What are HD DVD players?

HD DVD, High Density DVD, or High-Definition DVD istheir house. The HD DVD format also can be applied
a high-density optical disc format designed for theto current red laser DVDs in 5, 9, 15 and 18 GB
storage of data and high-definition video.capacities which offers a lower-cost option for
Historydistributors, this type of disk is often called 3x DVD as
The HD DVD disc is designed to be the successor toit has three times the bandwidth of regular DVD video.
the standard DVD format. It can store about threeLike the original DVD format, the data layer of an HD
times as much data as its predecessor. (15 GB perDVD disc is 0.6 mm below the surface. The numerical
layer instead of 4.7 GB) The HD DVD standard wasaperture of the optical pick-up head is 0.65, compared
jointly developed by a group of consumer electronicswith 0.6 for DVD and 0.85 for Blu-ray aperture. Both of
and PC companies, spearheaded by Toshiba. Onthe new formats are backward compatible with DVDs
November 19, 2003, the DVD Forum voted to supportand both employ the same video compression
HD DVD as the HDTV successor of the standardtechniques: MPEG-2, Video Codec 1 (VC-1) and H.264
DVD. At this meeting, they also renamed it HD DVD.MPEG-4 AVC.
The format had previously been called the "AdvancedFile systems
Optical Disc" (AOD).Like previous optical disc formats, HD DVD supports
At CES 2006, Microsoft announced that there wouldseveral file systems, like ISO 9660 and Universal Disk
be an external add-on HD DVD drive for the XboxFormat (UDF). Currently, all HD DVD titles use UDF
360 game console; this was released in Novemberversion 2.5 as the file system, the same one used for
2006. Also at CES [1]2006, companies backing HDBlu-ray releases.
DVD said that nearly 200 titles would be available forAudio
the format by the end of the year.HD DVD can be mastered with up to 7.1 channel
On March 31, 2006, Toshiba released their first HDsurround sound using linear (uncompressed) PCM,
DVD player in Japan at Y110,000 ($934).[2] HD DVDDolby Digital, Dolby Digital EX, DTS and DTS ES
was released in United States on April 18, 2006,[3] withformats also used on DVDs. In addition, it also supports
players priced at $499 and $799.Dolby Digital Plus and the lossless formats Dolby
The current specification version for HD DVD-ROMTrueHD and DTS HD. Currently, most DVD movies
and HD DVD-Rewritable is version 1.0. Theare made with 5.1 channels of surround sound. There
specification for HD DVD-R is currently at 0.9. The firstare relatively few titles that offer 6.1 channels of
HD DVD-ROM drives were expected to be unveiledsurround sound. On HD DVD the Dolby formats are
by Q4 2006, with mass production to start in Q1 2007.mandatory, meaning that a Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital
The actual product launch of both CE and PC unitsPlus or Dolby TrueHD track may be used as the sole
occurred in late 2006. As of December 2006, moresoundtrack on a disc, because every player will have
than 120,000 HD DVD's had been sold in the Uniteda decoder that can process any of these bitstreams.
States.[citation needed]For lossless audio in movies in the PCM, Dolby TrueHD
As of February 2007, HD DVD is in a format war withor DTS-HD formats, HD DVD discs support encoding
Blu-ray Disc.in up to 24-bit/192 kHz for two channels, or up to eight
Technical specificationschannels of up to 24-bit/96 kHz encoding. For
Hardwarereference, even new big-budget Hollywood films are
HD DVD has a single-layer capacity of 15 GB and amastered in only 24-bit/48 kHz, with 16-bit/48 kHz
dual-layer capacity of 30 GB. There is also abeing common for ordinary films.
double-sided hybrid format which contains standardVideo
DVD-Video format video on one side, playable inThe HD DVD format supports a wide variety of
regular DVD players, and HD DVD video on the otherresolutions, from low-resolution CIF and SDTV, all video
side for playback in high definition on HD DVD players.resolutions supported by the DVD-Video standard, and
These hybrid discs make retail marketing and shelfup to HDTV formats such as 720p, 1080i and 1080p.[6]
space management easier. This also removes someAll movie titles released so far have had the feature
confusion from DVD buyers since they can now buyencoded in 1080p, with supplements in 480i or 480p.
a disc compatible with any DVD/HD DVD player inMost titles are encoded with VC-1.