Now you won't have to choose between HD-DVD, Blu-Ray
Consumers who can't decide between the two warring formats for high-definition DVD players might want to wait till next year. That's when a new "universal" chip from a band of engineers in Andover will allow electronics firms to make a single player to handle both types of disk -- HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
"We've been thinking universal from day one," said Don Shulsinger, vice president for business development at the consumer electronics unit of Broadcom Corp. "We have maybe as much as 150 people here who've been working several years on this."
Broadcom, based in Irvine, Calif., had 2005 sales of $2.5 billion and designs chips for a host of telecommunications devices. Its Andover facility specializes in chips for consumer products; its first-generation decoder chip is already in several early high-definition DVD players. But Shulsinger thinks that for the market to reach its full potential, the format war must end.
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray were created by rival groups of electronics firms. Despite years of negotiations, the two groups have failed to agree on a uniform standard.
"It's not logic. It's not business sense. It's just pride," said Richard Doherty, research director at Envisioneering Group in Seaford, N.Y.
Meanwhile, Hollywood film studios have chosen sides, with some offering movies in Blu-Ray, others in HD-DVD, and a few releasing films in both formats.
Sony Corp. has made a big bet that it can make Blu-Ray the dominant format by including it in the company's PlayStation 3 videogame console, due to go on sale next week. Blu-Ray technology has boosted the price of the console to between $500 and $600, or $200 more expensive than the rival Xbox 360 from Microsoft Corp. In addition, Sony has had to slash its planned output of PlayStation 3 units, due to shortages of Blu-Ray drive components. Still, Sony believes a game machine that also plays high-definition movies will give it a powerful advantage over the Xbox 360.
"Sony risked their gaming franchise on Blu-Ray, which is daring to say the least," said Danielle Levitas, an analyst for IDC Corp. in San Mateo, Calif. But Levitas said most PlayStation 3 customers will buy it for the games, not for watching movies. To develop a mass market for high-definition video players, "I think a combination player is ideal," she said.
Broadcom's chip is a vital first step toward that goal, but one more hurdle remains. While both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray use blue lasers to read the disk, the hardware for each system is incompatible with the other. So drive makers must first come up with a single drive that can automatically adjust its laser to read either format.
"I think that might be a bigger cost factor than the chip," Levitas said.
Still, Shulsinger predicted that consumers will be able to purchase universal high-definition players by the middle of next year.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com. 
