Blu-ray and HD DVD: The facts

Tip 2: Which is best?

Most of you will be aware of the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD. Echoing the VHS versus Betamax dust-up that rocked the video-cassette world in the 1980s, this conflict could well result in one of the new formats becoming at first marginalised and later completely obsolete. It's clearly in your interest to pick the right one -- but which is it?

Technical differences
There's little to choose between the two formats when it comes to picture quality. Both support the MPEG-2, VC-1 and AVC (also called H.264) video-compression standards, although which one is actually used depends on the individual movie disc, so quality can vary.

HD DVDs almost exclusively use the more advanced VC-1 and AVC codecs, while the first generation of Blu-ray movies uses the ageing MPEG-2 codec. This led to early criticism of Blu-ray's picture quality in some circles, but the more recent Blu-ray releases that utilise the advanced codecs look every bit as gorgeous as HD DVD.

 

Audio-wise, things are also fairly close. Blu-ray supports conventional Dolby Digital sound at a bit rate of 640Kbps, while HD DVD's maximum is 504Kbps. However, all standalone HD DVD players have mandatory support for the superior Dolby Digital Plus format at 3.0Mbps -- this is an optional feature for Blu-ray players, and only runs at 1.7Mbps when included.

On the memory front, Blu-ray's greater storage capacity would appear to give it a slight edge. A dual-layer Blu-ray disc has 50GB of space, while the equivalent HD DVD has 'only' 30GB. In real terms, this means a Blu-ray Disc can hold around 8.5 hours of hi-def video to HD DVD's 5.1 hours. It's not as if you're going to have to spread single movies over multiple HD DVDs, but more a case of Blu-ray having more space for extra features and additional audio tracks. There's also the possibility that the extra capacity could be used to encode video or audio at higher quality in the future.

Content is king
Since some time has passed since the launch of both formats, there are now the beginnings of a decent movie library available to buy. HD DVD is not currently region-coded, so any US discs you buy will work on a UK player -- you can go online and buy the likes of The Departed and Babel right now.

Blu-ray movies are region coded, however, so you'll have to stick with European discs for your UK-bought player. It's a shame, because the US library of Blu-ray movies is far better than the current UK selection, of which only the likes of Casino Royale and Kingdom of Heaven really do the format justice.

 

In fact, the US Blu-ray library is starting to look very healthy indeed compared to HD DVD. Blu-ray has the exclusive support of 20th Century Fox, Disney, Lionsgate, Columbia Pictures and MGM (the latter pair are owned by Sony), while HD DVD is backed exclusively only by Universal Studios and the Weinstein Company. Dreamworks, New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. are currently backing both technologies, with Warner poised to launch its dual format 'Total HD' range (HD movies playable on both HD DVD and Blu-ray hardware) this summer.

Blu-ray's superior studio support is certainly a major selling point, as Sony CEO Howard Stringer was keen to highlight in a January 2007 interview with CNET.co.uk's sister site GameSpot "The three biggest box-office winners of this year were, in order: Sony, Disney and Fox. Those are the three Blu-ray players... The fourth is Warner, and they release in both formats, so it doesn't hurt. If you are going to be buying discs, you are going to be buying an awful lot of Blu-ray discs going forward -- if you want Pirates of the Caribbean or James Bond or Da Vinci Code or Spider-Man."

The PlayStation effect
PlayStation 3 has also done wonders for the Blu-ray cause. Prior to its launch in March 2007, HD DVD players had been significantly cheaper than their Blu-ray equivalents. The £425 PS3 changed this, and the fact that it's also a games console makes it a significant Trojan Horse for getting Blu-ray players into living rooms -- you buy it for games but end up using it to watch HD movies too. Or at least that's Sony's hope.

While the PS3 doesn't appear to have drastically influenced Blu-ray movie sales in the US (where Blu-ray players were already far cheaper than in Europe), it seems to be having an energising effect on the market on this side of the Atlantic. In the two months after its launch (in which time it sold 1.62m units in Europe) Blu-ray gained a 64 per cent share on the year, consistently outselling HD DVD weekly and gaining a 3-to-1 sales ratio over its rival -- something that has only happened once in the US (the week Casino Royale was released on Blu-ray).

So, at the moment, things are looking very rosy for the Blu-ray camp. But the war is far from over -- HD DVD technology is cheaper and easier to mass-produce, and it's not inconceivable we could be seeing boatloads of affordable Chinese-made HD DVD players hitting the shops by the end of the year. That could change everything.

Go to TIP 3 : The kit