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Toshiba To Offer Laptops With HD-DVD in 2005

Posted by samzenpus on from the what-about-the-sound dept.

LBArrettAnderson writes "Toshiba will release laptops with HD-DVD under its high-end Qosmio brand and plans to ship one million units in the first year to Europe, the U.S. and China, as well as Japan. The company claims the slimline HD-DVD format is more suitable to laptop PCs than the rival Blu-ray Disc format."

5 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Question by fredistheking · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Besides being competiting formats is there any major differences between HD-DVD and Blu-ray? If not, how long will it be before there are drives that support both formats like DVD+/-RW drives?

  2. Re:Better suited for laptops? by megalomang · · Score: 5, Insightful
    You mean heavily invested in HD-DVD? The answer is most definitely yes. They would not be on the steering committee without a vested interest in the format. The early release is clearly an attempt to advance the HD-DVD market penetration.

    Reasons why HD-DVD could be better suited for a laptop (I don't know which apply though):

    consumes less power

    is less susceptible to vibration

    smaller form factor

    less heat dissipated (either due to disc rpm or embedded processing)

  3. Re:Better suited for laptops? by Txiasaeia · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Battery power is crucial on a notebook comp. Your first reason could very likely be it.

    --
    Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
  4. Oh really? by foreverdisillusioned · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The DRM will not prevent good old-fashoned "insert and hit play", but it will prevent uncontrolled ripping and copying.

    ...for the first couple of months, you mean.

    I really wonder why they even bother. Unless they include hardware DRM to disallow access to all unauthorized programs, this WILL be cracked. And either one does do such a thing, the other one will almost assuredly win the format wars.

    My message to MPAA is this: Save your money. Leave it unencrypted. Let us do what we want with our movies. The VCR did not put you out of business, and neither will this.

  5. Re:One question though.. by mcg1969 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Even the CD DRM that prevents it from being played at all on computers, DVD players and older CD players.

    There's a big difference here: copy protection is not built into the CD standard, so any copy protection system necessarily violates the standard. In this case, copy protection will be built into the standard, so all players will support it.

    Having said that, I have no doubt that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray both will be far less flexible than CD or DVD in playback due to the protection schemes employed. Ironically, Microsoft's presence in these format discussions will work in our favor here. They are certainly going to work towards PC-compatible playback, and whatever they enable will be enabled in Linux as well by the nature of the standard.