The Optiarc mashup between Sony and NEC has spawned a new brood of DVD and Blu-ray Disc drives. For
HD DVD lovin' NEC already seen dabbling in
dual-format underpinnings, the addition of Blu-ray Disc drives to their product roster is a notable development in the format war and
yet another possible sign of Blu-ray's emerging dominance. No less than four new Blu-ray devices for laptops were launched at CeBIT: the BD-5710S, the BD-5600S, the BD-5500S, and the BD-5500A. The BD-5500A (pictured above) writes at 2x to both single- and dual-layer BD-R, 2x BD-RE DL, 4x DVD-R DL and reads BD at 2x. Also notable is the AD-7191A 20x DVD burner which is also capable of 12x DVD-RAM, 8x DVD±R DL/+RW and 6x DVD-RW. With Sony owning 55% of the joint venture, we're not holding our breath for Optiarc HD DVD drives anytime soon. All the drives are expected to hit in the July timeframe.
posted March 21st 2007 9:26AM
Gee I wonder if this was written by a BluRay fanboy ...
Someone obviously hasn't seen the 200,000 standalone HD-DVD Players to 30,000 BluRay players sold in the US figure. Or Toshiba's plan to drop MSRP on the HDA2 in a few days.
NEWSFLASH!!! A 2x Laptop drive is hardly a sign of dominance in such a tiny market.
I guess you forget that your stats don't count every PS3 sold in America.
Get a life and get your facts straight
Alex,
Is there such thing as a Blu-ray (or HD DVD for that matter) "fanboy."
Thomas
Alex, you're like one of those guys on a football team down 56-0 that trash-talks when you score your first touchdown in the fourth quarter. Well, the score's still 56-7, dude, and Blu-Ray's marching down the field again while you gloat.
I wonder if "Alex" is a closet HD-DVD fanboy...
shouldn't the headline read: 'blu-ray burners'?
I guess some people just don't know the truth. Alex must have read the Cruch Gear article that's full of deception.
The truth is the 200,000 HD DVD players are not all standalones. They added the HD DVD add-ons, laptops, and standalones in that number. Then, they compared all of that against just the Blu-ray standalone sales. The Nielsen VideoScan numbers already said the standalone player sales were just about even a couple months ago.
I guess the HD DVD camp has yet another loyal BLIND member that will swallow any crap they want him to. ROFLMAO
I guess some people just don't know the truth. Alex must have read the Cruch Gear article that's full of deception.
The truth is the 200,000 HD DVD players are not all standalones. They added the HD DVD add-ons, laptops, and standalones in that number. Then, they compared all of that against just the Blu-ray standalone sales. The Nielsen VideoScan numbers already said the standalone player sales were just about even a couple months ago.
I guess the HD DVD camp has yet another loyal BLIND member that will swallow any crap they want him to. ROFLMAO
Whats wrong with including PS3s in the count? If it came inside a teddy bear with a hdmi out it should be counted. That is one more potential movie buyer. If you own the hardware in any form it should be counted. The reason why DVD is so successful is because of the large install base. You gonna tell me you're not gonna count portable dvd players or laptops. What would make a person say this doesn't count as a player because its not a standalone? Toshiba was stretching with that one. It seems like they are using a little propaganda or reverse psychology of their own.
I think Blu-Ray is a good idea for computers for its (current) storage advantage. That doesn't necessarily mean it'll win the media format war, though. Ultimately, the winner will probably be determined by the format whose stand-alone player gets to $299 first. At the current volumes, even the current leader is still just a drop in the bucket when compared to DVD player and media volumes.
First things first: I'm not a fan-boy, I'm a fence-sitter like everyone else, but I'm pulling for blu-ray since it's the higher-capacity format. Okay, now that that's out there...
I know that lots of people are down on PS3s, and just about as many think that HD-DVD will win because that's the "official high capacity disc format of PORN" (as this is what decided between VHS and Betamax) or whatever, but I personally know of (really scientific, yeah) way more people with PS3s than I do people with the xbox 360 HD DVD add-on. In fact, I don't know anyone with the add-on.
Also, the porn industry has changed a TON since the era of video tapes. Don't expect their ruling to sway the market nearly as much as it did last time now that the vast majority of their business is on-line.
PRON changing it all? i doubt it. betamax offered hardly anything over the standard VHS. basically the difference was size. just like mini-disc tried to come in and take over.
I'll say it again: if HD-DVD wants to be truly competitive, they need to get their butts in gear and produce HD-DVD burners for computers. Their lower price would give them a big edge in that market, as $400 is much closer to an external hard drive than $600.
Even then, though, they'd probably struggle due to the size difference between the two.
Actually F1ghter, if HD-DVD wants to be competitive they need to get more than one movie company as a soul backer... but they can't because once you go blu-ray it is really expensive to go HD-DVD, so every company who is now blu-ray exclusive will never, ever go HD-DVD... however, going from HD-DVD to blu-ray is not as expensive because all HD-DVD video can be played back on blu-ray.
So all movie companies except universal are blu-ray and will never change, universal can change easily, done deal.
However, they do have some computer drives, its just they're really slow (1X), and hold as much as 2 double layer DVD's, (only 15GB)... when RIGHT NOW I can burn as many 50GB discs as I want w/Blu-ray.
HD will never win, but they can try to be competitive by doing those things, it just won't happen.
I think we all feel a little mis-lead possibly manipulated by all the PR hooplah. My big question though is why produce a new format with an outdated (decade old) encoding process? I would think if consumers understood the limitations that creates there would be a decisive winner already.
Frankly, does the format war even matter? Between innovations in SSD, NAND, broadband, and internet protocol television (TM), will we be using compact diskettes in, say, 3-5 years?
Alex, those #'s that you listed were given out by a non-credible Toshiba rep that was smoking crack at the time. Blu-ray has already surpassed HD-DVD in standalone sales and greatly surpassed HD-DVD in overall sales.
Just because someone writes an unbiased story that paints the truth of the situation(Blu-ray winning) doesn’t mean that they are a "Blu-ray fanboy"
I am a blu-ray Fanboi
People still dont see the pattern? Sony is buying off all these studios, electronic makers, music studios only so they'll control EVERYTHING with this bluray crap. Down with bluray!