New HDTV DVD Technology Challenges Existing Formats

As if the format war between the HD DVD and the Blu-ray high def DVD formats wasn't heated enough, there will likely be another player coming into the ring in the immediate future. A virtually unheard of company called New Medium Enterprises is set release its own high def disc format which it calls HD VMD.

Unlike Blu-ray and HD DVD, HD VMD takes advantage of existing red laser technology to read the data off of the discs. This use of an already established technology makes the HD VMD technology much cheaper than HD DVD or Blu-ray. In fact, while HD DVD players are stuck around three hundred dollars a piece and Blu-ray players have only recently dropped below five hundred dollars, HD VMD players will probably cost about a hundred and fifty dollars when they first hit retail stores like Costco and Radio Shack. In addition to lower cost players, the discs themselves should cost less too. HD VMD discs are expected to cost significantly less than either of the two established formats (if you could call two formats that are in the middle of a bitter and protracted format war established) and slightly more than conventional DVD's.

Before anyone gets too excited about being able to watch movies in high definition off of a disc, it should be pointed out that there are still very few titles available in the HD VMD format. In fact, there will only be about twenty titles that come from the United States and most of them will come from smaller independent studios- including one owned by Mel Gibson. In addition to those twenty American titles, there will also be a variety of foreign titles including Indian movies from Bollywood.

Of course, there is a considerable amount of skepticism about the possibility of a small start up company coming out of nowhere to take down the best efforts of two massive companies like Toshiba and Sony. This is especially difficult to believe when you consider the fact that Blu-ray and HD DVD are both backed by some pretty major motion picture studios, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. After all, the ability to buy a player for half that of the nearest competitor and less than a third of the price of the other nearest competitor can be pretty attractive to consumers and the big companies ultimately have to give the consumers what they want. There will be a lot of economic pressure to release movie titles on HD VMD.

At this point the technical details of the HD VMD format still aren't very clear, but there are a number of things that we can guess about this new format. First of all, since we know that HD VMD is based on the same red laser technology that conventional DVD's and CD's are based, we can guess that an HD VMD disc can't store as much data as Blu-ray or HD DVD discs which are both based on blue violet laser technology. This is a reasonable guess because of the fact that a blue violet laser has a shorter wavelength and can therefore encode more information, more finely onto a disc than the longer wavelength of a red laser can. This might not actually be much of a problem when you look at the fact that a Blu-ray disc can store far more data than an HD DVD can, yet they can still both be used for HDTV movie storage.

Only time will tell how this challenge to the big HDTV DVD formats will play out, but it could be a case where more primitive technology vanquishes more advanced technology because of economics.

E.Sanderson writes articles about the latest developments in technology, electronics, and satellite TV. She'd like to inform you about the latest Dish TV services and how you can find the best Dishnet TV HD Deals.

DVD Upconversion Technology Provides Alternatives to Warring Formats

High Definition DVD's have gotten a lot of press lately- some of it positive and some of it not so positive. That's because they offer a great way to enjoy a movie theater experience in your own home with recently released movies.

Having said that, High Definition DVD's have some major problems these days. These problems aren't so much bugs in the high def DVD players or the discs themselves- though those have been exposed too. The real problem with using them to get HDTV in your home theater system is that there are currently two incompatible formats on the market and it's not yet completely clear which format will come out on top in the format war between the two.

The formats are HD-DVD which was created by Toshiba, and Blu-ray which was created by Sony. They have some technical differences- which would tend to make Blu-ray look like the better choice- but for the average user, the two formats are pretty much interchangeable. While Blu-ray has some technical advantages in terms of superior data storage capacity (which is great for computer applications) HD-DVD has the advantage of offering much cheaper players for its discs.

Right now HD-DVD players cost between three and five hundred dollars, while the minimum that you can get a Blu-ray player for is about five hundred dollars and many of them are up around eight or nine hundred. That said, there are a number of indications that Blu-ray may be the preferred format among consumers.

There is one option for enjoying movies in HDTV that many people don't think that much about. It's now possible to get devices that play standard DVD's and upconvert them to resolutions that are very similar to HDTV. Basically, normal DVD's produce pictures with resolutions of 480p which means that the picture is made up of 480 horizontal lines that are scanned onto the screen progressively. (Progressive scanning is generally considered superior to interlace scanning which is indicated by an "i" after the number.) HDTV pictures have resolutions of 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. 1080p isn't widely available on HDTV channels, but can be produced from Blu-ray discs and HD-DVD.

In general, it's possible to get a DVD player that will upconvert standard DVD's to resolutions of 720p or 1080i. This process takes place essentially by using special software that's built into the DVD players to fill in the missing details of the pictures that come from the standard definition DVD's. Extra pixels are added to the images with the result of richer colors and a sharper picture in general.

Now there are DVD players that can bump the resolution all the way up to 1080p. One of the major complaints about these players though it that they don't produce the full HDTV experience. Some consumer electronics enthusiasts say that the supposed 1080p picture produced by these players is only about half way between the quality of a normal DVD picture and that of a real 1080p picture. This is to be expected considering that adding pixels isn't the same thing as adding the pores on an actor's face or other details like that. However, considering the fact that this type of DVD player costs substantially less than a high def DVD player- and isn't in imminent danger of becoming obsolete- it may be a good choice for many consumers.

E.Sanderson writes articles about the latest developments in technology, electronics, and satellite TV [http://snltranscripts.jt.org/dish]. She'd like to inform you about the latest Dishnetwork [http://snltranscripts.jt.org/dish/dish-network-.html] services and how you can find the best Dish TV Specials [http://snltranscripts.jt.org/dish/dish-network-promotions-.html].

