard DVD can hold 4.7 GB (gigabytes) of information. That's about the size of an average two-hour, standard-definition movie with a few extra features. But a high-definition movie, which has a much clearer image (see How Digital Television Works), takes up about five times more bandwidth and therefore requires a disc with about five times more storage. As TV sets and movie studios make the move to high definition, consumers are going to need playback systems with a lot more storage capacity.

Blu-ray is the next-generation digital video disc. It can record, store and play back high-definition video and digital audio, as well as computer data. The advantage to Blu-ray is the sheer amount of information it can hold:

    * A single-layer Blu-ray disc, which is roughly the same size as a DVD, can hold up to 27 GB of data — that's more than two hours of high-definition video or about 13 hours of standard video.

    * A double-layer Blu-ray disc can store up to 54 GB, enough to hold about 4.5 hours of high-definition video or more than 20 hours of standard video. And there are even plans in the works to develop a disc with twice that amount of storage.

Blu-ray discs not only have more storage capacity than traditional DVDs, but they also offer a new level of interactivity. Users will be able to connect to the Internet and instantly download subtitles and other interactive movie features.

Blu-ray Advantages

    * record high-definition television (HDTV) without any quality loss
    * instantly skip to any spot on the disc
    * record one program while watching another on the disc
    * create playlists
    * edit or reorder programs recorded on the disc
    * automatically search for an empty space on the disc to avoid recording over a program
    * access the Web to download subtitles and other extra features

How Does Blu-ray Work?
Discs store digitally encoded video and audio information in pits — spiral grooves that run from the center of the disc to its edges. A laser reads the other side of these pits — the bumps — to play the movie or program that is stored on the DVD. The more data that is contained on a disc, the smaller and more closely packed the pits must be. The smaller the pits (and therefore the bumps), the more precise the reading laser must be.

Unlike current DVDs, which use a red laser to read and write data, Blu-ray uses a blue laser (which is where the format gets its name). A blue laser has a shorter wavelength (405 nanometers) than a red laser (650 nanometers). The smaller beam focuses more precisely, enabling it to read information recorded in pits that are only 0.15 microns (µm) (1 micron = 10-6 meters) long — this is more than twice as small as the pits on a DVD. Plus, Blu-ray has reduced the track pitch from 0.74 microns to 0.32 microns. The smaller pits, smaller beam and shorter track pitch together enable a single-layer Blu-ray disc to hold more than 25 GB of information — about five times the amount of information that can be stored on a DVD.

Each Blu-ray disc is about the same thickness (1.2 millimeters) as a DVD. But the two types of discs store data differently. In a DVD, the data is sandwiched between two polycarbonate layers, each 0.6-mm thick. Having a polycarbonate layer on top of the data can cause a problem called birefringence, in which the substrate layer refracts the laser light into two separate beams. If the beam is split too widely, the disc cannot be read. Also, if the DVD surface is not exactly flat, and is therefore not exactly perpendicular to the beam, it can lead to a problem known as disc tilt, in which the laser beam is distorted. All of these issues lead to a very involved manufacturing process.

On Guard
Blu-ray discs are better armed than current DVDs. They come equipped with a secure encryption system — a unique ID that protects against video piracy and copyright infringement.

Building a Blu-ray

The Blu-ray disc overcomes DVD-reading issues by placing the data on top of a 1.1-mm-thick polycarbonate layer. Having the data on top prevents birefringence and therefore prevents readability problems. And, with the recording layer sitting closer to the objective lens of the reading mechanism, the problem of disc tilt is virtually eliminated. Because the data is closer to the surface, a hard coating is placed on the outside of the disc to protect it from scratches and fingerprints.

The design of the Blu-ray discs saves on manufacturing costs. Traditional DVDs are built by injection molding the two 0.6-mm discs between which the recording layer is sandwiched. The process must be done very carefully to prevent birefringence.

   1. The two discs are molded.
   2. The recording layer is added to one of the discs.
   3. The two discs are glued together.

Blu-ray discs only do the injection-molding process on a single 1.1-mm disc, which reduces cost. That savings balances out the cost of adding the protective layer, so the end price is no more than the price of a regular DVD.

Blu-ray has a higher data transfer rate — 36 Mbps (megabits per second) — than today's DVDs, which transfer at 10 Mbps. A Blu-ray disc can record 25 GB of material in just over an hour and a half.

