Beating the blue-laser blues

Industry standardization is a fickle mistress. Just ask the manufacturers of optical drives, their building blocks, and media. On the one hand, a unified technological approach to addressing a market need encourages broad industry-supplier support that reassures customers of the approach's viability and longevity, thereby encouraging them to open their wallets and make significant investments in it. On the other hand, unless that technological approach regularly evolves, encouraging those same customers to repeatedly reopen their wallets, the market stalls, and profits evaporate.

Looking at EDN's last in-depth coverage of optical-storage technology two years ago, you might conclude that nothing's changed since (references 1 and 2). In a sense, you'd be right. Contending + and – writable- and rewritable-DVD formats still square off in the market. DVD-RAM is still a niche product that users employ in hard-disk-drive-emulating computer applications and that some manufacturers include in DVD recorders, PVRs (personal video recorders), and set-top boxes. Holographic storage still isn't in production. And the dueling Blu-ray and HD-DVD optical-storage alternatives are still staring each other down in an expensive face-off that, until resolved, threatens to stall the red-to-blue-laser-market transition.

It didn't need to be this way. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," said US philosopher George Santayana in 1905. And more than 2000 years earlier, Chinese philosopher Confucius suggested that you "study the past if you would divine the future." What lessons does the past hold for today's storage pioneers? For starters, look at the Betamax-versus-VHS wars of the mid-1970s. Look at the saber-rattling and posturing that stretched out DVD-Video's gestation period to more than three or four years, depending on how you measure its endpoint: first products in the market in late 1997 or notable market success at the holiday-1998 shopping season (Reference 3). Or look at the +-versus-–-format wars, which only the widespread availability of format-agnostic universal players and recorders has subdued.

In February, it appeared that the Blu-ray and HD-DVD camps might in fact have learned their history lessons. Stung by widespread CES (Consumer Electronics Show) backlash to the two groups' significantly incompatible formats, they returned to the bargaining table in an attempt to hammer out a compromise. A settlement may occur, but, by press time, it didn't seem likely, with Sony Consumer Electronics President Ken Kutaragi commenting that negotiations are "game over," the Blu-ray-inclusive Playstation 3 launch slated for next spring, and Toshiba President Tadashi Okamura's stating, "We may actually have a situation where merchandise from both sides are put on store shelves. But the market would not allow that situation to last very long" (references 4 and 5).

Blu-ray backers continue to tout their revolutionary technology's superior per-layer storage capacity of 25 Gbytes. HD-DVD advocates counter that their evolutionary approach's 15-Gbyte/layer capacity is good enough, especially when you consider it in the context of the media's compatibility with today's DVDs, which they believe will speed and minimize the cost of the conversion of optical-disc manufacturing lines to the next-generation technology. Late May's Media-Tech Expo conference in Las Vegas was the scene of numerous dueling press releases: Toshiba unveiled a three-layer 45-Gbyte HD DVD that neared its competitor's two-layer capacity, and Blu-ray backer TDK responded with a four-layer, 100-Gbyte prototype. Less than three weeks later, Hitachi-Maxell and Verbatim announced their mass-production mastery of a write-once, 15-Gbyte HD DVD-R (Figure 1a). This summer's tit for tat comes on the heels of last December's announcement by Toshiba and Memory-Tech of dual-layer media that users can play on both conventional-DVD and next-generation HD-DVD players, enabling them, for example, to watch a movie in standard definition on a legacy player and in high definition on a new HD-DVD player. That announcement provoked a response, again less than three weeks later, by JVC, which unveiled a 33.5-Gbyte disk that combines a 25-Gbyte Blu-ray layer and an 8.5-Gbyte dual-DVD layer.

