Rival formats in a duel to the death

Two decades after VHS and Betamax duked it out for a spot in American living rooms, get ready for Round 2 -- this time between rival versions of the next-generation DVD.

DVD players are the fastest-selling consumer electronics device of all time -- two-thirds of households have bought one since they were introduced in 1997. But the ubiquitous discs are poised for a makeover that promises ultra-sharp, cinema-quality movies.

The good news: Couch potatoes will be able to see the downy hairs on Natalie Portman’s skin in “Closer,” the distinct jungle leaves in “Apocalypse Now,” the subtle shading in Tobey Maguire’s pupils as he watches Aunt May being plucked away by Doc Ock in “Spider-Man 2.”

Now the bad: Two standards that don’t work with each other are vying for dominance. It may take years for the market to shake out as manufacturers woo customers, studios and retailers. Inevitably, some buyers will be left with obsolete technology, much as Betamax buyers were.

All this over the color of a laser.

Delivering more detail, crisper colors and sharper motion requires more data than current DVDs can hold. So consumer electronics companies have figured out a way to pack far more information onto the same disc by switching to blue lasers from the red ones used today. Because blue lasers are narrower than red, they can write and read data that’s more densely packed.

Today’s standard DVD has 4.7 gigabytes of capacity, far less than the 8 gigabytes or more required for a two-hour high-definition movie. Blue laser DVDs can hold 15 to 50 gigabytes or more.

On one side is Blu-ray, backed by Sony and a cadre of manufacturers, including Pioneer, Matsushita’s Panasonic, Samsung, Apple, Hitachi and Hewlett-Packard. On the other is Blu-ray’s rival, HD-DVD, championed by Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo.

The best-case scenario is that the two factions will compromise to create one standard. That happened in the mid-1990s when Sony and Toshiba merged their rival technologies to create a single DVD format. And it may happen again. Yukinori Kawauchi, a general manager in Sony’s Video Group, last week suggested that the company was “open to discussions.” But leading analysts remain skeptical that a single format will emerge.

The biggest obstacle is the technical difference between the two formats. HD-DVDs can pack up to 30 gigabytes on a single side of a disc, whereas Blu-ray discs boast 50 gigabytes. “Having more space just gives you more luxury, more flexibility,” said Andy Parsons, a spokesman for the Blu-ray group and a senior vice president for product development at Pioneer. “If we’ve learned one thing, it’s that people are always asking for more capacity. There’s a huge appetite for content far beyond just the film itself, for things like director’s commentary, actor interviews, games, additional languages, you name it.”

Toshiba, on the other hand, believes its HD-DVDs have a big advantage: They are less expensive to produce because manufacturers can use standard DVD replicating equipment, potentially lowering the cost of DVD movies to consumers. Blu-ray discs require new equipment.

While that may be a factor in the beginning, the Blu-ray camp insists that over time, the cost of making a Blu-ray disc will be comparable to, or lower than, the cost of making a standard DVD because Blu-ray eliminates several steps required in the standard DVD manufacturing process.

But manufacturers know that people don’t buy devices solely for their technical specs. They buy them to play movies.

“Content is obviously going to drive hardware sales,” said Jodi Sally, assistant vice president of marketing for Toshiba’s North American division.

So both sides are lobbying Hollywood hard to win support. HD-DVD has the backing of Viacom Inc.’s Paramount, General Electric’s Universal and Time Warner’s Warner Bros., which owns HBO and New Line Cinema Corp. Blu-ray has Walt Disney, News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox and, of course, Sony’s Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures.

But the deals aren’t exclusive -- studios are free to make a pact with either format.

HERE COMES HD-DVD

Meanwhile, Toshiba is forging ahead; it’s planning to release an HD-DVD player in December in the U.S. and Japan for about $1,000. At that price, the device is aimed purely at consumers who must have the latest technology. But Toshiba plans to drop the price to less than $500 by December 2006 to to reach a wider audience.

Bolstering the HD-DVD launch will be the release of close to 100 titles, including “The Bourne Supremacy,” “The Sopranos” and “The Manchurian Candidate.”

“HD-DVD will be on the market in the U.S. before anything else,” Sally said. “I feel that the first-mover advantage is going to be very important for the format.”

Sony, Samsung and Pioneer are already selling Blu-ray players in Japan for $2,000 to $3,000. But they can be used only to record high-definition TV shows; they won’t be able to play any Blu-ray movies released in the future. For that, consumers will have to wait until at least early 2006.

For most consumers today, the debate over high-definition DVDs may be esoteric. Most of the TVs in people’s homes today are standard-definition sets that can’t display that level of detail anyway.

But as sales of large-screen, high-definition TVs take off, movie studios and manufacturers are betting that people will dump their DVDs along with their VHS tapes in favor of high-definition versions that will look snappier on their fancy new sets.

“You’ll be able to see a real gold color, not just a dirty yellow,” said Thomas Lesinski, president of Paramount’s home entertainment division. “You’ll be able to see colors as they’re seen in nature.”

But which shade of blue should consumers pick, HD-DVD or Blu-ray?

“Hold off,” advised Ted Schadler, an analyst with Forrester Research, a technology consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. “We don’t know which format will win. Until then, why buy a product that will just gather dust on the shelf because there aren’t very many movies you can play on it, like Betamax?”