Blu Buy You?

[James Morrow]

It’s still very early days for high-definition – particularly for full HD, the 16:9 1920 by 1080 pixels, progressively scanned variant (also known as 1080p) that is designed to be capable of reproducing the best of 35mm cinema quality in the home. Whilst HD-DVD tops out at the much lower quality 1080i (interlaced), a number of full 1080p quality Blu-Ray films and players are due to launch later this month, and dual-layer (50GB) half-height and laptop BD/DVD/CD writers have been available OEM from Sony for over a month now.

The Sony VGN-AR11S 17” laptop offers 1920 by 1200 pixel resolution (playing 1080p with black bars top and bottom) and 50GB BD recording along with DVD & CD support, 200GB of hard disk space and an HDMI output for connecting to compatible displays, but a Sony Style brochure in the July issue of T3 magazine claims that it offers full HD (1080i) resolution – likely to be a typographical error, but it does raise an important point that there are currently many so-called “high-definition” displays out there which are not capable of displaying the copy-protected 1080p high-definition material which is about to be released.

For example, the HDMI standard has recently been revised to support up to 1080p resolution with copy protection – vital to allow Blu-Ray players to output the full high-definition signal to them. As more and more full high-definition Blu-Ray players become available the supply of fully compatible monitors will increase rapidly, and the currently high prices will fall, but now is not a good time to buy.

So what is required of a 16:9 display in order to support full high-definition? First of all, it must have a native resolution of either 1920 by 1080, 3840 by 2160 or 7680 by 4320 pixels. Second, it must accept and display a copy-protected 1080p signal via HDMI input (some current display, for example, are 1080p capable via VGA inputs, but only support 1080i via the HDMI input(s), and copy protection will only allow full high-definition via copy-protected HDMI). Plasma displays have difficulty achieving full 1080p resolution, and use a relatively large amount of power; LCD displays use less power (particularly when employing an active LED backlight) and OLED and FED/SED displays less again, whilst combined LCD and spatially modulated LED backlight displays have the potential for highest quality; but longer term, electronic paper technologies have the potential to provide the lowest powered displays available – admittedly relying upon ambient lighting.

In terms of players, the Samsung BD-P1000 is already out, for around US$1000. Although it was originally going to be launched a month or so earlier as a 1080i machine, to compete directly with HD-DVD, it has now been upgraded to 1080p and also includes up-conversion of DVDs to 1080p. Similarly, the Sony BDP-S1 is due for a similar price, and the aforementioned VAIO VGN-AR11S laptop is already available for around £2000. Also, Panasonic plan to launch their DMP-BD10 BD/DVD/CD compatible Blu-Ray player in September for less than US$1500, and players are also due from other manufacturers, such as the Pioneer BDP-HD1 Elite (~US$1800), the Philips BDP9000 and LG BD199 (both ~US£1000), the Samsung BD/HDD BD-HR1000 (with 400GB hard drive) and the Sharp DV-BP1U player. Note that all Blu-Ray machines are fully 1080p compatible apart from the Sharp, which is currently limited to just 720p/1080i.

Employing much lower power lasers than HD-DVD, Blu-Ray recording technology is already well established, and it is likely that Blu-Ray recorders will become available before the end of the year, offering the option of recording over four hours of full high-definition on a 50GB disc (or a day or so of standard-definition in high quality.)

Pioneer began shipping the BDR-101A PC drive that supports recording on BD and DVD in mid May for around US$1000, but the initial version doesn’t support dual-layer recording, so it's limited to just 25GB. As mentioned earlier, Sony have had both half-height and laptop Blu-Ray C drives available OEM since April, and these do support dual-layer 50GB recording, along with CDs and DVDs. Panasonic are due to launch their half-height dual-layer BD/DVD/CD recorder, the LF-MB121JD next week. BD/DVD/CD writers are also due from Samsung (the SH-B022A), Philips (the SPD700 Triple Writer) and LG (the GBW-H10N) - all at around US$500.

Nearer to Christmas, the Sony Playstation 3 [PS3], which has two HDMI-based 1080p outputs, is due to be released in early November for around £400. At last, things are about to get interesting…

On the frame rate front, as you know, standard films are shot at 24 frames per second [fps], HD IMAX runs at 48fps and UHDV runs at 60fps. The human vision system tends to adapt to what it is given - within limits, and most newer display technologies don't have the refresh problem that causes flicker with CRTs (SGI, for example used 144Hz updating in the Reality Engine 2 in the early nineties), but certainly rates over 100fps will show benefit as we become acclimatised to them. Not surprisingly, Sony already have a roadmap out past 100fps for 1080p...