All of this next-generation debate focuses on the consumer market. Blue-laser-based optical storage is already in production, albeit targeting high-end applications. TDK, for example, is shipping a 23.3-Gbyte cartridge touting a 72-Mbps-per-head transfer rate, for use in Sony's XDCAM Professional Disc system. Verbatim, conversely, is shipping 30-Gbyte UDO (ultra-density-optical) media, primarily for use in optical libraries, and professional desktop systems for legal, financial, health-care, and government applications, according to Optical Storage Manager Tim Clatterbuck. Hewlett-Packard and Plasmon, along with Sony, developed UDO; Sony later backed out to focus on Blu-ray. The Ecma International, ISO (International Standards Organization), and IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) standards bodies have approved UDO. Clatterbuck claims, "Write-once UDO media has a data life of 50 years. For work in progress or files that need to be updated, the Verbatim rewritable UDO media delivers more than 10,000 direct-overwrite cycles" (see sidebar, "Data longevity"). Verbatim also claims that next-generation 60- (single-sided) and 120-Gbyte (double-sided) UDO media is under development.

With DVD history as a guide to future trends, video capture and playback will likely be the dominant applications of next-generation blue-laser optical media, at least in its early life. Sonic Solutions, which recently acquired Roxio—along with competitors such as CyberLink, InterVideo and Ulead, and NTI Software—is busy preparing next-generation software, for both consumers and professional users, that works with next-generation optical media, its relevant audio and video codecs, and its DRM (digital-rights-management) schemes. Jim Taylor, the maintainer of the DVD Forum's FAQ, author of DVD Demystified, and general manager of the Advanced Technology Group at Sonic Solutions, states, "At the consumer-content-creation level, lack of unification," resulting from the looming conflict between Blu-ray and HD DVD and the resultant potential for customer confusion, "won't have a big effect" on his company's fortunes.

The capacities of Blu-ray and HD DVD, however, represent overkill for the standard-definition-resolution images that today's miniDV camcorders produce, and next-generation HDV camcorders haven't yet dipped below the $1000 price barrier. Forecasting the near-term impact of format confusion on the high-definition-prerecorded-movie market and therefore the market for Sonic's professional tool sets, Taylor says, "Content creators will move ahead with whatever format they choose." Much of the fuel for his optimism is that hardware suppliers are highly motivated to sell new equipment to consumers, as well as to establish their anointed format as the de facto industry standard, and will therefore aggressively push abundant supply and low prices.

Taylor's predictions about blue-laser technology, however, are curiously at odds with the multiple market slowdowns that DVD has experienced in the face of format wars. Taking off his Sonic hat, Taylor says, "If there is format confusion, if both stay in the market for a year or so, there will inevitably be dual-playback devices. The format groups themselves have studiously avoided any discussion of universal players. But, looking at historical developments, companies will figure out how to support consumers across multiple formats. License and patent royalties are a factor. The main technical issue, which can be solved, is that there has to be CD playback—not mandatory but de facto—meaning that there are three levels that the laser needs to focus on." Taylor refers to the 1.2-mm level for CDs, the 0.6-mm level for DVDs and HD DVDs, and the 0.1-mm level for Blu-ray. "The pickup head must be able to handle that, plus it must comprehend multiple wavelengths: infrared for CD, red for DVD, and two blue wavelengths to deal with both HD DVD and Blu-ray. It's not practical now, especially with slim drives in notebooks. But it will be cost-effective within one to two years," predicts Taylor.

He also believes that, in case of format confusion and until that confusion settles down, "there will be a window of opportunity for red-laser-based HD formats to do better than they would otherwise" (see sidebar "Hands-on plans"). The movie studios, after all, are eager to encourage consumers to buy high-definition variants of content they already own on DVD and to buy more expensive HD versions of content they don't yet own, but they're uncomfortable with the prospect of selecting—and possibly incorrectly selecting—one of the two dueling blue-laser formats. Alternatively, they face the equally unappealing prospect of having to support both formats. They also don't like the prospect of advocating that consumers buy expensive next-generation players that might not handle other studios' material.

Audio- and video-codec developers are poised to exploit this window of opportunity. Microsoft has for several years offered DVDs that contain high-resolution movie variants in Windows Media Video 9, or VC-1, format, in conjunction with studio partners such as Artisan and Imax. In June, DivX released Version 6 of its MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile-derived video codec, which supports interactive video menus, chapters, subtitles, alternate audio tracks, and video tags. DivX claims that the Version 6 codec has a 20 to 40% quality and bit-rate improvement over that of Version 5. And most notably for this discussion, lead DivX codec engineer Jerome Rota states, "Most 720p [720-line-progressive-scan] content requires only a 4-Mbps average bit rate, whereas 1080p content demands only 6 to 8 Mbps." These bit rates are on par with today's 480-line, standard-definition DVD bit rate using MPEG-2.