New HDTV DVD Technology Challenges Existing Formats

As if the format war between the HD DVD and the Blu-ray high def DVD formats wasn't heated enough, there will likely be another player coming into the ring in the immediate future. A virtually unheard of company called New Medium Enterprises is set release its own high def disc format which it calls HD VMD.

Unlike Blu-ray and HD DVD, HD VMD takes advantage of existing red laser technology to read the data off of the discs. This use of an already established technology makes the HD VMD technology much cheaper than HD DVD or Blu-ray. In fact, while HD DVD players are stuck around three hundred dollars a piece and Blu-ray players have only recently dropped below five hundred dollars, HD VMD players will probably cost about a hundred and fifty dollars when they first hit retail stores like Costco and Radio Shack. In addition to lower cost players, the discs themselves should cost less too. HD VMD discs are expected to cost significantly less than either of the two established formats (if you could call two formats that are in the middle of a bitter and protracted format war established) and slightly more than conventional DVD's.

Before anyone gets too excited about being able to watch movies in high definition off of a disc, it should be pointed out that there are still very few titles available in the HD VMD format. In fact, there will only be about twenty titles that come from the United States and most of them will come from smaller independent studios- including one owned by Mel Gibson. In addition to those twenty American titles, there will also be a variety of foreign titles including Indian movies from Bollywood.

Of course, there is a considerable amount of skepticism about the possibility of a small start up company coming out of nowhere to take down the best efforts of two massive companies like Toshiba and Sony. This is especially difficult to believe when you consider the fact that Blu-ray and HD DVD are both backed by some pretty major motion picture studios, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. After all, the ability to buy a player for half that of the nearest competitor and less than a third of the price of the other nearest competitor can be pretty attractive to consumers and the big companies ultimately have to give the consumers what they want. There will be a lot of economic pressure to release movie titles on HD VMD.

At this point the technical details of the HD VMD format still aren't very clear, but there are a number of things that we can guess about this new format. First of all, since we know that HD VMD is based on the same red laser technology that conventional DVD's and CD's are based, we can guess that an HD VMD disc can't store as much data as Blu-ray or HD DVD discs which are both based on blue violet laser technology. This is a reasonable guess because of the fact that a blue violet laser has a shorter wavelength and can therefore encode more information, more finely onto a disc than the longer wavelength of a red laser can. This might not actually be much of a problem when you look at the fact that a Blu-ray disc can store far more data than an HD DVD can, yet they can still both be used for HDTV movie storage.

Only time will tell how this challenge to the big HDTV DVD formats will play out, but it could be a case where more primitive technology vanquishes more advanced technology because of economics.

E.Sanderson writes articles about the latest developments in technology, electronics, and satellite TV. She'd like to inform you about the latest Dish TV services and how you can find the best Dishnet TV HD Deals.

DVD Upconversion Technology Provides Alternatives to Warring Formats

High Definition DVD's have gotten a lot of press lately- some of it positive and some of it not so positive. That's because they offer a great way to enjoy a movie theater experience in your own home with recently released movies.

Having said that, High Definition DVD's have some major problems these days. These problems aren't so much bugs in the high def DVD players or the discs themselves- though those have been exposed too. The real problem with using them to get HDTV in your home theater system is that there are currently two incompatible formats on the market and it's not yet completely clear which format will come out on top in the format war between the two.

The formats are HD-DVD which was created by Toshiba, and Blu-ray which was created by Sony. They have some technical differences- which would tend to make Blu-ray look like the better choice- but for the average user, the two formats are pretty much interchangeable. While Blu-ray has some technical advantages in terms of superior data storage capacity (which is great for computer applications) HD-DVD has the advantage of offering much cheaper players for its discs.

Right now HD-DVD players cost between three and five hundred dollars, while the minimum that you can get a Blu-ray player for is about five hundred dollars and many of them are up around eight or nine hundred. That said, there are a number of indications that Blu-ray may be the preferred format among consumers.

There is one option for enjoying movies in HDTV that many people don't think that much about. It's now possible to get devices that play standard DVD's and upconvert them to resolutions that are very similar to HDTV. Basically, normal DVD's produce pictures with resolutions of 480p which means that the picture is made up of 480 horizontal lines that are scanned onto the screen progressively. (Progressive scanning is generally considered superior to interlace scanning which is indicated by an "i" after the number.) HDTV pictures have resolutions of 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. 1080p isn't widely available on HDTV channels, but can be produced from Blu-ray discs and HD-DVD.

In general, it's possible to get a DVD player that will upconvert standard DVD's to resolutions of 720p or 1080i. This process takes place essentially by using special software that's built into the DVD players to fill in the missing details of the pictures that come from the standard definition DVD's. Extra pixels are added to the images with the result of richer colors and a sharper picture in general.

Now there are DVD players that can bump the resolution all the way up to 1080p. One of the major complaints about these players though it that they don't produce the full HDTV experience. Some consumer electronics enthusiasts say that the supposed 1080p picture produced by these players is only about half way between the quality of a normal DVD picture and that of a real 1080p picture. This is to be expected considering that adding pixels isn't the same thing as adding the pores on an actor's face or other details like that. However, considering the fact that this type of DVD player costs substantially less than a high def DVD player- and isn't in imminent danger of becoming obsolete- it may be a good choice for many consumers.

E.Sanderson writes articles about the latest developments in technology, electronics, and satellite TV [http://snltranscripts.jt.org/dish]. She'd like to inform you about the latest Dishnetwork [http://snltranscripts.jt.org/dish/dish-network-.html] services and how you can find the best Dish TV Specials [http://snltranscripts.jt.org/dish/dish-network-promotions-.html].