And now, the HD (high definition) DVD for your HD-TV
The new high definition DVD or HD-DVD for your HD-TV is now here (one in ten new TVs sold or a total of 2.5M TVs is one of these) thanks to Sony according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required). A DVD doesn't have enough capacity to hold all the digital data required for a high definition versiono f the typical movie but an HD-DVD can...and is only priced at $3,800, a price that is sure to fall just like the prices for DVD players fell 95% in five years.
For one thing, current DVDs aren't really high definition. The technical details of why that's so involve a blur of numbers. For starters, DVDs have 480 horizontal lines on the screen, while HD-TV systems have as many as 1,080 lines.
Think of it this way. If traditional TV has the general quality of a newspaper picture, then a DVD image is like a color photograph in Time or Newsweek. Real high definition, though, is akin to a well-produced coffee-table book full of rich colors in exquisite detail.