Nero (formerly, Ahead Software) and partner Ateme are aggressively promoting Nero Digital, an extension-based enhancement of MPEG-4 AVC (also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, or H.264). Nero, like DivX, has also branded a proprietary spin of the MPEG-4 Advanced Simple profile, albeit in this case with an MPEG-4-approved AAC (Advanced Audio Compression) audio codec and "wrapper." Udo Eberlein, president of the company's US subsidiary, is bullish on MPEG-4 AVC's ability to beat DivX 6 on a quality-versus-bit-rate basis and to more than hold its own against the Microsoft VC-1 counterpart, as well. Eberlein admits that, whereas VC-1's Advanced Profile is available, MPEG-4 AVC's high profile is not yet released. "Currently, VC-1 is more mature in the professional-tools space," he acknowledges, and, for that reason and others, Warner Brothers, for example, will likely encode its first wave of HD DVDs using VC-1. "In the consumer-tools space, however, Nero has been shipping MPEG-4 AVC since December 2004 in Nero Version 6.6," he points out. Nero has also developed audio- and video-decoder hardware IP (intellectual property) that it offers for license to potential semiconductor and systems partners.

DVD hardware can now exploit this window of opportunity. Players from Buffalo and I-O Data support one or more of these advanced codecs, and JVC and V Inc will soon follow (Figure 1b). However, the current generation of players lacks support for the necessary authorization DRM scheme for the WMV (Windows Media Video) HD DVDs, meaning that you need to play them on either a conventional or a Media Center Edition PC. To that point: Most consumers will likely need to buy a new player to experience any of these new video codecs and their associated audio codecs, DRM schemes, and wrapper formats in their living rooms. However, this new player will, at least initially, be much less expensive than a blue-laser-based alternative. And here's the key: Anyone with a DVD-ROM drive in his PC can install the necessary software and today experience high-definition content.

How big is the window of opportunity? Taylor, again speaking for himself and not for his company, comments, "Having been through one [the original DVD-video] format launch, there are likely to be delays, and I doubt anything will be out by year-end from either camp." Several industry representatives spoke off the record, saying that they expect that the HD-DVD group will come to market in the first quarter of next year and that Blu-ray, with Playstation 3 in the lead, will follow in the second quarter. And will one of the two format camps eventually throw in the towel and yield to the competition—and, if so, when? That's anyone's guess.

Other countries have also seen the wisdom of a red-laser-based, high-definition-video approach. China's EVD (Enhanced Versatile Disc), as its developers originally defined it, employed On2 Technology's VP5 and VP6 video codecs, along with Coding Technologies' six-channel EAC (enhanced audio codec). One of the primary motivations for EVD was to dodge expensive royalty payments to MPEG-2, CSS (content-scrambling-system), and Macrovision analog-copy-protection rights holders, although, in an apparent contradiction, EVD backers claimed that players would also support DVDs. EVD supported 720p and 1080i video resolutions and was also backward-compatible with CD, VCD (video CD), and SVCD (super VCD). However, initial product demos employed LSI Logic-supplied high-definition MPEG-2, and a dispute early last year between On2 and EVD developers may have permanently sidelined the format, although a video-codec conversion to AVS (advanced video coding standard in information technology) is also a possibility (Reference 6).

Taiwan's Opto-Electronics and Systems Laboratories, under the government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute, has similarly developed the FVD (forward versatile disc), which employs Microsoft's WMA (Windows Media Audio) Professional codec and WMV codec, albeit with hardware-based AES (Advanced Encryption System) decryption instead of Microsoft's DRM scheme. FVD differs from the DVD standard in physical format: First-generation FVD discs have 5.4- to 6-Gbyte, single-sided and 9.8- to 11-Gbyte, double-sided storage capacities and support resolutions as high as 1280×720 pixels in progressive-scan mode. Second-generation FVD discs, with a capacity of more than 15 Gbytes, will support resolutions as high as 1920×1080 pixels in interlaced mode.

