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What is a HD dvd?

Can "HD DVDs" play on a regular DVD player? or what is necessary for this?

  • as have noticed when ordering a DVD now..there is "Blue Ray".."HD DVD" and "DVD"...so was wondering if you are just use to playing "DVDs"....and have a regular DVD player..but have a flat screen tv...can get the higher quality HD DVD? how much higher quality is it and why it would be priced LOWER than the regular DVD? please explain what you can thanks for your answers!

  • Answer:

    No, HD DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs will not play on a regular DVD player. Because of the way data is stored on the HD DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs, they require a laser with a different wavelength than regular DVDs and also different software to decode the data and turn it into a video picture. So your player must be specifically compatible with HD DVDs and/or Blu-Ray Discs, but any HD DVD or Blu-Ray player you get will still play regular DVDs--and even CDs (just like a CD player won't play DVDs, but a regular DVD player will play CDs). High definition quality videos contain a picture composed of up to 1080 by 1920 pixels (for a total of about 2.1 million pixels) whereas standard definition pictures only contain 480 by 640 pixels (for a total of about 300,000 pixels). So HD videos have about 7 times as many pixels and thus about 7 times as much data for the same length movie, but a regular DVD can only hold enough data for a full-length movie in standard definition, so a new type of disc had to be created that could hold the huge increase in the amount of data for an HD movie. HD DVD and Blu-Ray were competing formats for that high-capacity disc-based data storage and Blu-Ray eventually won out. There are no companies making HD DVD players any more, but there are still some out there, so a few movie studios still offer HD DVD formatted versions of a few of their titles, but because the demand is so low, the price stays pretty low. You'll notice, however, that Blu-Ray editions of movies generally cost a little more (~$5-$10) than the regular DVD edition. Unless you were an early adopter and already have an "HD DVD" player (which I'm assuming you don't), there's no point in getting "HD DVDs".

☯Tao☯ at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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You must have an HD DVD player to play HD DVDs. The problem is Blu-Ray has been selected as the new high-definition digital disc format, so HD DVD players are not being made anymore and, as a result, are very hard to find. That also probably explains why HD DVDs cost less than regular DVDs. If you have or get a flat-screen high-definition TV, most Blu-Ray players now being sold also play DVDs. Many of them also "upscale" DVDs to improve the picture resolution on HDTV. The upscaled resolution is not as good as Blu-Ray, but it's still pretty darned good. For maximum resolution and picture clarity, however, you need to get Blu-Ray. If you don't have HDTV yet, make sure you get one rated at 1080p (1,080 lines of resolution per inch, progressive scan) because that will give you full Blu-Ray picture quality. You should also get one that has a refresh rate of at least 120 Hz so you don't get "blur" in action movies and for high-definintion cable/satellite broadcasts of sporting events.

sarge927

I'm surprised you can still buy HD-DVD's, because HD-DVD players have been out of production for over 4 years. No, you cannot play HD-DVD's or Blu-Ray discs on a standard DVD player, in the same way that you cannot play DVD's on a CD player. Additionally, you cannot play Blu-Ray discs on an HD-DVD player and you cannot play HD-DVD's on a Blu-Ray player. Only two machine were ever produced that could play both formats and they went out of production years ago. If you want to watch Blu-Ray discs, you will have to buy a Blu-Ray player. If you want to watch HD-DVD's, you will have to buy an HD-DVD player (if you can find one, that is...).

Nightwrath

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