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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."
It's really a shame that one of the groups can't swallow their pride and agree to a compromise. In my personal opinion, the perfect compromise would be HD-DVD with Blu-Ray sized layers and data storage. I think people will be disappointed at how fast HD-DVD discs will fill up. Regardless of what format becomes popular, though as of now, I would say Sony as the edge because of PS3, I'm sick of the whole "we didn't include a DTS track to the lack of space" argument. All HD discs should contain stereo, DD, and DTS tracks for both the video, and all extras. All content should maximize the bitrate, no more 5 MB per second or less... To stay on topic...I think this is both a great decision by Toshiba (primarily because I don't think the consumer is quite ready for HD discs yet) and a really bad decision because it eliminates, or at least greatly lessens, one of its major advantages - that it is being released first with a great list of available titles (Sopranos, Forrest Gump, Batman Begins, etc.). I hate to wait, but I either want the format war to conclude or for dual format players to launch before I venture into the HD movie world!
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).
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