Aw Nuts, Another Format War…

As if VHS vs. Beta, Mac vs. PC and the plethora of incompatible digital media cards weren’t enough, the format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD has finally reached consumers, with Samsung shipping the BD-P1000 Blu-Ray player and Toshiba marketing the HD-A1, which plays HD-DVD discs. Blu-Ray claims “superiority” with its support for 1080p playback, which most consumers really don’t understand (and which most TVs won’t be able to use in any case). Essentially, the Blu-Ray will play back progressive frames with a definition of 1080 pixels, while the HD-DVD plays back two interlaced frames, each of which has 540 pixels, though the frame rate is so high (typically 60 frames per second) that the human eye sees the two interlaced fields as one solid image, which is called 1080i. Got it? No? It’s not surprising, as a recent survey done by a major consumer group showed that most people who bought a high-definition TV last year did not realize that they did not automatically get HD programming (that’s provided by either a cable or satellite link). Since this is all bound to spill over into the pro audio world, we’re preparing our own special guide to HD media. We’ll announce it here as soon as it’s posted.