Columnists

CES: Blue-laser wars

Third-party olive branches don't (at least yet) staunch the bloody flow of words and widgets.

By Brian Dipert, Senior Technical Editor -- EDN, 1/9/2007 12:45:00 PM

Format wars between various optical-storage candidates are a big deal in my editorial beat, so much so that the current Blu-ray versus HD DVD battle has prompted three feature articles and a whole bunch of blog posts in the last 3.5 years. Before diving into the latest skirmishes from the in-progress CES show, let's first step back and review how the previous format war ended, as a possible model for how this one may turn out.

DVD-Audio versus SACD marked the last time that the DVD Forum grappled with the Sony/Philips alliance. Neither side ever budged; the eventual emergence of so-called "universal" players from third parties, which (at incremental bill-of-materials cost) comprehended both formats, led to a de facto détente. But the image damage had been done; neither of the high-end-audio formats came close to its backers' initial sales projections. The fact that most folks' ears couldn't discern any benefit from large audio sample sizes and high sample rates didn't help either format's fortunes, either.

Now fast-forward to the present. I've discussed on numerous occasions why I believe that most folks' eyes, specifically in conjunction with their screens' sizes, types, viewing distances, and ambient lighting conditions, won't be able to perceive the higher resolution and other potential image-quality advantages of Blu-ray and HD DVD. I also claimed one month ago that we were "a long way from the Universal Player" that would bridge the digital divide between Blu-ray and HD DVD.

I could attempt at this point to convince you that by "a long way" I meant "one month," but I won't try. However, when you see the price tag and feature set of what just got unveiled, you may decide that my prognostication still holds true. LG Electronics has announced two universal units under the "Super Multi Blue" moniker, one a standalone player and the other a PC drive. The BH100 player will be in production by the end of this quarter at the jaw-dropping price of…wait for it…$1199.

For that substantial chunk of change, you'd expect the BH100 to support not only Blu-ray and HD DVD but also conventional DVD and CD, and you'd be right—all except the CD part. That's right, an $1199 optical-disc player can't even play audio CDs, according to an article in Monday's TWICE-published CES Daily magazine, which quoted an unnamed LG spokesperson. This, even though the Broadcom chip driving the BH100 touts audio-CD support. And oh, by the way, the BH100 also doesn't support picture-in-picture or any other enhanced HD DVD features, either.

The GGW-H10N Super Multi Blue PC drive, which will also ship by the end of this quarter at "under $1000," doesn't exhibit the inherent limitations of its standalone counterpart because it relies on PC-based software to implement the various Blu-ray and HD DVD playback functions. It also supports the burning of single- and dual-layer Blu-ray media, along with writeable CDs and DVDs—but not writeable HD DVDs.

The prices for both the BH100 and GGW-H10N are significantly higher than their single-format alternatives. For example, a TigerDirect advertisement email yesterday listed Samsung's first-generation Blu-ray player at $599.99 and a Lite-On Blu-ray burner drive at that same price. Toshiba's first-generation HD DVD player is now running around $400, and while I couldn't extract an exact price for the newly introduced SD-H903A HD DVD burner (PDF) from the Toshiba representatives I had breakfast with Sunday morning, they assured me that it would significantly undercut Blu-ray alternatives.

The other détente announcement, from Warner Studios, is less earth-shaking. The company, along with Paramount Studios, has to date released movie titles in both blue-laser formats. Warner has apparently figured out, and per an invitation in my email inbox will later tonight night explain in more detail, how its unified "Total Hi-Def" disc can comprehend both the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. I suspect this will occur via a similar approach to the one taken by DualDisc, which fuses a two-channel audio CD image on one side of the disc and a DVD-Audio or DVD-Video image on the other.

Total Hi-Def pricing details, either absolute or relative to the standalone Blu-ray or HD DVD alternative, aren't known at this point. Also unknown are any capacity impacts of the dual-format inclusion; with early DualDiscs, the audio CD image delivered only around 60 minutes of playback time versus 74 minutes for a conventional audio CD (this limitation was later eliminated).

Finally, I'll be sure to ask Warner representatives about any potential player incompatibility issues. Again referencing the DualDisc experience, both the audio CD layer's thickness (thinner than Red Book Audio CD specifications) and total girth (thicker than a CD) precluded DualDisc's successful use with some playback equipment. I see Total Hi-Def as an inventory simplifying win for Warner and, depending on how the company prices it, an acquisition-simplifying win for consumers as well. But because Warner is already straddling both formats, Total Hi-Def doesn't cast a solid vote in either direction.

Hostilities continue

Meanwhile the verbal potshots and unveiled products from the Blu-ray and HD DVD camps continue at a furious pace, with no sign of either the compromise or concession that would put an end to the incompatibility craziness.

First, let's look at HD DVD. Sunday night at the Microsoft keynote, Bill Gates and Microsoft president Robbie Bach revealed several interesting tidbits:

• Microsoft has to date sold 10.4 million Xbox consoles worldwide, seemingly meeting the company's earlier projection of 10 million units sold by the end of 2006. The reason I've emphasized "sold" will soon be apparent.
• Without providing specific sales statistics, Bach proudly proclaimed that the company is making as many HD DVD peripherals for the Xbox 360 as it can, and that the drive continues to sell out at retail.

