LabRats #080: HD DVD

To achieve the Nirvana of high-definition, you have to have a high-definition DVD player first. Of course, your television set must be able to show you high-definition pictures. It won't work until and unless you have a way to connect the two appliances.

DVD (Digital Versatile Disk), relatively speaking, isn't new. It's been around since mid-1990s, and it's proven right from the beginning that it provides much better rendition of recorded pictures than a videotape would, be it VHS or Sony's Betamax.

The high-definition carriers, at first blush, look just like any other DVD, except they're recorded using different formats. Without going into much detail, the high-definition's rendition is more precise, ergo, better. And there are differences even between individual high-definition technologies, based on their resolution. Not visible to the naked eye, but if you're unsure about which one to buy, just compare them in a store, and you will see that you won't see that much of a difference. There is now a battle royal going on between two technologies – Blu-Ray and HD – and who knows who's going to win, but smart DVD player builders construct their machines so each can take either of the two technologies.

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