Nikhil Dev

There has been a lot of talking about the new format of optical storage. These are the latest developments on the technology.

The next generation of DVDs will go on sale in New Zealand this week.

Sony’s Blu-ray technology can fit 25 gigabytes of data on a disc, more than five times a normal DVD’s 4.6 gigabytes.

This, combined with a data transfer speed three times faster than today’s DVDs mean it can store high-definition content made for the increasingly common large-screen plasma and LCD television sets.

The discs will also have a special scratch-resistant coating which will extend their lifespan to 30 years, Sony says.

First in the shops will be blank Blu-ray rewritable discs, which will cost about $48 each.

Next will come write-once discs at about $38 each.

The first read/write Blu-ray drive will appear mid-month in the latest Vaio AR series laptop.

Dual-layer discs that can store up to 50GB are also on the cards.

New Zealanders will have to wait a bit longer for movies on Blu-ray DVDs. Sony Pictures expects them to hit shelves in September. Movies on Blu-ray DVDs are already on sale overseas.

Blu-ray discs face a fierce battle with a rival high-capacity technology, HD DVD, mimicking the format war between JVC’s VHS and Sony’s Betamax video tapes in the 1980s. Each has the support of major manufacturers and movie houses, and while Blu-Ray stores 10Gb more data, HD DVD technology will be cheaper, at least at first.

Sony’s Blu-ray player costs about $US1000 ($NZ1640) in North America, while Toshiba’s HD DVD player costs about half that.

On Amazon.com, HD DVD discs sell for a few dollars less than Blu-ray discs, but both are about $US10-$US15 more than regular DVDs.

Both types of player are able to read current DVDs, and both use a blue laser instead of the DVD’s red laser and the CD’s infrared one. The blue laser has a shorter wavelength and so can read data that’s closer together, meaning more data can be packed on a disc.

The HD DVD consortium is headed by Toshiba, which released its first HD DVD player into the New Zealand market last week in the latest version of the Qosmio G30 laptop. The drive won’t be able to write to HD DVD discs, however, and it’s not clear yet when HD DVD discs will be in shops here.

Unlike DVDs, there’s no region coding on HD DVDs yet, so for now movies bought overseas will play on the laptop.

HD DVD rewritable discs will go on sale in Japan this month.

Talks between Sony and Toshiba to merge their technology into a unified format, as happened when the first-generation DVD format was created, collapsed last year.

Blu-ray technology has been available in Japan for three years.

Some pundits see the battle as a storm in a teacup, since more and more movies and TV programmes are being downloaded legally over the Web through services such as Apple’s iTunes Music Store.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates called it the “last format battle there will ever be”. Microsoft plans to include an external HD DVD drive in its next generation Xbox 360 console to combat Sony PlayStation 3’s in-built Blu-Ray player.