Sony gets their 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray discs out the door

Well, they missed their June launch plans by a couple of months, but Sony has finally managed to ship their 50GB Blu-ray discs to a doting public. Just as expected, the discs are going for that $48 slap-in-the-face of a pricetag, and you'll still be better off buying a pair of 25 giggers, or a few DVDs if you're looking for price-per-gigabyte. But if you've gotsa have the latest and greatest, or just would like to find something nifty to do with that new Blu-ray drive of yours, it doesn't get much hotter than 2x 50GB discs with AccuCORE protection. Sony is still promising rewriteables for later in the year -- these discs are just write-once -- and we're guessing prices won't stay so lethal forever.

[Via HD Beat]

[Dave @ Aug 16th 2006 10:23AM]

Hahaha! Go SONY GO!

offtopic: TDK is working on 100GB disc ;)

[MPG @ Aug 16th 2006 10:29AM]

$48?? They do realize that you can get a 200GB hard drive for that price, don't they? Sure, blank disks have always been ridiculously expensive in the first months after their introduction, but this is just silly. I mean, is ANYONE going to buy that disk for $48?

[The Grand Master @ Aug 16th 2006 10:32AM]

Boo Hoo!

[The Grand Master @ Aug 16th 2006 10:34AM]

Boo Hoo!
I wanted a quad layer 100GB disc so I could put my friends new laptop to shame. Aw well at least Sony appears to be doing Blu-Ray to help the customer for a change, or maybe they'l put a rootkit on the DVDs so it counts how many times you play it in a PC when you actually can!

[Jason @ Aug 16th 2006 10:43AM]

$50 for 50GB discs? So $200 for 200GB...um a 200HD is what, $90?

I'd rather have 10 200GB HDs than 40 BR-DVDs. Faster access, no $1000 drive, and Cheaper too.

[pffft @ Aug 16th 2006 10:51AM]

Please...give me a break. A fifty gig disk for 48 dollars? I understand it's new tech, but someone at Sony needs to get a grip..

I seriously doubt there is a line of nerds waiting at Circuit City to buy this. 3 disks and you can buy a big external hard drive...

[Loque @ Aug 16th 2006 10:53AM]

Western Digital 250 gb 7200 rpm HD: 67.99 (after MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822144701

Sata external enclosure: 22.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817146318

Total cost? $90.98
For less than the cost of two of these, you get 2.5x more space.

Not to mention it's much faster, re-writable, and you don't need an expensive blu-ray drive.

[Finished.Law.School @ Aug 16th 2006 10:53AM]

Does each disk include a root kit?

[deucer @ Aug 16th 2006 10:57AM]

I'm just playing defense here...
The price difference here is portibility and new technology. If these things do catch on then they will be easier to transport (mail/carry/kick) and dispose of than a hard drive.

Also you know it's Sony and it's proprietary so it'll be expensive. See Memory Stick (in all of it's infinite formats)

[Soho88 @ Aug 16th 2006 10:59AM]

These are selling for $39 at J&R. Say what you will but there is something reassuring about backing up data/media to non-volatile media that does not crash or get infected like a hard drive will. It has it's place.

[Kevin @ Aug 16th 2006 11:02AM]

You are all making comparisons to hard drives. I find this to be quite ridiculous.

If hard drives were the way to go, then I would be walking around with about 3 right now. Putting then into a hard drive player. Oh and my shelf would be full of about 50 hard drives too.

Optical media obviously still has a place in the market, otherwise we be carrying hard drives around.

[Warhorse @ Aug 16th 2006 11:10AM]

I agree. The price will drop. Just give it time.

[Tense @ Aug 16th 2006 11:14AM]

Okay, okay. Enough about the price. Blank CD's were about $15 dollars each when they first came out with the 650MB disc. That means you were paying 2.3 cents a MB. Compared to the Blu-Ray Disc which works out to .1 cents a MB of storage.

On a side note. I hate to be Johnny NaySayer But, I would be anyone a shiny nickel that both Blu-Ray AND HD-DVD will fail. With holographic tech coming at the early sometime next year. No, the consumer needs something "special" to jump on a band wagon. I am not debating here. Just bookmark and come back in a year. You will see.

[Kinmar @ Aug 16th 2006 11:16AM]

@ Kevin

I carry a hard drive around and so does a few million other people... It's a little thing called an ipod. And while it may be more expensive than this BD it also holds more data (60gb variant) is faster, smaller, and re-writable. Oh and i dont need an expensive ipod player to use it. So factor in the cost of the drive and your well past the cost of an ipod/HDD.

So there is another comparison to complain about BD to iPod

[WheelerXp @ Aug 16th 2006 11:17AM]

I cant wait to back up each game I have on a one blue-disk. How much are burners going to be?

[Michael @ Aug 16th 2006 11:18AM]

Do you pepole not remember the price of CD-r/w? the furthest i can remember was £12...12 for re-writing 750M/b...hmmm. now? possibly £1.

And besides the technology is in its infancy still, once it is started to be used in hi def dvds and the hi-def camdcorders become the norm its usage will emerge.

Give it a break...they will get cheaper, they have spent a large amount of R&D on creating this technology, they need to make some money back, dont you think?

