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About thirty years ago, Sony’s Betamax competed against JVC’s VHS technology. Ten years earlier, it was the 8-track versus the cassette. Though most college students have heard of these competing formats, none of us were alive during the respective format battles. Ultimately, it was the VHS tape and audio cassette that won. However predicting the winner of the next generation of format wars, Blu-ray v. HD DVD, is not going to be easy.
The main advantage of the new DVD format over current DVD technology is increased storage capacity. Presently, DVDs can hold approximately 6.7 GB of information. Blu-ray, the new format supported by companies like Sony, Panasonic, and Apple, can hold 25 GB of information. HD DVD, the format supported by Toshiba, Sanyo, and Microsoft, can hold 15 GB of information. Though the storage capacity is considerably bigger, the physical size of the new DVDs stays the same.
The increase in storage capacity is achieved by using a different laser. |
Current DVDs are read and written to using a red laser. A blue laser is used in the new technology. Because blue lasers have a shorter wavelength, information can be packed more densely onto the disc surface. Eventually, both formats will offer multiple layered discs, an addition that could double their present capacity. The players for the two formats are much more expensive than their regular DVD counterparts. Toshiba’s HD DVD player costs $500, while the Sony Blu-ray player costs $1,000. Microsoft plans to sell an external HD DVD drive for the XBOX 360, while Sony offers an internal Blu-ray player in the Playstation 3. Hopefully, as the new DVD formats become more common, the price of the players will fall to more reasonable levels.
If you’re like most college students, you’ve probably used many techniques and ‘connections’ to watch the latest movies as soon as they are released. With ticket prices at most theaters constantly increasing, video piracy has become an increasingly costly issue for the movie industry. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, video piracy cost studios more than $6.1 billion in 2005. However new technology being developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology could put an end to video bootlegging and privacy for good.
Researchers in the Interactive and Intelligent Computing Division in the College of Computing have developed a new camera-neutralizing device that can block unwanted video and still photography. The device identifies the image sensors of a camera, known as charged-coupled devices, by using 2 cameras and visible light to scan for the particular reflectivity that is inherent in all digital camera devices. Once a device is identified, a beam of light would be targeted directly at the camera to render it useless. This light would not be visible to the naked eye but would prevent the normal function of the camera. Beyond application in a theater, the device could be used in any other setting to prevent video recordings and espionage.
Presently, only a prototype of this device has been created. A few kinks in the system must be worked out so that other shiny reflective objects, such as jewelry, will not be taken for the highly-reflective image sensor found in digital cameras. However if this technology being created at Georgia Tech is perfected, one can expect a quick end to grainy, child-crying filled, shaky, ‘whisper conversation in the background’ bootleg movies to which many college students have become accustomed.
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Joseph Hogans, Region III Publications Chair
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