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High Definition Facts

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High Definition Facts

If you follow tech news, you’ve probably heard about High Definition movies and the two competing "shiny disc" formats -- HD DVD and Blu-ray -- and the new copy-protection system, AACS. Unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation out there about these technologies, probably because the facts change over time and the press essentially plays a game of telephone with each story repeating "facts" found in an earlier story.

Whilst this post won’t go into great details about either of the disc formats, it will talk about a few key things they both have in common. Thanks to other members of the HD DVD team here at Microsoft for providing some of the more esoteric information :-)

Maximum Resolution

Copy Protection

Down-Rezing

Digital Only Token

Extra Geeky Info

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 15, 2006
    Good stuff. Thanks.

    Do you know anything about the alleged Blu-ray capability for discs to "upgrade" your player's firmware without the user's consent?
  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2006
    I hope ICT will produce a higher resolution than that in PAL regions, for PAL DVD has 576 lines, not 480. It would be somewhat embarrassing for them if the new standard were actually worse, for most people, than the current one!
  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2006
    Jeroen -- I don't know about that, sorry. Maybe Howard Stringer has a blog? :-) Or you could try www.avsforum.com

    Mike -- Hmmmm, let me see if there's any info here on that.
  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2006
    It turns out that ICT will be the same resolution everywhere, since AACS defines ICT and AACS does not recognise region codes.
  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2006

       
         
           A lot of consumers are under the impression that higher-resolution images are the...
  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2006
    I have a question: What are the framerate and size constranints? Is 1500x750 video possible, for example? Or it's like DVD, where you can only have 720/704/352 "columns"? And what's the maximum framerate? Is 1280x720x60fps progressive supported? And 1920x1080px60? And arbitrary framerates (for example 45fps, even if it looks bad in TV)?

    Also, if it's not a secret (although I realize it's a complex question), what's the file layout on the disk? More specifically, what's the container? MPEG-TS? ASF? MP4? ...

    Thanks a lot :)
  • Anonymous
    May 11, 2006
    Isn't that true that blu-ray does 1080 60p and HD-DVD only 60i or 30p  (half the info, half the bitrate) ?? That's what I read in the new edition of "DVD Demystified"?

    It's true that there is not a lot of 1080p tv set, but it's the future. 1080 60p is an HD standard, so it's better to be ready for it, no ??

    It's seems that the reason is that HD-DVD has a maximum bitrate of 29Mbps, and Blu-ray 45Mbps (from what I recall). Is that true ??
  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2006
    Anon - That's not my area of expertise, but I'll see if anyone else around here will anwser it. I wouldn't be surprised if you were limited to a set of "standard" resolutions though (like 1920 x 1080 and 1280 x 720 with maybe 720 x 480).

    Video is stored in a file called an EVOB (enhanced video object); you should get the HD DVD spec if you want the details :-)
  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2006
    Faz: HD DVD does 1920 x 1080p. The early Toshiba player only does 1080i, but then so will the low-end PlayStation 3. It's mostly a question of economics. The content on the disc is in 1080p and will be ready when a player wants to display it.

    Max bitrates are not my specialty, but for watching a movie in an advanced codec like VC-1 both formats have more than enough bandwidth. Just look at the HD DVD titles out right now; they are absolutely gorgeous!
  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2006
    The max frame rate of video content on HD DVD and Blu-ray are both 60p for 1280x720, or 60i for 1920x1080.  1080p60 is actually very rare -it isn't part of the ATSC spec which defined today's HD display technologies.

    There are only a few supported standard resolutions.  All the titles today are 1920x1080.
  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    May 16, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2007
    Development Resources Introduction to HD DVD Authoring Getting Started with HD DVD (includes link to