Differences between HD-DVD and Blu-ray DVD?

Question: What is Blu-ray and What Was HD-DVD? - What Is The Difference?

NOTICE: HD-DVD is now officially discontinued. However, information on HD-DVD, and its comparison to Blu-ray, is still contained in this article for historical purposes, as well as the fact that there are still many HD-DVD player owners, and HD-DVD players and discs will continue to be sold and traded on the secondary market for some time.

Answer:

HD-DVD (now discontinued) was the second major High Definition Disc format (see Blu-ray, above) that was vying to replace the current DVD standard in the U.S. market, and was a direct competitor of Blu-ray for two years.

HD-DVD was supported, during its brief time on the scene, by Toshiba (its major developer and backer), LG (also supported HD-DVD), NEC, Sanyo, Thomson (Note: Thomson also supported Blu-ray), New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures, and Universal Pictures. Microsoft was also a major supporter of HD-DVD. It is interesting to note that although HD-DVD has been discontinued, Toshiba has not switched to the Blu-ray camp and is persuing its own course with a re-emphasis on improving standard DVD upscaling technology and other products.

In terms of technology, Blu-ray and HD-DVD both utilize Blue Laser and sophisticated video compression to achieve high definition video playback on the same size disc as a standard DVD. However, neither format is compatible with the other.

Blu-ray is one of the two major High Definition disc formats (see HD-DVD, below) that were vying to replace the current DVD standard in the U.S. market. As of February 19, 2008, only Blu-ray is left. However, information on both formats is being included here for historical reasons, and the fact that there still HD-DVD player owners and several hundred films available in the format. 

Blu-ray is now supported on the hardware side by all major manufacturers and movie studios including: Denon, Funai, Hitachi, LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), Onkyo, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, HP, Dell, Apple, TDK, Thomson, and Yamaha. Blu-ray is also supported on the software side by Sony/Columbia, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, MGM, Paramount, Warner, and Universal, and others. Apple Computer also supports Blu-ray. 

Rip the Main Movie from Blu-ray to MP4

What is Blu-ray?

Blu-ray is an optical disc format designed to display high definition video and store large amounts of data.

Blu-ray is the successor to DVD. The standard was developed collaboratively by Hitachi, LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Thomson. It became the default optical disk standard for HD content and optical data storage after winning a format war with HD-DVD, the format promoted by Toshiba and NEC.

The format's name comes from the fact that a blue laser reads from and writes to the disc rather than the red laser of DVD players. The blue laser has a 405 nanometer (nm) wavelength that can focus more tightly than the red lasers used for writable DVD. As a consequence, a Blu-ray disc can store much more data in the same 12 centimeter space. Like the rewritable DVD formats, Blu-ray uses phase change technology to enable repeated writing to the disc.

Blu-ray's standard storage capacity is enough to store a continuous backup copy of most people's hard drives on a single disc. Initially, the format had a 27 gigabyte (GB) single-sided capacity and 50 GB on dual-layer discs. Single-sided Blu-ray discs can store up to 13 hours of standard video data, compared to single-sided DVD's 133 minutes. In July 2008, Pioneer announced that they had found a way to increase capacity to 500 GB by creating 20-layer discs. These discs are not, however, expected to be commercially available in the near future.

Blu-ray also features data streams at 36 megabits per second (Mbps), fast enough for high quality video recording. Blu-ray discs will not play on current CD and DVD players, because those players lack the blue-violet laser required to read the discs. If the appropriate lasers are included, however, Blu-ray players can play the other two formats. Blu-ray disc players (BDPs) are available from a number of manufacturers, including Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung and Sony. Sony's Playstation 3 also has a Blu-ray drive installed.

What DVD formats are recordable?

This article will give you basic knowledge of six DVD format, and tells you the difference, which are recordable, how to get DVD video playable without limitation.

What format does your burner require? DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, or DVD-RAM?

DVD-R Media: A write-once, recordable format. DVD-R drives can write DVD-R discs, which can be written to only once, as opposed to a DVD-RW drive, which can write and rewrite to RW media multiple times. The Authoring Use Drive (635nm Laser) was introduced in 1998 by Pioneer, and the General Use Format (650nm Laser) was authorized in 2000. DVD-R offers a write-once, read-many storage format akin to CD-R and is used to master DVD-Video and DVD-ROM discs.

DVD-RW Media: DVD ReWritable. A rewritable DVD format that is similar to DVD+RW, but its capability to work as a random access device is not as good as that of the +RW. DVD-RW has a read-write capacity of 4.7 GB.

