DVD Forum approves 51GB HD DVD?

We haven't yet seen any official confirmation of the news, but it's been reported that the 51GB triple-layer single-sided HD DVD Toshiba first announced at CES has been approved by the DVD Forum. (The last we heard about this, the new format had been submitted for approval.) Of course, this might mean consumers will need new players to read 51GB HD DVDs, which could potentially damage the format more than help it; the last thing either HD DVD or Blu-ray need right now is to fork hardware compatibility with their own embattled formats, so we'll hope what we've heard about 2nd and 3rd gen HD DVD players being able to read 51GB discs via firmware upgrade is true. Also up to bat: the "twin" dual-layer DVD / HD DVD combo-disc was also approved, with one 5GB DVD layer and two 17GB HD DVD layers. We'll let you know when the DVD forum officially confirms (or denies) the news.

[Thanks, Ken]

Read - News of the new approvals
Read- AVS Forum thread

[Sam @ Sep 9th 2007 3:41PM]

they'd be onto a winner if this worked on hd dvd players already on the market?

wonder when we will find out if it does

[E71 @ Sep 9th 2007 5:33PM]

Aw... have they hit climax a little too soon? ;)

[Mike @ Sep 10th 2007 1:07AM]

According to avs posts it is compatible with all HD DVD players.

[Anatoliy @ Sep 9th 2007 3:43PM]

+1 for HD-DVD

Hopefully this will convince all the kids that HD-DVD isn't small ..

[SOCOMRAIDER @ Sep 9th 2007 4:14PM]

Just long enough until Blu-Ray comes out to top with with the *hey mine is bigger than yours*.

[ark_v2 @ Sep 9th 2007 4:58PM]

I don't see how is this +1 for HD DVD. Until it's taken to the industry we'll see if it's convenient; and remember, sony can still reply with the fact that the blu-ray had that capacity with just a dual-layer disc.

[Dave @ Sep 9th 2007 5:15PM]

@ark_v2--dual-layer Blu-Ray is usually only 45GB max due to manufacturing issues (pooling).

[Cash @ Sep 9th 2007 6:53PM]

I prefer HD-DVD for two reasons:

1) It's not a Sony Proprietary format. No offense to Sony fanboys, but have already been screwed over by Beta, MiniDisc, ATRAC, and most recently UMD, I am *done* with Sony's proprietary formats. Experience has proven time and again that superior specs do not a superior format make.

2) I like the idea of HD video taking up less space for the same reason Hollywood likes the idea of it taking up more space: smaller files are easier to convert into portable files or make backups of. I travel a lot and I don't like taking 200 bucks worth of my dvd's with me everytime I go somewhere. Instead of back them up to DVDR's that won't be missed if lost or stolen. If someone ever releases a PMP that's worth a damn and doesn't cost a grand, I'll burn them to Divx instead. Long story short, at this point HD-DVD's are a lot more user friendly to people who use video discs the way I do then BD's are, which is why the studios hate them so much. The ironic thing is that if doing it my way become too difficult or impossible, me and people like me are probably going to turn to the torrents instead. At least my way, the studios still make a profit. If you want to be a BD fanboy then go right ahead, just be aware of what sort of philosophy and business practice (and track record) you're putting your support into.

[Ignatius @ Sep 9th 2007 7:22PM]

If you want a good PMP that'll play DivX and XviD files, try the Cowon A2, it's about $290 at NewEgg... and they should be releasing an HD-friendly upgrade, the A3 this month. No real official word on price for that though.

[Staticneuron @ Sep 9th 2007 7:42PM]

Dave, thats not really true. Both hellboy and ghost rider shipped on full 50 gig discs.

Cash, Blu ray is not a proprietary format and did you actually use your formats and what happened to UMD's? My PSP still plays its games just fine.

[Jesse S @ Sep 9th 2007 8:37PM]

@Cash

What's the difference between an MS and Sony proprietary format?

And both use the same codecs, whereas HD DVD requires lossless audio, but blu-ray doesn't. That means HD DVD movies are actually bigger, most of the time. Both are very easy to rip, if you have the expensive drives/players.

