Posted by George on 12/22/54 11:26

Dr Hfuhruhurr wrote:
>
> George wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I know that BluRay and other new formats are on the horizon, but are
> > there any current or pending) regular DVD machines that can record hdtv
> > at the higher resolution, say 720p or 1080i? I don't mean s-video. There
> > probably aren't any standards for it; but since many DVD units already
> > have component outputs, why can't the mfgr just add some component
> > inputs and record hdtv (with some enhanced electronics I presume)? I
> > believe some cable TV systems already have done this using HDs, but why
> > not with DVD recorders? I know you won't find pre-recorded hdtv DVDs but
> > you would have over the air programs to record, which in many cases are
> > pretty good.
> >
> > George
>
> The Bluray media (25gb) can only cope with 2Hrs at HDTV quality. a 4.6
> Gb DVD would (if it were capable) only get about 22 mins on it. Therein
> lies the problem
>
> Doc

Blu-ray.com quotes "over two hours" of HDTV and "over 13 hours of SDTV"
on the 25 GB bluray media. This is in agreement with what you said.
However they did not mention what type of HDTV, 720p or 1080i. My guess
is they are referring to 1080i. If so, then 720p would require less
media space. Now, concerning the 13 hours of SDTV mentioned, just
increasing the number of lines from 480 to 720 would only cut the time
from 13 hours to, say, 8.5 hours. Seems to me, that with a proper codec
you could increase the horizontal bits to gain near HDTV quality and
possibly record a 2 hour movie. So it seems likely that "psudeo" 720p
HDTV would be possible and would be much better than SDTV. But a
possible "gotcha" may be the limited data rate of DVDs. Not nearly as
fast as bluray.

And, of course, bluray is sitting in the wings and perhaps no one wants
to take a chance right now. But the bluray recorders are currently well
above $1500 may not drop for a while... and there may me a shoot-out
with competing technology. So someone may be missing an opportunity.

George

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