You probably have heard these terms thrown around: Blu-Ray, HD DVD. You might have even heard about there being a battle between these two “things”. Well, to those who aren’t geeks we salute you, because today we will explain exactly what battle is raging and why.

I’m sure all (or at least most) have heard of HD (High Definition) Television. You’ve probably heard about it on TV (”This program is provided in HD”) or maybe you actually bought yourself an HD ready TV.

What is High Definition Television?

So, what the heck is HD television? Well, most televisions use Cathode Ray Technology (CRT) and use analog signals to display a picture on someone’s TV. However, analog TVs have limits and as television screens become larger analog TVs don’t have the same picture quality as smaller screens.

So, HDTV ready televisions have been produced to overcome these limits. The HDTV is the king of Digital Television (DTV) because it allows for a greater image area, resolution, and better aspect ratio.

In short HDTV, is better than your standard television at every level providing a sharper, clearer image. February 17, 2009 is that date that has been proposed to discontinue over-the-air broadcast of analog signals. To view HDTV, however, one needs to have and HD television, a service to receive the signal, and a station that is broadcasting in high definition.

Therefore, because HDTV will be the new standard, we need to have a new DVD player that complies with it. Two of the biggest formats that have emerged are the Blu-Ray and the HD DVD.

What is Blu-Ray?

The Blu-Ray format is backed by 9 companies (Sony, Samsung, LG to name a few) and is one type of DVD format. The Blu-Ray format also is backward compatible, which means that it can play current and newer DVDs. It can store 50 GB worth of material on the DVD which is more than the HD DVD format.

However, Blu-Rays need an entirely new manufacturing infrastructure to be put in place which will cost money making the Blu-Ray more expensive.

What is the HD DVD Format?

The HD DVD format is backed by only two companies: NEC and Toshiba. It can store only 30GB of data or 15GB on a single layer. A bad thing about that is that the HD DVD format would require DVDs to come with two discs if the movie is very long. However, a 40GB DVD seems to be in the works.

One very interesting feature, however, is that this format allows you to rip the movie from the DVD and place it on your computer where you can play it whenever you want.

In Conclusion

Both are fighting very hard because the companies who win this format war will receive large sums of money in connection with their patent. When other companies decide to manufacture a DVD player they must use the winning format and have to pay to do that.

It’s pretty early to tell who will win. The companies backing the Blu-Ray are obviously not too happy about the ripping feature of the HD DVD. Both players have a good and bad side to them. And with 9 companies vs. 2 companies it make the battle a bit harder.

[via HDDVD.org]

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