Is HD DVD the future?
by Dave BrewisI'm not an avid tech-industry-watcher like some of my future-loving-friends but I have kept one eye on the HD DVD versus Blu-ray tussle for the mantle of future High Definition disc format of choice.
They're both competing to replace the DVD. The new format will provide Hollywood a whole new revenue stream from re-released content, and give many consumers their first taste of true HD, assuming they've invested in an HD equipped television set.
Now four of the Hollywood studios have officially endorsed the Toshiba HD DVD format, some are saying that this spells the death knoll for Sony's Blu-ray format, and this VHS-versus-Betamax-type war is going to result in defeat for Sony once again.
Sony, however, have their own studio and are in the process of acquiring another, so perhaps it's too early to draw that conclusion, especially as there's the small matter of PlayStation - err - ok, that's as far as I go without boring myself into the grave on such lofty industry matters..
For me the prevailing format will offer a distribution medium for stuff we shoot and edit in HD. And that's the bit I'm in to..
So just let's make a wild assumption (not a prediction you understand) that it's Autumn 2005 and HD DVD has mortally wounded Blu-ray in the closing chapter of Format Wars, what's that going to mean for us content creators?
First of all, similar to the DVD format, there'll be a HD DVD-R disc type (recordable once) and a HD DVD-RW disc type (re-recordable).
The new discs will be up to four times the size of a single layer standard DVD. Indications are that the HD DVD-R will be a a single layer 15Gb disc and that the HD DVD-RW will be a 20Gb disc, but don't quote it yet, as specifications are still a little unclear. A 30GB dual layer disc has also been specified.
The important thing, though, is that there'll be more space on the disc to write to, which is important for HD video producers as in the short term we'll be generating compressed files which need to be larger in order to describe all that extra resolution.
And then there's the question of what compression format we'll be using to create HD DVD compliant video..
And basically we'll have a choice of three codecs in which to compress our beautiful HD work, all three supported by the HD DVD specification.
The three supported codecs are H.264, MPEG2, and WM9.
H.264:
Apple are heavily behind H.264 which is sometimes known as AVC (Advanced Video Codec). Apple are building H.264 into the QuickTime 7 multimedia architecture in Tiger (the next version of MacOSX). The codec will be scalable meaning that video destined from everything from mobile phones to HD DVD's will be encoded with it.
Apple claim that H.264 can deliver full HD (1920x1080, 24p) at 7-9 Mbps, which is a datarate equivalent to today's Standard Definition DVD's. That's great. I wonder what we're going to do with the 15GB of blank space we have left over on our HD DVD disc. 4 hours of bonus material I guess ;)
MPEG2:
The codec of choice for the current DVD specification, MPEG2 will continue to serve HD DVD. MPEG2 had to be built in to the specification for the simple reason that electronics manufacturers need to offer backward compatibility to consumers buying HD DVD players, as those consumers have stocks of DVD discs all containing video encoded in MPEG2.
WM9:
And, last but not least, the governing body behind the HD DVD specification has provisionally approved the incorporation of Microsoft's Windows Media 9 technology as a mandatory component of HD DVD.
For those of us who author DVDs on a macintosh, we'll have to wait to see whether Apple backs the HD DVD specification or the Blu Ray specification, before releasing machines with suitable read/write drives. Apple certainly won't back both, as the formats are incompatible.
DVD authoring tools will no doubt look similar to those we use today, although I'm sure the new multimedia/web/interactvivty that these specifications provide for will give those of us involved in DVD production fun new tools to play with... but that's another story.
Whichever format wins, I'm personally looking forward to the day I'm giving clients video on a disc which retains the resolution in which it was shot.