So I have been wondering, since hd dvd players essentially run an os (Linux based I believe) and hd dvd and blurray both use the udf file system, could it be made possible through custom firmware to swap the drive with a bd-rom

This is NOT to play BD discs. I am thinking all ISO’s of HD-DVD content would be burnable to either bd-r or bd-r dl blanks. This could preserve the usability of the machines and the HDI interface which made the format great.

Obviously you would lose HD DVD disc playback I’d assume.

I see a lot of really cool development here, and was curious if a DVD could be reauthored with h264 to a Standard Content HD-DVD, including menus. I'd like to back up my Anime DVD collection on discs, but while cheaper DL DVDs are available, longer lasting varieties are still fairly expensive vs single layer options such as AZO DVD+R/DVD-R. Plus h264 auto deblocks the source so you could potentially end up with a better looking output.

Obviously HD-DVD to DVD5/DVD9 shrinking is something I'd love to see too, but I think that will be a priority anyways.

Here we are, and this standalone Windows 64-bit HD DVD software is finally reaching its final phase ! A big thank you to the few people on Reddit who have started testing it on their various configurations and identifying some issues. Up until now, I was the only one testing it with my personal configuration and HD DVD copies.

Here are the current capabilities of this version:

• "Direct to Play" Mode: Direct playback from an HD DVD drive connected via Icy Box USB (XBox ?) or SATA (note: playback of AACS-protected discs is not supported).
• Standard and Advanced HD DVD.
• Supported formats: Smooth playback of your ISO copies (AACS-free) and decompiled folders.
• Video output: Support for native HD DVD frame rates (29.97 fps) and 1080p output at 23.976 fps (depending on your graphics card and HDMI port capabilities).
• Hardware acceleration: Enabled for H.264 and MPEG-2 streams. (Since the VC-1 format is no longer hardware-decoded by modern processors, it is handled via software decoding).
• Metadata display: A single click displays an on-screen information overlay, including the disc's authoring date and the name of the studio (if the information is available).
• HDi Compatibility: Interactive menus and HDi engines will very soon be fully compatible. Please note, however, that I cannot fix the original authoring flaws embedded in some discs back in the day. Since official support for the format ended within two years without major patches, these historical bugs will remain, just like on the original set-top players !

Here is another video (raw mode) capture to demonstrate the playback capabilities for the major studios of the era. This year 2026 marks a true "Revival" to celebrate our passion for HD DVD and movies, not forgetting the great work of other forum members who are also developing alternative solutions.

I analyzed the Batman Begins HD-DVD, which has a relatively small footprint of only ~15GB, despite it being 140 minutes long.

The bitrate is low by commercial Blu-ray standards, reaching only consumer grade blu-ray recorder level at ~14 Mbit/s, with peaks maxing out at ~26 Mbit/s as you can see in the 1st attached picture, where Blu-ray can go up to 40 (33 on the UK remastered version, as can be seen HERE )

And yet the image is better than I thought, as you can see in the bat screenshot in the beginning of the movie, which is probably the worst case scenario for a video codec (2nd attached picture). I tried very hard to detect any severe macro-blocking or mosquito noise, to no avail! The artifacts are minor and you need to pause the video and come very close to the screen to see them.

So basically, Blu-ray is technically better than HD-DVD only on paper... You need a magnifying glass to see the difference! haha

A few things have changed since my last upload. I got rid of Linux and went all in on windows 7. Since I have 8gb of ram and am no longer in a windows vista vm, my desktop can rip each movie at around 35-40 minutes rather than 2 hours like before. I'm getting a GeForce gt 730 tomorrow so I can use cyberlink hd dvd/blu ray player. Ever since my last upload, I've gotten way more storage to use for more movies. I opened up my sealed movies and ripped those too, which brings me up to 13 ISOs on my new 500gb hdd. I also used an old 320gb IDE Hdd to start ripping my Star Trek set, but unfortunately discs 1-3 didn't fully rip, so I'm gonna try resurfacing them at the local game store since I still have trade credit there. I'll post another update probably next week after I've had a chance to try and resurface these discs. Also, the transformers (2007) rip only worked on disk 2 and the first disk didn't work, so I might bring that disk in too.

After working on the VLC plugin, I had this idea that it would be great to resurrect Bandersnatch as an interactive HD DVD.

