First Blu-ray Drive Announced

December 28, 2005 - 9:00pm

Pioneer electronics has launched a high-definition Blu-Ray PC drive (BDR-101A) this week, bringing new attention to the ongoing dispute over the new generation of DVD drives.

Pioneer is part of the Blu-ray Disc Association which includes Sony, Apple, Dell, HP, Philips, Samsung and more companies, claiming the Blu-ray format is superior to rival format HD-DVD developed by Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo. Along with the Cell processor, Blu-ray is Sony's big bet for increasing its control over the consumer electronics sector and the race to provide content for the new format, in order to increase its rate of adoption is on. Sony's PS3 is also expected to use a Blu-ray drive which offers a potential capacity of 25 GB in single-layer and double that in dual while it can also reach 100 GBs in four-layer mode although all multi-layer Blu-ray technology is still in development. HD-DVDs will offer a 15 GB single-layer capacity with 30 GB in dual-layer and 45 in triple -layer which is also under development.

In its release statement Pioneer claims that the adoption of the format is its primary concern and that the PC Blu-ray drive will, mainly, interest professionals. With the PC market currently accounting for one third of the DVD players sold, Blu-ray appears to have the advantage being the first new format to hit the market. HD-DVDs are expected to appear in spring 2006.

Consumer organisations are already concerned regarding the new war of formats that looms in the DVD horizon and some are already calling for some kind of agreement between the rival factions. The last major format war, that between VHS and Betamax, cost Hollywood studios quite a bit of money and his next one could also hurt the movie industry as well as video game companies.

Although Blu-ray seems to have an advantage, it seems that HD-DVD has powerful allies and the format has won endorsements from Microsoft and Intel. To read consumer protests regarding the HD DVD format wars follow the download tab above.

Comments

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

It seems that the future holds a whole lot more than 25 to 54 GB on a single disc. According to T3: Pioneer goes beyond Blu-Ray, Pioneer is developing an optical disc that will blow away the hard disc in most of our PCs in terms storage capacity, holding 500 GB of data. How so? Pioneer's lasers are ultraviolet, which have an even shorter wavelength than the blue.

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

i just find it funny that people who arent interestted in this tech are like "0MG T3h N00b T3ch!!!!1!!!!11!!!!1!oneoneoneoene#$@$%!!!and others are like "dont care...lets be patriotical about some shtty console!!!!" its called a STEP UP in technology. obviously the first of its kind isnt exactly gonna be 100% stable rock solid. no new technology ever has. its called improvement via customer feedback. it's like free marketing. And lol at the dorky photo for this news. wats she trying to find in that hole... hmmmm. At least if your gonna post something, post something decent! Get over your testosterone! its new technology! why u think microsoft get criticism for anything that goes wrong! jesus get over it.Peace.

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

the same reason LOTR had to be put on DVD, the same Quality as a DVD is achievable by "properly" converting to DIVX format with a file Size of about 1-1.5 GB but it had to be brought out in DVD with about 4.7 GB per film, not that there is a big difference, but LOTR Freaks really get if off knowing that their DVD the Highest possible quality, even if the difference isn't noticable to the human eye.

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

Yay. Next gen formats of discs is here!Now, to save up £1000 for a HD TV and probably about £500 for a PS3.Would help if I had a job.All the people are lovely on this site, so you can donate money if you want.

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

Would supporters of either media kindly state why would the opposing force die out? I know DRM sucks, but I like the prospect of PS3 more than X360, which still hasnt distinguished itself from its predecessor to the satisfaction of millions out there.I barely have the time to play many games so I may go with the PS3 even if it's crack-proof (something I highly doubt)

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

Holy Star Trek, Batman! Holographic data storage? Could it be fore real? Yes it is folks. According to DMeurope, Inphase Technologies has launched the worlds first holographic storage drive still in the testing phase.Holographic data storage developer Inphase Technologies has launched the world's first prototype of a holographic storage drive.The prototype is the foundation for Inphase's family of Tapestry holographic drives, with data capacities that range from 200 GB to 1.6 TB on a single disk.

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

A messege to all the people out there who thinksthat HD is better than BLU-RAY-The PS3 will be the ONLY console for a while with the abilaty to hold more than my hard disk, which says something about the quality of games it will be able to deliver. I agree with PhakeDC, the XBOX360 does have better graphics than the last generation of consoles, but i own one, and you really can't see a difference while you are actually playing

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

ahaha Arru... oh wait.. your an idiot.I do like blueray more because of capacity and i personally think microsoft has lots the war. However format is format, you dont need a 50gb disc to burn a 10gb movie do you now ?Its same as DVD vs CD... both exist ! both are being used...I myself only want 1 drive, one that can read both of thouse formats and problem solved but since technology is... well f**ked, we have to wait a few years

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

JackMeoffat 8:52 31/12/2005And in 6 months after MGS4 is released for the PS3, it will be cross platform like all the other MG games.One reason HD-DVD wil be here to stay is Microsoft and Intel. Microsoft is already pushing for it with Vista.

