Toshiba, NEC and HD DVD Technology
When talking about HD DVD, one cannot avoid including NEC and Toshiba in the conversation. Many wonder what the significance of NEC and Toshiba have with HD DVD, and if you happen to be such one of these persons, read on and find out just what NEC and Toshiba have to do HD DVD.
HD DVD stands to be the successor to the DVD format, the popular de facto standard when talking about the distribution of movies. HD DVD is basically the result of the joint development of two major players in the field of consumer electronics development and manufacturing, namely NEC and Toshiba. The DVD Forum, the original developers of the DVD standard, recognizes the efforts of NEC and Toshiba, voting for the support of HD DVD as the next generation of DVD formats.
HD DVD formats stand to outperform the DVD format, in the sense that HD DVD boasts to have more data storage potential over DVD. Standard DVD discs have data storage capacities of up to 4.8 gigabytes, with dual layer DVD discs capable of supporting up to 8.5 gigabytes of data. With HD DVD, storing 15 gigabytes of data comes naturally, with dual-layer HD DVD discs capable of storing up to 30 gigabytes of data. This impressive data storage capacity boasted by HD DVD, coupled with the practical application and utilization of advanced video and audio codec systems, make HD DVD the perfect medium for the distribution of high definition movies, with picture qualities besting even the best of HDTV broadcasts.
HD DVD formats could easily support video resolutions of up to 1920 x1080 pixels. DVD formats are known to support resolutions of up to 720 x 480 pixels, which is quite small in comparison with HD DVD formats. The sound support on HD DVD is also quite complementary to the eye popping clarity of HD DVD, supporting surround sound setups of up to 7.1 surround sound channel setups. PC support is also one of the many nifty features with HD DVD, truly making it the perfect successor to the DVD format.
Toshiba is known to have made the first HD DVD player in the world, the Toshiba HD A1. The Toshiba HD A1, as an HD DVD media player, stands to truly bring HD DVDs to life, and stands to come with backwards compatibility, meaning it could easily handle regular DVD discs, as well as CDs, with no problems.
So there you have it. The reason why, when talking about HD DVD, NEC and Toshiba are often mentioned.
