Digital Trends

Everyone loves DVD. Most big-screen TVs sold nowadays are HDTVs. So you'd think a high-definition version of the DVD format would a natural­splashing a sharper and more detailed picture onto a screen that can show the difference.
 
Yet high-definition DVD remains stuck at the starting gate. The reason is yet another self-destructive format war from a consumer electronics industry that seems incapable of learning the lessons of its own history. Who will win the high-def DVD sweepstakes­HD-DVD or Blu-ray?
 
HD-DVD is backed by Toshiba and NEC. Toshiba was a prime mover behind the existing DVD format. The Blu-ray Disc Founders Group (BDFG) includes Hitachi, HP, LG (Zenith), Matsushita (Panasonic), Mitsubishi, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, TDK, Thomson (RCA)­and especially Sony, which has offered a Blu-ray recorder for some time, albeit in Japan and at a stiff price.

HD-DVD has been endorsed by the DVD Forum, a consortium whose purpose is to keep the DVD format from descending into chaos. But for the sheer bulk of corporate supporters, Blu-ray has an edge.

Besides political muscle, Blu-ray has the added advantage of being recordable. However, it's hobbled by the fragility of the disc, which must be enclosed in a caddy, much like Sony's MiniDisc. BDFG member TDK is developing a coating technology that would give the disc a harder and more durable surface.

Have I mentioned that the governments of China and Taiwan both have high-definition DVD formats of their own in development? Taiwan alone has two!

So what exactly is going on here? What's the reason for this format fiasco? I've got two little words for you: licensing revenues. Every time an electronic product gets sold, someone, somewhere gets paid. The manufacturer isn't the only one who profits. Whoever developed the underlying technology (or technologies)  also does.

The licensing fee may constitute only a small part of the product's overall cost. But multiply it by millions (or hundreds of millions) of products rolling off assembly lines around the world and you'll have a general idea of why every manufacturing player in the CE industry wants to be a format-licensing player as well.

Format wars are nothing new. They've been going on since Thomas Edison's cylinder phonograph lost out to Alexander Graham Bell's flat disc—the forerunner of today's many flat disc formats.

The most notorious format war of recent times was Beta vs. VHS. Videophiles swore Sony's Betamax was better, citing the elegance of its U-load mechanism over VHS's clunky M-load, but the VHS people were wilier. Prodded by its U.S. licensee RCA, Matsushita/JVC made VHS the first consumer videocassette format to record for a movie-length two hours. By the time Sony added slower speeds to the Beta format, it was too late.