Blu-ray and HD-DVD - What You Need To Know

Now, both HD-DVD and Blu-ray players are currently available, with units adding recording capability also available in some PCs and Laptops, to be followed, possibly, by Blu-ray recorders available possibly sometime in the future in the U.S. Market. As a result new players, or the possibility of recorders, in that format, will no longer be available going forward.

Blu-ray and HD-DVD both employ Blue Laser technology (which has a much shorter wavelength than the red laser technology used in current DVD). Blu-ray and HD-DVD enables a disc the size of a current DVD disc (but, which much greater storage capacity than a standard DVD) to hold an entire film at HDTV resolution or allow the consumer to record two hours of high definition video content.

Blu-ray is supported on the hardware side by Apple, Denon, Hitachi, LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), Pioneer, Philips, Samsung (also supports HD-DVD), Sharp, Sony, and Thomson (Note: Thomson also supported HD-DVD).

On the software side, Blu-ray is supported by Lions Gate, MGM, Miramax, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, New Line, and Warner. However, as the result of the discontinuation of HD-DVD, Universal, Paramount, and Dreamworks are now on board with Blu-ray.

Although both Blu-ray and HD-DVD support both recording and playback of high definition material with the same expected result, there are technical differences between the two formats.