Are HD DVD players backwards compatible with DVD?
HD DVD discs are not playable in current DVD players; however, existing DVD media is playable on HD DVD drives that have been specifically manufactured to have backwards compatibility with DVDs. • What are the technical differences between DVD and HD DVD? DVD/HD DVD Format Comparison Chart ParametersDVDHD DVD Capacity per layer (GB)4.715 Number of layers1 or 21 or 2 Number of sides1 or 21 or 2 Substrate + cover layer (mm)0.6 + 0.60.6 + 0.6 Laser wavelength (nm)650405 Numerical aperture0.600.65 CartridgeNoNo Hard coating neededNoNo Complexity to read DVD-None Data transfer rate11.08Mbps36Mbps Video CompressionMPEG-2MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, SMPTE VC-1 *Recording Time (HDTV)Single-Layer-1 hour 40 min. Dual-Layer-3 hours 20 min. * All record times based on 19.4Mbps United States ATSC Broadcast Rate and MPEG-2 encoding. • Is HD DVD the same as Blu-ray Disc? No. Blu-ray Disc is the name of a competing next-generation optical disc format developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA). The format
