Ya'll have *way* too much time on your hands. ;)

Anyone that really thinks HD-DVD stands any chance of winning the format war is is for a shock.

We now know, there is little to differenciate HD-DVD ad Blu-Ray on hardware prices and media prices (if anything Blu-Ray is cheaper hardware with the PS3). There is a table of other key differences here (it's obviously biased in favor of Blu-Ray, but they are still facts).

http://www.blu-raydisc.c...14064/faqs/4/Index.html

For those that want to spout Betamax tripe. Look at the facts about Betamax. Betamax failed for 2 reasons.

1. VHS had longer record time (capacity)
2. VHS had more support from studios (pre-recordered and rentals).

Guess which format has both of these areas sorted out this time around... Blu-Ray has considerably more studio support, and it's got considerably higher capacity.

Go Figure...

$750, lol. You can build a pretty decent computer with that kind of money. Between the high-priced PS3, not actually "owning" PS3 games, and dropping the UMD format, it's amazing how they haven't cut their own throat yet.

Did I mention the DS is leading the handheld market?

I totally lost any respect I had for Sony.

Since when is anyone dropping UMD? I thought it was only the useless UMD movies they were dropping.

Seems lots of people have the blinkers on...

The PSP itself isn't exactly doing that great. When it's gone the UMD format will very likely go along with it. The Universal Disk Format didn't turn out to be very universal at all, sure they are still making games on it because they have no choice really, it's what the PSP uses. As a format though it's already lying in the coffin waiting for the lid to be put on.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4218320.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4423235.stm
http://www.999today.com/games/news/story/2145.html

Whilst PSP is currently being outsold by Nintendo:DS in some regions, it's certainly not a flop. 10 million units upto October 2005 is not too shabby at all. There seems to be room in the market for both NintendoDS and PSP, as their target audiences are different, think Nintendogs Vs GTS:LS

Yeah. Now those who support this crappy DVD upgrade called HD DVD had a kick in the butt :)
Their favorite thing lost its only advantage - cheapnes :)

I don't know where you are getting that from but HD-DVD is still cheaper. This is a "PC Burner". Are there any HD-DVD-R burners for computers yet? So what are you basing your pricing on?

Oh, and I wouldn't exactly call $750 for a computer burner "cheap".

It is 25% cheaper only several days after first BD drives!!! In a few months no one will remember any DVD related thing :D

I still am not following you. This is not a set top player for movies, has nothing to do with them. This is a drive you install in your PC to burn data onto blank discs. Those are always much cheaper than a regular player for your TV. There is no HD-DVD recordable drive out for PCs yet that I am aware of so you can't compare prices until then. Either way, DVD isn't going anywhere for many years. Neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray is going to replace them any time soon.

Man i am not comparing it with HD DVD drive. PC BD drives used to be $1000 (999) and now 25% off. Thats what im saying here...
I dont care about players, all i need is extra storage for my PC :) If i need playback for big screen/TV i will use my PC as player.
As for the replace ... ok stick with them, i wont try to convince you :)

What I'm saying is there were no PC BD drives before this one, this is the very first one. They just now announced the price. Where are you getting this 25% off stuff from? You may have seen an early price estimate or something but this is the first time the official price has been announced. Either way $750 is still very expensive and I bet HD-DVD recordable drives for the PC will be a lot cheaper.

Where do you come from?
Here is some BD devices you will find at leas 10 BD PC Drives here:

Reviews of BD drives, players and media:

Sony:
http://hdtv.engadget.com...bwu-100a-blu-ray-burner/
http://storage.engadget....p-with-blu-ray-reviewed/
http://hdtv.engadget.com...-again-until-october-25/
http://hdtv.engadget.com...vaio-ar-laptop-reviewed/
http://hdtv.engadget.com...p-with-blu-ray-reviewed/

Samsung:
http://storage.engadget....gicstation-mv55-desktop/
http://hdtv.engadget.com...mbo-player-just-in-case/
http://hdtv.engadget.com...ng-the-samsung-bd-p1000/
http://hdtv.engadget.com...s-bd-p1000-launch-party/
http://hdtv.engadget.com...-ray-box-released-early/
http://hdtv.engadget.com...amsung-bd-p1000-exposed/