Also, MiniDisc is still going strong in recording markets (like interviews, etc.).

Your arguments make no sense.

[DickHardknocks @ Sep 9th 2007 8:41PM]

HD DVD is going to LOSE THE FORMAT WAR.

Its obvious because major companies are abandoning the format like the plague.

Blockbuster video has claimed they are not going to carry any HD DVD disks and will only carry Blu Ray for example.

I think in 10 years we will all look back and recognize that Microsoft's refusal to add an HDDVD drive to the new XBOX360's is what sealed HDDVD's coffin. SONY's Blu Ray drive in the PS3 is part of the reason the PS3 will sell to those looking for an inexpensive BluRay player, and the reason Blu Ray discs are moving decently.

Let that be a lesson. DON'T SUPPORT A FORMAT YOU HAVE NO INTENTIONS OF ACTUALLY SUPPORTING.

[orAnge.Micro @ Sep 9th 2007 9:00PM]

@Cash
I'm in the same boat,except for the fact i'm worried a burned disc or a HDD rip will not be true 1080p. I mean I still haven't found a way to rip my DVD collection to HDD or burned discs without sacrificing some quality. I just wonder if it's even possible.

[Dave @ Sep 9th 2007 9:29PM]

"HD DVD is going to LOSE THE FORMAT WAR.

Its obvious because major companies are abandoning the format like the plague."

Uh...Paramount JUST went HD-DVD exclusive. Blockbuster's announcement was made prior to that switch. HD-DVD has more movies, they have the cost advantage, and now they have the capacity advantage. Oh, and they just lost their 2:1 software lead. It doesn't sound as though they're losing to me.

[Spiza @ Sep 10th 2007 12:10AM]

@Jesse S

HD DVD does not require lossless audio, but they require players to. You could technically get a HD DVD movie that has compressed audio that is not lossless. Blu-ray players do not have to be able to decode lossless audio codecs or raw audio. However, I believe most players do, but I'm not versed enough to know which ones or how many. The 50GB blu-ray discs are large enough to hold raw audio tracks which is the best you're going to get. However, they then waste space by requiring both a raw and nonlossless audio track on the disc.

A lot of people seem to confuse this, but I would think every movie that comes out in both HD DVD and blu-ray that is half way decent would have good audio tracks anymore.

[mfed3 @ Sep 10th 2007 3:15AM]

why do people support sony??? they dont care about you!

you realize Paramount / Dreamworks just went HD DVD exclusive. Now its just Sony and Disney left on the BD side. Disney just made some huge deals / cash with Microsoft, a HD DVD backer, on the Xbox Marketplace front, so I'm assuming their bribes from Sony will only last them so long.

BTW, to you foolish sony supporters, Blockbuster is owned by Viacom. That sounds familliar...oh yea, Viacom owns Paramount / Dreamworks.

stop supporting sony, go with the open format. sony is evil.

And MTV / Nickelodeon / BET / Comedy Central / Spike TV / VH1 / CMT / Harmonix / Xfire / GameTrailers...just to drop some names.

Viacom is partners with the HD DVD forum, as well as Microsoft, as you can see on the Xbox Live Marketplace. HD DVD isnt going anywhere fellas. Early electronics manufacturers dont mean squat in the format war. Sharp, Pioneer, and every other initial blu-ray supporter will go HD DVD just like LG and Samsung did.

[Cash @ Sep 10th 2007 7:17AM]

@Jesse S

HD DVD is not a proprietary format of Microsoft, nor does Microsoft have anything to do with it's design or implementation other then releasing an HD DVD external drive for their 360 as a BD drive is pretty much out of the question considering the obvious. Although Gates has shown a preference for one format over the other personally, as of this moment both types of drives work equally well in PC's running Windows, although that's not saying much seeing how neither function very well to begin with at the moment. While some of the codecs HD DVD uses can be traced back to Microsoft, the same could be said of BD as MS has helped develope several of the codecs that are found in current HiDef applications. That all being said, why would you even bring MS up? I wasn't even talking about proprietary formats in general, rather specifically speaking of Sony formats exclusively.