The data on the DealNews and Techbargains sites at press time would elate consumers and depress suppliers. A 100-CD-R pack of name-brand 52× devices was selling for $12, including shipping and after rebate. That price translates to 17 cents per gigabyte. Even more incredible, a 100-unit pack of name-brand 8× DVD-Rs or DVD+Rs was going for $20, translating to just over 4 cents per gigabyte. Brand-new, 16×, dual-layer-capable burners sell for less than $50, and, in June, you could buy refurbished Pioneer DVR-109s for $37.50 each. New 52× CD burners sell for $20. And DVD players are free after rebate.

Although media and drive suppliers eagerly await the salvation that blue-laser discs promise, they're in the near term tweaking red-laser technology wherever they can in the hope of eking out a profit. Dual-layer writing capability was a nebulous forecast when EDN last published an optical-storage article (Figure 2), but it's now here, at 8× speeds for DVD+R media and 4× rates for DVD-R, judging from recent drive announcements by companies such as Plextor. (These announcements reflect a more general historical trend of + media's achieving performance thresholds before the – alternatives, which eventually match those thresholds.) Although dual-layer-capable drives are dirt-cheap, the media—now supporting only 2.4× write speeds—is comparatively expensive, currently selling for around $5 per blank disc.

In June, single-layer media capable of a 16× write rate was also roughly twice as expensive as 4 and 8× counterparts; the price difference may have disappeared by now. DVD+RW has even hit 16× speeds, with DVD-RW close behind it at 12×. As is the case with the aforementioned dual-layer DVD, drive specifications may tout high-speed support, but commercially available media cannot yet handle these extreme write rates. And don't expect even faster performance in the future; a 16× DVD-rotational speed roughly correlates to the speed of a 52× CD, which is the speed at which that technology topped out. As was the case in the CD-to-DVD transition, blue-laser-based technologies will likely increase the drive- and media-transfer rates by storing more data in the same amount of space, instead of spinning the disk faster.

DVD-Audio and SACD (Super Audio CD) have been underwhelming market performers; most audio listeners don't appear to be enthralled with high-resolution audio and surround sound (references 7 through 9). Or perhaps consumers are just unwilling to pay the incremental price necessary to obtain these features, especially considering that CD-quality, two-channel audio is available for "free" on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks and is nearly free on offshore music-distribution sites, such as Allofmp3. To that point: The music labels are desperate to hook listeners onto again buying music, and the DualDisc is their latest tack. This dual-format disc contains an audio CD layer on one side and SACD, DVD-Audio, or DVD-Video media on the other. Initial consumer response seems to be generally positive; the fact that prices are comparable with the CD-only alternative doesn't hurt. DualDisc's most notable issue is its greater thickness—1.5 mm—compared with an average-sized, 1.2-mm CD or DVD, which means that it doesn't fit in some players. The CD side of a DualDisc is also restricted to 60 minutes of capacity. (Red Book Audio CDs hold as much as 74 minutes of content.) Also, the DVD side cannot contain more than one layer's worth of data, again to keep thickness at a generally manageable level.

Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's Playstation 2 employ otherwise-conventional CD and DVD media, containing copy-protected data that users can circumvent only by using "mod chips" (devices that let users circumvent the DRM of a game console) or by otherwise exploiting vulnerabilities in the operating system and applications (Reference 10). Nintendo's GameCube takes duplication prevention to the next level of complexity; it employs a proprietary, 80-mm (approximately 3.2-in.-diameter), red-laser-based optical disc that stores 1.5 Gbytes of information. The drive accesses this information beginning at the disc's outer edge, whereas conventional optical-disc accesses begin at the inner edge (Figure 3). The Sony PSP's (Playstation Portable's) 60-mm (approximately 2.4-in.-diameter), red-laser-based and 128-bit AES-encrypted, 1.8-Gbyte UMD (Universal Media Disc) targets use in both games and feature-length movies and is similarly proprietary in format. In June, Sony was striving to stay one firmware release ahead of hackers, who have so far figured out how to copy UMD data to a MemoryStick Duo and run games from that flash-memory-based media (Reference 11).

