BuzzWords
Blu Ray is a next generation optical media format developed by the Blu ray disc association, a group of leading consumer electronics and technology companies such as Apple, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony, TDK to name, but a few.
The format was developed for high definition video, as well as storing large amounts of data. A single layer Blu ray disc can hold 25gb of data, which is the equivalent to over 2 hours of high definition television or more than 13 hours of standard definition television. There are also dual layer versions of Blu ray that can hold up to 50Gb of data.
While current optical media uses a red laser to read and write data, the new format uses a blue-violet laser instead. Despite the different type of lasers uses, Blu ray drives can be made backwards compatible.
The benefit of using a blue laser is that blue light has a shorter wavelength so that it can be focused on a smaller target area than a red light laser. This allows data to be packed in more densely allowing more space for data in the same sized physical space.
Blu ray is called Blu ray because it uses a blue light laser to write data onto the disc.
Blu ray is expected to replace VCRs and DVD players and recorders over the coming years because Blu ray offers so much more capacity. Although it will take time for Blu ray technology to be come wide spread because the cost of DVD drives and media is so much cheaper than Blu ray at this time.
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Chuck Red Owns and maintains several websites including freeviewsite freeviewtvbox.co.uk and iPhone informationsite iphone-it.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chuck_Red |
High definition DVD, also known as HD-DVD (which actually stands for High Density DVD), is one of two competing high definition storage format – the other being Blu-ray.
The need for a new, high capacity storage format, has been primarily brought about by the rapid rise in popularity of HDTV in Japan and the US. HDTV has much higher bandwidth than either NTSC or regular DVD discs, so in order to record programs from HD-DVD higher capacity discs, of at least 30GB, are required.
High definition video is also being used increasingly to make Hollywood movies as it offers comparable quality to film at much less cost. Therefore, the studios plan to release future movies on one or both high definition formats.
HD-DVD was developed by Toshiba and NEC and has the support of the DVD Forum, along with a number of Hollywood studios. Currently those studios which have announced support for HD-DVD are; Universal Studios, Paramount Studios, Warner Bros., and New Line Cinema. It has a capacity of 15GB for single-sided discs and 30Gb for double-sided. It doesn’t need a caddy or cartridge and the cover layer is the same thickness as current DVD discs, 0.6mm. The numerical aperture of the optical pick-up head is also the same as DVD, 0.65mm.
Because of its similarities to current DVD, high definition DVD is cheaper to manufacture than Blu-ray, because it doesn’t need big changes in the production
line set-up. Both HD-DVD and Blu-ray have backward compatibility with existing DVDV discs. That is that current DVDs will play in HD-DVD player, although new high definition DVD won’t play in older DVD players.
High definition DVD currently supports a number of compression formats, including MPEG-2, VC1 (based on Microsoft’s Windows Media 9), and H.264 which is based on MPEG-4 and will be supported by the next version of Apple’s QuickTime software, which will be included with Mac OS X Tiger.
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Kenny Hemphill is the editor and publisher of The HDTV Tuner – a guide to the kit, the technology and the programming on HDTV. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kenny_Hemphill |
What are you watching?
This question is very important when we want to know if the extra cash we should pay for a higher resolution will really pay off in the end. Content resolution matters, because, even if you have the greatest HDTV on the market, you will get nothing more from a content that cannot simply perform better in terms of resolution and picture quality. This is where we need to talk about what native resolution and content resolution are all about.
Native resolution vs content resolution
It does matter what we feed our HDTV screen with. If the program we are watching has a resolution that matches our television resolution, than we will be fine. But how do 720p and 1080p (which are native resolutions) behave, when compared one against the other? The answer is quite simple. High quality content, like Blue Ray, will be seen on screens with 1080p resolution, in all its glory. With a 720p display, you will, too, be able to watch Blue Ray content, but you will only get 720p quality and nothing more. So, it is not a problem whether you can see the content displayed on the screen, but at which standards.
Another aspect is with low quality content. If you watch SDTV or EDTV (regular DVDs) on your HDTV, it won’t matter if the TV is 720p or 1080p because SDTV and EDTV will not be able to rise at the level of quality and detail the HDTV is able to provide. No matter how good the TV is, if you feed it with poor quality content it will not look great. Flat screen TV’s have the ability to resize the content according to their own native resolution, and we are not hindered to watch any content we want; but we will get only what we paid for. Which brings us to the next point of 720p vs 1080p guide regarding native resolutions: what’s the point of having a higher resolution?
Why 1080p is superior
While both 720p and 1080p represent standards in HDTV signals, 1080p is considered to be superior. Resolution is calculated, for a TV screen, as the number of pixels per inch; more pixels in one inch mean more quality for your picture shown on the screen. These numbers: 720 and 1080 represent the number of vertical lines on the screen. It is not hard to imagine why 1080p is more than 720p.
And this is not only a talk of numbers: as seen earlier, content resolution matters, and you will not be able to enjoy it to full quality, unless you have the HDTV screen to perform for it.
i versus p
The letter “p” that comes after the numbers describing the resolution stands for “progressive” and it represents a mode of building the picture onto the screen; “i” is another type, and it means “interlaced”. More important is the fact that these terms refer to the way the video source resolution is shown on the screen and not the native resolution. If you want to compare 1080p with 1080i, from a viewer’s point of view, you will be able to notice some differences. For instance, if you are a sports fan, you will get a better experience when you watch fast moving images from a game, with a 1080p display, while the 1080i display will show a little blur on the edges.