I am aware that *some* people still use MiniDiscs, just like *some* studios and stations still use Beta. No one would argue with the assertion that the majority of the market has long since moved on from both however, as digital tape and solid state memory equiped devices are smaller, have larger capacities, and are much more flexible then their predecessors. "Still going strong" doesn't mean much if it's only taking place in a select niche market. I prefer to listen to Sinatra on the original bakelite records my grandpa left me, that doesn't mean the format is still going strong. As a format, HD DVD is much more open and flexible then BD, which was my original point, and is why I support it over the other.

[Spiza @ Sep 10th 2007 7:55AM]

@Cash Blu-ray is not completely owned by sony. There is a blu-ray association similar to the DVD forum. Yes, sony came up with the physical portion of it just like Toshiba came up with physical media for HD DVD, but the software side is all governed by a board which includes Sony along with several other companies.

Blu-ray also still has Fox and Lionsgate supporting it exclusively along with warner and new line supporting both formats. All the paramount switch did was level the field of exclusivity, thus screwing consumers by extending the format war when it was nearing its end. Now a consumer like me will wait on both formats to see who wins since both formats are pretty good. Still prefer Blu-ray for size though, but then of course there is the story I'm commenting on negating that.

[Galley @ Sep 10th 2007 10:43AM]

Blu-ray Discs can support 200GB on 8 layers, theoretically.

[Eric Nichols @ Sep 9th 2007 3:59PM]

In my opinion there isnt enough time for another media format, downloadable/streaming content will end both format's life prematurely.

[tai @ Sep 9th 2007 4:34PM]

great point.

[zunq @ Sep 9th 2007 4:20PM]

And where is this downloadable/streaming content you speak of? I haven't even heard of it. I own a $200 Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD player and it beats having to wait for a download.

As for the 51GB HD-DVD it holds more content than you'll ever need, this disc space hype is played out like madness. Hot Fuzz on a 30GB(I presume) disc looks better than anything I've ever seen. If it does need new players then it won't be different from Blu-ray requiring new players for just for new features.

[Frederic @ Sep 9th 2007 4:42PM]

I wouldn't be too sure about that. There are still loads of countries that don't even provide proper broadband connections.

I for example live in Belgium, here we have 2 main broadband competitors. An adsl and a cable company. They both provide a 12GB download/uploadlimit for about 40€ a month. There is also one petite company that buys broadband of the adsl company but can only support a small number of clients to low down and upload speeds.

I can download 1Gigabyte an hour tops and after 75GB my connectionspeed is limited to mediumband, which is 1Mbps.

Do you see what I'm getting at? And this is not only the case in Belgium. The U.S. has loads of areas that only provide the same connection speeds as me, streaming hd media would be impossible to use for us.

[Kevin Curry @ Sep 9th 2007 5:06PM]

Yeah sure, not gonna happen most U.S. and for that matter international broadband companies cannot even properly keep up with bandwith usage for bittorrent and you expect them to provide HD quality IPTV any time soon? You must be out of your mind.

[TonyFereno @ Sep 9th 2007 6:25PM]

Online HD download stuff, forget it for another 2 to 3 years. CD, DVD, HD-DVD, Blue-Ray any type of spining disk laser based record player forget it, solid state is the way to go. Ye, right 2-3 years down the line, but mark my words they av all got it wrong.

[dj-kenpo @ Sep 9th 2007 11:08PM]

agreed, sorry you were low ranked.

I have a 100gb transfer limit per month dsl connection here in canada and my gf and I download all our movies that way. either itunes or torrents. I haven't bought psyical media other than blank disks for a few years now.
that's about 80 divx/xvid movies per month including upload bandwidth.

I could care less about hddvd/bd except for which I'll use for backups.

I just want to watch a movie, i don't care about deleted scenes (they were deleted for a reason) and I don't like waiting through the warnings, skipping previews, then a menu.

