Sunday 15 November 2009

Dvd Formats - What Do They All Mean?

In the modern market place today, there are many formats for optical storage of digital media, ranging from the venerable CD-ROM, and "super secret compression algorithms" to HD-DVD and BluRay, including the inevitable DVD-R and HD DVD - RW formats. Digital optical media formats have their specifications set by working groups, composed of engineers from various manufacturers that intend to build and sell the hardware, and usually each manufacturer has a kind of technology they have developed that they want included in the specifications. By ensuring that their preferred technology is in the specifications, they get paid a small fee for every single device sold, and the sale of the equipment carried in the hundreds of millions per year any royalties - even a small one - adds up to real money. This makes it possible to get format wars, just like at the beginning of the video cassette recorder, with VHS and Betamax. In fact, the only major media format that is not a format war in recent history, the CD-ROM that his specifications by Sony, which owns most of the patents. When DVDs first came out was hammered, and the possibility of recording films came, the format for recordable DVD media is created - it was the DVD-R. Trying to extend that format into read-write access and opportunities led to two camps, and two formats - the DVD-RW and DVD + RW, the difference between the two specifications literally came down to whose controller chip would be used, in terms of end user performance is no noticeable difference, apart from the fact that some devices had difficulty playing back media made with one or the other of the two formats. Because of the increased compatibility with standard DVD-ROM drives, DVD-RW eventually took a lead, but not the commander of one, Phillips was the first manufacturer to a DVD device that could read and write to both formats RW make their hardware specification became the standard used by the computer field. This format war is about to play again. High Definition TV requires much more information than can be packaged in one DVD, so a high definition DVD drive and the media format must be hammered out, both devices use shorter wavelength lasers, for smaller dots in the register recording media, mostly in the blue-green wavelengths of visible light. These two formats, called HD-DVD and BluRay are only on the market now, and the effect is breathtaking. What will succeed in the market? In all likelihood, the company that will succeed will be one (like Panasonic), a device that can read both formats is. When it comes to the ease of production, HD-DVDs are cheaper for film studios to press, when an extension of the existing CD-pressing techniques, while BluRay offers more storage and a longer shelf life - but is produced by Sony, which costs increased royalties. In the market, it is likely the adult entertainment industry that chooses the winner, since they are the first large volume publishers, they already leaning towards HD-DVD for the format of choice, and there is already a working group working with HD-DVD-RW ... which will probably have another format war erupt, knowing how things have worked in the past.

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