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Toshiba To Offer Laptops With HD-DVD in 2005
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."
They say the HD-DVD is better suited for laptops than Blu-Ray, but they don't say why?
Are they heavily invested in Blu-Ray? Is that maybe why? Or is there actually a technical reason?
Here we go again.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
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?
Would HD-DVD be compatible with our current DVD standard?
:(
I wonder if they would have more DRM on these new DVDs too
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
It was the studios that ultimately forced the compromises that led to a single SD-DVD format, and I think the same will happen with Blu-Ray. Whichever format has the clear majority of titles in print wins.
The differences are greater than between DVD+/-RW. HD-DVD is easier for manufacturers, because the production process is simular to DVD.
:(
Blue-ray on the other hand has larger capacities. This is important as some experts think that fitting a HD (1080i or 720p) movie onto HD-DVD will be a tight squeeze so there will be no room for special features, and higher compression than desired may be required
Building players that can handle DVD will be equally easy for both formats. I don't know about a single player that could do both HD-DVD and Blue-ray.
It was the studios that ultimately forced the compromises that led to a single SD-DVD format, and I think the same will happen with Blu-Ray.
/my clue-by-four is at the ready...
Well, sort of. The studios backed DVD, and then some of the studios branched off and were trying to support DIVX (the throw-away, incompatible DVD rival). Then the consumers proceeded to hit those studios and everyone associated with DIVX with a clue-by-four, and now we have a single DVD standard.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Take a look at the Blu-Ray website. I think the only company that's missing in the industry partner list is Toshiba. Plus after reading some documentation internal to my company regarding manufacturing costs of Blu-Ray discs they are cheaper to make than HD-DVD's in both cost per disc and cost per gigabyte.
In the past we've seen products like the Beta format for example that have a small industry following just go by the wayside. It seems such that HD-DVD is progressing along the same path. Time will tell I guess.
What's a sig? Pete Brubaker
Although Blu-Ray may hold more information (25GB/layer * 2 layers = 50GB vs 15GB * 2 layers = /30GB for HD-DVD), I personally am sick of Sony trying to push their proprietary standards out again. They do have a large backing for Blu-Ray, but if you take a look back at their other (and more expensive) dead-end proprietary products--namely Mini-Discs and Memory Sticks, I wouldn't count HD-DVD out just yet...
The format Toshiba supports is actually called AOD (Advanced Optical Disk) and HD-DVD can refer equally to AOD or Blu-Ray.
You're probably using Xcdroast, yes? That requires dvdrecord-pro, a binary only product from the same guy who makes the GPL cdrecord. dvdrecord is free for personal use, but requires a special key to run in free mode. A couple of Google look ups and you'll be burning in no time.
Unless you're opposed to it's nature as binary only. In which case you can use Nautilus's built in DVD recording abilities, which use growisofs, which is GPL.
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.
As some have stated, Blu-Ray discs will indeed have greater storage capacities in terms of raw bytes. However, they have chosen to only support MPEG-2 compression whereas HD-DVD will support several MPEG-4 variations (including H.264). What this means is that even though HD-DVD's have a significantly smaller storage space they will in fact be capable of storing more video at equal quality.
FACTS:
HD-DVD
Dual Layer Storage: 30 GB
Max HiDef Video: 4.5 hours
Blu-Ray
Dual Layer Storage: 50GB
Max HiDef Video: 4 hours
I have not read up on the specifics, but my reasoning is as follows:
At some point, the video must be decrypted in order for it to play. If it can be decrypted for viewing, it can be decrypted for recording. Now, maybe they'll only allow approved, closed source software to play Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, but that alone isn't enough. As soon as either standard replaces DVD, we'll see millions of eyes and minds trained on this new format. Some will want to exploit it, but some will just want to be able to play their movies on Linux. No matter how great their encryption is, no matter how hard they try to discourage reverse engineering, it only takes one flawed implementation or one source code leak.
Hardware DRM can make life much more difficult. If the HD-DVD-ROM refuses to talk to anything but PowerHD-DVD (or whatever), there are going to be problems.
But this is means even more money, even more restrictions--not just for us, but for the third-party manufacturers as well. Maybe Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are headed down this dark path, but I think (and I hope) that one of them will look up and say hey! This is costing us money and it's not making the consumers or the manufacturers happy. Provided the media companies backing them can see the light, it's a simple matter of tossing the DRM (or at least, the uncrackable DRM) out the door and bam, the format war is over. It's simple greed. They want to control how we use their products, but I think they'll settle for simply selling us those products.
Oh yeah, SACD and DVD-A might be uncracked now, but neither one has supplanted the CD yet. Once the CD is long gone, there will be a much greater interest in cracking the new format.
BUT... they might never supplant it. According to Wikipedia: [regarding SACD] "These include 80 bit encryption of the audio data, with a key encoded on a special area of the disk that is only readable by a licensed SACD device."
That's BS. Moral outrage aside, I'm sure has hell not going to buy media I can't play on my computer--it has the best speakers in the house.