With all the recent articles about Blue-Ray Disc and HD-DVD, it may be helpful to examine some more technical considerations so as to provide a contextual backdrop. This seventh installment in our series of DVD articles is a retrospective of some HD-DVD specifications.

Format wars start over technical specifications but wind up being decided by business considerations. Thus it was during the old Betamax versus VHS war between Sony and Panasonic in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and thus it remained between Blue-Ray and HD-DVD recently. In the end, there weren’t buying viagra in uk that many differences between the two, but it was the increasing lack of industry support that doomed HD-DVD to the status of historical footnote more than anything technological.

HD DVD-ROM, HD DVD-R, and HD DVD-RW all offer single-layer capacities of 15 GB and dual-layer capacities of 30 GB, while HD DVD-RAM has a single-layer capacity of 20 GB. In common with standard DVDs, an HD-DVD’s data layer was designed to be 0.6mm below the surface so that some degree of protection from physical damage may be provided. The aperture of an HD-DVD pickup head is 0.1mm smaller than Viagra Jelly that of a standard DVD, which is 0.6mm. Thus, cialis price all HD-DVD players are backward-compatible with DVDs and CDs.

Along with previous optical disc formats, the HD-DVD supported several filing systems, including ISO 9660 and Universal Disk Format (UDF). All HD-DVD titles released used UDF 2.5, where multiplexed audio and video streams are stored in an EVO container format. Audio encoding is provided at up to 24-bit/192KHz stereo, or up to eight channels at 24-bit/96-KHz. Linear or uncompressed PCM, Dolby Digital AC-3, Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Digital Plus, and Dolby TrueHD as well as DTS are supported. Secondary soundtracks are available as DTS-HD High Resolution Audio or DTS-HD Master Audio. LPCM is also offered for audiophiles intent on the purest of high-fidelity.

As for video, HD-DVDs can be encoded in VC-1, AVC, or MPGEG-2 formats, and are capable of displaying a broad range of resolutions, from low-res CIF all the way to the HDTV formats of 720p and 1080i/p. Movies on HD-DVD are featured in a 1080-lined format while supplemental materials can be in 480i or 480p. Most releases were encoded in VC-1 by far, with the vast majority of the remainder using AVC.

As mentioned at the beginning, there are many reasons for the demise of an otherwise promising format, but almost certainly none are technical. It was the gradual loss of industry support that made the final determination.

Author Bio: Article by William Gold who also owns many Double Layer Media and recommends Tapes.com for some of the best deals and offers on other Blank Media.

Category: Technology/Electronics
Keywords: double layer media, consumer electronics, blue ray, blank media