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PS3 To Use Blu-Ray Technology
Daetrin writes "GameSpot has reported an announcement by Sony that the PlayStation 3 will use Blu-Ray technology, a next-generation optical disc format which 'can hold 25GB on a single layer and 50GB on the dual-layer discs', as many people have been speculating. What Sony hasn't said for sure is whether the PS3 will be backwards compatible with DVD movies and PS2 games. However, they indicated that they will reveal more details about the PlayStation 3 at a premiere in Japan on March 31st next year. (And, if nothing else, there will certainly be plenty of rumors before then.)"
Uh, Yes, they have. Where have you been?
Geez, this is like last year news, and a simple google search revealed all of these links.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
go to the blu-ray link. it states in plain english that it can also read CDs and DVDs.
When the PS2 came out with DVD support, Sony didn't make the PS2 incompatible with PSone games and CD just because they decided to support DVDs. There is not reason to believe back-wards compatibility would be dropped from the PS3 likewise.
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In fact. Sony has developed a laser head that can read/write Bluray/DVD+/-rw/CD-RW.
http://www.sony.net/SonyI
Ken Kutargi himself already confirmed backwards compatibility.
http://www.ps3insider.com/modules
Of course, it doesn't support HD-DVD.
Since the PS3 is already stated to support PS1 and PS2 games, it *must* support CD and DVD, so you don't *have* to re-purchase your DVDs in Blu-ray, just your HD-DVDs. Of course, if you're an HD addict and just can't stand those "low-res" DVDs, then yea, you need to buy *either* HD-DVD or Blu-ray, but Sony just helped you decide which one, in that case.
If you've already bought HD-DVD stuff, you *know* you're bleeding edge, and Sony just cut you...
I don't see the point in putting a traditional infra-red laser when this obviously superior laser can read all.
;-)
Okay, time for the day's lesson, "Color transmittance and reflectance"...
For a pressed aluminum disc, you could use any currently-available wavelength of LZD you wanted, it will reflect them all very very well.
For a burned disc, you don't have just a pitted aluminum layer that either reflects or disperses the light from the drive. You have a dye that, due to the action of a particular frequency laser shining on it, has turned more-or-less permanantly opaque (or transparent) to certain frequencies of light.
The particular frequencies the dye will block or let pass vary enormously on the particular dye used, as well as the power and frequency of the laser used for writing data.
So, while we finally have a fairly standard set of DVD and CD dyes that work with each other, that all changes when you add in another frequency laser. Suddenly we'll find ourselves back to the early days of CD-Rs, where some drives could read some brands, and others couldn't.
So what do I see as the problem here? Sure, Sony can claim that their spiffy new drive will read "DVDs" and "CDs"... By which they mean pressed, commercially-manufactured DVDs and CDs. Don't hold your breath for that to also mean compatibility with either your particular drive and/or your favorite brand of media to burn to.
And rewritables? Don't feel too surprised when we learn that sticking a rewritable into a Blu-Ray just to try to read it has the unintended side-effect of erasing it.
Now, if I felt like going into conspiracy-theorist mode here, I would suggest that breaking compatibility with home-burned media seems like a very nice perk to all the Big Boys, who would love to put the CD- and DVD-burner genie back in the bottle...
But I won't go there. Not today.
Blu-ray isn't any less a proprietary format than HD-DVD. Nor is it a Sony format.
Sony is only one of many companies that are involved with Blu-Ray, ppl mistake it for their format because they were the first to market the blu-ray. Here are the players:
Hitachi, Ltd.
LG Electronics Inc.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Pioneer Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
TDK Corporation
Thomson Multimedia
Dell
HP
In fact, the only real backers for HD-DVD are:
Microsoft
Toshiba
NEC
And, arguably, HD-DVD is more proprietary than Blu-ray being that they require the player be able to play Miscrosoft's VC-9 codec, while Blu-ray is required to play only MPEG2.