The next generation of high-definition optical disc is here, and it is called Blu-Ray. Sony Pictures announced its first Blu-Ray titles this January, which include Kung Fu Hustle and House of Flying Daggers, a testament to those films' popularity in the North American market.

The Blu-Ray Disc Association unveiled its plans at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this January, one of the major technology trade shows, and which has in the past been the introductory venue for such products as the VCR (1970), CD player (1981), Nintendo Entertainment System (1985) and Microsoft Xbox (2001).

And whilst Sony is promoting the Blu-Ray, Toshiba is promoting the format's main competitor, the HD DVD. The Blu-Ray's main advantage over the HD DVD is that it holds more information per layer - 25 gigabytes and opposed to the HD DVD's 15 - but the Blu-Ray will be pricier. And whilst a single-layer Blu-Ray disc can hold up to 25 gigabytes of information, a dual-layer can hold up to 50 gigabytes, and TDK have already announced a prototype four-layer disc which can hold up to 100 gigabytes.

Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Lionsgate have all pledged to exclusively release their titles on Blu-Ray, whilst Paramount Pictures, New Line Cinema, Universal and Warner Bros have said they will support both Blu-Ray and HD DVD.

Blu-Ray regional coding will not follow the same patterns as DVD regional coding. Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea, Japan and Mongolia will all be region 1, together with North and South America. Europe and Africa will be region 2, whilst China will share region 3 with India, Russia and the rest of the world.

The Blu-Ray Disc Association is taking measures to prevent the sort of piracy that other multimedia formats have susceptible to in the past. This includes the use of digital watermarks to trace the origins of a bootleg. Whether this will increase their profits in markets like the PRC where pirate discs are the order of the day is yet to be seen. In the meantime, it has been revealed that HD DVD will be free of regional coding, a move which could help it gain a greater share of the international market. 

'Stability' is not a word that goes well with 'technology', and plans are already underway for a format that will outdo both HD DVD and the Blu-Ray disc in terms of data storage. Next on the scene will be the Holographic Versatile Disc, capable of storing up to 3.9 terabytes of information, or the equivalent of 820 DVD quality movies.

(hkfilmart January 19, 2006)