Future of electronics depends on color blue

The future looks blue. And I’m very excited about it. By
simply changing the color of a laser, the consumer electronics
industry will finally have the next generation’s answer to
VHS. We are going to enjoy a world of differences. Confused? Read
on.

Whether the entertainment industry wants to admit it or not,
high-definition television is definitely headed our way, and this
calls for an entire new set of consumer electronics to facilitate
this transition. The most obvious change will be in our
televisions, which will need to support HDTV’s 720 and 1080
resolution formats (current television broadcasts are in the
250-300 range).

But where does this leave DVDs? The fastest growing consumer
electronics device ever to hit the market is going to be left in
the dust at a mere 500 lines of resolution. For the record, the
higher the resolution, the more realistic and smooth the image will
appear.

The reasonable conclusion to this dilemma is we need to start
making DVDs that can offer HDTV-level resolutions “¦ While
we’re at it, let’s make these DVDs recordable and
rewritable like old-fashioned VHS systems.

But it is not as simple as making DVD recorders that can record
at higher resolutions. Higher resolution video requires more space
to encode the same amount of video. This is analogous to how MP3s
encoded at a higher bit rate sound better but require a bigger file
size.

The solution to this conundrum is to go blue. Optical disc
players read data stored on CDs and DVDs by shining a laser at
microscopic pits that have been “burned” into the
surface of the disc. As the laser strikes the series of pits on the
bottom of the disc, the player interprets the nuances in the laser
stream as bits of data. Suffice it to say that the two main
components that determine a disc’s capacity are the laser and
the pits.

DVDs have 4.7 gigabytes of data capacity compared to the
700-megabyte capacity of the CD. This means that DVDs have
smaller pits on their surface and therefore can fit more
information onto the same size disc. Smaller pits require a laser
with a shorter wavelength to read the pits. Current DVD players
employ an 800 nanometer red laser, but higher capacity DVD players
will make use of a blue laser whose 405 nm wavelength can
facilitate smaller pits and the larger amount of data necessary to
encode HDTV video.

I know all this techno crap can be confusing, so I liken the
situation to a highway. Increased traffic has required wider
roads. But instead of making wider roads, automakers make
thinner cars and thus allow more lanes to be crammed onto roads of
the same width. 

Currently, there are two competing formats ““ Blu-Ray and
Advanced Optical Disc ““ that will vie for widespread
acceptance next year when the first blue laser DVD recorders hit
the market. Blu-Ray DVD has the backing of nine major electronics
manufacturers, including Sony and Matsushita (Panasonic), while
Toshiba and NEC are backing Advanced Optical Disc (AOD) DVD.

Both formats are based on identical lasers, but Blu-Ray DVD was
created on a clean slate, taking advantage of as many new
manufacturing processes as possible, while AOD makes use of
traditional DVD specifications for things like lens aperture and
platter thickness. The result is that Blu-Ray DVDs will be offered
in three capacities; 23.3, 25 and 27 gigabytes (depending on the
quality and expense of materials used), while AOD DVDs will have a
maximum capacity of only 20 gigabytes. But remember that 20
gigabytes is still more than four times the capacity of
today’s 4.7 gigabyte DVDs.

The format war is a bit more complicated than just capacity,
though. Blu-Ray was created outside of the auspices of the national
DVD Forum (kind of like a United Nations of DVD manufacturers) with
the reasoning that it is a next generation DVD system. In addition,
Toshiba, which is backing the AOD format, is the chair of the DVD
Forum, and argues that its format is more kind to the existing DVD
infrastructure and will allow a lower price point.

The way things are shaping up, it looks like neither format
backer is going to give in, and the DVD Forum might dissolve due to
companies backing the “unapproved” Blu-Ray format. At
the recent Ceatec Electronics Expo in Japan, most of the blue laser
prototypes shown were Blu-Ray recorders, with only one AOD
prototype offered by Toshiba.

I’ll sit back and enjoy the competition. May the best
format win.