Not ANOTHER Hi-Def Format! Does It Have A Chance?

CEDIA is the "Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association", and this week (Sept. 5-9) they're holding their annual Expo in Denver. There's a lot of hi-def media talk going on there since it started yesterday, with each side claiming better hardware sales than the other, depending on what point of view they use. We've been deep in the middle of a hi-def home video format war for over a year now, with rivals HD DVD (which launched its first discs on 4/18/2006) and Blu-ray Disc (whose discs debuted on 6/20/2006) going at it tooth-and-nail. Each holds a very small piece of the overall home video pie, with most of the industry pundits agreeing that any recent single best-selling DVD would probably sell more copies in a week or two than all the hi-def discs of both formats which have sold since launch.

It's kind of like comparing hybrid cars vs. all-electric cars, and trying to decide which one's better on it's merits, and also measure which one is selling better. Yeah, they're both newer technology, with obvious benefits over the old technology. And obviously one of them is selling better than the other, and is better-supported than the other among manufacturers and consumers. But neither hybrid car sales nor all-electric car sales hold a candle - or even a spark - compared to good old gas car sales...it's the de facto standard and doesn't look like it's gonna disappear too soon. Right now, Blu-ray and HD DVD is kinda like that: DVD is still embedded as the de facto standard, and the new formats aren't making a significant dent in DVD's market share. At least not yet.

So it's still early enough in the hi-def disc game, thinks New Medium Enterprises ("NME"), to introduce a 3rd contender in the contest. And so they have. Yesterday at the CEDIA show, amidst presentations by Toshiba for HD DVD and by Sony for Blu-ray, NME put on an exhibition of their own. And also issued a press release . The UK-based company announced the USA launch of the HD VMD format.

HD VMD stands for High Definition Versatile Multilayer Disc. NME's specs say that this is a fully-capable hi-def player, with ability to produce up to 1920x1080p video resolution, 7.1 sound channels in both Dolby and DTS formats, a data transfer rate of 45 Mbps (right in between HD DVD's ~36 Mbps rate and Blu-ray's ~54 Mbps rate, and significantly higher than DVD's ~11 Mbps), a video transfer rate to match, HDMI port, USB port, internet connectivity, and capable of playing (and upconverting) DVD discs. Current disc capacities are up to 30GB on a single-sided disc, according to the press release. Players are thinner and lighter than most of the competition, and would be available in a variety of colors that include White, Jet Black, Solid Grey, and Flaming Red.

Cost for the player? At launch in the USA, the price is just $199.99.


Wow. That's the price point that Toshiba has been struggling to get their HD DVD players down to (and reportedly will achieve later this year, although from a manufacturer that big name retailers like Wal-Mart say they have no current plans to carry). But NME plans to start at that price point, and work their way down from there. One reason they do that, though, is because they use the "older technology" red laser, like a DVD does. Blu-ray and HD DVD use a "newer technology" blue laser. NME feels that it won't matter, though, if the video quality is the same hi-def 1080p levels as the other two.

At the announcement yesterday, no studio support in the USA was given by name yet. However, the press release addresses that by saying "HD VMD is currently being embraced by content providers around the globe, offering consumers a broad option of content. From U.S. to India to France to China, content from the world's leading film markets will be available to all. VMD is currently being adopted by content providers and distributors in dozens of regions worldwide, including Australia, Brazil, Central Europe, China, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Japan, the Middle East Russia, Scandinavia, and the United States." Elsewhere on NME's site, it is prominently mentioned several times that films "from Hollywood" will be available on VMD.

And why not? One of the advantages that VMD is supposed to have to the studios is that their discs will be cheaper to produce. They indicate that the manufacturing cost of the physical disc will be around $1 per disc, just a bit more than it is for a DVD. That's about one-half to one-third the cost-per-disc of the blue-laser competitors, meaning that consumers may not only see cheaper hardware; they might also see cheaper films as well.

What does all this mean to a site called "TVShowsOnDVD"? Well, it's another format. So far there are 20 TV-on-BD titles either released or announced, and 14 TV-on-HD DVD titles either released or announced. Could there be TV-on-VMD in our future? Gord and I don't know...but if there is, you can count on us to cover it!

Stay tuned.


For now, let's have a look at the current episodic TV titles available or announced for each of the existing hi-def home video formats. An asterisk on the left indicates a title only available on that disc format:


Blu-ray Disc

1. 12/19/2006: The Sopranos - Season 6, Part 1
2. 01/30/2007: Discovery Atlas - Australia Revealed
3. 01/30/2007: Discovery Atlas - Brazil Revealed
4. 01/30/2007: Discovery Atlas - China Revealed
5. 01/30/2007: Discovery Atlas - Italy Revealed
6. 04/24/2007: Planet Earth - The Complete Collection
7. *05/29/2007: Weeds - Season 1
8. *06/05/2007: Rescue Me - Season 3
9. *07/24/2007: Weeds - Season 2
10. 09/04/2007: Nip/Tuck - The Complete 4th Season
11. 09/18/2007: Smallville - The Complete 6th Season
12. 10/02/2007: Galapagos - The Islands that Changed the World
13. *10/16/2007: Masters of Horror - Season 1, Volume I
14. *10/16/2007: Masters of Horror - Season 1, Volume II
15. 10/23/2007: The Sopranos - Season 6, Part 2
16. *10/23/2007: The Company - The complete Mini-Series
17. *11/13/2007: Masters of Horror - Season 1, Volume III
18. *11/13/2007: Prison Break - Season 1
19. *12/11/2007: Lost - The Complete 3rd Season: The Unexplored Experience
20. *12/11/2007: Masters of Horror - Season 1, Volume IV

HD-DVD

1. *11/28/2006: Smallville - The Complete 5th Season
2. 12/19/2006: The Sopranos - Season 6, Part 1
3. 01/30/2007: Discovery Atlas - Australia Revealed
4. 01/30/2007: Discovery Atlas - Brazil Revealed
5. 01/30/2007: Discovery Atlas - China Revealed
6. 01/30/2007: Discovery Atlas - Italy Revealed
7. 04/24/2007: Planet Earth - The Complete Collection
8. *08/28/2007: Heroes - Season 1
9. 09/04/2007: Nip/Tuck - The Complete 4th Season
10. 09/18/2007: Smallville - The Complete 6th Season
11. 10/02/2007: Galapagos - The Islands that Changed the World
12. 10/23/2007: The Sopranos - Season 6, Part 2
13. *11/20/2007: Star Trek (Original Series) - Season 1
14. *12/04/2007: Battlestar Galactica - Season 1