Blu-ray vs. Other New Disc Formats

Will Blu-ray replace previous DVDs? Its manufacturers hope so. In the meantime, JVC has developed a Blu-ray/DVD combo disc with an approximate 33.5-GB capacity, allowing for the release of video in both formats on a single disc. But Blu-ray is not alone in the marketplace. A few other formats are competing for a share of the DVD market.

HD-DVD
The other big player is HD-DVD, also called AOD (Advanced Optical Disc), which was developed by electronics giants Toshiba and NEC. HD-DVD was actually in the works before regular DVD, but it didn't begin real development until 2003.

The advantage to HD-DVD is that it uses the same basic format as the traditional DVD and can therefore be manufactured with the same equipment, saving on costs. The disadvantage is that it can't match the storage capacity of Blu-ray. A rewritable, single-layer HD-DVD can hold 20 GB of data; a double-layer disc can hold 30 GB (that's compared to 27 GB and 50 GB for Blu-ray). The read-only versions hold slightly less data. Also, HD-DVD doesn't offer the interactive capabilities of Blu-ray, although it will probably be less expensive than its competitor.

Other Competitors

Blu-ray and HD-DVD are the two major competitors in the market, but there are other contenders, as well. Warner Bros. Pictures has developed its own system, called HD-DVD-9. This system uses a higher compression rate to put more information (about two hours of high-definition video) on a standard DVD. Taiwan has created the Forward Versatile Disc (FVD), an upgraded version of today's DVDs that allows for more data storage capacity (5.4 GB on a single-sided disc and 9.8 GB on a double-sided disc). And China has introduced the Enhanced Video Disc (EVD), another high-definition video disc.

There are also professional versions of the blue laser technology. Sony has developed XDCAM and ProData (Professional Disc for Data). The former is designed for use by broadcasters and AV studios. The latter is primarily for commercial data storage (for example, backing up servers).

Formats
Unlike DVDs and CDs, which started with read-only formats and only later added recordable and re-writable formats, Blu-ray is initially designed in several different formats:

    * BD-ROM (read-only) – for pre-recorded content
    * BD-R (recordable) – for PC data storage
    * BD-RW (rewritable) – for PC data storage
    * BD-RE (rewritable) – for HDTV recording

When Will Blu-ray Become Available?
Blu-ray recorders are already available in Japan, where more consumers have access to HDTV than in the United States. Outside of Japan, once more TV sets come equipped with a high-definition tuner and more films and television shows are produced in high-definition (which is expected to happen by late 2005 or 2006), Blu-ray movies and TV shows on disc should become widely available. But the format is already available for home recording, professional recording and data storage.

Another important factor is cost. Just as with most new technologies, Blu-ray equipment will be pricey at first. In 2003, Sony released its first Blu-ray recorder in Japan with a price tag of around $3,000. The price is expected to drop as the format gains popularity. Blu-ray discs may also be initially more expensive than today's DVDs, but once demand grows and they can be mass-produced, manufacturers say the price will drop to within 10 percent of the price of current DVDs.

Even when the new video standard begins to replace current technologies, consumers won't have to throw away their DVDs, but they will need to invest in a new player. The industry is planning to market backward-compatible drives with both blue and red lasers, which will be able to play traditional DVDs and CDs as well as Blu-ray discs.

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Sony starts 25GB Blu-ray movie lines; 50GB discs due in fall

Sony DADC is the only U.S. company currently replicating Blu-ray discs and as such is expected to handle production for all Blu-ray studios.

Sony DADC said it expects to add manufacturing lines and increase capacity to nearly 5 million discs a month by October, ahead of the critical fourth quarter. By then, it says, it also will be able to make dual-layer 50GB discs on six lines.

It’s unclear when the studios will have a title on a 50GB disc ready for market. Blu-ray supporting studios—particularly Buena Vista Home Entertainment—have been awaiting the 50GB discs, however. Greater capacity will allow for more high-definition bonus features that could be key to luring consumers to the format.

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‘Blu-Ray is key for games,’ says Sony’s UK MD

SCE UK boss Ray Maguire has dismissed suggestions that Sony is bullying gamers by forcing them to adopt its movie-playing technology with PlayStation 3 – claiming Blu-Ray is essential to the next-gen gaming experience.

Speaking in an interview with Eurogamer TV, published today, Maguire vigorously defended the decision to include its proprietary Blu-Ray format as standard on the GBP 425 console – amidst accusations levelled by Microsoft, which claims it is offering real consumer choice by launching a rival HD-DVD add-on for Xbox 360 later this year.

