Digital Home Thoughts: Coming Soon (?): Triple Layer HD DVD and New Combo Discs. But Who Cares?

"We haven't yet seen any official confirmation of the news, but it's been reported that the 51GB triple-layer single-sided HD DVD Toshiba first announced at CES has been approved by the DVD Forum. (The last we heard about this, the new format had been submitted for approval.) Of course, this might mean consumers will need new players to read 51GB HD DVDs, which could potentially damage the format more than help it; the last thing either HD DVD or Blu-ray need right now is to fork hardware compatibility with their own embattled formats, so we'll hope what we've heard about 2nd and 3rd gen HD DVD players being able to read 51GB discs via firmware upgrade is true. Also up to bat: the "twin" dual-layer DVD / HD DVD combo-disc was also approved, with one 5GB DVD layer and two 17GB HD DVD layers."



We'll have to see if these rumors pan out, but I still have to ask: why? VC-1 encoding is good enough to fit a full length movie and HD audio and HD extras onto a standard dual-layer HD DVD disc; which begs the question: why the need for more room? I don't watch most of the extras as it is. As for twin dual-layer combo discs, I don't think it will help sell more HD DVDs. Consumers who have a regular DVD player will look at the two versions side by side, and buy the DVD copy, because it's half the price. Those who have HD DVD players aren't going to care if there's a DVD version on the disc. Not to mention the fact that you're going to lose most of the extras (and possibly part of the main movie) with just one 5GB DVD layer. So what's the point? I'm a fan of HD DVD, don't misunderstand, but both of these developments seem pretty meaningless.