NEC demonstrated their HD-DVD recording proposal for high-definition video. Visitors had the chance to see the new external drive playing a HD video connected to a plasma screen. It is most probable that the HD-DVD will use Microsoft's WMV9 encoder for high quality video. The main difference between HD-DVD and its competitor, Blu-Ray, is the different modulation codes and the codecs that will be used for video (MPEG-2 for Blu-Ray). Although the specifications have not been finalized, the drives are expected on the market in 1-2 years from now, at an estimated price of US $3,000 - 4,000. The IDE version illustrated in the picture below will be bundled with burning software as in the case of the red-laser DVD burners. Ahead's Nero is one of the candidate packages, without however final decisions having been made yet.

In addition, the company showcased the upcoming ND-2510 ATAPI DVD burner. The drive uses an NEC chipset and supports DVD+R9 recording at 2.4x. The ND-2510A will be available by May/June 2004, so it will probably be the first dual layer burner on the market.