The Digital Fact Book - Quantel

HD DVDDesigned as the successor to the standard DVD format HD DVD can store about three timesas much data as its predecessor – 15 GB single layer, 30 GB dual layer. It is often called3x DVD as it has three times the bandwidth (1x@36Mb/s and 2x@72Mb/s) and storageof regular DVDs. It supports encoding technologies: VC-1, AVC H.264, and MPEG-2, but almostall the early titles are encoded with VC-1, and most others with AVC.For audio, mastering can be up to 7.1-channel surround sound. Linear PCM, DTS and allthe Dolby formats (Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD) are mandatory,meaning one of these can be used as the only soundtrack as every player has a decoderfor any of these. It also supports DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio.The reality is most early HD DVDs use 5.1 surround sound. HD DVD discs support audioencoding in up to 24-bit/192 kHz for two channels, or up to eight channels of up to24-bit/96 kHz encoding. To date, even new big-budget Hollywood films are masteredin only 24-bit/48 kHz, while 16-bit/48 kHz is common for ordinary films.HToshiba has shown a three-layer (45 GB) version at trade shows but this remains a labproject at present. The future for HD DVD is unclear as Blu-ray seems to have won theformat war.See also: DVD, Optical disksWebsite: www.dvdforum.orgHDMIThe High-Definition Multimedia Interface is a digital audio and video interface able to transmituncompressed streams. It is rapidly being adopted by both consumer and professionaldevices – from television sets, to set-top boxes, camcorders, game consoles and HD DVD/Blu-ray Disc players. It replaces a pile of analog connections such as SCART, compositevideo, as well as DVI, audio and more. There is the current Type A standard 19-pin connectoras well as a 29-pin Type B not yet in use. The early Version 1.1 specification supportsthe maximum pixel clock rate of 165 MHz, sufficient for1080/60P – beyond currentlyavailable television, and WUXGA (1920x1200) and 8-channel 192 kHz 24-bit audio as wellas compressed streams such as Dolby Digital. The current HDMI 1.3 offers 340 MHzcapability – beyond WQSXGA (3200 x 2048) giving it a high margin of future proofing.Type A HDMI is backward-compatible with the video on single-link DVI-D, and DVD-I(not DVI-A) so a DVI-D source can drive an HDMI monitor, or vice versa, via an adapter,but without audio and remote control.The data carried on HDMI is encrypted using High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection(HDCP) digital rights management technology – meaning that the receiving end needsto be able to decrypt HDCP. It is reported that all HDMI displays currently support HDCPand most DVI PC-style displays do not. In Europe the EICTA’s ‘HD-Ready’ logo signifiesa degree of future-proofing for HD.99