LG:
http://storage.engadget....burner-headed-to-taiwan/

BenQ:
http://storage.engadget....r-bw1000-blu-ray-burner/

TDK:
http://storage.engadget....dk-reveals-6x-bd-r-disc/
http://storage.engadget....ping-25gb-blu-ray-media/

Plextor:
http://storage.engadget....ray-burner-the-px-b900a/

Primera:
http://storage.engadget....g-er-duplication-system/

Philips:
http://storage.engadget....nnounces-blu-ray-lineup/
http://storage.engadget....-50gb-pc-blu-ray-burner/

Pioneer:
http://storage.engadget....-comes-out-looking-good/
http://hdtv.engadget.com...yer-launch-until-autumn/

Logitec:
http://storage.engadget....ray-disc-drive-for-macs/

IODATA:
http://storage.engadget....brd-am2b-blu-ray-drives/

Panasonic:
http://storage.engadget....hipping-10-june-for-850/

Sharp:
http://www.sharp.co.jp/hi-vision/bd/index.html

Other:
http://www.blu-ray.com/players/
http://www.blu-ray.com/drives/
http://www.blu-ray.com/media/
My post was cut off here...

this is all I have to say
http://www.inphase-technologies.com/index.html

300 gigs per disk, they're gonna get to a terabyte soon. It will take a while before it's affordable for consumers unless you want to sell an organ or 2 to get it now.

Wow this is so cool! Im lookog foreward for this one :)

I must admit, the thought of high capacity disks for general storage is a good move forward. And we are all argueing about what will win and the various reasons.

We can all spout facts and figures, but ultimatly the end user will decide, and the average end user is not equiped to make use of this product at all. HDTV is in no way at the levels to support this product to drive sales, and I think the main use of this in its present form will be people who wants to compile there own disks. My own personal opinion is that duel layer is too unreliable and still only use single layer media because its cheaper, faster and more reliable and cant see this changing unless duel layer media changes.

My opinion is that noone will use this product for backups. streaming over the network to a raid is far far better, more reliable and works perfectly and needs minimal maintainance.

i will mainly use this to backup films from DVD to DivX and shove them on a HD disk untill its full and buy a compatible HD DivX player to run on a normal TV.

When HDTV becomes mainstream then the format war will allready be over and we will be waiting for its replacment.

You all forget one thing it is still Sony Why even consider it?

Brand recognition and/or fanboy loyalty. People either think Sony still means quality or they own Sony products already and feel that they have to be loyal to the company.

Or perhaps it still does mean quality, and your talking sh1te...

Typical, when the fanboys can't think of a good argument they resort to swearing and personal attacks. At least your predictable as always Mark.

They've been having trouble burning dual layer in production yet they can still sell a consumer burner? I won't be holding my breath.

HD-DVD is better anyway. Better compression, better features (and most are required) and better quality right now from what I've heard and seen. Oh.. and it's cheaper! Better for cheaper.. go figure!

Do you have any evidence to back up those claims?

Better compression.

HD-DVD uses Microsoft VC1, Blue-Ray also uses VC1, or H-264

Better Features:

Features seems like for like between Blu-Ray, unless you can provide any details to your dodgy claims.

Better Quality:

Considering HD-DVD has 60% less storage space. 15/30 vs 25/50 for BluRay). Considering HD-DVD does not support 1080p, only 1080i. I would also like to see what evidence to back up these claims..

Cheaper :

Please show us a cheaper $750 PC HD-DVD burner..

HD-DVD has 60% less storage space. 15/30 vs 25/50 for BluRay

Not that I agree or disagree, but getting your math wrong is worse for credibility than typos.

15/30 vs 25/50 is not 60% less, its 40% less than and 60% of.

Just to correct some errors you made:

HD-DVD also supports VC1 and H-264. Both formats can use the same codecs, there is no advantage either way.

The HD-DVD format supports 720p, 1080p and 1080i. Again exactly the same as Blu-Ray. No advantage either way.

As for the storage amounts it is true that HD-DVD holds less, but it is more than enough for a movie in HD format. There is no advantage for Blu-Ray with movies, but an advantage for data storage. Depending on reliability which is yet to be determined for either format.

HD-DVD is cheaper to produce because it can use existing fabrication plants with little change. Advantage, the media and players are cheaper. This is a very important point for consumers.

So far they both come out basically even. It's still very early but my money is on HD-DVD in the long run however.

