h dvd
Latest
Microsoft shows off Ana, says no HD DVD in Xbox 360... ever
Microsoft recently had the guys from Ars Technica over to show how the Xbox 360 compares to the PlayStation 3 on one of Sony's own 1080p Bravias, and of course didn't find much difference except in cases where scaling came into play. They looked at the 360's hardware scaler, Ana, which means while it may lack the advanced digital A/V output of the PS3, it will allow every HDTV owner to play games in HD resolutions over component or VGA. Also of note was their response to questions about possibly putting an HD DVD drive in the console, the answer was a firm no, and even referred to the company's own format of choice as a potential "next Betamax". The lack of HDMI may be resolved soon, but with the high def war still very much in flux don't look for Microsoft to put all of its eggs in the HD DVD basket just yet.
HD optical disc burners at Computex
Adding to the growing list of Blu-ray burners we've seen so far from Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, and BenQ is a new unit from ASUS that was being shown off at Computex. This BD-R/RE/ROM burner, whose model number remains a mystery, is capable of writing to Blu-ray discs at two times speed, while burning to standard dual-layer DVD+R and DVD-R platters is accomplished at 2.4x and 2.0x speeds, respectively. Also on display was one of the first HD-DVD-R units we've seen, the 12.7-millimeter thick SD-L902A from Toshiba, which appears to burn data at what we're hoping is just a first-gen speed of 1.0x. As with many products introduced at the Taiwanese trade show, pricing and release plans for both of these burners are still up in the air.[Via HDBeat]
