HdDvd-rw
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Toshiba's Qosmio G40 now with world's first HD DVD-RW drive
Notice anything special about that laptop up there? No besides it's monstrous footprint. Right, a world's first HD DVD-RW drive in a laptop. Otherwise, it's the same 17-inch WUXGA (1920 x 1200) Qosmio G40 we know and love now topping out with a 2.2GHz T7500 Core 2 Duo, up to 400GB of disk and 4GB of memory, and a pair of terrestrial HDTV tuners with HDMI-out in a 10.6-pound slab of media action. Priced at about ¥400,000 ($3,530) nicely equipped. [Via Impress]
Toshiba unveils HD DVD-RW writer for laptops
Toshiba Qosmio fans have reason to celebrate with the unveiling of Tosh's skinny SD-L912A HD DVD-RW writer for laptops, a world's first to support rewritable HD DVD media. Unfortunately, we're only talking 1x read/write speeds here, or about 2 hours to fill a 30GB dual-layer disc -- but it's a start. The drives is also capable of writing to HD DVD-R DL and all the DVD and CDROM formats you can throw at it. The 12.7-mm thin drive will be shipping in sample quantities to OEMs in July as they spin up to production capacity in the months that follow. That would make it available as an option in the Qosmio G40 sometime near the end of summer.[Via Impress]
RITEK rolling out HD DVD-Rs next month
HD DVD-Rs are on the way, with Maxell/Hitachi and Mitsubishi/Verbatim announcing shipments to Japan in July, and September in the US, now Advanced Media, better known as RITEK or RIDATA, has announced they will ship single-layer HD DVD-Rs to the US in late July. Other than the 15GB discs next month, they will release dual-layer 30GB HD DVD-Rs and single-layer HD DVD-RWs sometime in the fourth quarter.We're still left guessing as to the burning speed supported by the discs as that is not mentioned in the press release. There is also no specific price mentioned, but we can expect HD DVD recorders to become available around the same time as the media.
Maxell/Hitachi plans September US HD DVD-R/RW launch
According to this article from TWICE, the US division of Maxell is planning on releasing HD DVD-R and -RW discs in September (July for Japan), and shipping Blu-ray BD-Rs and BD-REs in August. They haven't announced a price for either yet. Also notable was the quoted VP's concern over the complexity of a format war and how many returns they had of recordable media in the early days of DVD. They don't anticipate the market to be profitable until at least 2007 and are focusing on consumer and retail education to ease the transition. Finally, they consider hardware pricing the most important factor in consumer acceptance of new technology. Very interesting words, we can assume HD DVD burners will be available come September, but who, what price and what speed?
HD DVD-R/RW media available July 5 in Japan
Hitachi and Mitsubishi have both announced today that (in Japan at least), they will be releasing single layer HD DVD-Rs, with RW and dual layer blanks to come later this summer. Still no recorders announced, but with their importance in the Japanese market and media now scheduled, they can't be very far off. Impress approximates the price at about 2,000 yen ($17.75 US), which is about the same price as single layer Blu-ray media. What the press releases don't seem to say is whether this media is 1X or 2X speed rated; because of the difference in the specifications 1X (36.55mbps) media could still play HD DVD content, but would be a slower burner than the Blu-ray drives that are coming out rated at 2X (72mbps) or higher. Impress only mentions the Hitachi as being 1X. [Via Impress Watch]Read - Hitachi HD DVD-R/RWRead - Mitsubishi HD DVD-R/RW
