will HD DVDs play on normal DVD players?

i have recently bought a HD TV and i want to know if HD DVDs play on an ordinary DVD player, thanks.

HD-DVD's will NOT play on a regular DVD player. You need an HD-DVD player to play them. Ignore the responses that say otherwise--I've given them the thumbs down. Even the stickers on the HD-DVD packages proclaim that they're only for HD-DVD players. And note that there are TWO high-definition disc formats: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, which are incompatible with each other and are competing to become the dominant format. Neither HD-DVD nor Blu-Ray discs will play on regular DVD players, but HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players are backwards compatible and can play regular DVD's.

Simply put, HD-DVD's (and Blu-Rays) require a different type of laser (a blue laser, hence the name) that can read more densely-packed data. DVD players don't have this laser.

There are a few titles that are "flipper" discs--they're HD-DVD's on one side, and DVD's on the other, so one can play them on both machines with a flip of the disc. These titles are few and far in between, however--"The Lake House" and "Good Night and Good Luck" are among them. From the research I've done it seems as if it could play on your standard DVD player...although general experience with things like this tell me it can not. My reference below says it can...if I were you I'd just try it! The new HD DVDs will play, but not in High Def. You need to buy an "upconvert" DVD player (chepest is about $80). Once you have one of those, you don't even need to use the HD DVDs because the player will upconvert them from standard to high def. The HD DVDs are for blue ray disc players only. A blue ray disc DVD player will cost you at least $500, and the quality is not much better than what you'll get out of an upconvert DVD player. You are very likely to need a new player to watch one of the new optical disc formats (HD-DVD or Blu-Ray) since most DVD players were designed before these formats existed. Unless you have a brand new, top of the range player I'm sorry to say the answer is very likely no :(

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