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Toshiba May Delay HD-DVD Launch to 2006
Mictian writes "According to Reuters Toshiba may be delaying the launch of it's HD-DVD players that was originally slated for the end of this year. One of the reasons cited was that talks with Hollywood and major studios about the timing are still ongoing. It now seems that the players may not be shipped to retailers before 2006, at least not in the US. The Japanese might still get their hands on 'em by christmas. In any case it looks like a setback for the HD-DVD camp (Toshiba, NEC & Sanyo) if one of their few advantages over the Blu-ray camp (Sony & Matsushita), an earlier product launch, is essentially eliminated. Sony has been rumoured to consider a Q1 2006 launch for Blu-ray in the form of the PlayStation 3 console. There was an earlier Slashdot story about the rivals giving up on a unified format."
Blu-ray (BD): backed by Sony and Philips, 22Gbytes capacity, expensive, 54 Mbit/s read speed. [ Wikipedia article ]
HD-DVD: Toshiba, NEC, Sanyo and Microsoft, 15Gbytes, cheaper. [ Wikipedia article ]
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There's a DVD/BRD hybrid as well.
People here prefer Bluray because it has 10GB more per layer (25GB vs. 15GB) and a much higher upper layer limit (8).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
When trying to decide on competing standards, I have a simple rule that almost always works... always choose against Sony. :)
This is true. Sony usually makes it almost impossible for anyone else to license their technology, and then it fails due to market pressures brought on by more reasonably licensed competing technologies. Observe the fate of memorystick, mini-disc, sony's audio file format and portable digital player, even i.link (sony's extension to IEEE1394)
Stop intellectual property from infringing on me
What is it with peopel saying HD-DVD is inferior?
Blu-Ray has much higher capacity, meaning that it will last longer before having to be replaced by some higher-capacity format. The higher capacity will also make it a more useful medium for backup and storage. Blu-Ray did have a disadvantage in the area of durability, because it places the data closer to the surface of the disk, but with the addition of a hard topcoat, this disadvantage has been turned to an advantage. Blu-Ray disks are expected to be more durable than DVDs. Both the Blu-Ray and the HD-DVD camps have demonstrated that they can produce a comptatibility layer... putting a DVD layer inside the next-gen disk, so there's no advantage either way. Both are going to come with much better DRM than DVDs, so there's not a clear advantage there. From a consumer's point of view, they both suck.
HD-DVD's only clear advantage is that it will be easier to modify existing DVD production lines to produce HD-DVDs. So there's a short term cost advantage to HD-DVD. Assuming an appropriately retooled production line, Blu-Ray disks won't be any more expensive to produce, and may be cheaper.
Ooo shiney blue lasers?
Both formats use blue lasers.
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BD is as DRM`ed as HD-DVD - no difference here.
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always choose against Sony. :)
Yes, it's bound to be a failure, just like the previous horibly failed Sony/Philips standard, Compact Disc.