So You Bought The Wrong One…Now What?
The battle between the last two generations of optical discs is settled. When several major movie studios chose Blu-ray over HD DVD, the decision was clear. Major manufacturers that market the HD DVD product, such as Toshiba, announced almost immediately that they were discontinuing the line and bowed to Blu-ray as
the next generation high definition format.
But why Blu-ray? Although the technology developed for Blu-ray and HD DVD is very similar, the differences are subtle enough that there is a clear winner. Both Blu-ray and HD DVD use a shorter wavelength blu-voilet laser instead of the red laser that conventional DVD products have used for many years. The lower wavelength allows the amount of data to be stored on an optical disc to be dramatically increased. Blu-ray Discs have an even higher storage capacity per layer than the now obsolete HD DVD. A standard Blu-ray disc can store up to 25 MB of digital data. That’s more than five times the storage of the standard DVD disc in use today. A standard HD DVD disc has a capacity of up to 15 MB per layer, although higher than current products, it does not reach the numbers of Blu-ray. You can say that the difference is not that important, so let’s compare. The standard Blu-ray Disc can contain up to two hours of HDTV or thirteen hours of standard definition TV. There are 50MB to 200MB storage drives in the works that can hold up to 18 hours of HDTV. There are even minidiscs in the works that can be used in next-generation Blu-ray camcorders that will allow users to shoot high-definition home movies like never before.
So now that you’ve spent the money on that outdated HD DVD player, what are your options? Well, there are some.
First of all, if you’ve bought a small library of HD DVD movies, you still need an HD player to watch them. These discs are not compatible with a Blu-ray DVD player or your old caveman DVD player. So you may need to keep the HD DVD drive for that reason alone.
Second, if you have an HDTV in more than one room, you may have thought you’d need an HD DVD player in both rooms so the next purchase would be a Blu-ray version. As more companies start producing Blu-ray DVD players, the price will come down and the financial strain won’t seem so painful. So if your plan is to one day buy a replacement for your outdated HD DVD drive or purchase a second drive, you may want to look at the various brands of Duo players. For those who are capable of playing Blu-ray or HD DVD from the same drive, Samsung currently has the BD-UP5000, billed as “future technology fused into one
“Perfect HD Player” with Full HD 1080p playback from both formats. Although it’s a bit pricey, at $400 to $600, it solves two problems.
Either way, the future has been decided, so get on board and enjoy the future today!