Why HD DVD Is Better Than Dual Layer DVD

HD DVD is the one of the latest innovation of today’s technology. It is one of the “next generation” optical disc formats. HD DVD (along with Blu Ray one of the two next generation format) is currently engaged on some sort of battle that is called the “optical disc format war”. The two next generation formats are primarily designed and developed to replace the standard DVD. The said optical disc format war is the battle for high definition optical disc format supremacy.

HD DVD is a high density optical disc format developed for storing data and “High Definition” videos. As mentioned earlier, HD DVD is primarily developed to replace the standard DVD format. The technology that HD DVD utilized are similar that of the standard DVD. The only difference is that, a single layer HD DVD disc is capable of storing much larger data than that of the standard dual layer DVD disc. HD DVD can store three times more that of the standard DVD. A standard dual layer DVD disc can store 8.5 gigabytes of data and while a single layer HD DVD disc is capable of storing 15 gigabytes of data. Meaning, with the HD DVD is capable of high definition videos, which dual layer DVD is not capable of.

Although HD DVD was already released on the market, its developers and designers are still conducting research to further enhance and improve the HD DVD technology and also to beat its rival format Blu Ray disc in the said optical disc format war.

Currently, there are two variants of hybrid HD DVD formats. The first hybrid HD DVD format contains standard DVD-Video format and can be played on a regular DVD player. DVD-Video format is a video format that stores digital video on DVD disc for consumer use. It is the current dominant consumer video format. This hybrid HD DVD format is the same that of the standard DVD. The only difference is that has a much larger storage capacity in order to store high definition videos. Its storage capacity is the same that of a regular HD DVD disc (the single layer HD DVD disc has a much larger capacity than that of a dual layer DVD disc).

The other type of hybrid format contains HD DVD video and can only be played on HD DVD players. The main reason for this is to provide the consumers with high definition quality. The storage capacity differential between a single layer disc of this hybrid format and the dual layer DVD disc is the same with the earlier mentioned.