Both HD DVD and Blu-ray use the H.264 video codec to store its high resolution video signals and to play back H.264 material you need a lot of power. To make sure the processor isn’t overwhelmed it could be nice with a graphics circuit that sport H.264 hardware decoding and this is something both ATI and NVIDIA offer with its latest graphics circuits. Now it seems that NVIDIA has gained the upper hand with the H.264 market as both of the first HD DVD and Blu-ray computers will use NVIDIA-based graphics with the PureVideo circuit for H.264 decoding. Toshiba has used a GeForce Go 7600 circuit with its Qosimo HD DVD laptop, which also comes with an HDMI output.
Sony recently eaked information about its portable series VAIO AR, which will be the first laptop on the market with Blu-ray support. Sony has chosen to use a GeForce Go 7600GT circuit to power the unit’s 17″ display and at the same time help with the H.264 decoding. ATI will most likely appear in with HD DVD and Blu-ray computers in the future, but so far NVIDIA is the only one..
