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1. What is HD DVD?
2. The war between the two formats: Blue-ray and HD DVD
3. Red ray lasers versus violet ray lasers
4. When does HD DVD emerge?
5. What are the differences between Blue-ray and HD DVD?
6. Why do HD DVD and Blue-ray disc pioneering in next-generation?
7. What does the new technology mean to you?
8. Double layer or Blue-ray burner

1. What is HD DVD?

Nowadays consumers increasingly expect greater realism and better image quality in visual entertainment. HD DVD delivers that and more. It takes the best features of today's DVD— the most successful AV product ever— and adds new capabilities and greatly advanced functionality. HD DVD is the future, a new standard for next-generation optical systems that delivers brilliant, high-definition performance. The way is open to an exciting new world of entertainment, and HD DVD is ready to take us there.

Convenience and quality quickly made HD DVD media of good choice for people who would like to make high-quality movies. HD DVD offers more: superior image quality and extended recording times that allow creating attractive products offering outstanding image. HD DVD’s excellent copyright protection, high-yield production and low replication costs have won high marks over the DVD domain. With HD DVD, one can look forward to great resolution, dynamic contrast and vivid colors that bring the excitement and pleasure of the cinema into home.

2. The war between the two formats: Blue-ray and HD DVD

You may have heard about the new DVD technologies, Blue-ray and HD DVD, and wondered what they are. Essentially, they mean bigger and better DVDs – discs which will give you even better image quality on videos, and movies, and better sound quality – all because there's much more space on each disc. How much space? Imagine 25 gigabytes of space on a single-layer Blue-ray disc and 50 gigabytes on double-layer disc.

Blue-ray is heavily backed by Sony and a consortium of consumer electronics companies. They hope that hope that this technology will supersede standard DVD. Sony believes that as high definition (HD) TV becomes more popular, people will demand DVDs with better picture quality. Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, a movie company which is owned by Sony, has promised to release films on Blue-ray in late 2005 or early 2006. However, other movie studios won't ditch DVD anytime soon. Warner Bros. even has a financial stake in standard DVD, because the studio was part of the consortium that developed DVD, and Warners therefore collects royalties from every DVD which is sold.

The challenge for Sony is the cost. Upgrading to Blue-ray disc production will mean a high capital investment in upgrading equipment and facilities, and of course the company doesn't intend to invest hugely without some assurance that the new discs will be popular.

There's a challenger to Blue-ray, and it comes from NEC and Toshiba. These companies are promoting HD DVD technology. HD DVD discs are smaller in capacity than Blue-ray, only containing 15 gigabytes on a single layer. However the benefit is that because HD DVD discs are the same size as current DVDs, the cost of upgrading manufacturing equipment will be smaller too.

3. Red ray lasers versus violet ray lasers

The name Blue-ray comes from the color of the laser which writes to the discs. While standard DVDs are written and read with a red laser, the new format uses a blue-violet laser, so the name Blue-ray was chosen. Although different lasers are used, Blue-ray discs can be made backwards compatible. A blue-violet laser, at 405nm, has a shorter wavelength than a red laser, at 650nm: the laser can be focused more precisely, and more data is stored in less space.

4. When does HD DVD emerge?

The DVD Forum develops and defines DVD formats. In November 2003, the DVD Forum selected a single technology as the next-generation, post-DVD standard for high capacity, high definition optical discs— HD DVD. Now, HD DVD is poised to become the primary visual medium for the age of high-definition TV.

5. What are the differences between Blue-ray and HD DVD?

HD DVD and Blue-ray discs are pretty similar that both can fit an HD movie onto one side of one disc, and both HD DVD and Blue-ray players will play the old DVDs. The only significant difference locates in their coating. Blue-ray discs have a coating that is one-sixth the thickness of the outside layer of an HD DVD. Blue-ray's data layers are thus closer to the surface, allowing the laser in a Blue-ray player to read data that's encoded with smaller markings. Since the markings are smaller, more of them—and, consequently, more data—can be packed onto a single layer. As a result, Blue-ray disks can store more information on each layer and will likely have more layers of information than HD-DVDs. Each next-generation DVD format comes in single-layer and dual-layer formats. For HD DVD, that means capacities of 15GB and 30GB; for Blue-ray, means 25GB and 50GB.

6. Why do HD DVD and Blue-ray disc pioneering in next-generation?

Today's conventional DVDs (single side) can hold 4.7GB of information, but many want a higher-capacity successor to satisfy the larger data demands of high-definition video. HD DVD and Blue-ray both use blue lasers to read and write data; because blue ray has a shorter wavelength than the red used in DVD and CD lasers, information can be packed more densely on a disc and a single disc can hold more. Both HD DVD and Blue-ray drives are able to read current-generation DVDs.

7. What does the new technology mean to you?

Industry analysts expect that the Blue-ray format will eventually replace the current formats in VCRs and DVD recorders, but that won't happen for many years. Consumers are used to the standard DVD formats, and until they understand Blue-ray and make a transition to HD TV, they won't have a reason to upgrade, so mass-market uptake is some time off – unless a company comes out with a standout product like the iPod – if such a product used Blue-ray, and took off with wild popularity, change might come sooner.

Because it offers such fantastic storage, the new Blue-ray format may eventually become the standard for PC data storage and movies – unless NEC and Toshiba grab that market with HD DVD. In April 2005, Sony announced that the next generations of its Vaio notebook computers would include Blue-ray drives, and that next-generation PlayStation game consoles would also be based on Blue-ray technology too.

8. Double layer or Blue-ray burner

Double-layer burners, which can write on special double-layer DVD discs that hold twice as much data (8.5GB) as the currently available single-layer DVD-R or DVD+R discs, have just begun to come to market, and although they're expensive (and slow), we're pretty excited. Twice the data is nice, but what's really compelling about double layer is that these discs are big enough to fit an entire uncompressed commercial movie. Still, double-layer media won't be widely available until recently, and it'll be expensive. Proceed with caution.

Blue-ray technology can pack 27GB of data onto a single-sided disc, but don't hold your breath. Expected to cost thousands of dollars when they're released in 2005 or 2006, blue-ray burners will be capable of recording, rewriting, and playing huge, high-definition television files.

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