"Let’s face it. Some of the top emerging technologies that will begin to flood our homes this year and next are widescreen monitors and anything that has ‘high definition’ stamped on it. Though cable has already introduced consumers to the advantage of having a television capable of high definition images, this is only the tip of the iceberg. However, what a tip it is! Because of this new technology, just about 10% of American homes have at least one television set that is HD compatible. But can this shift in demand be just from the possibility of better cable? Well, not exactly.

Blue-Ray vs. HD DVD

There are already Progressive-Scan DVD players that take advantage of the high-definition technology by outputting a video signal to a HD television set at 480P, instead of 480i. However, this is moderately different than the HD signal offered by HD-compatible channels through your local cable company. The resolution witnessed is almost 3x that of 480i, with 1080 lines of resolution (1080i). If you own an HD projector such as a Panasonic or Mitsubishi DLP, watching your favorite sporting event or late night television show is more than promising. The picture is so sharp that some consumers mention that the image shown is near ‘surreal.’

However, before now this type of picture has been limited to cable and streaming videos on the net. Luckily, both Sony and the king of DVD production, Toshiba, have decided to take a shot into creating an HD DVD.

Actually, I should not refer to the next stage of DVD as HD DVD but High Definition DVD. I know, it is the exact same thing, but Toshiba has trademarked the title HD DVD. Both Toshiba and Sony have set out and created two separate technologies that represent the next age of DVD products. Sony has named their high-def DVD ‘Blue-Ray’ while Toshiba has taken a more familiar name in ‘HD DVD.’ Though both have their advantages, the market is setting up to allow only one of these technologies to move forward; which is a good thing for consumers. So what can we expect to see in computers and on store shelves by next year?

Though the competition is still heated between the two companies, with even Bill Gates joining the ranks of ‘HD DVD’ in criticism of various aspects of ‘Blue-Ray’, it looks like Sony will remain the new king of the electronics market. How did they pull it off? Well, let’s first take a brief look at the specs for each different hi-def DVD technology." [more]