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"HD DVD" - que ????
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What does "HD DVD" mean? Does it mean that if you play it on a normal (not blu-ray) dvd recorder then it will display in HD?
Bed gentle - I'm not a AUDVID expert by a long stretch!
Example HD DVD: http://www.bbcshop.com/science+nature/planet-earth-the-complete-series-hd-dvd/invt/bbchd0002/
Bed gentle - I'm not a AUDVID expert by a long stretch!
Example HD DVD: http://www.bbcshop.com/science+nature/planet-earth-the-complete-series-hd-dvd/invt/bbchd0002/
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The problem with this is that there are few recordable disc avaliable. Blue Ray seems to be the only acceptable means of HD on DVDs. The sony PS3 uses them .
HDDVD was a great idea but it came too late. I gather the BBC and ITV does use them for professional purposes and there are some HD DVD cameras about.
Its a bit like the old betamax vs VHS in the 70s the VHS won simply because more companies used it. only sanyo and Sony used the "superior" system. I have a feeling HD DVD has gone the same way . except HDDVD is being used in the semi/pro market . And Blue Ray is being used by every film company in the world for recorded films.
What will follow Blue ray ?
No.
Some of us still have HD-DVD drives though.
Like betamax it's relegated to the failed formats grave.
Biggest difference was for the manufacturers, as all it took was a minimal upgrade and they could use the same equipment that they use to manufacture DVD's to manufacture the HD-DVD's.
Also these "double play" Blu Rays would have been made redundant as many HD-DVD's were HD-DVD on one side, but flip it over and you have the standard DVD edition on the other for no extra cost.
Don't tar everyone with my lack of audvid history knowledge, lol
HD-DVD was originally a rival to the BluRay format as others have said. It was developed by Toshiba and backed by others such as Microsoft. It was, from the outset, designed for computer use as well being able to carry high definition audio and video. It had other advantages too, HD-DVD had no region coding so a disc bought in the US would play happily on a UK player and it originally had no copy protection, although that was added at the demand of Hollywood studios before the formats commercial release. The copy protection was quickly broken though as it was weaker than that of BluRay which took a couple of years longer to break.
However BluRay, which was developed by Sony, had the backing of more home technology companies and more Hollywood studios, including Sony's own Columbia Studios. It was also designed from the outset to be a recordable medium for home recording too. It had region coding which meant the studios could continue to control release dates and sell to different markets at different prices, it had stronger copy protection and higher capacity.
The PS3 was the final nail in the coffin for HD-DVD though. Perhaps if Microsoft had released the 360 with a built in HD-DVD drive maybe things would have been different.
These days though HD DVD tends to refer to the methods of authoring high definition AVCHD content to standard DVD discs. There are quite a few commercial, and a couple of free, programs that can do that and newer BluRay players from Sony and Panasonic (including the PS3) can play them, as can a few other models from other manufacturers.
I suppose the easy way to think of it is similar to DIVX. DIVX allows you to store reasonable (almost DVD) quality content on to a standard CD, or lots of movies on one DVD. HD DVD allows high definition content to be stored on a standard DVD, or lots of content (like multiple films) on one blank BluRay.
Cheers, Mike.
Agreed. It's only now, 2 years later, that BluRay players are becoming the machines they should have been in the first place.
The big difference that won Blu-Ray the format war was capacity. 25Gb vs. 15 Gb per layer. Dual layer Blu Ray discs easily contain movies and extra content, or longer movies in one disc.
I agree with you captainkremmen, its was a very good move by Sony to incude a Blu-Ray player on the PS3. They did the same with the PS2 with the DVD, and with the price of Blu-Ray players falling (now £50 -£100 from some stores) I think it won't be long before sales of Blu-Rays out sells DVD's.
Capacity had nothing to do with it although the pro Bluray camp used to try and make something of it but dual layer discs were easily available and even single layer discs have been shown to be easily capable of carrying a whole movie in HD.
Bluray lead the race by virtue of being included in the PS3 so lots got BD players even though they were not really interested.
The war carried on because the Hollywood studios split their support across both formats with some only releasing on HD DVD and some only on Bluray.
The actual nail in the coffin was when there was about a 60-40 split in favour of Bluray and Warner , which was supporting both announced they were stopping HD DVD's.
Overnight that single announcement marked the end of the HD DVD era.
Within weeks Toshiba announced they were stopping player production
Exactly. The PS2 is widely credited with kickstarting the DVD market, the PS3, while not having the same impact, undoubtedly helped BluRay win and continues to help sell the format.
I think it was the almost simultaneous release of the first sub £250 dvd player from Samsung along with The Matrix that got the UK dvd market to take off.
By the time the PS2 arrived dvd was almost old hat .
When the PS3 came out Bluray was still very much in its infancy and standalone players were more expensive than the PS3 so I agree that without the PS3 Bluray would have had a far harder job
The UK had a fairly slow start with DVD. I remember buying my first player - an imported US Panasonic - when the UK mags were still debating if DVD had any potential in the UK at all. Their immediate reaction was that no-one wanted a play-only format at home; after all LaserDisc had failed to make a dent in the UK so DVD was bound to go the same way they thought.
Supermarkets took DVD out of specialist electrical retailers and put it in front of millions of ordinary consumers every week. They also had the muscle to move lower priced Chinese made players in volume. And they spotted the trend and started to stock discs.
As for HD-DVD, Sony's deep pockets killed the better format. It cost them dear upfront - they haemorrhaged cash on PS3s to leverage the format on the back of console sales. Even so, HD-DVD still ran a close race right up to the wire. Sony is enjoying the pay-off now though. The royalties on BD format drives must be a nice little contributor to their balance sheet.
Total Media Theatre, for instance, started out being able to read both - but an update to the software switched off the ability to do that, and now you have to install it twice to get the HDDVD functionality, remembering to install it in a different location - so that you can choose which version to run.
And yes, I recall that it was Warner Bros. that finally came down firmly into the Blu-Ray camp, and within a few weeks HDDVD disks were being sold of for less than a fiver.
High Definition/Density Digital Versatile Disc
The V has never stood for Video, as DVD's and their HD and blu ray descendents can be used to store more than just video
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hd_dvd
Not on HD-DVD. The 'Jack Ryan Trilogy' was released initially on HD-DVD with a sticker outlining the extras available. As it happened, none of these extras were released because it would have necessitated an extra disc. Longer movies were not slated for release on HD-DVD because of space limitations.
Blu-Rays routinely have 2 hour movies and lots of extras (in HD) on one disc - hours If those extras are SD.
There's a big difference between dual layer 50Gb and 30Gb.
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsa144.html
(verified) and 1hr. 30min. of SD extras, so what you stated about Blu-Ray movies is not actually exceptional! Some of the extras on my Blu-Rays are just hot air and claptrap to attempt to fill the gap.
Mike.
That's just Bluray propaganda as the next post demonstrates.
HD DVD had already been working on more than 2 layers .
The ability to fit lots of extras and the movie on one disc was unimportant because while both formats were available the cost of authoring and pressing Bluray discs was between 300% and 400% higher than HD DVD.