...high-def DVD should compare versions. For example, the regular DVD of “Night at the Museum” may look good, but a lot of detail is lost —like the foliage and wall carvings in the exhibition rooms—because the resolution just isn’t there. Or take the CG effects: the fireballs launched by the Romans sparkle and the T-Rex’s skeleton frame really stands out in the film’s Blu-ray version.

As Bruce Youmans, vice president of product research and development at TDK (a founding member of the Blu-ray Disc Association Board of Directors) puts it, the DVD format was designed for playback on standard definition TVs (i.e. 480p resolution), not on today’s higher resolution HD sets. “DVDs simply don’t have adequate capacity to support HD video, which explains the demand for a new disc format to support HD,” Youmans says.

Another high-def DVD solution is due later this year from Warner Bros. Total Hi-Def Disc (THD) takes the old flip-disc concept and spins it with HD DVD on one side of a disc and Blu-ray on the other (Warner, New Line and HBO are supporters of this format).

On the content side, consumers have the option of sampling HD discs rather than rebuilding movie collections in a new format. Both Blockbuster and Netflix offer HD DVD and Blu-ray rentals.

Don’t Forget About HD Audio
Lost in this resolution

shuffle is an underrated aspect of HD: audio. HD DVD and Blu-ray discs feature the new “flavors” of Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. Craig Eggers, Dolby’s senior manager for consumer electronics marketing, says Dolby Digital Plus delivers up to 7.1 discrete channels of audio at a higher quality, and even “plain vanilla” Dolby Digital now runs at a data rate higher than that found on DVDs.

Eggers says the best audio performance comes from an HDMI connection, but this requires an A/V receiver that can handle HDMI. If that’s not an option, analog connections can be used. In this case the high-resolution pulse-code modulation (PCM) signal in the high-def DVD player undergoes digital-to-audio conversion inside the player and is exported to your connected A/V receiver. This process lets you take advantage of the newer high resolution audio streams.

The final choice is to use a traditional digital (optical or coaxial) output, but this method limits you to Dolby Digital or DTS audio. When using optical or coax, the high resolution PCM signal in the player is re-encoded as a 640kbps Dolby Digital signal for playback compatibility through any legacy digital home theater receiver or processor. “Listeners will still enjoy an increase in audio performance compared to standard-definition DVD playback,” says Eggers.

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