JVC Announces 3-Layer Blu-ray Disc with HD and DVD-9 Content
While HD DVD’s backers privately have doubted reports that the rival Blu-ray camp had developed a BD-ROM hybrid disc containing HD and conventional DVD content (CED Dec 27 p1), Blu-ray Johnny-Come-Lately JVC chose Christmas Eve to announce claims it had developed a triple-layered BD-ROM that marries Blu-ray HD content to a conventional dual-layer or “DVD-9” disc, thereby creating a single-inventory combo likely to please content owners, retailers and consumers. At our deadline Mon., HD DVD advocates called Blu-ray’s claim “vapor-ware,” saying it might be feasible but it’s not easily make-able and won’t arrive to market until at least a year after HD DVD’s launch.
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In essence, JVC’s claims have trumped the HD DVD camp’s earlier announcement (CED Dec 8 p6) that it had developed a single-sided, dual-layer hybrid that combines an HD content layer with a single-layer DVD substrate -- the first readable by a blue laser and the 2nd, deeper layer readable by the red lasers in current DVD players. That combo would enable content owners to issue a single HD/DVD disc, sparing retailers the nightmare of stocking separate inventories of HD and “SD” movie discs.
JVC says its development would do the same but also give added-value to content owners. The HD-DVD hybrid announced by Toshiba and replicator Memory-Tech consists of a 15 GB “HD” layer and a single, 4.7-GB DVD layer. While 4.7 GB is sufficient to contain a movie, many DVDs today use the dual- layer 8.5-GB ("DVD-9) format to store “extras” such as bonus features, games, etc. JVC’s claimed ability to bury a DVD-9 below the Blu-ray “HD” would seem to give content owners more lee-way than the hybrid developed by Toshiba and Memory-Tech affords. But not necessarily, critics said.
One factor not addressed by either camp at our deadline was how the “advanced compression” codecs supported by each might come into play with a hybrid disc. For example, with the MPEG-2 compression used by current DVDs, about 2 hours of SD content can be shoe-horned into each layer of a disc. But since HD DVD and Blu-ray permit the use of more-efficient codecs, such as MPEG-4 and Microsoft’s VC-1, it’s possible that a single 4.7-GB layer would be sufficient for HD DVD to squeeze an “SD” movie and bonus content on one layer.
Owing to holiday closures in Japan and Europe, further comment wasn’t available from the rival BD and HD DVD camps at our Monday deadline. But they claimed that preliminary responses from the HD DVD camp echoed earlier statements that any Blu-ray claims to advanced discs were only theoretical and subject to real-world replication conditions yet to be proved, whereas HD DVD hybrids have been made and are ready to go for the format’s fall 2005 launch. Those same HD DVD backers contended the JVC announcement was -- in the words on one source -- yet another “pipe-dream” calculated to stall decisions by Hollywood’s studios while the Blu-ray camp develops and finalizes specs for its format.