First Blu-ray Disc / DVD hybrid announced in Japan

It sure took long enough to happen, but one of HD DVD's biggest benefits has finally made it over to the Blu-ray side. Yep, we're talking about a Blu-ray / DVD hybrid disc, with a single-layer of Blu on one side and a standard DVD on the very same side (as in, not a "flipper" disc). Not surprisingly, the action's going down first in Japan, with Code Blue emergency helicopter doctor Blu-ray BOX (yes, seriously) as the first hybrid title. There's no word on when (or if) this technology will make it to US soil, but the sooner the better -- nothing like a little inbuilt backwards compatibility to ease the mind.

[Via CDRInfo]

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 24th 2008 8:58PM]

Sorry Roberta, but 4k players won't be able to play the SD layer because 4k is not going to be optical.

If HD DVD had done ANY marketing things might be different, but they didn't do anything notable that I can recall, so we've got Blu instead.

Hybrid BD25 + DVD9 = STUPID. Hopefully the research will yield some other fruit because this thing isn't going anywhere.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 24th 2008 12:29PM]

I can see why people think this will help speed up the jump from DVD to Blu-Ray, i don't even know why people are bringing up HD-DVD, its dead! went the way of the betamax.

But in the past everything making a transition to something else never took this route, the jump from Cassette to CD's never came from a "hybrid", jump from VHS to DVD never came from a hybrid either (there were hybrid players but thats not the case in Blu-ray seeing that they can play dvd).

Honestly i think this was a waste of time, money, and effort, they should have just used all that to find ways of making blu-ray players cheaper, they play dvd's if they were cheaper people would buy them, they own the player they'll start buying the disc's. its all about the price.

Transition from VHS to DVD was slowed by compatibility and money, same for cassette/CD.
Since compatibility is not a problem for Blu-ray players, that only leaves price.


I don't think this hybrid will hit the shelf, by the time it did it wouldn't be implemented by consumers.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 24th 2008 8:52PM]

People are bringing up HD DVD (note, even though it is a dead format, there's still no hyphen required) because it shipped with hybrid and combo disc support nearly 3 years ago.

Other than that, you're close to the mark as I don't see anyone willing to pay for these on the scale required to make them viable.

[Rogueagent Posted Jan 4th 2009 11:05AM]

One of the first posters mentioned what is for me the key benefit of a hybrid disc, but noone seemed to notice: The fact that this will play on all players in a household, not just the BD player in the living-/mediaroom.

I have an 8 year old daughter with a heavy addiction to animated movies like the Disney classics, Shrek, Ice Age and everything Pixar.

Now, I happen to like the same movies, but even though I would love to have these on Blu-ray, I still buy them on DVD, knowing that my daughter will watch them far more often than I will - either in her own room, in the car or on my laptop somewhere else. None of these are BD equipped, and are not likely to be for quite some time yet.

So for these (family oriented) kinds of titles, I - and I suspect a lot of other families with kids - are stuck with DVD until either a hybrid disc is actually marketed, or all drives in the household are BD compatible.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 6th 2009 4:03PM]

I swear the dvd forum still has not given up on HD-DVD:
http://www.dvdforum.org/hddvd-faq.htm

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 8th 2009 4:15PM]

All the BR movies I've rented have had the DVD copy discs removed (presumably by the video store) forcing me to rent the DVD version to "burn & return" for my mobile applications.

Why didn't they just make a flip-disc?
WTF is wrong with flip-discs? Too many layers?