"Blu-Ray is really important for the games side of our business because what it does is it give us the ability to have 50Gb of information actually on the disc," Maguire said.

"With PlayStation 3 you're looking at a Cell chip that has immense computing power. That means you're going to need a huge amount of storage as well – we really need that Blu-Ray disc because what we don't want to be doing is swapping discs half way through loading. It's really important to us."

Maguire was also keen to stress that consumer appetite for HD was not just restricted to the burgeoning US market, despite relatively poor uptake levels in the UK.

"High definition is the way of the future; everyone's looking forward to it," he insisted. "Sky are eagerly trying to get boxes out for the World Cup and people are buying flat panels especially for HD."

"The reality is there's not very much High Definition content at the moment, and in a way PlayStation 3 is going to legitimise the whole of the High Definition experience for people."

"Right now 25 per cent of homes have got HD panels in the US. You've only got to go into stores now to see the old CRT is hardly available and it's all flat panels labelled 'HD Ready'. We know that there's an appetite from consumers and we're going to give them the product that makes it really sparkle."

Also in the interview, Maguire defends PS3's $399.99, reveals plans to continue to support PS2 for years to come and claims he is confident of a successful launch despite widespread fears of major stock shortages.

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Sony does not think they can meet the Blu-ray demand

Blu-ray is a month away from launching (hopefully) and Sony just doesn't think that they will be able to meet the demand. This concern is stemming from the sales rate of current electronic devices and their supply of parts.  Apparently, this is going to hit our dear Blu-ray products hard and Sony just doesn't think they will be able to keep the inventory up on it. This is not only going to affect the PS3 but also component based Blu-ray players.

So the moral of the story is that if you want one of these Blu-ray players, pick one up when you can.

Blu-ray debut delayed

 

Is first-mover advantage important when it comes to expensive, new technologies? We may soon get a chance to find out as it pertains to next-generation optical discs. HD DVD's lead time to market is about to get a bit longer, as the initial batch of Blu-ray titles will not be hitting store shelves until June 20, nearly a month after the previous May 23 target.

Sony says the actual Blu-ray movies are still going to be ready on time. It's just that its partners aren't quite prepared for a launch later this month, according to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment President Benjamin Feingold:

"[T]he majority of our retail base and hardware partners have requested that we reconsider this date to better coincide with the first commercially available Blu-ray-compatible hardware."

If Sony Pictures was to go ahead with the launch as planned this month, the eight titles planned for the format's debut would be gathering dust on shelves as shoppers found themselves unable to buy actual players on which to watch them. It's actually surprising that Sony has waited this long to announce what looked to be an inevitable delay. After all, Samsung told us last month that its BD-P1000 Blu-ray player would miss its planned May 23 appearance due to a need for "additional testing."

HD DVD managed to launch just over two weeks ago with four titles (now up to a whopping 16!) and a couple of players from Toshiba, which means that it will have a two-month head start on the Blu-ray competition by the time Samsung's first Blu-ray player hits the big box electronics retailers.

If HD DVD has any advantage at the outset, it's not likely to come from having two months of additional market exposure or having 16 movies available instead of the eight titles currently primed for the Blu-ray launch. Instead, any upper hand gained will likely be attributable to its price. That's because the HD DVD player from Toshiba is about US$500 less than Samsung's player, which is available for preorder at a number of consumer electronics retail.

Should the price gap remain over the first several months of life for both formats, it may lead price-conscious early-adopters (if such an animal exists) in the direction of HD DVD. Naturally, Sony and the rest of the Blu-ray Forum are counting on the arrival of the PlayStation 3 to shore up its cause. That's not going to happen until the beginning of November at the earliest, and when the PS3 finally does show up, how much is it going to cost?

Having said that, we're still in the very early stages of what is likely to be a protracted format war. With both formats having very committed backers with very deep pockets, it may very well be years before the war is over and a victor declared.

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Which disc will win out?

It could be the 21st-century version of Beta versus VHS.

In a scenario reminiscent of the 1980s battle over how VCRs should be formatted, two technologies are wrangling for supremacy in high-definition DVDs and, ultimately, in the $24 billion-a-year market for home videos.

But for now, consumers might be well-served to wait for a winner.

Like the VHS-Betamax struggle 25 years ago, today's competing technologies are more similar than different. But the stakeholders couldn't agree last year on a unified format. Toshiba wanted to finalize production of its new HD-DVD players and laptops. Sony balked at downgrading its higher-capacity Blu-ray Disc devices, which will go into its new PlayStation console this year.

Which One Do I Get?