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San Jose Mercury News, Calif., Dawn C. Chmielewski Column

Posted on: Friday, 2 December 2005, 18:00 CST

By Dawn C. Chmielewski, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Dec. 2--On the 20th Century Fox studio lot in Los Angeles, not far from a larger-than-life mural of Julie Andrews, arms outstretched atop the lyrical hills from "The Sound of Music," the studio screened what it hopes will be another blockbuster.

This time, it's not a movie but a technology that it and other studios and electronics companies tout as the successor to DVD. It's called Blu-ray and it plays high-definition movies in resolution so sharp, you can inspect Johnny Depp's eyeliner in "Pirates of the Caribbean."

The screening Tuesday was the first in a series of high-profile events to introduce the Blu-ray format. Electronics makers are expected to unveil a new generation of Blu-ray players next month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, with promises of movies and devices in stores next year.

But before you race out to be the first in your neighborhood with a Blu-ray player, a word of caution. Blu-ray remains locked in a format war with another consortium of companies backing a rival (and, naturally, incompatible) technology called HD-DVD. The format war even divides the tech powerhouses of Silicon Valley: Intel backs HD-DVD, while Apple and Hewlett-Packard support Blu-ray.

Blu-ray has considerable momentum with every major studio but one, NBC Universal, agreeing to release movies in the new high-definition format. But the rival HD-DVD format may still beat it to market. The first HD-DVD players and movies -- initially planned for the holiday season -- will reach stores in March.

The Blu-ray group has been comparatively vague about its launch plans and pricing. But one high-profile product that will use Blu-ray technology, Sony's PlayStation 3, is expected to be unveiled in May, to coincide with the game industry's annual Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. It'll probably reach U.S. consumers before the end of next year.

Don't expect HD-DVD or Blu-ray to surrender before these devices reach a consumer electronics store near you. The developers of each format hold patents that could prove wildly lucrative if these next-generation discs catch on with consumers as quickly as DVDs. But that won't happen as long as consumers are confused about which format will emerge as the new standard.

No one wants to be the owner of the next Betamax.

The new high-definition discs offer more vivid color, sharper contrast and see-every-pore detail than DVDs. But it's not as dramatic an improvement in picture quality as, say, the leap from videotape to DVD.

And that kind of peer-through-the-window clarity only works with high-definition TVs. That shrinks the potential audience to the 16 million or so people in the United States who own HDTVs -- a fraction of the 110 million households with televisions, according to researcher In-Stat.

The early HD-DVD players will sell for $1,000 -- limiting their appeal to only the most affluent early-adopters. Even if Sony's PlayStation 3 is priced like the Xbox 360, at $400 it's hardly an impulse buy.

These new high-definition discs will sell for a premium, too, as the studios pack them with interactive features, such as games and downloadable movie trailers, to justify the added cost. Who knows how many movies there will be?

In-Stat estimates there'll be about 2 million high-definition players in America by 2009, compared with nearly 90 million DVD players. That means it'll remain a luxury item, at least for the foreseeable future.

If I were you, I'd wait until the DVD dies before checking out one of these next-generation players.

Contact Dawn C. Chmielewski at dchmielewski@mercurynews .com or (800) 643-1902.

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Copyright (c) 2005, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: San Jose Mercury News

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