Whoops, well spotted.

The (DL)technology may have halved in price but the media NEVER became affordable. That particular script isn't always followed....

Agreed, I've had a DL capable burner for a long time but I refuse to buy the stupid overpriced media when I can buy two regular DVD-R for next to nothing.

same applied to RW disc. When CDRW disc came out, it was a great idea, except no one is using it. They were slow and expensive.

True but the price did eventually come down on them. DL discs have been out a long time and they are still overpriced.

The price has come down on CDRWs; but I think they are still overpriced, and never had very good reliability in my experience.

Comeon guys, we all know how this market works, dvd burners started out at $200-$400, same for dual-layer when it came out,(not to mention the $15 prices on the discs usually)but within 3 months, the price of the technology was slashed to half it's beginning retail; you can now get a dual-layer 16x burner for $40, a good one at that.

With higher data rates, substantially higher capacity, and new optic technology to the market, why are you surprised at these prices?! Just wait 6 months and it'll prove to go through the same price pattern of dvd's. I believe it'll be successful, but like all new optical formats before it, it takes time to catch on.

I, personally, have need for discs of this size for backup purposes, because in the end it will always be cheaper than flash or hard disk backup solutions. This is a new format that should be supported, don't bash it for being expensive;you know you'll get it since it's better than HD-DVD. Just don't be an early adopter, I know none of you want to be caught behind too much :P

dvd burners started out at $200-$400

Actually... I remember a time when just DVD players were a bargain at $300 a piece.

Like you said, the price of Blu-Ray is getting the same criticism as DVD's.

I never remember dvd burners being over $450.

If capacity were all there were to it then everyone would be using DL media. But despite its price "slashes", DL media is still to expensive per GB.

Also, I think your recall of price drops is a little accelerated/compressed. I can't think of any technology prices that have halved in 3 months, short of error prone clearanced items.

Do you expect me to appologize for a poor sense of time?

I can recall very vividly dual-layer burners dropping price that fast, no joke.And they were of acceptable quality.(Sure, they weren't Plextor, but who really spends that much?!)
I don't know which Best Buy store you purchase over-priced media writers that would testify against my claim, but Newegg and Pricewatch would certainly fit this claim.
"DL media is still to expensive per GB."
As opposed to...What? Hard disk media? With proper care any disc media will outlive hard drives by a long shot, flash is an exception but the issue here is storage capacity per price, indeed.

My original player cost me $379. Didn't get the extended warranty or anything because I knew I'd be able to get another one in a year that was 10 times better and 10 times less expensive.

You play the Early Adopter Game™, you pay. Big time.

the price of Blu-Ray is getting the same criticism as DVD's

As well as HD-DVD. Don't mistake me to be a Blu-Ray enthusiast. I hope the format dies a bloody death. I just think all the whining about prices is kinda silly.

I can recall very vividly dual-layer burners dropping price that fast
You are seriously considering DL burners independantly from the single layer burners that came before them?

As opposed to...What?
Only Bluray(at newegg)= 1(25gb)for $17=$0.68/GB
Cheapest DL at newegg = 25 for $40 = $0.19/GB
Cheapest SL at newegg = 100 for $26 = $0.06/GB
Cheapest CDR = 100 for $17 = $0.24/GB
250-320GB HDDs at newegg = about $0.30/GB

And the hardrives can be read from written to many many many times. If you used the hard drive twice as much as the discs, I am sure you would have no failures.

So, in conclusion, the only media more expensive than DL per GB are Bluray and CDR., and CDRs are not bought for their large capacities. For Bluray to succeed as a storage medium, I think its media will probably need to be 60% cheaper. Otherwise people will continue to use single-layer DVDs...or maybe HD-DVDs (depending on their pricing).

Backup media must be much cheaper per GB than working media. DVD-DL and Bluray do not fit the requirements. (With frequent backing up, even non-rewriteable single layer DVDs are a bit expensive. After 5x total capacity in backups, harddrives are more economical.)

You play the Early Adopter Game™, you pay. Big time.

I bought my first CDRW drive for $600...and it was only 2x write, 2x rewrite, and 6x read. When the first CD-R drive came out at best buy, it was $1700--was 2x write, 1x rewrite, and 4x reader--that could only support ~ 600MB per CD as well (598MB if I recall). It could be much worse...:)

Consumer optical disc tech was newer back then. In some ways you really can't compare the price of 2x/2x/6x CDRW drives to newer optical tech. Look how much hard drives cost 20 years ago, when they were new to the consumer market.

