You'll probably agree that anything which already exists inthe world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part ofthe way things are. And anything that happens to be invented between when you'refifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you canprobably get a career in it. But anything invented after you're thirty-five isjust plain wrong and against the natural order of things!

That was definitely the case a few years ago, at least, itcertainly was when Douglas Adams was still around to discuss the matter. Butthings are changing now, and people of all ages are embracing the digital age ata rate of knots (clicks?).

High Definition: buzzword of the 21st Century

HD - it's a buzzwordthat's been around for a good few years, but it's only now beginningto infiltrate the homes of real people. That's 'real people' as opposed togeeky technology journalists like me, obsessive Sony fanboy-types and also,well, weird people.

So what does it all mean? What's the difference betweenBlu-ray and HD DVD? What's the difference between DVDs and HD DVDs and Blu-raydiscs? What's the difference between HDTVs and HD TV? What does 1080p mean? Whatexactly does 'HD Ready' mean? What's the difference between LCD TVs and PlasmaTVs? What is the meaning of life?

While you may or may not be aware that the meaning of lifeis actually '42', it is in fact likely that there is at least one questionabove that you don't know the answer to. And that's what this blog willhopefully resolve. Here's a quick HD fact file for you to point your eyeballsat:

Blu-ray, HD DVD andDVDs:

Whilst occupying the same amount of physical space as anormal DVD or CD, HD discs contain a lot more data. That's because the dataclusters on the disc are so much more compact. To read these smaller clusters,you need a player which uses a laser with a very short wavelength; the redlasers in DVD players are not suitable for this. So the HD DVD and Blu-ray playersuse blue-violet lasers, which have extremely short wavelengths and are thusable to pick out the very small and precise data from the HD discs.

The resulting extra capacity is used to store movies at muchhigher resolutions, and that's called high definition.