Wonder how 4K would have been handled if HD DVD won the format war?

[conway]

I still am an owner of plenty HD DVD movies. The majority have lossy Audio and low bitrate Mpeg 4 HD.. 12 to 15 Mbps. So I wonder how HD DVD would have handled HEVC and ultra HD 4k?

[kris26]

Conway...I assume if the HDDVD survived...and they use HEVC,and it would be same size that wis a big blow on ultrabluray face 100gb discs and more.

[LexInHD]

Well, they would likely used quad-layer 60GB discs with HEVC, if they could get the disc replication yield worked out and didn't have to use expensive new machines or replication upgrades like Blu-Ray required. Toshiba was working on triple-layer 45GB discs when the format tanked and that probably would have barely been acceptable for UHD content, with no real extras, as BD-50 and BD-66 were included in the UHD-BD spec in order to utilize the available replication hardware and you'd obviously want the higher-capacity for quality, so long as the yields were acceptable.

[conway]

I see. didn't realize they were working on larger discs at the time. The ones that I have are 15gb standard and 30gb dual layer discs. I can tell you I have a few HD DVD discs that just quit working all together or skip very badly. I'm glad blu ray won the war! Blu Ray discs hold up much better as far as scratches. Wonder if HD DVD discs could have worked with a hard coating on them. We will never know......

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by LexInHD

Well, they would likely used quad-layer 60GB discs with HEVC, if they could get the disc replication yield worked out and didn't have to use expensive new machines or replication upgrades like Blu-Ray required. Toshiba was working on triple-layer 45GB discs when the format tanked and that probably would have barely been acceptable for UHD content, with no real extras, as BD-50 and BD-66 were included in the UHD-BD spec in order to utilize the available replication hardware and you'd obviously want the higher-capacity for quality, so long as the yields were acceptable.

Blu-ray was also working on 3 and 4 layer discs as well at that time.