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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.)"
Wow, those discs could hold thousands of DDR songs!
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Are you a Chipotle Fan?
Oh, you'll be able to play your old movies and games, they'll just be a bit bluray.
Sony wouldn't do a proprietary thing, would they? Owning rights to all those movies and music are just tempting them to get back at the world for Betamax.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
... a next-generation optical disc format which 'can hold 25GB on a single layer
What they didn't mention is that each disc is 3 meters in diameter.
I understand this is also going to replace RFID tags as a theft deterent.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Does it really matter if it will play dvd movies?If you can afford a $300+ console, you can afford a $50- dvd player.
word.
Yup.
Sony just punched the entire HD world in the face. Due to the popularity of the playstation, everyone will be able to play blue-ray disks. This will be the new video format that will have market penetration and therefor drive new MOVIE disk sales.
You know all those dvds you have? (ive got about 300) You get to re-purchase all of those in HD on blue-ray.
Huzzah!
Although this means nothing if you dont have an HD-tv. Or, if you are a bargain hunter, youve got an awesome range of super-cheap dvds coming your way.
no
A joke? Seems the joke is we now have HD beyond our wildest dreams (only thinkable in the realm of sci-fi, lest you be mocked) 10 years ago. ("Wow, a 340 Meg HD, that's HUGE!") Yet, we seem to only have the same stuff as back then, just with higher definition. Heck, I don't think you can install Windows XP on less than a 5 GB drive. We once ran an entire information system and had student accounts on a system with 2 x 88 MB drives. Games which were elaborate and inventive (not to mention gripping) fit in 64K, now require a CD or DVD. Yeah, it's for the 5.1 sound and the massive graphics, I know, and compilers no longer optimize for size, so even code can be large.
Just wait until everything is 3D...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"Also, since you are packing ALOT more data is the same space, wouldn't scratches and surface damage be even more crippling potentially?"
Search Google for pictures of Blu-Ray discs. They come in little plastic cartridges, much like MiniDiscs and floppies. Unless you grossly mistreat them, you won't have problems with scratching.
Is scratching even that big a problem now, on DVDs? Assuming you put them back in their cases when you're done, the things never seem to scratch. At least i've never had that problem.
I'm still happy with DVD quality movies, thanks.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
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
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.