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Sony Shipping 50GB Blu-ray Discs

By Nate Mook, BetaNews

August 16, 2006, 12:29 PM

Sony on Wednesday announced it had begun shipping its 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray recordable media, which like DVD-Rs can be written to once. The discs store up to 4 hours of high-definition video and will cost $48 USD apiece. Rewriteable Blu-ray media is expected later this year.

Because Blu-ray discs are less resilient than rival format HD DVD, Sony says it has re-engineered its AccuCORE technology to provide scratch resistance, reduction of corruption and deterioration, as well as stable writing functionality to keep the disc level while spinning. Blu-ray discs can also hold up under high temperatures, Sony says.

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By yourdvddotnet

posted Jan 1, 2007 - 4:53 AM

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are both going to co-exist in the marketplace. Sony and the ps3=Blu-Ray and Microsoft and the X-box 360 = HD-DVD, so I guess choose the one you prefer? Personally, I will continue to use Dual Layer DVD until the price of the high density formats come down and it will happen. Remember - the first recordable dvd burner was a pioneer, i think it held only 3.95 gb or so, and was the dvd-r format which eventually grew to 4.7gb. The 3.95 gb recorder cost $5000 when it came out and the discs were $40 each (write once). The cost dropped dramatically over a few years with market acceptance and competition. Blu-Ray and HD will be competing, so this will help shrink the price, but market acceptance will be KEY in lowering the price, BUT IT WILL HAPPEN. May take 2 years or more, but it'll happen.

Score: 0

By Ano

edited Aug 16, 2006 - 1:19 PM

"can be written two once" - does he mean "written to once"?

..or is it a pun?

Score: 0

By mike1305

edited Aug 17, 2006 - 5:06 PM

Of course it is easier to buy a hard drive, but if they don't start selling them then they have no reason to create them, and then costs will never go down. Plus they will make a few bucks on the side. Not to mention, its kind of bulky to sell HD movies on hard drives, eh?

Score: 0

By okhouri

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 4:14 AM

Wouldn't it be chaeper to buy a hard disk?

Score: 0

By Tenoq

posted Aug 16, 2006 - 8:51 PM

Bugger. That'd be an expensive scratch if you dropped the damn thing. And don't even mention the word 'coaster'. :P

So what do you guys reckon? 12 months to mainstream? 18?

Score: 0

By SrLnclt

edited Aug 16, 2006 - 8:31 PM

Dual layer Blu-Ray Disk. Single writing, $1/GB, 1x writing speed at 36MB/s, and unusable in almost every machine in use today.

SATA I drive. Virtually unlimited rewrtiting, what now - $0.35/GB?, writing speed at 150MB/s, and can be used in the majority of current machines.

I'll go with the BluRay - its made by Sony!

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 5:13 PM

roflmao...

Score: 0

By Banquo

edited Aug 16, 2006 - 4:41 PM

Too bad the only Blu-Ray player out right now (Samsung BD-P1000) can't even read them.

Score: 0

By aredo

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 5:44 AM

What ? There are issues with HDCP not the media.

Score: 0

By Alex Stevens

edited Aug 17, 2006 - 2:00 PM

Nope, that model can't read dual layer media. It has nothing to do with HDCP. There are other models that can though, and I read there is a possibility they can upgrade the firmware so the BDP1000 can read dual layer too. So far they have not though.

Score: 0

By Mark Gillespie

posted Aug 16, 2006 - 6:31 PM

Only Blu-Ray player?

What about Pioneer BDP-HD1? I can buy one today, if I were so inclined.

Score: 0

By deminicus

posted Aug 16, 2006 - 2:35 PM

who cares, holographic storage is the next big thing. 1 disk = 64 dvds and growing. Just have to wait till it get cheap for consumers.

http://www.inphase-techn...professional/index.html

Score: 0

By Mark Gillespie

posted Aug 16, 2006 - 3:51 PM

LOL, have you seen the size of the prototype?

holographic storage is total pie in the sky, it's not going to be a consumer storage format for at least another 10years (if ever).

Score: 0

By aredo

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 5:46 AM

Because there were interests to sell HD-DVD and Blu-Ray first, because they already spent a lot of money on R&D. However holographic technology is being looked at by big Corporations and will be the next format 5-7 years from now, although I hope it's going to happen way before that because we will be using 2-3TB RAID6 arrays by that time on entry level machines...

Score: 0

By Noremacam

posted Aug 16, 2006 - 6:56 PM

I think 10 years is about accurate

Score: 0

By alphatrigon

posted Aug 16, 2006 - 9:11 PM

maybe even longer...i've kept up with hearing about and seeing the holos for what, about 15 years now? It's one thing to have the tech...it's another when really good tech is regulated. They'll perfect it in 5 and then bring it out to us in 50 years, lol

Score: 0

By deminicus

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 8:38 AM

they actually plan on having desktop drives soon. People said the same thing about cdrw's back in the day. Remember that this type of technology grows exponentially. Mass production is the key to making this cheap. This method is a paradigm shift on how we store data. It's not going away.

