“Blank optical disc manufacturers are rolling out the first generation of recordable and rewriteable Blu-ray Disc (BD) media in the United States, despite a lack of actual hardware on the market, giving the format an early step up on its rival technology, HD DVD. Anticipating the gradual arrival of a pipeline of high-definition recorder decks, camcorders and PCs with writeable BD drives, a few companies have begun shipping product, with others planning similar rollouts in the coming months. TDK was first to market last month when it began shipping single-layer recordable 25GB BD-R and rewriteable BD-RE blank discs, setting the retail pricing bar at $19.99 for BD–R and $24.99 for BD–RE. The discs are bare, cartridge-free media. A promotion with Pioneer will bundle TDK’s BD media with what Pioneer claims to be the first commercially available Blu-ray Disc writer available in the United States, the Pioneer BDR-101A internal drive for PCs… The company is planning a subsequent rollout of dual-layer 50GB BD-R and BD-RE media later this year. The discs will retail for $47.99 and $59.99, respectively,” John Laposky reports for TWICE.
“Hardware manufacturers who are backing the Blu-ray format include Bose, Hitachi, JVC, Kenwood, LG, Mitsubishi, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony, Thomson and Yamaha. PC suppliers Apple, Dell, HP and Levono (Thinkpad) are also in the Blu-ray camp,” Laposky reports. “Supporting the HD DVD format on the CE side is Sanyo, Toshiba and Thomson. PC and IT companies in the HD DVD camp include HP, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Toshiba.”
Full article here.
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Okay, so who will win the war, BD or HD DVD?
BLU-RAY will be the way of the future.
HD-DVD won’t. It even takes longer to say, fer cryin out loud.
Thank Whateveryoubelievein that, as with Apple products, the superior technology will win this time.
F*CK HD-DVD.
Bluray
For computers Blue Ray is the way to go due to it’s immense storage capacities.
One could clone their boot configuration to a BlueRay DVD and it would be write protected, insuring a higher level of security.
Right now if our machnes get exploited, we first have to boot from a Tiger install cd and Disk Utility Erase w/zero option the contaminated drives before hooking up and booting from the clone to reverse clone from.
I Ray! You Ray! We all Ray for Blu-ray!
If I could find three clones of mine we could make the Blu-Ray group and be the hit of iTunes.
First it will be a price point. Then it will be the most common or readily availble hardware that wins. But, in the long term only blue wins as the needs will grow ever larger. And we all know the shorter the wavelength, the more that can be put on a disc without compression.
Then everything will go to the blue laser……I believe BLUE wins.
I KNEW I was going to regret ordering the MacBook before Blu-ray was added to it! I just couldn’t wait any longer! I suspect the coming MacPowers will have it in there. Perhaps the drive will be able to be retrofitted into the MacBook? Grrr..
The inferior technology usually wins these battles. It’s the non-tech-savvy consumers that decide the outcomes. To average Joe Blow, HD-DVD is self explanatory. High-definition DVD. What the hell is a Blu-Ray?
Plus, the inferior product is usually pushed in a more marketable (read: deceptive) manner, and usually grabs a better foothold on the consumer landscape.
Sad but true.
Blu-Ray is better, but HD-DVD is more associated with the DVD. That makes it a better option for stupid people.
Expensive. Guess that is what you get for being on the cutting edge….
Excellent!!!!
Fortunately for me, Fifty Dollar Media fits in my budget.
The playstation 3 will definitley put blue-ray in the spotlight. Hopefully this time the superior technology will win.
I wish that was the case with firewire. I’d much rather have everything firewire, but, alas, no. USB is the standard.
Why the heck does Microshaft have to back inferior technology? Man, they can afford Blue-ray discs, geez!
It’s a toss up for me… Toshiba has their HD-DVD players selling for $499 (which I believe is a decent introductory price for new technology) and many have reported selling out of those machines. Of course, the Blu-Ray machines are twice the money… Most consumers are only interested in watching movies in hi-def, of which I don’t think there will be much of a need for the higher capacity BD discs…
If you are into making Hi-Definition content, there is really nothing out there yet (which is very irritating). My gut says that HD-DVD will win out in the near future, but my heart says that Blu-Ray will eventually overcome.
Who will win the war? Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?
Neither. They will both be so inconvenient to consumers that a third will become the standard. What is that?
Simple. H.264 1080p on dual layer discs for now. Eventually, a new standard will emerge but it won’t be Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. They’ve been massacred too much already by Hollywood.
Whatever the porn industry comes up with will be the winner. And they are already looking into movie downloads to burn your own DVD’s.
I think the foremost reaosn Sony decided to release 2 different versions of the PS3 is because then they’d have something to compete with the HD-DVD camp- a $499 Blu-Ray player. It is pretty smart, and cheap taking into account what you get.
MW: Yes, Blu-Ray is the future.
Cool! Just what I needed, BluRay blank media. Now, all I need is some HD content for that media, and a way to burn that content on that media. But thank god the media is available.
If porn gets onto Blu-ray, first, Blu-ray will win.
I hope Blu ray comes with some really sweet root kits. Sony also has such a great record for establishing new media formats such as beta, mini-disk, memory stick…
If a Mingmong disc has 10 poopoobytes worth of capacity and a Zingzong disc has 20 poopoobytes of capacity, which is better? I knew you’d get it right. Help youself to a cupcake.
Good, to bad there are know players or recorders available yet to even use them. So far there’s no standard, no players or recorders and obviously no planned roll out. Consumers are just confused and won’t buy any of it especially when it’s so expensive.
“Hardware manufacturers who are backing the Blu-ray format include Bose, Hitachi, JVC, Kenwood, LG, Mitsubishi, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony, Thomson and Yamaha. PC suppliers Apple, Dell, HP and Levono (Thinkpad) are also in the Blu-ray camp,” Laposky reports. “Supporting the HD DVD format on the CE side is Sanyo, Toshiba and Thomson. PC and IT companies in the HD DVD camp include <b>HP<b>, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Toshiba.”
Looks like Hewlett-Packard made the cagey move. Heads I win, tails you lose.
Fight! Fight! Fight! I want to see a cage match.
It sound’s like aprox $1 per gig. Not that much different than hard drives.
I hope it’s just an introductory price.
Whichever format is backwards compatible will win the standards war. Who the hell wants to throw out an existing collection of dvds. Computer companies can get away with treating their customers like rubbish but not in the home entertainment area. It’s not rocket science it’s just cold hard economics. But then again I can be more objective about this because I don’t own shares in comanies supporting either format.
“Who the hell wants to throw out an existing collection of dvds?”
Well, I could certainly toss out “Willow”, “Flashdance”, and “Spice World”.
What was I thinking?