Hd , Blueray, x264?

Question

I have just bought a hd drive for my 360 and was wondering what the difference between hd ,blueray and x264 is. Can someone please explain because its winding me up. Cheers

Answer 1

That is one of the biggest  problems with technology, terminology. HD stands for high definition. You see the letters 'HD' in relation to TVs, cable, DVDs, and a few other areas. HD means something different in each of those areas. In relation to DVDs, HD can mean either better data density than a standard DVD, or it is part of the name of a specific format called HD-DVD. Another format available is called BLU-RAY. Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can be said to be High Definition formats. When people drop the second half of HD-DVD it gets more confusing since at this point in time the two formats are incompatable. When DVD drives first hit the market there were also two formats: DVD+R and DVD-R. Eventually they made drives that would do either format and today it is no longer a concern whether you use the +R format or the -R format. Unfortunately that is not the case with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, yet.

X 264 is the name of a codec. A codec is a program that compresses video or audio, or sometimes both so they take up less room on whatever medium you are using to store them on. Be that a hard drive, a DVD, cable, or on line streaming. DivX is another codec. See the Wikipedia page for more info.