[Loque @ Aug 16th 2006 11:20AM]

and since it's sony, hope you don't get a disc read error...then the drive eats your $48 disc...

[willie @ Sep 27th 2006 6:59PM]

I was thinking more along the lines of how expensive these coasters are going to be. It's one thing to waste $10 on a coaster back in the day, but $50?!?!???? That's just crazy.

[Stephen @ Aug 16th 2006 11:24AM]

If hard drives were the way to go, then I would be walking around with about 3 right now. Putting then into a hard drive player. Oh and my shelf would be full of about 50 hard drives too.

Optical media obviously still has a place in the market, otherwise we be carrying hard drives around.

Well I don't see too many people carrying around a blu ray disc player

[Tense @ Aug 16th 2006 11:30AM]

Stephen

Don't be an ass. Think about what you say. Don't argue for the sake of arguement. It's not a mass-consumer product yet. It's still in it's infancy. Of course you don't see people walking around with it. But, I go back to my point. It will be here for a year or two. Then disappear with the miniDisc. The UMD. The Beta. The ZipDrive. The 2MB diskdrive. Even with the advante of the PS3 to push this thing along. It won't last.

[Jahan Khan Rashid @ Aug 16th 2006 11:30AM]

I carry around my BluRay laptop my friend!

[jason H @ Aug 16th 2006 11:31AM]

i agree with most comments on here about the priceing heck its cheaper down the road of buying one 50 gig disk for 50$ thats $1 a gig compared to 3$ for a duall layer DVD for 8.5 gig for 2.80 a gig

[jason H @ Aug 16th 2006 11:32AM]

o yea now you you wont have to get up to change dvds when you watch lord of the rings trilogy

[Jahan Khan Rashid @ Aug 16th 2006 11:35AM]

How about season 1&2 of Lost on one BluRay Disc!!

[M @ Aug 16th 2006 11:41AM]

This is old news. I have my drive and 50GB disc for two weeks now, and the discs have been in stores for about another week before that (which alreted me to its avilablity and then I ordered it online.) Even more ironically, I received my disc and burner in less than a weekeven though the sony website said unavilable for 2-3 more weeks. Good for me!

[Abdomen @ Aug 16th 2006 11:45AM]

Jahan Khan Rashid: If you mean on one 50GB disk, someone would first need to achieve reasonable yields on dual layer BD-ROM.

[tamurlane6 @ Aug 16th 2006 11:47AM]

How many people still run around with cd players anymore? Frankly, these companies need to come up with something a little more exciting than blu ray or hd-dvd. I see these formats and i wonder how they will hold up to real world enviroments. considering my luck with cds (some scratched beyond repair) and dvds (some i've had to boil to get working right out of the package) my faith in optical media is faltering and i don't see BR or HDDVD being any better in those departments. Don't get me wrong, Storing a cd or similar optical media is easy compaired to lets say records or tapes or reel to reel but when i can afford a music or data player that handles storage,playback and basic computer functions it's hard to justify buying a system that only manages storage. Especially when the same basic things are needed to make them functional in the first place (PC and power)

[shaun @ Aug 16th 2006 11:54AM]

it probably costs sony 25 cents to manufacture one of these. thats a pretty nice markup. supply and demand ftw.

[Lucian @ Aug 16th 2006 11:55AM]

I hope 50GB will be the standard and not the 25GB version and maybe 100GB will be more like the current DVD DL.

[Daniel @ Aug 16th 2006 11:58AM]

for me at least, there is an essential advantage over hard drives:

reliability.

If there is some important data you aboslutely HAVE to have, I would feel safer having it burned onto a BD disc, and stored away for safe-keeping.

I've always been a bit paranoid about hard drives, since they are very prone to failure.

All this, even though I have never had a drive fail on me personally (knock knock)

[darryl @ Aug 16th 2006 11:58AM]

I like how people compare a hard drive to an optical storage disc. They're completely different things that have completely different purposes.

...and ofcourse $48 is high, new media formats are always priced that way for the first year. No one is going to be buying these guys for some time. I'm sure quantities are very small too.

[Leonard Nimrod @ Aug 16th 2006 12:00PM]

@Kinmar

Are you f@#king serious? Comparing your 60GB, $400 iPod to a 50GB, $48 Blu Ray disc? Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen a less apt comparison. Of course the BD doesn't include a player, but you only need ONE player, to have unlimited media. There are many people who are benefiting from the much higher capacity of BDs.

[Mike @ Aug 16th 2006 12:08PM]

Ok... so they can produce a 50gig writable disc. At almost $1/gig, that's not much of a bargain... especially when we don't know what sort of longevity these discs will have. Remember the issues with old CD-R's and how many were useless after only 5 years?

The thing that's really troubling is that Sony is nowhere near capable of mass-producing 50gig BD-ROM's for movies. Say what you will about PC compatibility and the writable format, but the lack of 50gig BD-ROM's is not a good sign. If they don't remedy the situation, BD could end up being a niche writable format like DVD-RAM.

Yes, DVD-RAM is vastly superior to -R and +R, but it's still a niche within a niche.