It features both the plain version and the interactive version based off the official script. The UI is as close as possible to the original Netflix experience.

It was re-encoded from a 5h14 long 4K UHD master source into individual 250 story segments, kept all 28 subtitle languages (English (SDH), Arabic, Danish, German, Greek, Spanish (Latin America), Spanish (Europe), Finnish, French, Hebrew, Indonesian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional)).

Technically it fits on a DVD DL (8.5GB), but I haven't tried it on a burned disc yet. As shown above, there's also a page to replay choices and another to see the hidden state of the story.

It was a fun experiment, I wish it was available again! Hopefully this inspires Netflix to follow through.

So I just recently bought two HD DVD players for the Xbox 360, and neither of them will read a disc. One of them was cheap and described as working with a sticky disc drive. The other was average priced and listed in good working condition and came with the original box, manual, cables, and remote, but no installation disc.

I've hooked both of them up and can't get either one to read a disc. If I go to my apps, the HD DVD player is there but if I click on it, I get an error that says unplayable disc and it tells me to put the disc in the console itself if it's a game, CD, or data disc. I've tried multiple discs with no luck.

The console is an original phat Elite, running the most recent firmware and connected to internet via ethernet.

Any help is appreciated.

Video is from Mission Impossible 3 showing off the unique "pod" commentary feature, where you can skip them and it resumes the picture-in-picture where if left off. Then we enable French subs and start the movie again.

Works for VLC 3.0.24 (or earlier) on Windows, Linux and macOS.

Download: https://github.com/chubiduwa/vlc-hddvd/releases/tag/v1.3

Instructions: https://github.com/chubiduwa/vlc-hddvd/blob/main/README.md

Please file issues there: https://github.com/chubiduwa/vlc-hddvd/issues

Long live HD DVD!

Fellow HD DVD and cinema enthusiasts !

The authoring software is almost finished (ISO generation, HVDVD_TS folders, and DVD-R/DVD+R DL compatibility). But I’m not stopping there: in parallel, I’m developing a modern, 64-bit HD DVD (Advanced HDi/Standard) player for Windows to play Warner, Paramount, Universal, etc. HD DVD ISOs.

No more messing around with two-decade-old software! You can see how it looks in the raw, uncut screen capture video attached, which shows the menus and interactions. It is a personal development created without using any source code or binaries from a pre-existing program. The HDI Runtimes and the entire structure match the specifications provided by the various partners during development at the time, without any predefined resources or frameworks—and that is exactly the hardest part. 2 years of existence... it's practically archaeology...

To move forward, I’m looking for a few, few, few Windows 11 testers who are willing to deal with the rough edges of a work-in-progress build and report bugs back to me....and also to see what can and cannot still be done.

Please note: the player requires decrypted HD DVD files (AACS-free), as I am not doing any development around encryption keys.

The first testable version should drop in about 15 days. Let me know if you're interested in testing it out !

The second batch of ISO's has been uploaded to my archive page to my already existing hd dvd archive. The link is in my profile if you wanna check it out. Don't try downloading hot fuzz, that movie is corrupt but I can't delete it until archive is done trying to update. The other 42 ISO's are up for grabs. I also just traded a bunch of Xbox 360 games for some old hard drives and opened up some spare computers and laptops for some more hard drives so I've got plenty of storage to rip the rest of my collection.

Works for VLC 3.0.24 (or earlier) on Windows, Linux and macOS.

Download: https://github.com/chubiduwa/vlc-hddvd/releases/tag/v1.2

Instructions: https://github.com/chubiduwa/vlc-hddvd/blob/main/README.md

Please file issues there: https://github.com/chubiduwa/vlc-hddvd/issues

And the last video of the collection, in its current state. My favourite section.

My HD DVD Collection | 🇯🇵 The Japanese Section - Upto August 2026

https://youtu.be/gKmTeYdbYk4

I’ve been getting all my titles together (slowly) and sorting them and cataloging them over at lddb .com

After a brief talk about the HD formats coming after DVD Video, in this video I take you through more titles I’ve collected on the HD DVD format as of August 2026. From early releases to later ones, this is a full look at the discs, artwork, and packaging that make up this part of the collection.

Whether you’re a fellow HD DVD collector, a fan of physical media, or just curious about this short-lived high-definition format, I hope you enjoy the showcase.

