All things considered, the arrivals of HD DVD and Blu-ray in the consumer marketplace have made barely a ripple in that enormous pond. However much those within the industry may grumble about a format war, in terms of real action in the marketplace, it's been quiet on both fronts. Discs and players are available, but there's been little talk about sales or consumer reaction.
     I've been talking with people in all aspects of content creation and manufacturing, and the general consensus seems to be that the big roll-out won't happen until Christmas. With about 30 percent of U.S. households having HDTV capability, it might seem strange that early adopters and technology lovers are the only ones who even know that HD disc products exist. However, after talking to a couple of sources on the authoring side of the equation, I've come to a better understanding of why the slow adoption process is not necessarily a bad thing. The players are still evolving and, more importantly, so are the authoring tools.

When it comes to talking about new formats, I always know I can go to Richard Diercks of The Richard Diercks Co., a DVD authoring firm in Minneapolis. Diercks is also principal of title developer RADCO Media. He got into DVD early on, and released the first DVD-18, Aquaria, which is a moving aquarium for your television—a wallpaper title of sorts. Aquaria and a similar title, Fireplace, will be the first RADCO HD DVD discs to hit the shelves. Getting titles out is a struggle, Diercks says, but it's worth it. "HD formats will be exciting and much more interesting than SD DVD has ever been because there will be many fewer limits."

While there were numerous delays in getting high-definition standards set, engineers just kept working. When it became clear that both formats would be introduced into the marketplace, developers at Sonic Solutions had already completed all three levels of HD disc authoring tools with support for both formats. Admittedly the tools will get better, but "from what I see today, for those with video and DVD experience, authoring basic HD-DVD titles, especially with Sonic Solutions' Scenarist, is not going to be a huge problem," Diercks says. Throughput, he says, is likely to be similar to standard-def (SD) DVD. The challenge is going to be Advance Content (AC). This is what really makes HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc (BD) so different from SD DVD. It opens up the potential for a huge array of interactive menus, tools, and features, as well as Internet connectivity. Advanced content for BD, referred to as BD-J, is based on Java Script.

According to Diercks, the technical specifications of BD and HD DVD are virtually identical. Both have three video compression standards, MPEG-2, MPEG-4-based AVC, and WMV-based VC1. "On our titles, we're compressing all of the video and audio assets in such a way they can be used on both formats," he says. "When our client asks us to author a Blu-ray version in addition to an HD DVD version of a title—which I expect they will on most of our titles—all we have to do is assemble the Blu-ray version. We don't have to start over again. Once you get the first one done, getting the second format takes less than half the time."

"Although authoring tools are available, they are still immature," says Bob Michaels, vice president of worldwide DVD for Technicolor Content Services. "The tools are being designed simultaneously as the specs are being ratified. However, the biggest problem in progressing forward, perhaps, is there aren't enough players on which to test discs.We're trying to anticipate what players are going to be able to do before they are physically available to play discs on."

The main problem authoring houses are experiencing is two-fold, Michaels explains. "The production environment is more robust in the sense that it lends itself to more options," he says. "But at the same time, it opens up the problem of how you manage the production flow. We're learning in two new formats. How do we test everything we are adding?"

"With standard definition DVD you've got graphic interfaces that do a lot of the code work for you," says Chuck Null, Technicolor vice president of research worldwide in Technicolor's technical services division. "With higher-density products, we are writing line-by-line codes. It's much more of a true computer science type of programming. The tools are rapidly developing, but are not finalized yet. Additionally, different skill sets are required of the people doing the work."

After listening to the tales of the difficulties faced in authoring (let alone at the replication stage), I asked Diercks, "What's the rush in getting these formats to market?" I am obviously not the first one to say that if there are any problems with the discs, already-leery consumers might just stick with DVD.

Competition is key, Diercks says, but more importantly, "we need to get titles out there, so we can expose what the weaknesses of the format may be or whatever quirks the products might have." The good news, according to Diercks and Michaels, is that the players that have been released are playing the discs pretty well.

And despite the challenges would-be HD DVD and BD authors face, and will likely continue to face as the tools continue develop and the market slowly matures, the good news is that you don't have to face those challenges alone. In 2004, Sonic Solutions established the HDAA, an association of top authoring houses worldwide beginning the migration to HD authoring. The HDAA is dedicated to accelerating the development of the authoring skills, capacity, and technological infrastructure required to support rapid adoption of HD DVD and BD optical disc formats. If you are interested in getting more information, contact Sonic at HDAA_info@sonic.com.