DVD+R Media: Short for DVD+Recordable, a recordable DVD format similar to a CD-R. A DVD+R can only record data once and then the data becomes permanent on the disc. The disc can not be recorded onto a second time. DVD+R and DVD+RW formats are supported by Philips, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Ricoh, Yamaha and others.

DVD+RW Media: The DVD Plus RW Alliance is a group of companies that includes Philips and Sony. They propose standards for recordable and rewritable DVDs.

DVD+R Dual Layer / Double Layer Media: Double Layer DVD+R media has an amazing 8.5GB of storage capacity. This incredible capacity is enough for up to 4 hours of DVD quality video, 16 hours of VHS quality video or over 120 hours of MP3 audio. Compatible with all current DVD video players and DVD-ROM drives as well as new DVD+R DL drives, the disc is ideal for virtually any business or household application.

Dual-layer DVD-R media offers genuine advantage over the current single layer 4.7GB DVD. The new dual-layer recordable DVD-R disc allows users to read, write or view almost twice the amount of data that is currently possible with the single layer. The advanced technology means that material can be read or recorded on one layer without affecting the other. There's no need to flip sides or change discs.

DVD-RAM Media: DVD Random Access Memory is a rewritable DVD disc endorsed by Panasonic, Hitachi and Toshiba. It is a cartridge-based, and more recently, bare disc technology for data recording and playback. DVD-RAM bare discs are fragile and do not guarantee data integrity. The first DVD-RAM drives had a capacity of 2.6GB (single-sided) or 5.2GB (double-sided). DVD-RAM Version 2 discs have double-sided 9.4GB discs. DVD-RAM drives typically read DVD-Video, DVD-ROM and CD media. The current installed base of DVD-ROM drives and DVD-Video players cannot read DVD-RAM media.


When choosing a format to use, note that DVD-R/RW won’t record in a DVD+R/RW recorder or burner, and vice-versa. This is not an issue when using a Multi-Format recorder or burner, and most DVD players and DVD-ROM drives will read either format.

Tip: 

If you find issues when playing DVD video, try Pavtube DVDAid or DVDAid for Mac – a must-have DVD ripping & coping tool with strong ability to remove DVD protection, transcode DVD to any video and audio format for viewing on various mobile devices, and edit DVD to create personal movie.

Read more: 

5 Tips You Should Keep in Mind While Selecting Reliable DVD Ripper
What is DVD and Why DVD is Popular
Rip DVD movies to your portable media players

What is DVD and Why DVD is Popular

DVD is an optical disc technology with a 4.7 gigabyte storage capacity on a single-sided, one-layered disk, which is enough for a 133-minute movie. DVDs can be single- or double-sided, and can have two layers on each side; a double-sided, two-layered DVD will hold up to 17 gigabytes of video, audio, or other information. This compares to 650 megabytes (.65 gigabyte) of storage for a CD-ROM disk.

 

DVD uses the MPEG-2 file and compression standard. MPEG-2 images have four times the resolution of MPEG-1 images and can be delivered at 60 interlaced fields per second where two fields constitute one image frame. (MPEG-1 can deliver 30 noninterlaced frames per second.) Audio quality on DVD is comparable to that of current audio compact discs.

Formats:

• DVD-Video is the format designed for full-length movies that work with your television set.
• DVD-ROM is the type of drive and disc for use on computers. The DVD drive will usually also play regular CD-ROM discs and DVD-Video disks.
• DVD-RAM is the writeable version.
• DVD-Audio is a CD-replacement format.
• There are a number of recordable DVD formats, including DVD-R for General, DVD-R for Authoring, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD+R.

DVD was originally said to stand for digital video disc, and later for digital versatile disc. With the coming of 2014, new DVD releases never take a breather, and even the shortest month of the year will have plenty of popular or critically acclaimed movies that screened in theaters last year hit the retail market.

Since DVD is more and more popular nowadays,  DVD-related multimedia software is plays more and more important role in our daily life. Here, Pavtube DVDAid is my first choice because it converts all my DVD for playing in a more convenient way without bothering to carry the DVDs. Pavtube determines the correct format/file and combines for main movie automatically. Great! Easy!

And besides that, with the Pavtube new official website being released, there are more new money saving software bundles like: DVDAid($35) + DVD Creator($35) = Only $35.9, Save $34.1, which means you can rip DVD to portable devices for on-the-go DVD movie enjoyment as well as get all your video files into playable DVD for entertainment. Really wonderful enjoyment!