Maxman Explains HD DVD

Funky Salutations Maxmaniacs. Yes it’s your favorite home theater chap here “Maxman”.

I know it has taken me a while but I have finally checked out HD-DVD for all of you.

A lot of you have probably read what I had to say about the Blu-ray disc format. If I sound like I am repeating myself I probably am as both of these formats have some similarities so please just bare with me folks.

A little HD-DVD History

Ok HD-DVD or high definition DVD what ever you prefer to call it, is a disc format that was designed to store high definition video as well as data and yes it was intended to take over from its predecessor the “DVD”.

Early on in the year 2000 (wow does time fly or what) Sony was working with Pioneer on a new technology that involved (recently invented) blue laser diodes and what they developed was a format of a rewritable disc they called DVR Blue and in February 2002 it was officially unveiled as Blu-ray and the Blu-ray Disc Association was formed by nine members which included Sony and Pioneer.

What does this have to do with HD-DVD?

Well you see there was also another association called the DVD Forum which was chaired by Toshiba and not all members could agree on going with the blue lasers sighting expense as a major issue. Another issue was that the Blu-ray disc was physically different from the standard DVD which would mean more expense also.

So to cut long story short Toshiba along with NEC came up with a competing format (using blue lasers also) called Advanced Optical Disc. This was accepted by the DVD Forum and renamed as HD-DVD in 2003.

Disc Make Up

Now the physical characteristics of HD-DVD-ROM, HD-DVD-R and HD-DVD-RW are exactly the same as a standard DVD however because it uses a blue laser that has a shorter wavelength (than the red laser used for DVD) it can store about 3 ½ times more data than a DVD. Which works out to be about 15 GB/layer (side) or 30 GB dual layer (2 sides) and just recently a triple layer 51 GB has been approved for HD-DVD ROM but to date no movies have been made available for the triple layer disc.

Just incase you were wondering a standard DVD holds about 4.7 GB per layer (side).

Audio

Now one good thing about HD DVD players is that they are required to decode the following audio formats linear (uncompressed) PCM, Dolby Digital AC-3, Dolby Digital EX, DTS, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD.

I should also mention that a lot of (not all) Blu-ray players are unable to do this, they support the various audio formats but they have to be decoded externally with the use of an amplifier. One more thing I would like to point out about HD DVD is at this stage they are not zoned so you can play other HD DVD’s from other parts of the world. Where as DVD’s are zoned (Zone1 for North America).

Video

HD DVD also supports most TV resolutions such as standard definition TV, 720p and high definition 1080i and of course 1080p.It also supports all of the video resolutions that are currently supported by DVD.

So what this means is that even though all HD DVD titles are encoded with 1080p it will still support what ever TV you are currently using, just you won’t get 1080p unless your TV supports 1080p ( 1080p is currently the highest resolution format available for TV).

HD-DVD or Blu-ray Disc

Well folks I’m gonna leave this argument for another day. But I will say this. If you want to watch movies at home in high definition then either of these formats will do it for you and although it’s a long way off the standard DVD will be phased out eventually.

That’s it for today Maxmaniacs. Until next time.

Maxman Out.