That is a very good point.

"Consumer optical disc tech was newer back then."

Yeah...so were 6-head VCRs, but they only cost $250 brand spankin' new. Besides, isn't the "Blue laser" new technology? Have there been any other "Blu-Ray" optics that I have missed prior to Blu-Ray coming out??

Seriously, there were 6-head VCRs? I mean it, seriously?

HD-DVD uses a blue laser also, but it's much cheaper.

I have one. Toshiba.

Excellent VCR. Was a tad pricey at the time of purchase though. I will likely use it until it dies. I *might* even look into getting it repsired if it does. Kids use it quite a bit...

I think I would come closer to buying this and player software than I would a Blueray player.

With all the DRM I wonder if you can even play retail movies with this, unless you have an HDMI compatible monitor. Personally I'm going to stick with DVD until this mess is sorted out.

Well for myself I would be hooking the system that would have this into a HDTV. I realize this wouldn't be the case with everyone but I would assume if not that you would need a HDMI compatible monitor.

[sarcasm]Woohoo, look at that affordable media:[/sarcasm]
from the SonyStyle site:

BNR-50AHE 50GB BD-R Dual Layer Recordable Disc
47.99

BNE-25AHE 25GB BD-RE Rewritable Disc
24.99

BNR-25AHE 25GB BD-R Recordable Disc
19.99

Dual Layer DVD discs are far more expensive considering that on average they still cost $3 approx and that's for 8.4GB (0.35$ per gigabyte) Vs $0.06 per gigabyte of a 50GB Dual Layer BD.

It was the same story for CDs and DVDs before they took off...

Not too bad I guess, considering you get 25GB of storage for $20.

Definitely not a disc that you would burn and then throw around in the car to get scratched all to hell though :)

Are you talking for manufacturing or retail? The 50GB blu-ray is almost $1 per GB retail cost....I've never actually looked at how much DVD discs cost...I guess I should hook up that Sony DVD burner I bought last year and do some stuff.

I'm getting slightly different numbers than you are:

$47.99 / 50GB = $0.96 per GB

Any word on how much the blank media's going to be yet? Also, will it support RW or just R only?

It supports BD-R (write once) and BD-RE (Rewritable). Grazer already posted the expected media prices above.

I sell them for about 29.99 each... for the 25GB version.. write once.

Thanks

Yay for BetaRay.

Shhh, you'll cause Mark Gulliblespie to show up and start preaching his Sony sermons to us.

Bing...

Think what you like, Sony have won the most popular brand, for the 7th year in a row.

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/

People like Banquo hate Sony because they are not an American company. Most normal people however like Sony products...

...guess I'm not normal.

Whenever I look at Sony stuff, I just see the same thing over and over again: A really cool, stylish, mildly-functional, overpriced, proprietary status symbol.

No, I hate Sony because they are an arrogant company that loves pushing out proprietary high cost formats that hurt consumers (as well as their other famous shennanigans). They are the epitomy of greed. Microsoft is an American company and I don't like them either so don't try and pull that patriotic crap. Here we have another stupid format war, not what we needed. Blu-Ray is WAY overpriced, they can keep it.

Really though, Harris poll? LOL

What status? Hick?

Agreed, I do remember when Sony was considered to be top of the line for quality, but that has not been true for a long time. I've found Sony products to be pretty poor quality in recent years, look at their PS2 that dies if you look at if funny. I also had a Sony DVD player that only lasted a couple of years. These days I consider quality to be from companies like Samsung. Sony has simply lost it; they're still a big name though and everyone knows them. That is why people still buy Sony stuff, just because of the name.

80% population = sheep.

They get what they deserve.

(was that a bit too cynical?)

Nah...

The hick comment might have been though. I literally laughed out loud when I read that. My co-workers looked up wondering if I was ok.

Please enlighten us about your inside knowledge of PS2 failure rates, I am curious.

My PS2 is now 4 years old, and perfectly. Infact I don't know of anyone's PS2 going bad personally.

Sony have sold 115 million units globally. It does no take an idiot to realise that with 115,000,000 units out there, there will always be warranty failures.

