HD DVD Guide
Broadcasting is becoming digital. Demand for high-definition TVs is taking off. And consumers increasingly expect greater realism and better image quality in visual entertainment. HD-DVD delivers that and more. The HD-DVD disc is designed to be the successor to the standard DVD format, and is the only next generation DVD format to be approved by the DVD forum. The DVD Forum develops and defines DVD formats. Its 230-strong membership brings together companies from all over the world, leaders in movies and entertainment, computing, consumer electronics and software. Hollywood studios which have announced support for HD-DVD are; Universal Studios, Paramount Studios, Warner Bros., and New Line Cinema.
Derived from the same underlying technologies as DVD but using blue lasers with 405nm wavelengths rather than 650nm for DVD using red lasers it can store about three times as much data as its predecessor (15GB per layer instead of 4.7GB). The HD-DVD standard was jointly developed by Toshiba and NEC. HD DVD stands for "High Definition Digital Versatile Disc". The format had previously been called the "Advanced Optical Disc" (AOD).
The HD-DVD format supports a wide variety of resolutions, from low-resolution standard definition, all video resolutions supported by the DVD-Video standard, and when combined with a HD or HD ready TV, up to high-definition formats such as 720p, 1080i and 1080p. HD DVD supports video encoded in MPEG2 which is what is used in DVDs as well as the new formats VC-1 and AVC which are more efficient. All movie titles released so far have had the feature encoded in 1080p, with most supplements in 480i or 480p. Almost all titles are encoded with VC-1, and most of the remaining titles encoded with AVC.
For the highest fidelity audio experience, HD-DVD offers content-producers the choice of linear PCM, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. Due to the high bandwidth requirements of linear PCM, lossless audio on HD-DVD movies has thus far been delivered in the lossless format Dolby True-HD. See our HD DVD movies section for all the current and latest releases.
With HD-DVD and an HD TV set viewers can look forward to great resolution, dynamic contrast and vivid colours that bring the excitement and pleasure of the cinema into the home entertainment arena. For more information on HD and HD ready televisions see our HDTV Guide.
