Coming Attraction: High-Definition DVDs

**John Corn** · 10-04-2003 01:19 AM

Now that DVDs have become fully accepted by the masses, and even progressive-scan players can be found for under $70, what's a videophile got to do to stay ahead of the pack?

Or perhaps the better question is: Now that DVDs are almost 7 years old, which is an eternity in the consumer electronics world, what comes next?

The answer is high-definition DVD. These high-capacity DVDs can take advantage of the improved resolution of a high-definition television.

It's expected the next-generation DVD will use a blue laser, which has a shorter wavelength than the red lasers used in today's DVD players, meaning that more data can be packed into the same amount of space. Today's DVDs can hold about 4.7 GB of data, while a blue-laser HD-DVD could conceivably hold as much as 30 GB.

http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,60675,00.html

**Stargazer** · 10-04-2003 04:21 PM

So the current DVD recorders that are for sale will not record HD content?

**Ken_F** · 10-04-2003 05:57 PM

So the current DVD recorders that are for sale will not record HD content?

That's correct. At least, they won't record true HDTV. They can record HDTV downconverted to SD through s-video.

**Stargazer** · 10-04-2003 10:08 PM

Seems like they got a good ways to go before the DVD recorder market gets going seeing that by the time the DVD recorders for standard television is cheap you will have to go and pay a lot of money once again to get a DVD recorder that will record true HDTV.