HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Coming Soon to PCs

An anonymous reader writes "A Yahoo! news piece has some sales details for the upcoming Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players. They also have some details on disc drives that read the new formats." From the article: "Sony has priced its first desktop computer that will have a Blu-ray Disc burner. The drive will be able to write to 25GB and 50GB BD-RE (rewritable) and BD-R (write once) discs. Sony will start selling 25GB BD-RE and BD-R discs in April for $20 and $25 respectively and 50GB capacity versions of the same discs later in the year for $48 and $60 respectively. The Vaio RC will be launched in 'early summer' and will cost around $2300. At the CeBIT show in Germany last week, Sony announced plans for a Vaio notebook with a Blu-ray Disc drive."

Comments

wow... what a bargain

[loraksus]

50GB capacity versions of the same discs later in the year for $48 and $60 respectively.

Is is just me that thinks selling media for 2x the cost of a hard drive (if you calculate $/gig) stupid?

Re:wow... what a bargain

[fatduck]

Especially when USB hard drives are roughly the same size as, and far more resistant to damage than, dvds?

Re:wow... what a bargain

[dark_requiem]

You have to remember that when any new technology comes out, it is ridiculously expensive. Only when it starts to see reasonably widespread adoption will the costs be reduced to an affordable level. Prior to that, the market is too small to make a profit at what most of us consider "reasonable" prices. Early adopters pay a high price for having the latest and greatest, the rest of us wait to see which standard become dominant, then wait for prices to fall. If either HD-DVD or Blue Ray are recieved well by consumers, prices for that particular format will begin to drop to resonable levels as manufacturers increase their output, and will eventually (within a few years) be comparable with current DVD+/-R prices.

DVD vs. BlueRay

[cskrat]

4.7 GB for $0.30 or 25 GB for $20

Sounds alot like the price that DVD(+-)R media was introduced at. Part of me is cringing from sticer shock but realistically I know that in a few years they'll be in the sub $1.00 range when other manufacturers figure out how to make them.

Oh, the name!

[Godji]

The drive will be able to write to 25GB and 50GB BD-RE (rewritable) and BD-R (write once) discs. Sony will start selling 25GB BD-RE and BD-R discs in April for $20 and $25 respectively

Why the hell didn't they call the rewriteable discs BD-RW?! Has anyone heard of the work "consistency"? Now I have to explain to everyone that BD-RE is like CD-RW or DVD-RW, but for Blue Ray. Great work on the customer confusion front!

Your kidding right?

[grungefade]

I can already see this new format going the way of many past failures (ie. Laser Disk, Beta, Minidisk).

The timing just isnt right. Consumers are not ready to start embracing a new technology when they just barely started embracing dvds. Lots of people have just begun moving their entire collection to dvd. Yes there were early adopters of dvd, but for the majority it has only been a few years. To introduce a new and improved format so soon will only make consumers realize what a sham it is. By making them have to buy the movies they have already bought a second time (maybe 3rd).

This new generation isnt revolutionary. Its not a big enough improvement to get an entire industry to switch. And 5 years from now 50GB is going to look very small.

We need a new standard that can not only support our needs now, but that can sustain them for many years to come.

Lets see... to get 400GB(rewritable) in discs would be $480.
For a decent 400GB hard drive today, around $225.

Already does this seem yesterdays technology.... and this is supposed to sustain us for many years?