[Soho88 @ Aug 16th 2006 12:18PM]

Also consider this. You can buy a CaseLogic CD/DVD binder that holds about 240 discs. At 50GB per pop, that makes for 12TB of storage in a form factor you can carry around more easily than 6 Buffalo Terrastation RAID drives, for instance. Now, this may not be a very practical example because of the cost implications of Blu-Ray at this time, but the point is that the form factor and density of the media is certainly appealing.

BTW, the company that should be sweating right now is Iomega. I can't imagine someone buying their REV drives about 6 months from now. Smaller, more expensive, and probably less error proof.

[lou @ Aug 16th 2006 12:18PM]

I'd be pissed if I had a misburn. A $50 coaster is not funny!

[bazald @ Aug 16th 2006 12:28PM]

Hrmm... this is a gadget blog. Why is everyone so concerned with the price, as though Sony expects the average consumer to hop aboard at this stage in the lifetime of Blu-ray? Where are all the technology enthusiants, saying how cool this is?

/I/ think its cool at least.

[Wade @ Aug 16th 2006 12:50PM]

I loved the idea of Blue Ray. The unfortunate thing is that it was Sony who came out with it. With multiple copy protections and other built in things to prevent consumers from actually being able to use the discs for the purposes they chose, I can see why Microsoft and others are backing HD-DVD even though it has less capacity and in some ways is not as advanced.

[Dan @ Aug 16th 2006 1:01PM]

I simply do not understand how writing 50gb at 2x is at all conventional. ?:|

[pffft @ Aug 16th 2006 1:06PM]

While of course they are different tech, the point most of us are trying to make is that burned media is going to be less of an option for a lot of us and coming out of the gate with very high priced media doesn't help Sony make the sale...

The ipod was a great example...it makes our media/data portable. Just like what the blu-ray disk is attempting to do. I realize cost will come down, but these are not even RW media..One burn and bye-bye, go buy another...and the talk about hard drives failing? What about when you burn that 48 dollar coaster (which we all have done...)...If these are RW then I'm sure someone will correct me...

[Kinmar @ Aug 16th 2006 1:06PM]

@LeonardNimrod

lol, i didnt pay for my ipod so the cost (for me anyhow) is a moot point. But since you brought it up good luck getting your Blu-Ray Disc to do anything without an expensive drive.

And since you apparently missed the sarcasm in my post, I was just kidding.

[Cryptoknight @ Aug 16th 2006 1:27PM]

Dude, the last thing I would do is put these precious discs in a CaseLogic binder, or any sleeve. Stick to jewel cases if you want these 50gb to last the week.

[Kevin @ Aug 16th 2006 1:38PM]

Dan:

Blu-ray 2x is roughly equivelent to 7x DVD. So it isn't that slow. If you think 2x is akin to the CD-ROM days you need a refresher course.

[Don @ Aug 16th 2006 1:47PM]

$48 per disc?

Looks like it'll be back to the infancy days of burning writable optical media....

Close all your apps except for the disc mastering software, disable your screen saver, defrag your hard drive, etc...

At $50 a shot I don't want to get 16GB into a burn and get "Burn Process Failed!: Buffer Underrun. Please try again"

[Sponge @ Aug 16th 2006 1:53PM]

Oh yes, 50Gb on a blu-ray disk is much safer then on the HD where one single scratch won't render it useless.

[Dan @ Aug 16th 2006 1:55PM]

Kevin:

Thanks for clarifying. I suppose I do need a refresher course. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to what this 2x means? 2x of what?

[Jason @ Aug 16th 2006 1:56PM]

Is it still true that the nice new Sony burner capable of writing these discs can't even play BD movies because motherboards don't support the HDCP that it forces for movie playback?

Ha Ha Ha Ha.

You go Sony, seriously girl, one more screwup and you're finished.

[Scott C. @ Aug 16th 2006 1:56PM]

A great backup solution for those with a TB RAID would be for Sony to make a 400 Disc BD-RW changer with double-sided capability. Imagine 400 discs each holding 100 GB of data = 40 TB of backup space. No excuse for not backing up every day.

I realize that the cost for 400 discs is alot now, but you could start small, maybe 10-20 to backup the 1-2 TB RAID. Then you have tons of room for expansion, complete data portability, corruption protection, and low power consumption all while having 100% availability.

This would be great for those with the new TiVo S3, too. You could go on vacation for a year or two and still catch all your shows. :)

[Dan @ Aug 16th 2006 2:00PM]

Follow up to my post questioning burning speeds:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu_ray

[Sean DL @ Aug 16th 2006 3:17PM]

50 dollars..wow...so that means the movies on 50 GB Blu-Ray will be around 30-40....Think how much a 50 GB Sony PLAYSTATION 3 game will cost.....

[James @ Aug 16th 2006 3:26PM]

@Sponge

"Oh yes, 50Gb on a blu-ray disk is much safer then on the HD where one single scratch won't render it useless."

How would you know that? Do you have a BluRay recorder and blanks? The recording layer of BluRay is so close to the surface that it needs the extra coating for scratch resistence. How scratch resistent is it? How are you going to scratch a HD disk? By opening it up? By throwing it around?