First, the good news: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has authored its first HD Blu-ray movie. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle was compressed in MPEG-2 at full HD resolution (1920 x 1080) and is now being shipped to electronics companies for testing in the next generation of Blu-ray home players.
For this first disc, at least, note that Sony used the tried and true MPEG-2 format, rather than a newer, more advanced codec like MPEG-4 AVC. Why? Because, with 25 GB of Blu-ray disc capacity, it didn't need the bandwidth efficiency, the picture quality did not improve, and Sony's engineers are still more familiar with the older MPEG technology, reports said.
Now, to the bad news: Competitive turmoil continues to threaten the Blu-ray roll-out, currently set for the spring of 2006. Supporters of the format, led by Sony and Panasonic, have refused to endorse a key technology requested by Hewlett-Packard, one of its leading members.
Though agreement was reached on some technical issues that HP requested, the Blu-ray group refused to endorse iHD, which allows for interactive features that will be included in Vista, Microsoft's next-generation Windows operating system.
Overriding HP's objections, the Blu-ray members decided they will launch using Java, a competitive technology developed by Sun Microsystems. iHD-HP's preference-is supported by HD DVD, the format from the opposing high-definition disc camp.
All this leaves HP in the middle of two incompatible DVD technologies-both vying to be the HD disc utility format for next-generation personal computers. Microsoft and Intel Corp. both support HD DVD, opposing Blu-ray completely.
Though HP hasn't made a public announcement, there's been widespread speculation that the company may shift to a neutral position, supporting both the HD DVD and Blu-ray formats.