Upstart tries to upstage big DVD developers

IHT: "the efforts of the biggest consumer electronics companies and Hollywood studios, which are choosing sides in a battle between two high-definition DVD formats, Blu-ray and HD DVD. Those formats, expected to reach most major markets late this year, will require ultra-high-capacity DVDs and a new class of expensive players. The advent of Blu-ray and HD DVD may result in a format war reminiscent of the Betamax-VHS contest in the early days of videocassette recorders. Potentially at stake are billions of dollars in hardware and discs.

In the midst of the battle, for which the two sides mounted elaborate floor displays this month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Greenhall is asking, Why wait for the giants to sort it all out? There is a high-definition solution right now: his own company's DivX 6 software.

The first DivX-capable DVD player is the $250 Avel LinkPlayer 2 by I-O Data. Greenhall and his DivX team, based in San Diego, said that the company hoped to see DivX high-definition players for as little as $100 by late autumn. Toshiba, in contrast, recently announced an HD DVD player to be brought market late this year for about $1,000.

In short, Greenhall said, he wanted high-definition DivX to be to video what the MP3 audio format was to music. But there is a major vulnerability: No major studio is marching along. That means those buying DivX players, for now at least, will lack prerecorded high-definition discs - like major Hollywood movies - to play in them.

All the talk of high-definition DVDs, no matter which approach ultimately prevails, may seem premature in a marketplace saturated with standard-definition DVDs. According to industry analysts, most consumers indicate that they are satisfied with the picture and audio quality of standard DVDs, and they are growing accustomed to finding the players an inexpensive commodity, priced as low as $40.

Nonetheless, as television picture quality evolves with high definition, many consumer electronics makers expect substantial demand for DVDs and players that can use that quality to advantage. Besides, said Andy Parsons, senior vice president for advanced technology at Pioneer Electronics, a backer of Blu-ray technology, consumers are already outgrowing traditional DVDs, which were first introduced in 1996.

Parsons said that the next-generation DVDs must offer much more storage than today's five gigabytes to nine gigabytes. HD DVD, backed primarily by Toshiba, NEC and a number of studios - including Paramount Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema - is capable of storing 15 gigabytes of data on a single-layer disc. A Blu-ray DVD can store up to 25 gigabytes on a single layer and 50 gigabytes on a dual-layer disc. Both formats use blue lasers rather than red.

Backers of HD DVD say making discs in their format will be much less difficult and costly than Blu-ray DVDs, which are supported by Sony, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Panasonic, LG Electronics, Sharp, Mitsubishi, Dell, Walt Disney Pictures and Television, 20th Century Fox and others."