.. just play the damn movie..

different strokes for different folks

[John Doe @ Sep 10th 2007 12:31AM]

Yah right. Look at your average PC. Their screen is about a 17-24" screen. Do you really think they are going to want to sit and watch a movie on that.
I always enjoy people who claim online content is about to win. These are the clueless. Clueless in that until most TV's are natively hooked up to the net, have one hell of a fast net connection, can download content to their TV, can take those movies with them on their laptop or loan it out to someone, can download a HD movie in less then an hour, can store hundreds of movies locally (I own over 500 DVD's.) Until that all can happen, downloadable movie content everywhere is a nerd's pipe dream. Maybe in 2015 you MIGHT start to see this taking off but it all depends on how draconian the MPAA makes the DRM on this content. DRM is going to be one of the biggest hurtles beyond simply the hardware.
Oh and the Apple TV doesn't count for several reasons.
1. It doesn't have HD content.
2. You can't burn said content and loan it out or take it over to a friends house to watch.
3. Apple only hardware that connects to a TV. (Remember for the masses. HTPC's are not saturating the market.)

[Spiza @ Sep 10th 2007 3:04AM]

There are millions in America that can't get a broadband connection at their home yet. Give it 15 yrs before HD movie downloads exceed physical (either blu-ray/HD DVD/DVD).

[Racy @ Sep 9th 2007 4:23PM]

Interesting, but is it in time?

[Shodan @ Sep 9th 2007 4:26PM]

Also: it will cost more than your soul and your first newborn put together...

[zargon @ Sep 9th 2007 4:30PM]

The comment of "Of course, this might mean consumers will need new players to read 51GB HD DVDs" is just silly. The HD-DVD spec is finalized, this is just an added bonus. If it does not work with older players, they either will not release it or make sure the consumer knows. I am leaning toward options number one, since it doesn't matter anyways, 30 GB is enough of movies in HD. This is more of a shot at Blu-ray FUD and to prove it possible.

Unlike Blu-ray, which has a incomplete spec that they are unwilling to let the public know. A incomplete spec that will leave early adopters out in the cold starting Oct when spec 1.1, which includes features that HD-DVD has had from day one, will be manditory. Not to mention that Blu-ray even had spec 2.0 scheduled for release down the road.

However, the rumors are currently that 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation players are able to play these discs with a simple firmware update.

@Eric Nichols

HD-DVD or Blu-ray does not have to worry about downloadable content any time soon. Downloaded able content, if it ever hits mainstream, is a ways off. I know I will never take downloadable content over physical media, I want the media and not have to worry about storing it on a hard drive that could fail or I could run out of space. Nevermind the fact that most people, let alone ISP's and the people serving the content, have the bandwidth needed for ~30GB per movie whether it is downloaded or streamed.

[geezer @ Sep 9th 2007 4:55PM]

>>Of course, this might mean consumers will need new players

As an early adopter, it's always nice to be screwed in the *** by the companies...

[Dave @ Sep 9th 2007 4:56PM]

The rumor is, you have nothing to worry about.

[sshah87 @ Sep 9th 2007 4:58PM]

In response to people saying that 30GB is more than enough for an HD movie: I don't really think anyone is saying that 30GB is insufficient for a movie, it's more because these formats will also be used for storage/archiving, where space is everything. It also helps to have an extra 20GB when you want HD special features on top of the 2 hour movie on one disc. If HD-DVD can get these 51GB discs out soon, it would be great, but for now it seems that blu-ray has the upper hand in both support AND storage space. Personally, I don't want to get 'betamaxed', so I'll just sit on the sidelines until there's a clear winner

[Jonathan Worrel @ Sep 9th 2007 5:05PM]

okay so a double layered blu-ray is 50gb....and now the dvd forum wants a triple layered hd-dvd at 51gb. isnt that pathetic?

The DVD Forum is an ASS. Besides, they won't get away with triple layering anything. It's all down do the encryption on this format war, and Blu-ray has the advantage with BD+

[sshah87 @ Sep 9th 2007 5:11PM]

I tend to disagree. I honestly believe that if BD+ is implemented while HD-DVD is around, BD will lose the format war by a longshot. People don't like having their fair use rights restricted. The studios might like copy protection, but they need to realize that it doesn't really stop serious pirates from copying the movies, and can cause problems for law-abiding movie lovers.

