HD DVD player is designed to playback HD DVDs and most of them can also play DVDs and CDs. There are also HD DVD recorders which come with recording capabilities in all the formats. Both HD DVD player and DVD player use the same basic technology – laser beam for reading & recording data on a high density optical disc. However, HD DVD is improvised and upgraded version of standard DVD as it uses advanced laser technology and more efficient video compression techniques.
In this article, let’s know all the basics of a HD DVD player and how they are able to store & playback high definition contents with high fidelity.
How does HD DVD player work?
HD DVD player is made up of components that amazingly resemble a standard DVD player. There is an image sensor that emits laser beam which strikes the bumps on the HD DVD and gets reflected just as it happens inside a DVD player unit. Both have motor assembly that spins the disc so that the laser head can read and write information on the pits which are arranged in spiral tracks on the discs.
However, the use of short wave length blue laser (405 nm) instead of red laser (650 nm) is the major difference in HD DVD player. The blue laser is so efficient and much more precise, when it comes to making pits much smaller and reducing the track pitches on HD DVDs.
Another component that allows HD-DVD to have high density storage is the use of more efficient MPEG-4 codec rather than MPEG-2, the standard video compression used by DVD players. Most HD DVD players can use MPEG-2 along with MPEG-4, so you can still play DVDs using HD DVD players. HD DVD players also support the latest video codecs like VC-1 that can save more space on disc as well render excellent picture quality. All the HD DVD version of movies are encoded using VC-1 compression method.
Most HD DVD players come with USB port so that you can connect USB pen drives and view images, photos or playback music tracks.
Finally, HD DVD has High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) that can output signals at 720p or 1080i resolution. The HDMI can also do upscaling of the standard DVDs to 720p or 1080i resolution so the video quality is enhanced on large screen TVs, especially, LCD TV or Plasma TV sets.
Drive speed
The latest HD DVDs come with much higher drive speeds that they can transfer data more than three times faster than a DVD player. HD DVD player of 1X drive speed can send information to the video outputs at a rate of 36 Mbits/s and will take 90 minutes to write on a double layered HD DVD disc.
A 2X HDVD drive is much faster with data rate of 72 Mbits/s and can write on the same disc within less than one hour.
Backward Compatibility
Backward compatibility is the ability of HD DVD players to read multiple video formats like HD DVD, DVD and CDs. Most HD DVD players come with backward compatibility with DVD so you can still use the popular DVD titles, however, a few of them may not play CDs.
Along with it, there is also twin format HD DVD disc where the same movie is recorded in DVD format and HD DVD format on either side. Typically, most HD DVD players come with both red and blue laser light and use it alternatively depending on the format while reading.
Blu-ray/HD DVD Combo players
Due to the unending format war between HD DVD and blu-ray , many customers are still undecided, when it comes to choosing between the two. As such, a few combo players come with recording & play back capabilities in both the formats. However, they are rather expensive and their video quality is not as good as a stand-alone HD DVD player or a blu-ray disc player. Consequently, some computers come with this type of combo drives to playback both the formats.
Other applications
HD DVD drives can be used in computers and the most OS like Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac and Linux provide software that can play HD DVDs using an add-on drive.
In 2006, Microsoft introduced HD DVD drive with its popular game console, Xbox 360 that allowed the game console customers to playback HD DVD movies. However, Microsoft discontinued the HD DVD version of Xbox 360 followed by dwindling support to HD DVD format by the entertainment industry.
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Which hd dvd players can play hdv home movie footage from Canon HV 20 edited on Ulead 11.5+ and burned onto sd dvd disc with a standard burner? I believe this would be a data disc.