The first combination HD DVD / Blu-ray media PC

So you've pondered the benefits of the two high-definition formats, HD DVD and Blu-ray, and you just can't make up your mind. AACS or AACS? 1080p or 1080p? Well forget building your own homebrew "combination" player or waiting for some manufacturer to build a combo laser or all-in-one disc, and head on over to your local specialty shop to pick up a VidaBox LUX or MAX, as the company has just announced a pair of upgraded combination HD DVD / Blu-ray systems with both formats inside! Having your cake and eating it too will cost you, though: $1629 over the regular $3499 price of the LUX and a grand total of $4399 for the MAX. Of course each version comes with the usual 1080p HDCP-capable outputs, dual analog and dual digital tuners, and up to 3TB of storage, but no word on whether they require two separate media player applications or not. So go hedge your bets, pick one of these bad boy media PCs up, and let us know how the two formats compare on the same hardware, will ya?

[Ig @ Oct 18th 2006 7:17PM]

"1080p or 1080p?"

Is that a trick question?

[Rick Person @ Oct 18th 2006 7:25PM]

Yeah right and I could buy and watch every HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movie to date within a weeks time. Give it 3-4 years you'll be able to buy the setup for less than $500 and be drooling over the next in HD formats.

[Martin Cashman @ Oct 18th 2006 7:32PM]

Come on guys, this really sucks.

We should boycott the Blue-ray / HD DVD war until they agree on a single format. All that's gonna happen otherwise is we end up paying more for our movies.

It isn't gonna be like what happened with VHS/Betamax. These companies are too clever for that now. We'll all end up with dual players and paying twice as much per disk.

Can anyone not see this coming, console makers have been selling machines at a low margin or loss for years as they reap hugh profits on software.

We the consumer have the power, just hold off a little while and let them sweat it out, they are selling snake oil here and we're all falling for it.

[Scott @ Oct 18th 2006 7:44PM]

No. We can't boycott, We has Consumers have to dictate what Standard will be "The" Standard by supporting it.

[ACD @ Oct 18th 2006 8:04PM]

Regardless of the commercial aspects, I say this whole Blu-ray/HD-DVD war has helped bring attention to the fact that DVDs just don't have enough space for todays media. Overall, I'm waiting until they commercialize something like that 1TB DVD or something along the lines of HVD.

Otherwise, I'm all for getting an awesome PS3 because the Blu-ray disks can hold more data than those Xbox 360 DVDs.

Optical disks are just a backup utility in my mind, which means I don't want to pay a lot. However, I do want a lot of uncompressed storage space. As for movies on Blu-ray, I watch movies online regardless of how terrible they may look so what do I care.

I shutup now.

[hmurchison @ Oct 18th 2006 8:29PM]

It's not about space ACD it's about encoding efficiency. MPEG2 wasn't designed to do well at DVD rates. It's a great codec for higher bitrate stuff.

AVC and VC-1 were specifically designed to scale from mobile phone datarates all the way up to production level 12-bit per channel OMG quality.

Hell anyway to get a Universal player is good in my book. I'm not waiting..once you watch REAL HD with no broadcast compression effects you don't want to go back to broadcast SD or DVD.

What you'll see in the future are titles that can produce excellent HD DVD at DVD datarates. The newer codecs are THAT good. Batman Begins on HD DVD utilizes a 13Mbps avg datarate and it's quality is among the top in 90 something movies. Impressive.

Vidabox keep doing your thing. This stuff will get cheaper.

[bobby @ Oct 18th 2006 8:37PM]

That is sooooooo ugly

[MMN Maniac @ Oct 18th 2006 10:49PM]

WTF?... the picture looks REALLY skewed. This is what it's supposed to look like:
http://www.vidabox.com/Products/MAX/MAX_Specs.htm

[Melkor Morgoth @ Oct 18th 2006 11:17PM]

UMMMM...............

I can't wait to get my Christmas bonus so I can get one of these.

Yeah Baby! One ring to rule them all....

[Wonderboy @ Oct 19th 2006 9:02AM]

Or you could get a PS3 for $600 and an XBox360+external HD-DVD for $600 and you have dual format capabilities (and gaming capabilities) for $3600 less. I'm sure the combined interface and single box instead of two (or I guess three) pieces is nice, but is it really worth $3600??? For that price you can get a decent HD format library, a new HDTV, and a new surround sound.

[MMN Maniac @ Oct 19th 2006 1:54PM]

the system is a Media Center, not just a Blu-Ray/HD DVD player. You can also record analog and OTA-HDTV, rip and playback entire music CD libraries, save pictures, play slideshows, catalog/copy your DVDs, burn CDs/DVDs, stream music and video to up to 5 separate zones, do home automation (security, lighting, etc.) - and do all of this in 1 box. The convenience and complete feature set is what makes it cost $4000+. It's not "just" the world's 1st hybrid HD disc player - it's also a Media Center. :)