[SteveMB @ Sep 9th 2007 5:11PM]

Why the hell would you even need more than 50GB? I don't think you even need more than 30GB...

[dj-kenpo @ Sep 9th 2007 5:35PM]

you're right steve no one needs more than 640kb.

[E71 @ Sep 9th 2007 5:46PM]

SteveMB, it's scum like you who end up holding technology back. Wanting smaller leaps than big ones. They should round you HD-DVD freaks up and drop you all off on an isolated island.

[Patrick @ Sep 9th 2007 6:17PM]

E71, it's scum like you who annoy everyone around you. Blindly following a format and constantly putting down another. They should round you Format Fanboys up and drop you all off in an isolated volcano.

[E71 @ Sep 9th 2007 8:07PM]

Patrick, go back to your CRT screen and NES you technophobe. You obviously don't belong around here since this site is dedicated to advancements in technology -- you just like to stand in one place for the rest of your life, you fruit bag.

[Patrick @ Sep 9th 2007 9:30PM]

Fine with me, Duck Hunt and Super Mario 3 are still just as good as they were 20 years ago.

[Dave @ Sep 9th 2007 5:18PM]

I think 30GB is sufficient. The only thing 51GB buys HD-DVD is an end to one of the "advantages" Blu-Ray supporters go on about--despite the fact that the majority of Blu-Ray discs are single-layer...which usually puts them at around 22GB.

[Jack @ Sep 9th 2007 5:37PM]

Why cant MAN be content with what he has? like a simple DVD and "curve" screen tv ?

The industry can keep their High Defenition with them and release it when there IS ACTUALLY a "demand" in the market. otherwise this hype is jus like "upgrade you dog to a wolf pls"

[Fruition @ Sep 9th 2007 5:37PM]

What is wrong with you people who think [insert value here] GB is enough? Yeah, for movies, but have you heard of television shows? Yeah, they have those on DVD now, and I don't know about you, but if they could fit an entire season of House on a single disc, that format would have my vote.

It is so annoying when I've got a House marathon going on and I have to get out of my comfortable chair to change the DVD.

[Jack @ Sep 9th 2007 5:40PM]

you have a problem named "laziness"

[Fruition @ Sep 9th 2007 5:44PM]

Catering to laziness has been the driving force behind some of the greatest technology in human history.

[E71 @ Sep 9th 2007 5:48PM]

Excuse me for wanting to have everything on one manageable disc instead of 10 or more DVDs.

[Fruition @ Sep 9th 2007 5:51PM]

Thank you.

[Staticneuron @ Sep 9th 2007 6:13PM]

People here aren't understanding why the HD-DVD camp is making this announcement and it is even funnier people are trying to say 30 gigs is enough. What exactly are you people basing this on.

The true issue is about bitrate. To push more you would need a bigger size, what everyone is close to thinking is that this might be enough for HD-DVD. But it might not be for blu ray.

In terms of video and audio

Blu ray bitrate max: 48.0 Mbit/s HD DVD bitrate max: 30.24 Mbit/s

In terms of video alone

Blu ray bitrate max: 40.0 Mbit/s HD DVD bitrate max: 29.4 Mbit/s

Alot of the Blu ray discs are 25 gigs (single layer) because of the masters were made that way. For every film that comes out on both formats do you think there is a separate master?

The majority of fud I constantly see is that from the HD DVD supporters ( not saying the BR camp doesn't have thier fair share). From security and peoples rights , both formats have the same security and BD+ isn't implemented yet. To how much space is actually "needed". To sales and support from DVD forum.

Here is some information for you. The reason Hd dvd is being backed by dvd forum and not blu ray is because blu ray was not submitted to the forum. Yet 8 out of 10 founders of the DVDforum are on the BDA and I'll let you guess how many of the 180 additional companies that support BR are also apart of the 220 members of the forum.

Last and not least. Bragging about the sales of hardware means nothing. It is the sales of the medium that is important. If HD-DVD was still outselling BR I would have invested in an HD-DVD player. But due to support from commpany and fans, this really is starting to look like BR is going to be a winner in the long run.