VCDs and 3x DVD (red laser HD DVDs)

Laurence wrote on 8/14/2007, 9:24 PM
Seeing a recent post on the forum about VCDs made me think about a likely parallel between VCDs and 3x DVDs (HD DVD on regular DVDs)

In the past I worked out how to burn reasonable quality VCDs because the price of DVD-R media was so high. After a while the price of top quality blank DVD-Rs dropped to about 30 cents or so, and I kind of forgat about trying to save money that way.

This may well be a similar situation to what many of us are now facing. We are all worried about burning HD DVD format on regular DVD+-Rs because BD-Rs and HD DVDRs cost from 15 to 20 dollars a disc. In the long run however, the price of blank BD-Rs (and HD DVDRs if they are still around) may well drop to the point where it really won't be an issue anymore.

Of course, with BD-Rs being close to $20 a disc, a project or two will cover the price of an HD DVD player, even if you just use it for a couple of years.

Unlike VCDs, I find that HD DVD compatible 3x DVDs work quite well at full bandwidth, so there is one difference right off the bat, but for longer projects where you might want to drop the bitrate to extend the recording time, the comparison seems quite apt.

What do you guys think?

Comments

RBartlett wrote on 8/14/2007, 11:22 PM
Yes, 3X DVD, DVD 3X or DVD3 (all describe the same thing) is a poor-man's HiDef delivery format (currently just for HD-DVD players)

I'd liken the parallel more to SVCD, miniDVD (on a CDR) or cdDVD in that the support for this format may be elective rather than a given. It is too early to tell whether this capability is going to be generally available, or always available via a firmware upgrade for each and every player. It may be in the standards documents but it may have been late or it might not have been actively developed by enough manufacturers to count our chickens quite yet.

Same goes for whether there are MPEG-2, AVC and H.264/VC-1 modes available to the DVD3X format (in practice) and whether HD-DVD players will be more suitable as these things get thrashed out. Blu-Ray could offer support at some point with enough pressure. The Blu-Ray players certainly may adopt the same PS3 functionality of playing AVCHD DVDs and immediately UDF written MPEG-2 HDV files.

Hopefully the press reviews of set top players will put this capability high up in their ratings and conclusions. This may give it exactly the lease of life DVD3X needs to ensure that it does have a parallel with VCD.

So at the moment, I'd offer DVD 3X to folks that have equipment on _your_ player compatibility list. Perhaps even going to the extent of sourcing a player to put in and bill with the job. I do hope that it turns out that I'm being over cautious with what I've said.