If you want to talk about high failure rates, XBox360 is reported to be close to 10%

I know of six personally that have died early. Most often the lasers going bad. The PS2 is generally a very unreliable system. I realize this is all a waste of time though because you worship all things Sony. I'm still not sure if you're a fanboy or a paid shill. The way you idolize them in every related post on Betanews is a bit beyond belief.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/...tertainment/1113698.stm

http://games.slashdot.or...pl?sid=03/11/07/1854216

Wow, can't wait to see what Mark says to that :) (I find this type of debate to be quite amusing...)

I do too. Post something Mark!

Ahhh Blu Ray, another fantastic innovation from the Japanese giant. We can only hope it's as successful as Sonys' previous ventures - Betamax, Minidiscs and UMD.

But still, the format war will serve us consumers with falling prices and increased standards development that you just don't see in a monopoly. That is, unless you choose Sony and buy a Blu-Ray player, which will be a rather expensive paperweight in two years when HD-DVD conquers Blu-Ray. When will Sony learn that nobody wants their poor quality, overpriced, proprietary formats?

LOL, a 5 and a half year old BBC news item to back up your claims. Very credible, is that best you can come up with?

The BBC news item was dated 2 months after the initial console launch, since then, they have produced over 110,000,000 consoles. Do you really think they did not address these issues in the last 5 years...

Again someone that seems to think Betamax has some relevance to Blu-Ray. It's over 30 years ago.

You also forget the Sony formats that did succeed.. CD, FloppyDisk etc..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Format_war

I've had a PS2 die last year so apparently not, started giving read errors and then quit. G4 did a test of the three major consoles and the PS2 came out by far the worst. Sorry but it's a piece of crap.

The CD is not a Sony format, Philips made it. Sony was only a partner. We're talking about formats that Sony themselves created. Most of them are proprietary and most of them have flopped in the market.

Well... by definition, when creating a new storage technology like this, it's going to be "proprietary."

Normally, I would agree with you, though. Sony is notorious for making stuff that only works with other Sony products.

Well not really, since anyone could make CD players when the format came out, and anyone could make VHS players. When CD-R came out there were tons of manufacturers making media and drives, and they were all compatible. Sony usually wants to have complete control over their formats and either won't allow others to use it or try to charge ridiculous amounts to license it.

For a good current example look at memory sticks. They only work in Sony products and they are priced outrageously when compared to other flash media formats. Then there is UMD which recently died as a movie format. They called it universal but the only thing it worked in was the PSP. The floppy disk was an exception because Sony did not make computers at that time. Apple adopted them and later IBM, and by nature PCs are very open. Years later they did try to come up with a replacement for the floppy called Hi-FD. It was unreliable and died a swift death.

So it's OK to use the argument that Sony developed Blu-Ray with Philips (amongst many others), but not that they developed the CD format with them??

"Sony usually wants to have complete control over the format and either won't allow others to use it or try to charge ridiculous amounts to license it."

What a load of tripe. Does anyone here talk sense?

http://en.wikipedia.org/...lu-ray_Disc_Association

and the 170 members (of which Sony is just 1):

http://www.blu-raydisc.c...ection-14009/Index.html

I didn't mention Blu-Ray anywhere in my post. I am well aware of what companies also support Blu-Ray. I've read all about both formats so save your links and your insults. I was talking about Sony's history of proprietary formats.

"Well not really, since anyone could make CD players when the format came out, "

How much more BS do you want to spout? To make a CD player, you have to pay Philips money, and they have to accept you onto the licencing scheme.

http://www.licensing.phi...2&filename=4454.pdf

http://www.licensing.phi...2&filename=4454.pdf

Actually when CD format was released, there was only a handfull of companies licenced to make them, Sony, Philips, Marantz (division of Philips), plus a couple of others I forget. It took at least 18months before they opened the licences to other manufacturers.

I suggest keeping quiet, and stop yourself looking like a clueless newbie.

And how do you (Sony Fanboy) know that Sony aren't charging ridiculous amounts?

You really don't get it do you.

Sony are not the sole owner of Blu-Ray technology. Whilst you will have to pay someone a licence to make a Blu-Ray drive, it won't be Sony directly, it will be BDA.

http://www.blu-raydisc.info/

My co-workers looked up wondering if I was ok.

I'm sure that's not too unusual. ;)