Some HD DVD News from the DVD Forum Seminar 2006

The DVD Forum Seminar 2006 was held in Tokyo, Japan on July 5. The focus of the seminar was mainly on the HD DVD format. Summarily, the following points were mentioned:

• Regional coding is expected to be implemented for the HD DVD format but details are still under development.
• All HD DVD discs and playback hardware released to date are governed by the AACS interim license issued back in February. The formal AACS license, which will include Managed Copy (MC), Digital Only Token (DOT) and Audio Watermark, is expected to kick in this November. Also, the HD DVD products based on the interim license will be compatible with products based on the AACS final license, with possibly the exception of MC and DOT.
• Regarding the analog output: After 2010, only Standard Definition (specifically interlaced signals or 480i) is allowed through the analog outputs. Come 2013 onwards, all use of analog video outputs are expected to be totally banned/scrapped.
• HDCP will be used to protect HD DVD content during transmission via various medium (IP, IEEE1394, etc.)
• Also mentioned is the capacity of HD DVD discs - Warner's film library was used as a case in example, it is mentioned that films less than 120 minutes running length make up 70% of Warner's film library and being 120 minutes meant that they are able to fit on single-layer 15GB HD DVD discs without cramming it up.

Blogger's Note: My friend and I had tried getting the information (originally in Japanese) translated and summarised as accurately as possible before posting it here. Because of this, we cannot be sure that the translated content is totally true to its source word for word. However, if you want full concrete information regarding the information presented here, you can check out the source article (in Japanese) here.