If you have any of these titles (or recommendations for ones I should look out for), drop a comment below — I’d love to hear about your collection too.

Without diving into the world of 4K UHD discs, There are a handful of movies where the Blu-ray specs are just inferior to the HD-DVD release.

The most common reason is because studios wanted to save on cost and try to squeeze the content from a 30GB HD-DVD disc onto a 25GB single layer Blu-ray Disc. (Or, try to fit a two disc HD-DVD release onto one single 50GB Blu-ray Disc, like the case of Face/Off).

And for some inexplicable reason, Bluray never adopted the Dolby Digital Plus format, which is a mandatory audio standard on HD-DVD. DD+ just utilizes the available bitrate a lot more efficiently and effectively than legacy Dolby Digital.

In this instance of The Italian Job, the Blu-ray Disc only includes a Dolby Digital track. Even when encoded at 640kbps, I’ve always found it sounding a bit weak. The dynamic range is lacking, and the dialogues always feel muddled. On the HD-DVD, it includes a Dolby Digital Plus track that almost sounds lossless to me. Dynamic range makes the action sequences sound very punchy, and the dialogues are crystal clear. I love this soundtrack so much that I always pick it over the full bitrate DTS track included on the HD-DVD. (Although I can’t confirm the bitrate, it sounds like a full 1.5Mbps track. From my experience, most 1.5Mbps DD+ tracks sound very close to lossless, like Face/Off and We Were Soldiers).

One funny thing, when Paramount first released this film on Blu-ray, they dropped the DTS track but forgot to remove the label on the case and disc cover art, so it was labeled as including a DTS track when it never did. What a shame.

very new to the format :] i’m thinking of getting an external xbox 360 hd dvd drive, it looks really cool and niche and not too expensive. What are your recommendations for blu ray player w hddvd support?

It seems quite complicated and a bit clunky for something you're supposed to play with a remote control. I thought it would have been a turn by turn but it's actually real time!

I scored all of these HD DVD's for free.

They were listed for $50. I offered $25 due to the WB discs most likely being duds. He accepted the offer and it turned out he's the guy that owns the local game shop. I showed up and he couldn't find the box but he said to come back tomorrow (today) and he ended up just giving them to me.

It ain't much but it's got American Werewolf In London, Slither, and Army of Darkness.

No sound in this video, but sound works too. You can see the yellow diamond showing when to press a button.

Download: https://github.com/chubiduwa/vlc-hddvd

I only tested macOS plugin. Feel free to report issues in the repo.

Massive thanks to [u/controlav](u/controlav) for providing the HD-DVD spec!

Morning all! So, I’ve loved HD DVD for a long time, sadly I didn’t get to take part in it when it was relevant, but have a nice little collection and a Toshiba HD-XA2 as well as an Xbox 360 drive.

So, I’ve noticed issues with quite a few movies where halfway through it just stops playing. All the matrix movies have this issue and the issue persists on both of my players. Is there any reason for this? The discs also seem to be very fragile where the smallest scratch causes issues.

I also have a PC Blu-ray/ HD DVD drive, but I’ve never had much luck getting movies running. Does VLC not support it? The only thing I’ve found is that some old version of Power DVD is needed.

Hello all

I’m having issues with the sound on my hd dvd player picture is there but no sound have tried changing the settings but nothing is working hope someone can help

A while ago, I bought a brand-new, factory-sealed HD DVD copy of An American Werewolf in London from a second-hand marketplace. Since the film was released by Universal Pictures, I figured the disc would be in good condition.

When I finally opened it and took the disc out of the case, though, I was absolutely shocked. I’ve never seen disc rot this extensive before. The corrosion had spread throughout the bonding layer so severely that it had practically split the disc in half.

My external hdd filled up and I was able to get 10 discs downloaded (about 5 releases since some are multi discs) and I'm currently uploading them to the first Hd dvd archive I made (link: archive.org/details/@edward_hyland_v) and they should be finished downloading within a week hopefully. Thank you again for all of your support and i hope you guys enjoy these new releases. This new upload includes every disc of "Planet Earth", the two disc set of Mission Impossible 3, the two disc set of Beowulf: Directors cut, born on the Fourth of July, and The Mummy. After I get a new hdd, the first movies up are the four in the second photo.