“The Blu-ray disc association said on Thursday it aimed to replace the DVD storage format within three years,” Lucas van Grinsven reports for Reuters.
“‘Within three years it will just be Blu-ray,’ Frank Simonis, the Blu-ray Disc Association’s European chairman, said at the CeBIT technology trade show,” van Grinsven reports. “Blu-ray, which offers five times more storage capacity than DVDs for storing high definition films and other content, will first have to beat the rival HD-DVD format which offers somewhat lower storage capacity but claims cheaper production of players, burners and discs.”
“Measured in the number of players, Blu-ray is already well ahead of HD DVD because Sony’s <6758.T> PlayStation 3 (PS3) video games console comes with a built-in Blu-ray player,” van Grinsven reports. “Sony Computer Entertainment said it had sold 1.84 million PS3s by the end of December in Japan and North America and that one million PS3s are ready for launch next week in Europe. The HD DVD camp conceded it is being outsold by Blu-ray because of PS3 by at least five to one, but it claims that sales of movie titles are still level… Five out of eight major Hollywood studios support only Blu-ray. One studio, Universal, supports only HD DVD.”
“Toshiba and Microsoft, as the two main backers of HD DVD,” van Grinsven reports. “Blu-ray is supported by companies like Samsung, Philips, Matsushita, Apple, and Dell.”
Full article here.
Somebody really screwed up at Dell: they actually picked superior over cheaper technology (must have been Rollins).
Related articles:
MCE Technologies brings Blu-ray Disc to Apple Mac – January 25, 2007
Warner’s ‘Total HD’ disc format has both Blu-ray and HD DVD on same disc – January 17, 2007
LG announces first dual-format hi-def DVD player; plays both Blu-ray and HD DVD content – January 05, 2007
TDK pumps Blu-ray capacity up to 200GB per disc – September 02, 2006
Roxio Toast 7 for Apple Mac adds Blu-ray support – July 25, 2006
Apple and Microsoft showdown over Blu-ray vs. HD DVD? – July 14, 2006
Ricoh creates ‘universal’ optical disk lens; reads and writes Blu-ray, HD DVD, DVD, and CD – July 10, 2006
Broadcom announces decoder chip that plays both Blu-ray and HD DVD – January 03, 2006
laserdisc forever!
I’m still trying to work out how I’ll really benefit from Blu-ray/HD-DVD over DVDs.
1. Storage! But what about the price of HDD, and they’re reusable.
2. More extras on commercial dvds. How many ways can I view the sex life of the woodworm? When I rent or purchase dvds I primarily do it for the movie NOT the extras.
3. Better quality? It’s pretty damn good at the moment anyway
Now I can’t really think of any more reasons exept I’m quite satisfied with dvds and with digital cable I can make copies of movies from cable anyway. Over time that may change but for the forseeable future I’m quite contented with what’s available. Three years? Hmmmph!
One other point, I’ve been using Toast since version 5. Version 8 has just been released with Blu-ray support. For the first time in years I could find no compelling reason to upgrade.
I can however find many reasons to trade in my G5 iMac for the latest intel imac when Leopard is released.
@ Walter Chillum
“The authors obviously haven’t read Maslow’s heirarchy of needs. People allocate funds for discretionary spending AFTER all their other needs have been fullfilled.”
I’m very familiar with Maslow’s theory. Unfortunately however, with the expansion of entitlement programs in the U.S., we have too many people with high speed Internet and cable TV getting a weekly welfare check. I don’t mind paying taxes to support those in real need, but taking my money to pay someone’s Comcast bill is infuriating.
It was Nancy Pelosi that said, “Our agenda guarantees that every American will have affordable access to broadband within five years.” I guess she isn’t familiar with Maslow either.
Hopefully 2008 is kinder to our children’s country than 2006 was.
-anaknipedro-
Last time I looked, Apple was supporting both formats.
Best part about blu-ray disc – scratch resistant coating! You no longer have to worry about corrupting data by simply touching the disk wrong.
The big question is – why did it take so long to put scratch resistant coating on compact disks?
See, the thing about having endured multiple format wars is that when the next one comes, you just don’t care anymore. Blue-ray? HD-DVD? Wake me when the battle’s over, guys. I couldn’t care less.
Gman..
you have it backwards.. HDDVD is the one that has the scratch resistance… Blu-Ray not so much,
Don’t forget, Blu-ray is from Sony, who only cares about having a proprietary format in order to make the biggest profit it possibly can. Do you really think that they care about scratch resistance? If anything they want you to F up your disk so you have to buy another.
Duh!
I just got a 32″ 720p HDTV and for the first time, I can see that the DVD picture isn’t perfect. But it’s darn close. I could see upgrading to Blu-Ray, but not for much expense. Currently, the improvement wouldn’t be worth the price of the upgrade.
What people have to remember is that it’s Joe and Jane Lunchpail that drive mass format adoptions, not Mitch Gadgetfreak or Buffy Trustfund. The vast majority of television sets in the US are old-fashioned SD CRTs. When those are finally replaced, their owners will not be able to afford the enormous sets required to appreciate the higher-resolution. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will do nothing for these folks.
One of the formats will have to become as cheap and ubiquitous as DVD, then it can slide into DVD’s niche and take over. But there’s not going to be any mass abandonment of DVD.
Gman..
you have it backwards.. HDDVD is the one that has the scratch resistance… Blu-Ray not so much
No, Gman’s right. You’re the one who has it backwards. Blu-Ray had to develop a scratch-resistent coating because the data area has to be much closer to the surface of the disk, due to the blue laser.
“I’m very familiar with Maslow’s theory. Unfortunately however, with the expansion of entitlement programs in the U.S., we have too many people with high speed Internet and cable TV getting a weekly welfare check. I don’t mind paying taxes to support those in real need, but taking my money to pay someone’s Comcast bill is infuriating.”
Now that we’ve heard from the planet of the idiots I suppose we can get back to discussing BR.
Some of you morons sound like the dipshits who first saw HD televisions demonstrated several years ago at trade and home shows, uttering idiotic things like “Oh, well, that’s neat, but how clear do you have to be able to see ‘Golden Girls’?”
Pull your heads out of your asses. Blu-Ray trumps HD-DVD and for the time being it will continue to trump downloads. That internet backbone pipe ain’t getting big enough to transmit HD resolutions at reasonable speeds anytime soon.
May HD-DVD die a deserved, slow, painful death.