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HD DVD's 3X DVD introduced

In the ongoing format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, Blu-ray still holds the most studio support by far, but HD DVD is holding its affordable advantage. Now HD DVD is offering another way for consumers to move to high definition video called 3X DVD. Doug Carson & Associates (DCA), which produces DVD Mastering software, said that the first 3X DVD-ROM was officially mastered over the weekend.

3X DVD is like HD DVD on DVD discs; it uses actual red laser-based DVD discs, just with high definition content, UDF 2.5 file structure and AACS copy protection. Video content would be available at 720p in VC-1 or H.264/AVC to fit the maximum capacity that DVD discs offer while maintaining superb quality. Of course, 3X DVD's will not work with regular DVD players.

Movies and TV shows are sold in VC-1 at 720p on Microsoft's Xbox Live Video Marketplace, and are reportedly doing very well. Since 3X DVD uses the good old DVD format, it can be assumed it will cost much less than a regular HD DVD disc or Blu-ray disc for consumers.

A 3X DVD purchase might be adequate for example, with certain movies that wont particularly benefit from 1080p glory. The success of 3X DVD will probably depend on how much it costs and simply how good it looks. High definition content on DVD using newer, more advanced video codecs is interesting either way.