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Find out more When 720p vs 1080p native resolutions are compared, the discussion is far broader. If you are interested in getting more details on the subject, and especially if you want to see pictures of how the resolutions compare, check out the in-depth 720p vs 1080p guide on our site. Another important thing to know is that only small screens are 720p these days. Most if not all 50 inch HDTV models (or larger) are 1080p. Also, best HDTVs on the market generally incorporate newest and best technology. That means they are 1080p. So, if you want one of the best HDTV models out there, it will be 1080p. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jack_A_Smith |
Dolby Digital: These days, Dolby is a household name. The infamous “DD” symbol can be found on almost every piece of modern audio equipment out there. This includes gaming consoles, HDTVs, home theaters, both home and car stereos, cinemas, and personal computers.
It all started in 1949 when a man named Ray Dolby went to work for Ampex Corporation part-time while still in high school. He worked on an assortment of ventures in correlation with audio instrumentation. He continued to work for Ampex while attending college at Stanford University. During this period, he branched off to unite with a small team of Ampex engineers who were determined to invent the world’s first video tape recorder. Dolby centered in on the electronic aspects of the project. The team succeeded with their introduction of this new technology in 1956. Ampex then sold its first video tape recorder for $50,000.
Dolby graduated from Stanford in 1957 and was awarded the Marshall Fellowship at Cambridge University, England. He studied at Cambridge for 6 years, earning a Ph.D. in physics. In 1965, Ray Dolby started his own company, Dolby Laboratories, Inc. His first product from this new and innovative company was identified as Dolby A-type Enoise reduction. It significantly reduced the amount of background noise or hissing sounds found in professional tape recording without jeopardizing the original content of the material being recorded. This was the beginning of the many advances Dolby would make in the complex world of audio compression and expansion.
Ray Dolby developed an ingenious method of noise reduction by separating soft signals from loud ones, then simply not processing those loud signals. He then split up the spectrum into several bands to avoid clashing or pumping, therefore generating white noise. This method would become integrated in numerous aspects of society’s rapidly growing fascination with electronic entertainment. Early on, consumers weren’t satisfied with the ‘flat’ mono sound ordinary radios and cassette players emitted. Everyone wanted to hear music in stereo.
This new sound also found its way into movie theaters. Dolby sound made its debut in the original recording of Star Wars, and continues to revolutionize the audience’s experience even today. The sound is both more spectacular and more natural at the same time. Because of this technology, even video games are more realistic; the sounds are more powerful as they are not only heard, but also felt. The sound is so tangible it is as if fantasy has in fact become reality. More people are staying home instead of going to movie theaters since Dolby surround sound was introduced into the home theater system.
Recent advancements include Dolby 5.1, 6.1, 7.1, and 9.1 (that’s right, nine full-range channels), Dolby Digital Surround EX, Dolby SR, Dolby TrueHD, and countless others. It is obvious that Dolby is the reigning “King of Sound” and most likely will be for generations to come.
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Mitchell Medford is an author and product consultant for several consumer electronics manufacturers. Visit his website for more information on home theater, LCD TVs, and plasma televisions. |
HDMI means a simpler and higher-quality entertainment experience. It provides the highest possible uncompressed video and audio quality over a thin, easy-to-use cable with a simple, consumer-friendly connector. It’s also backwards compatible with DVI, requiring only a simple passive adapter or cable to connect between the two interfaces.
Most importantly, it adds support for up to 8 channels of full-resolution digital audio, all on a single cable. HDMI has the ability to transmit basic control codes from device to device, making the goal of system integration easier to achieve.
HDMI addresses the complexity issue by both reducing the cable count and easing the process of interconnecting the various devices that make up the typical home entertainment system. Instead of having to choose among RF, composite video, S-video and component video and optical digital audio or coax-based digital audio, everything can use a single HDMI connection. For example, in the case of a DVD Audio or SACD Audio capable DVD player, a single HDMI cable can replace up to 10 other connections (3 for analog component video, 1 for optical or coax digital audio and 6 for the 5.1 multichannel analog audio outputs).
Added to this is the ability to simultaneously achieve the best possible audio and video quality due to the uncompressed all digital signaling of HDMI.
The most recent version of HDMI, more than doubles the bandwidth of the signaling from 4.95 gigabits per second to 10.2 gigabits per second. This increase in bandwidth enables greater color depths, higher screen resolutions and faster refresh rates. It supports the new xvYCC color space, adds support for the Dolby ® TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio standards, provides a mini-connector for use with camcorders and digital still cameras, and supports the ability to automatically and accurately adjust the audio to maintain lipsync with the video image.
Quality:
Because HDMI is a digital interface, it provides the best quality video since there are no lossy analog to digital conversions that are required for analogue connections (such as component or S-video). The difference is especially noticeable at higher resolutions such as 1080p. Digital video will be sharper than component, and eliminates the softness and ghosting found with composite. Small, high contrast details such as text bring this difference out the most.
Ease-of-use:
HDMI combines video and multi-channel audio into a single cable, eliminating the cost, complexity, and confusion of multiple cables currently used in A/V systems. This is particularly beneficial when equipment is being upgraded or added.
Intelligence:
HDMI supports two-way communication between the video source (such as a DVD player) and the DTV, enabling new functionality such as automatic configuration and one-touch play. By using HDMI, devices automatically deliver the most effective format (e.g. 480p vs. 720p, 16:9 vs. 4:3) for the display that it is connected – eliminating the need for the consumer to scroll through all the format options guessing what will look best.
HD Content-Ready:
HDMI devices supporting HDCP (copy protection) will have access to premium HD content now and in the future.
The HDMI interface is now the entertainment industries connection of choice. Upgrading your entertainment system to use HDMI cables and connections wil enhance your viewing pleasure.
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Sam has over 30 years experience in manufacturing hi-tech cables. He is the lead technologist for HDMI Systems. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sam_Blacket |