BLu-Ray vs HD DVD

Current DVD uses a read laser which has a wavelength of 650 nm while both HD DVD and Blu-Ray use much shorter wavelengths - 405 nm. Data transfer rate for Blu-Ray are 36Mbps(x1), 72Mbps(x2) and 54Mbps (Video BD-ROM). HD-DVD data rate is 36.5Mbps (x1). Video compression for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD use the same format of MPEG2, MPEG-4 AVC and VC1.

The storage sizes for Blu-Ray are 23.3(1x)/46.6(2x) GB, 25.0/50.0 GB and 27/54 GB while HD-DVD is 15/30GB.

Toshiba HD-XA1 HD-DVD $469

Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray Disc Player $869

System Requirement

CPU:

Intel Pentium 3.2GHz min.

AMD Anthlon 64 x2 (2.2 GHz)

Memory:

512 MB minimum, 1GB recommended

DVD

Blu-Ray ot HD DVD

Graphics Card:

Nvidia GeForce: 7600 GT

ATI: X1600 series

Video Ram:

256 MB minimum

Display Device:

HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) compliant display with DVI, HDMI connectors for digital output

Operating System:

Window XP with SP2 installed