Three primary means exist for squeezing more data onto a given-sized piece of CD media: narrowing the track-to-track pitch, reducing the within-track spacing between pits and lands, and extending the total available track length. Industry-specification-contravening technologies exploit these techniques to shoehorn more information onto a CD. These techniques include various suppliers' 790- and 870-Mbyte discs, Plextor's GigaRec, and Sanyo's HD-Burn, none of which the industry has widely adopted. Prodisc Technology has resurrected the capacity-boosting aspiration with a DVD twist. The company's 4.9-Gbyte DVD-R, introduced at the late-May Computex show, stores 200 Mbytes' worth of additional information by tightening the track-to-track pitch, but, at the time of its unveiling, it was fully compatible with only 15 drives and players; 100 more computer drives and 26 consumer DVD-R video recorders offer partial support, such as storage of as much as 4.7 Gbytes or lower recording speeds.

What happens if two layers' worth of DVD storage capacity is insufficient, and you don't want to switch to any of the professional blue-laser formats or wait for Blu-ray or HD-DVD? Then, you might want to give New Medium Enterprises a call; the company claims that by year-end it will be shipping media and players compatible with its four-layer, 20-Gbyte red-laser VMD (Versatile Multilayer Disc) technology. The VMD red laser's future extends to 20 layers' worth of information at 5 Gbytes per layer, for a total capacity of 100 Gbytes. The company asserts that VMD-based drives will be able to read other standard formats, including CD and DVD. And the company's Web site also points out that "VMD multilayer technology does not strictly function with red laser only, but can easily be applied to blue laser as well." But will Hollywood bite? It's doubtful, but you'll have to see. You could ask the same question of EVD and FVD, and the question is particularly relevant given the notably inconsistent prosecution of media piracy in the parts of the world where proponents are advocating those formats.

Finally, because the laser is available to store information on the data side of a CD or DVD, why not also put it to good use on the other side? HP's LightScribe technology employs specially coated discs and enhanced disc-burning software to produce laser-etched labels. The LightScribe Web site lists BenQ, HP, LaCie, and Sager as hardware adoptees; Cyberlink, InterVideo, Nero, and Sonic as software implementers; and HP, Imation, Memorex, and Verbatim as media suppliers. LightScribe's capabilities are intriguing, but the FAQ document on the LightScribe Web site admits that drive and media supply is currently spotty. Unless availability dramatically improves, including an increase in the number of hardware and media providers, and costs consequently decrease to be more in line with alternatives, most folks will likely stick with the established ink-jet-printer-generated-label approach.

Holographic storage from InPhase Technologies and the Optware-chaired HVD (Holographic Versatile Disc) Alliance made a big splash at this year's CES and NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) conferences (Figure 4). InPhase demonstrated 200-Gbps/in.² storage capacity at the NAB show and hopes to be in production by next year with first-generation 300-Gbyte, 20-Mbyte/sec recordable drives and media, with plans for a 1.6-Tbyte capacity and 120-Mbyte/sec access speeds by 2009. Other plans include 40-Mbyte/sec "ROM" media and 80-Mbyte/sec rewritable media, both with 1-Tbyte capacities by the decade's end.

For those yearning for faster accesses and less restrictive write capabilities, hard drives are also experiencing a significant capacity boost courtesy of the perpendicular-storage technique. And don't forget about semiconductors for the ultimate in read speeds; Matrix Semiconductor's latest Trinity 3-D memory squeezes 1 Gbit of storage into a four-layer, 31-mm² piece of silicon fabricated on a 0.15-micron- process technology, although, like CD-R, DVD-R, and DVD+R, it's a write-once technology.

Kudos to optical-storage-press-relations representative Andy Marken for connecting me with a diverse collection of vendors and for providing a plethora of research materials for this story.

Author Information

You can reach Senior Technical Editor Brian Dipert at 1-916-760-0159, bdipert@edn.com, and www.bdipert.com.