How to Tell if a Disc is Hi-Def (HD or Blu-ray)?

[Lemmy Caution]

Besides packaging or words printed on a disc, is there any way to eyeball a disc's information side, or other trick, to be able to ascertain if it really is a high-definition disc awaiting a blue laser?

For Dvd9's, the info side has a characteristic wavy line pattern when viewed under good light.
Another way to distinguish D9's from D5's is to load into a computer and check the data storage size.
I guess this last trick would work for high definition discs, but it perhaps you'd need a high-def dvd-rom player to check the data size. Or maybe not.

The reason I'm asking is that I live among the pirates of the East China Sea and both Blue-Ray and HD discs have begun appearing in the land. Obviously they are copying the high-def packaging, but I'm wondering whether these are standard or high def transfers. I've been assuming that they are taking high-def versions and putting them out in standard dvd format. [Would that be as easy to do as it is to write?] Since one "blue-ray" disc works fine in my ordinary dvdplayer, I suppose that must be true.

So, to circle back, I'm wondering how to verify if an ostensibly high-definition disc really is so.
Do the discs themselves appear different in any noticeable way from a standard Dvd5 or D9?

Easy enough to copy the packaging. Not a big issue for me, but I'm sure that fairly soon these phony "HD" and "BR" discs will start appearing on eBay and such. And most folks will accept what the packaging says, and assume they got a high-def experience. So far, I've seen roughly 2 dozen BR dupes and maybe 1/4 as many HD-Dvd's. With undoubtedly, more to come.
Caveat emptor.

[Lemmy Caution]

Is the one sure way is to load the disc on either an HD or BD player and see the info display that comes up? But maybe they've even played with the menus to fake that as well! VERY scary!

OT this subject at least but have you had any experience with the Chinese only HD system discs (if there are any?)

I vaguely recall hearing that China was planning its own HD format. No idea if that has or will come about. Sounds like something which will be quietly dropped.

Prices for pirated dvd's put substantial downward pressure on what legitimate dvd's can be sold for. So until China either ends piracy or high-definition becomes the de facto standard, I can't see how a Chinese hi-def format can compete.

And even then, China would have to force consumers to use their standard instead of BR or HD. Chinese consumers have been spoiled by very low-cost dvd's, while all players and TV's can play both PAL and NTSC, as well as pirated dvd's not being region-coded. So it would take some serious gov't effort to force consumers from having cheap universal dvd's to higher priced Chinese-only hi-definition dvd's.

I'd assume that Chinese would stick to their SD-Dvd's. And among the youth here, d/l-ing movies is quite popular as it's even cheaper and high-speed broadband is fairly cheap here.

[Luke M]

An entire High Definition film could not fit on a DVD. So if you got a blu-ray movie that works in your DVD player. It's not a blu-ray.

[Darth Lavender]

Actually, the legitimate HD-DVD release of "Chronos" is only 7.5 gigabytes (and mpg2 transfer, too. Only thing making it 'HD' is the 1080 transfer, and the sound options)

Ironically, though, it's actually a pretty impressive image, and my most used 'demo-disk' (perhaps a shade worse than Planet Earth or The Blue Planet, but still a great looking disk)

(To anyone thinking of getting it, though, I'd point out that it's been rereleased with a (reportedly) superior mp4 encoded transfer, on both Bluray & HDDVD)

[pro-bassoonist]

Besides packaging or words printed on a disc, is there any way to eyeball a disc's information side, or other trick, to be able to ascertain if it really is a high-definition disc awaiting a blue laser?

The protective coating on the BR disc should be more than obvious of a sign even if one has never seen a BR disc before. Unlike SDVD and HDDVD the surface of BR discs simply looks different: the coating is smooth, very dark, and glossy.

Pro-B

[Lemmy Caution]

Besides packaging or words printed on a disc, is there any way to eyeball a disc's information side, or other trick, to be able to ascertain if it really is a high-definition disc awaiting a blue laser?

The protective coating on the BR disc should be more than obvious of a sign even if one has never seen a BR disc before. Unlike SDVD and HDDVD the surface of BR discs simply looks different: the coating is smooth, very dark, and glossy.

Thanks.
If I get a chance to hold a B-Ray, I'll look for that.

Checked a few "blue-ray" discs here.
While all of the packaging says Blue Ray, one disc had DVD-9 stamped on it, another had no format information on the disc, and a third (House of Flying Daggers) had Blue-Ray and the BR logo stamped on the disc along with the artwork. Looking at the business side of the disc, it seemed to have the wavy line pattern of Dvd9's.

[Cinesimilitude]

take a dvd9 with you, look at the two data sides right next to each other, the only way I can describe it is that legit blu-ray and hd-dvd discs should look a lot more reflective than an SD-DVD. the difference when held side by side is very noticable.

in short, if the advertised HD or BD disc looks like a much cleaner and slightly darker mirror than the SD, chances are it is Hi-Def.