While many people are blaming Universal and their HD DVD/DVD combo format for the latest round of playback problems, the issue may actually be a result of the verification process. According to jimby_99 of the AVS Forum, there is no way to burn and check a disc in various players. To make matters worse, the verification software Toshiba provides does not always catch all of the bugs in the authoring before a disc is replicated.
There are two problems with making titles for HD-DVD that Blu-ray doesn't have:
1. It's not possible to make a full HD-DVD burn yet to check the entire title; you have to preview the title on an emulator, which does NOT give you the ability to QC in various players. This is a huge disadvantage compared to Blu-ray, where you can make a Blu-ray burn and run it in specially modified production players.
Without the ability to burn check discs, there is virtually no way to do proper QC...
2. The verifier software that Toshiba is responsible for is (in my opinion) not currently up to the task. For those who don't know what verifier software is...this is the software that is run when the title is received at the manufacturing plant to verify that the authoring is "legal" and to the specification. It's meant to catch specification-related bugs in the authoring BEFORE the disc is replicated.
If you're wondering, jimby_99 was the production supervisor for "Nine Inch Nails: Beside You in Time" which was recently released on both Blu-ray and HD DVD. If you'd like to read more, head on over to the AVS Forum.
