Abstract: A method and apparatus (100) for handling a layered digital video stream, comprising a base layer stream and an enhancement layer stream for providing HDTV, is disclosed. Either of the base layer stream or the enhancement layer stream is stored on a hard disc (101), and the other is stored on an optical disc by means of an optical disc drive (102). The streams are handled separately until they are utilized for providing HDTV. When the layered video stream is to be played back with HDTV quality, the base layer stream and the enhancement layer stream are synchronized by means of a synchronizer (106) for referring to the same frame. The synchronized streams are then decoded by means of a base decoder (105a) and an enhancement decoder (105b), which outputs decoded streams that are combined by an adder 112.