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

sad to say, but with ms and intel backing hddvd, i dont think sony will ever have enough power to push blu-ray. MS will SURELY ship more copies of vista than sony will ps3's, and surely intel will have some bundling deals with their cpu's. With both vista and intel, hd-dvd will never go out since almost every pc will feature one with vista

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

now... when dvds came out iv noticed that they simply suck at taking on scratches. cd can take a lot more abuse and still be readable where a tiny scratch on the dvd can kill it. now imagine a disk that can fit a dvd on its outer rim...if there is even a single scratch there we will have literary gigs of corrupt files.... yeay and harray for technological progress…NOT

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

OK Here is the logical response not influenced by fanboyism like x360 sux etc...If u read the first pc blue ray drives have been created for pc which means that xp will recognize the drive as a dvd reader just with 25gb or whatever space on it vista has nothing to do with anything cause all u need to run a drive anyway as in any hardware is drivers which any manufacturer can creat for there product so it doesn;t matter if blu ray isn;t supported by vista at launch all u do is install a driver and there u go u can use ure blu ray drive. my opinion is blu ray will win cause the 360 doesn;t have a hd-dvd drive in it while the ps3 will have a blu ray drive

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

Skyine: actually you need to update the firmware of the device, and as Blu-Ray uses the blue laser and HD-DVD still uses the red laser, it will also mean that the drive Blu-ray will need to have the red laser used in HD-DVD and if it does, then it doesn't really matter who is the victor, although it will be blu-ray as it will be able to do much more then HD-DVD, you can't change a laser using drivers and firmware, you need to physically change the laser.

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

Sorry maybe I should have read your post better, but my point is still valid. LOL maybe...either way, if Microsoft are releasing Vista on either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD I don't really want my Operating system taking up upto 15Gigs of my hard drive!I mean WinXP Pro off one CD, taking up 2Gig+ is bad enough! I have loads of space on my hard drive, but I do a lot of video editing and a lot of gaming, and to have around 15gigs or so used will be appauling... I am however looking forward to blu-ray!

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

um... right, where to start.1.) its not so much the laser as the lense in determining what it will read.2.) know that one if not both formats will support drm in one form or another (which is very bad).3.) don't count on the ps3 being both reasonably priced and having a blu-ray disk drive, because its reliance on proprietary technology increases its cost.4.) know also that drm is bad for consumers, because it allows the content providers to do as they please, and even, if they do so choose, deny you the ability to use those files that have been drm'd5.) to those saying that ps3 or Xenon will kick ass, I say to you this, when they were still in development (late r&d), sony was so optimistic about their cell processor in ps3. It prob won't do anywhere near as well as later versions will, becuase its untested technology, and they had to simplify it enough so that they could do it reasonably on the console. With Xenon, it uses the powerpc core architechure, which isn't the bet option, and it has 3 cores which is just asinine, BECAUSE most games today do not use more than 1-2 cores, and Xenon is optimized for 4-6... it'll be awhile before games actually use that much(although it will happen). A dual core would have been the better choice, for cost and thermal reasons.

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

Yes, it's the way DRM is implemented in Blu-Ray which makes it such a terrible thing. You say people will work around it. But I highly doubt that, it's high security lockdown with these disks, and your forfiting your rights by accepting them in the market.That is why MS backs HD-DVD. Because even they thought the DRM on Blu-Ray was far to restrictive.

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

This will all be meaningless, of course, with Inphase's Holostorage media. 300gb on a single disc. Mind you, the drive is still a bit large, so it's gonna remain in postconsumer usage for corporate backup reasons, mainly. But it is in fact showing good progress, and will, in my opinion, replace the DVD media format within the next 5 to 7 years.

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

Blu Ray was nice.. buy like what was said below, its going to be obsolete summer of 2006 once holostorage is out... I heard it reads at 3 terabytes a sec... In any case blu Ray was a nice try and will die just like the zip drives did.

First Blu-ray Drive Announced

BOTH FORMATS HAVE DRM!! The only difference between them is that HD-DVD has managed copy which allows you to make a limited number (read: 1) of copies fro personal use, while Blu-Ray haven't agreed to it YET. I agree that still sucks, but you people make it sound like HD-DVD hasn't got protection at all. Plus the lack of copy ability will make Blu-Ray more appealing to movie studios, and the HD-DVD is screwed. Plus Blu-Ray was really the first to be thought up. Or was it? I'm not sure, but Blu-Ray certainly had a lot more publicity.

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