These two formats are heralded as the successor to the current DVD technology. Blu-ray and HD-DVD have both been developed to enable recording, playback and rewriting of high definition video and data. The key to these technologies is the blue-violet laser that is used to write the data to the disc. This blue laser has a much shorter wavelength than the current red laser DVD system, which makes it possible to read and write smaller pits, as a result, these discs can hold up to 15 GB (HD-DVD Recordable Media) and 25 GB (Blu-ray Disks) of data on a single sided single layer 12cm disc. Panasonic Hd Dvd Recorder is one of the best availabe recorders out there.

This additional storage capacity will be essential when HDTV becomes mainstream, in order to allow storage of HD TV shows or movies on an optical disc in the same high quality. You can record about 13 hours of standard TV but only a bit more than 2 hours of uncompressed high definition TV on a 25GB disc.

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Danny
DVD News Editor
http://www.dvd-and-media.com