Score: 0

By Mark Gillespie

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 10:00 AM

"People said the same thing about cdrw's back in the day".

Errm, no. People were already used to mastered CD's, so the concept of recordable CD's was feasible.

This is total blue-sky stuff. You can tell by the prominent "Investor" link on the front page of the website..

Score: 0

By foxfyre

posted Aug 16, 2006 - 3:59 PM

Nonsense!

Score: 0

By VictorAnderson

posted Aug 16, 2006 - 1:20 PM

$48 each huh? With my luck I'd buy a spool of them and like the crappy DVD-R's I keep getting 1 out of 10 of them would be no good.

aah well. Eventually they won't be $48 and will be 48 cents... in the meantime at $48 a pop I'll just buy bigger external hard drive.

Score: 0

By sjc001

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 6:30 AM

The first 5.25" floppies cost over $50 for a box of 10 and only hold 320k of data each.

Score: 0

By yourdvddotnet

edited Jan 1, 2007 - 4:39 AM

Actually, the first 5.25" floppies were single side single density and held about 80K, the ssdd held 160k (about 156k formatted), the 320k's were double side double density 360k (about 320k formatted)

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 16, 2006 - 3:30 PM

Hell yeah.

For the cost of 10, you could get a Seagate 750GB SATA II hard drive with a 5-year warranty.

http://www.mwave.com/mwa...c.hmx?scriteria=AA46350

Score: 0

By aredo

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 5:49 AM

There were people telling the same as you about writeable DVDs a few years ago...and about writeable CDs before that... So, what's your point?
Blu-Ray adoption will be deadly fast, in a year from now a DVD writer will be below $500 and the media will cost 25-30% less than now at least.
They are already less expensive than dual layer DVD+R or DVD-R discs.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 12:29 PM

Blu-Ray adoption will be deadly fast,

According to whom?

So, what's your point?

Here, in case you missed it the first time:

For the cost of 10, you could get a Seagate 750GB SATA II hard drive with a 5-year warranty.

Now, let me break that down for ya, since you seem to be having trouble with it:

Cost of 10 BluRay Discs now: $480

Cost of 1 750GB Seagate SATA II HD: Less than $480.

This is called a comparison. In this instance, it contrasts the costs of two items used to store data.

It did *not*, however, compare pricing with any past media launches or future pricing on the current media as you seem to be under the impression it did.

Such simple statements as these do not usually require explanation. Are you feeling okay?

Score: 0

By mike1305

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 5:12 PM

calm down there, hothead.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 5:20 PM

Dude.

If someone tries to shoot down a post of mine by putting words in my mouth and going off on tangents, you can damn well rest assured that I will defend it.

I made a simple comparison. He tried to make something out of it that it was not. I corrected him.

As for being calm or a hothead, I did not call anyone names or insult his momma. The tone was more than civil. You know not of which you speak if you think that was *me* being a hothead. ;)

Score: 0

By sjc001

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 6:31 AM

Aren't they already below $50 for a DVD writer?

Score: 0

By aredo

posted Aug 17, 2006 - 6:59 AM

The cheapest DVD+R or DVD-R Dual Layer 8.2GB discs still cost in the $2-8 price range or more.
Considering an average $4 per disc that's 48 cents per gigabyte. And you need to buy 6 discs to have 50GB storage space.

Score: 0

By foxfyre

posted Aug 16, 2006 - 12:42 PM

Hold me back...

Sorry, couldn't resist! ;-)

Score: 0

By peter_noth

edited Aug 16, 2006 - 8:45 PM

I bought a Panasonic DVD RAM recorder about a year ago for $250 that can record on all the DVD(+/-) and CD formats. When these recorders were introduced, they were about $1000 and the discs were about $50. Soon enough, these Blu-Ray discs will be just as cheap. We just need enough early adopters to pay up in order for these things to get cheaper. In due time....

Score: 0

By Ano

edited Nov 28, 2006 - 2:08 PM

I'm not entirely sure about how to react to Blu-Ray; Just for name recognition, the PS3 ads have been doing a decent job, but in general, I think 'HD-DVD' is closer to what people are used to for formats: acronyms. What does Blu-Ray stand for?

Score: 0

By yourdvddotnet

posted Jan 1, 2007 - 4:46 AM

Blu-Ray is a play on the type of laser used to read and write the discs. HD-DVD uses similar laser technology. Blue lasers can simply produce a tighter beam, thereby fitting more data into a given space. I remember reading sometime in 1995 or 1996 about the development of the blue laser and how it would affect the capacity of cd's however, by the time it came about dvd's were the thing and so why apply it to cd's? :-)

Score: 0

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