First BRD Drive for PC......

[neil wilkes]

http://www.cnet.com.au/desktops/dvdburners/0,39029405,40091720,00.htm

but it won't play Commercial BRD movies!!!

 

[Chris Gerhard]

Although others might want to be able to play commercial Blu-ray discs using their computer, that isn't important to me. I want to see how we will be able to record OTA/Cable/Satellite HDTV to Blu-ray, computer drive or other recorder. This drive will permit camcorder transfer to Blu-ray and possibly recording content made available on the internet if there ever is anything worth recording. Until HDCP can be adapted to computers, I don't know if we are going to have either Blu-ray or HD DVD play commercial discs on a PC. I don't even care about playing DVD using a PC DVD drive and don't have a PC connected to an HDTV display, I just don't get the need to do that.

Chris

 

[neil wilkes]

Apparently it will play commercial movies with theright software player, and the right graphics card though.
There is supposed to have been a batch of incorrectly marked ATI cards that were supposed to be compatible, but turned out not to be.
If this drive is a good one - and the HD DVD drives also turn out to be okay - then the simple solution to the incompatible players/formats will be a Media Centre equipped PC with both drives.

 

[bmoura]

Apparently it will play commercial movies with theright software player, and the right graphics card though.
There is supposed to have been a batch of incorrectly marked ATI cards that were supposed to be compatible, but turned out not to be.
If this drive is a good one - and the HD DVD drives also turn out to be okay - then the simple solution to the incompatible players/formats will be a Media Centre equipped PC with both drives.

Well, both Hi Def Video Disc formats (Blu-Ray and HD-DVD) aren't going anywhere in the U.S. right now. A key problem is the price of the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD Movies now available.

They're selling for $29.95 each for titles that only play in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drives - and $37.95 for a few titles that are HD-DVD/DVD compatible discs.

At a time when stores have regular DVD Video discs new for $4.95 - $9.95 in some cases, the studios and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD proponents aren't going to create excitement in the market at these movie disc prices!

 

[neil wilkes]

I don't see either format doing much.
BRD was sold as being based on a recordable format as it's big strength, but the issue there is the cost of media - $40 a throw now. Okay, it will come down - but so does the cost of large, fast external HDD that will have a better throughput & far better capacity. All you will need is a soft player, and you're away.
HD DVD isn't much better either.
Authoring costs are astronomical to get into - $150,000 for SCenarist 4 with the necessary proofing. Glass Mastering is $2500 a layer, and no small studios can afford to get into it - and that is where the market has to be aimed at.
None of the small hardware manufacturers are interested until one or the other comes out ahead. And that ain't gonna happen.
I have talked about China before, and their EVD format which is red laser based.
Well, it is developing rapidly into a 100Gb disc format now based on EVD (the only HD system China are using) and it will kill BRD/HD DVD.
See this quote

Versatile Multi-layer Disc (VMD) discs are identical in form factor to standard DVDs and also use red-laser technology. However VMD discs have up to 10 times as many layers as a dual layer DVD. With each layer containing up to 5GB of data, a single MVD disc could have a theoretical capacity of up to 100GB. MVD discs with capacities of 20 to 30GB are likely candidates to first hit the market. MVD discs use the EVS HD standard (the only HD standard in China). VMD discs will be much easier to manufacture and VMD drives are standard drives with a modified decoder part.

Interesting? I think so.
What I still think is gonna happen is HHD DVD & BRD will go minority only.
Then for music, we will see a resurgence of DVD-A/V as it will come "up from the trenches" in much the same way MP3 did. The hobbyists are all getting into DVDA right now as they can author for $35 and a blank disc.
You can spend $thousands on a pro level setup, but the fact is that all you really need is the Cirlinca application for functional content.

And for Video, DVD was a revolution. HD DVD & BRD are not. SD is not going anywhere for a long time yet - if ever. People keep trying to say CD and Vinyl are dead, yet both refuse to go away.

 

[winopener]

The only problem i see with EVD is that content will be very scarce for the western markets; sure if someone loves chinese movies it will be great but don't think majors already committed to BR or HD will do another version.
Just another reason to remain at the window.... looking...