HDV is native 16:9 with supported frame rates of 60i (frames-per-second interlaced), 30p (progressive), 50i, and 25p. All HDV variants record to existing standard DV format digital video cassettes, the most popular form factor of which is the Mini-DV shell. The transport stream interface conforms to IEEE 1394 (FireWire).

HDV1 (from JVC) is a 19 megabit-per-second MPEG-2 transport stream with a resolution of 1280 pixels wide by 720 pixels tall. HDV2 (from Sony and Canon) is a 25 megabit-per-second MPEG-2 transport stream with a resolution of 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels tall.