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Panasonic's Blu-ray Recorder To Hit Market In July
lunarscape writes "Forbes is reporting that 'Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. on Wednesday unveiled what it calls the world's first DVD recorder that supports single-side, dual-layer Blu-ray Discs with a maximum capacity of 50 gigabytes.' It looks like Sony's own Blu-ray recorder will now have some competition."
Matsushita unveils DVD recorder adopting Blu-ray Disc format+
, 06.30.04, 10:21 AM ET
OSAKA, Jun 30, 2004 (Kyodo via COMTEX) -- Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. on Wednesday unveiled what it calls the world's first DVD recorder that supports single-side, dual-layer Blu-ray Discs with a maximum capacity of 50 gigabytes.
The DMR-E700BD, the high-end model of Matsushita's DIGA DVD recorder series, will be put on the Japanese market on an open-price basis on July 31, said the major consumer electronics maker known for its Panasonic brand.
The new model can record up to four and a half hours of digital high-definition programming or up to 63 hours of analog programming, Matsushita said. The machine is equipped with built-in tuners for terrestrial digital broadcasting, broadcast satellites, 110-degree communications satellites and terrestrial analog broadcasting.
Matsushita is the second company after Sony Corp. to release a DVD recorder adopting the Blu-ray Disc, a next-generation large-capacity optical disc video recording format.
Using a blue-violet laser, the Blu-ray Disc achieves over two hours of digital high-definition video recording on a single-sided, single-layer CD/DVD-size disc with a diameter of 12 centimeters.
tapes were just too expensive and unreliable (and slow).
Expensive, sure, but unreliable? A decent Digital Linear Tape drive is a far superior backup solution to optical disks -- plenty of capacity, and the storage medium doesn't have the annoying habit of rusting or decaying as it sits on the shelf. The same can't be said of CDs and DVDs...
Of course, for real reliability, there is only one proven solution. Clay tablets. We've got those going back to the dawn of civilization; but, tellingly, there are no CDs from before the 1980s. Now if only someone would make a clay jukebox...
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
the salesman said that DVD+R isn't the standard, and while DVD-R was supported on basically all DVD players
The salesman was full of shit. A salesman told me the opposite.
They're both standard. Some units work well with one, some with the other, some with neither (older ones).
The only "right" answer is to stick with what works, which has been DVD-R for me too (mostly because thats what my PS2 and XBOX like).
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Short answer:
Only drives specifically designed to support Blu-Ray discs can play them.
Long answer:
Blu-Ray discs are just "recordable discs", and not DVD discs, since they don't adhere to the DVD specification. HD-DVD discs do on the other hand, and I think they were designed with more backwards compatibility in mind. It might be possible to use tricks on those, like storing "DVD" information in one layer that's backwards compatible and "HD-DVD" in another. Then your "old" DVD player could "see" the DVD information and not even know it's reading from a HD-DVD disc. That's speculation though, but I think there might at least be a small chance things could work with HD-DVD's.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
DVD media is actually less sensitive, because it has much more robust error correction built in. The players are more sensitive, because they use lasers that put out less light at higher frequencies.
Since the principle is bounce the light off the disk, and if it comes back it's a 1, the less light the laser emits the crappier it works. But if you simply turn up the juice you run the risk of creating light in the wrong spectrum.
In the end, most players are just cheap shit and thats where the problems come from. I've put DVD's into my trusty Panasonic slot-loading drive that look like they've had a belt-sander taken to them.
Most people with these complaints have cheapo compusa-branded drives in their computer and a $20 Apex set-top from Wal-mart. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's the equipment that's at fault.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!