An HD DVD Promotional Group briefing (PDF) later that evening further fleshed out the format story. "As of January 5th, there are estimated to be more than 175,000 HD DVD players sold in North America," proclaimed the press release, encompassing both standalone players and the Xbox 360 peripheral. And by the end of 2007, HD DVD promoters predict that in North America, they'll have an installed base of "more than 2.5 million players." Low-cost Asian manufacturers such as Alco, Jiangkui/ED Digital, Lite-On, and Shinco have joined the HD DVD fold.

And in the latest iteration of spec one-upmanship, HD DVD developers are working on tri-layer media which, via a combination of an added storage layer and denser per-layer capacity, will enable 51-Gbyte discs—1 Gbyte bigger than Blu-ray's current dual-layer capacity.

Toshiba's press briefing provided additional HD DVD details. On top of the second-generation $499.99 HD-A2 and $999.99 HD-XA2 players, unveiled last September and now in production, the company has added an intermediary $599.99 HD-A20 model, slated to ship this spring. And in North America alone, Toshiba plans to single-handedly ship (and hopefully sell) 1.8 million players this year.

You gotta believe the Blu-ray camp won't take HD DVD's challenge lying down, right? In fact, just to show you how many different ways it's possible to cut a given set of data, the Blu-ray gang claims (in promotional vehicles such as a 28-page glossy piece of propaganda being vigorously passed out at the show) that it has already won the format war. The linchpin of the Association's argument is the PlayStation 3. Although analysts believe that Sony only shipped (and, pragmatically, sold) around 250,000 PS3s in the retail channel in time for Christmas, the Blu-ray Association now touts more than 1 million units shipped in North America. And in Japan, Blu-ray reportedly has captured 96% of the HD player market.

Although some readers of Brian's Brain might think I have a vendetta against Sony, that's simply not true. The company had a rough 2006, mind you, but its brand is still in amazingly solid shape, and many of the products it designs are best-of-breed. With that said, Sony sometimes makes it hard for me to be impartial. Notice the emphasis on shipped in the previous paragraph, versus sold in the earlier Microsoft data? With the PS3, Sony's playing the same numbers game (pun intended) it has long played with the PlayStation Portable. Shipped to the retail channel does not automatically equate to sold to customers (unless you're Nintendo, at least at the moment, that is).

As I've recently pointed out and others have also noticed, the grey market for PS3s on Ebay and elsewhere has collapsed. Initial resale price premiums are no longer attainable and, as a result, folks who stood in line to buy once-rare PS3s are now returning them to point-of-purchase for refunds. PS3s are readily available (albeit with occasional, brief sellouts) at online outlets such as Amazon, Best Buy, and Circuit City, as well as in bricks-and-mortar stores, where numerous reports on Digg and elsewhere indicate burgeoning inventory stockpiles.

I've long suggested that a $500 or $600 consumer-electronics device, even one as feature-rich as the PS3, is unpalatable to the vast majority of consumers. The market reaction to the PS3 is proving me right.

To that point, neither Blu-ray nor HD DVD is the clear winner at this time, in my mind. Toshiba's latest players, you'll note, are also $500 or higher in price. And recently collected data by the Consumer Electronics Association, albeit with unclear statistical significance, backs me up. As published in the January/February issue of the CEA's Vision Magazine, the Association recently surveyed a group of consumers (sample size unreported), whose technology-enthusiast categorization was evident in the fact that 85% of them were already aware of one or both of the next-generation, high-resolution optical formats. Before presenting the data, I'll re-emphasize that these are enthusiasts, presumably with much higher-than-average probability of pulling out their wallets each time some cool new tech toy appears.

Granted, the PS3 is an atypical candidate. It offers both Blu-ray playback and other features (gaming, browsing, playback of other multimedia, Linux support, etc) at a comparable price to a dedicated player, because it's subsidized by what Sony hopes will be vigorous, profitable future game-title sales. But it's still at or above the price threshold where, the above data suggests, any double-digit percentage of consumers will vote with their dollars.

Toshiba's current players are, in effect, costly embedded PCs, and the PS3 is similarly complex. Blu-ray players are lower cost, at least with respect to their semiconductor content, but with notable feature tradeoffs. The semiconductor suppliers are poised to help both camps' causes; an earlier writeup pointed out some of the vendor options available at the time I wrote it, and in a conversation with Sigma Designs' Ken Lowe at lunch yesterday, he claimed it was basically a two-horse race between his company and Broadcom for both Blu-ray and HD DVD sockets.

Add another horse to the race, though. At a briefing yesterday afternoon, STMicroelectronics repeatedly reiterated its focus on the blue-laser-playback market with the newly introduced Sti7200, which has a dual-stream decoder that enables PIP (picture-in-picture) capabilities that Blu-ray currently lacks. And further to the pricing issue, remember that the Xbox 360 HD DVD peripheral is $199.99 or less. Now revisit the data in the table above. Of everything I've seen from anyone in either the Blu-ray or HD DVD camps, Microsoft's product approach still makes the most sense to me. Those 10.4 million Xbox 360 owners either already are or will soon be ready to scratch the next inevitable tech-consumption itch, and a sub-$200 HD DVD add-on is a compelling candidate.