LG GGC-H20N Blu-ray/HD DVD Combo Drive Out In Japan

[Ian]

Akiba PC Hotline! is reporting that LG's new Super Multi Blue drive is out in Japan. According to their report, the GGW-H20N costs about 40,000 Yen or $345.

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/akiba/ho ... ch20n.html

[OoAnd1]

Wow, that's pretty cool.

News like this is what makes me believe that both formats will survive until the next big thing.

[dolphinius_rex]

Wow, that's pretty cool.

News like this is what makes me believe that both formats will survive until the next big thing.

News like this makes me wonder what the heck is screwed up so badly with the HD DVD-R format that neither Pioneer nor LG can recording to it working right, let alone Toshiba themselves... (short of inside a few laptops).

But it's nice to know that as Blu-Ray grows, people who adopted HD DVD in the beginning will still have the ability to play back their discs, or later copy them onto the more compatible BD-R format

[Grain]

I actually saw some blank Verbatim HD-DVD-R's for sale in a brick and mortar last weekend, $17 for 15GB.

[dolphinius_rex]

I actually saw some blank Verbatim HD-DVD-R's for sale in a brick and mortar last weekend, $17 for 15GB.

Not bad... seen any HD DVD-R burners that weren't attached to over priced laptops?

Plus, I think that $8.00 25GB BD-Rs are a little more attractive.
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde ... atid=12501

But I don't see any reason to buy into an inferior recordable media format at all, especially when it costs more then the higher capacity, higher compatability/wider adopted, competing format

[Grain]

Not bad... seen any HD DVD-R burners that weren't attached to over priced laptops?

Not a single frickin' one. Having said that, even BDR burners are hard to come by in the brick and mortars I frequent, even in rich Calgary (but obviously are easily come by online, although even there a lot of shops don't stock all the available brands) .

Plus, I think that $8.00 25GB BD-Rs are a little more attractive.
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/prodde ... atid=12501

That's an excellent price! Too bad their sold out, I don't know if they issue rain checks for online sales?

But I don't see any reason to buy into an inferior recordable media format at all, especially when it costs more then the higher capacity, higher compatability/wider adopted, competing format

Other than capacity & price (which will no doubt lower with time), that's still up for debate isn't it?

[dolphinius_rex]

But I don't see any reason to buy into an inferior recordable media format at all, especially when it costs more then the higher capacity, higher compatability/wider adopted, competing format

Other than capacity & price (which will no doubt lower with time), that's still up for debate isn't it?

HD DVD-Rs will only drop in price once the media starts actually selling. The demand is so small right now, it is effectively zero, and that's world wide. That could change eventually of course, but I can say that the chances of HD DVD capturing any part of the business market is next to zero now.

And as for compatability, it won't be up for debate until there are more HD DVD players selling then PS3s. Why? Because even someone with an SDTV and a PS3 could benefit from ~10 hours of decent quality SD video burned onto a BD-R.

[vinnie97]

yea well, the 360 add-on is currently outselling the PS3 at Amazon *and* the low-end Toshiba standalone has been the #1 seller in electronics there.

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/index.cfm

Nothing to do with rewritables but no way in hell is will this war be decided by Q4 2007.

[dolphinius_rex]

yea well, the 360 add-on is currently outselling the PS3 at Amazon *and* the low-end Toshiba standalone has been the #1 seller in electronics there.

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/index.cfm

Nothing to do with rewritables but no way in hell is will this war be decided by Q4 2007.

Yeah, not anymore at least

Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like we'll end up with 2 HiDef formats, or (slightly more likely) no HiDef optical formats.

Sony loses, Toshiba loses, MS wins....

[OoAnd1]

If both sell, let them both survive. I bought the HD DVD player add-on for 150...I don't want to be forced to buy a PS3 or standalone Blu-ray player for more than 3x that.

Cheap people deserve HD viewing too!

That's why there's first class seats and coach on airplanes. And yet, they both take you to the same destination. That's how I see this "war".

[dolphinius_rex]

If both sell, let them both survive. I bought the HD DVD player add-on for 150...I don't want to be forced to buy a PS3 or standalone Blu-ray player for more than 3x that.

Cheap people deserve HD viewing too!

That's why there's first class seats and coach on airplanes. And yet, they both take you to the same destination. That's how I see this "war".

And yet many day and date releases on HD DVD cost more then their Blu-Ray counterparts...

But don't worry, cheaper players for both formats are on their way. But I just don't think people will accept both formats as a requirement to get all their movies. It's highly inconvenient.

[Grain]

And yet many day and date releases on HD DVD cost more then their Blu-Ray counterparts...

I haven't found that to be the case, with the exception of dual discs (SD DVD & HD-DVD). Checking amazon shows them to be similarly priced, if anything BR seeems to have a common price of $23.95 vs $19.95 for HD-DVD.

But don't worry, cheaper players for both formats are on their way. But I just don't think people will accept both formats as a requirement to get all their movies. It's highly inconvenient.

As an early adopter of SACD & DVD-A, this whole war is earily close to how those formats started out. From very early talk of dual format players not being possible, to shortly after that they actually appeared on the market, to customers deciding that the extra fidelity wasn't worth replacing their libraries for. MP3's didn't help that war at all, if anything the ipod helped kill them (or seriously stunt them). IMO, the studios better hope that cheap dual format players appear on the market, that may be the only thing that can save HD optical media.

[Ian]

I'm still waiting for a cheap player that can play back HD divx or mpeg4 videos. Why invest in HD DVD or Blu-ray, when you could fit a movie on a DVD DL disc?

[Ian]

Damn... someone must be reading my mind.

http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=H6 ... ewsLang=en

The superior compression and performance of DivX HD enables consumers to enjoy true HD A/V entertainment with legacy DVD-9 discs on SPHE8203A-inside DVD players, at a price point which is much more cost-effective than next-generation blue-laser players.

[Grain]

That does look interesting.

[OoAnd1]

And yet many day and date releases on HD DVD cost more then their Blu-Ray counterparts...

The SD/HD combo disks do support your claim. Out of curiosity, I'd like to find accurate average pricing for both. But even so, the $350 I saved on the player more than makes up for it.

Once combo drives like the one posted, and more importantly, combo standalone players, get cheaper, everyone will just buy those and it won't be an issue anymore.

[mmick]

The difference between VHS and DVD was a lot bigger than DVD and HD DVD/Bluray and, as more than 99% of world TVs are SD or 720p HD, few people care about these HD formats as a very good encoded movie on DVD with on-chip upsampling (in the player) are more than good enough.

And, if a DVD (MPEG-2 + AC3) isn´t good enough, you can fit a 720p HD movie on Divx / x264 on a inexpensive 4.7 - 8.5Gb DVD-R!

I understand Bluray´s price but not HD DVD´s. HD DVDs were made to be inexpensive as media are similar to DVDs, it´s "basically" a DVD media but saved with a shorter laser fitting more data on it. I own a XBOX 1 with a HD cable and XBMC. It can perfectly play 720p DIVX movies and even upsamples DVD (SD MPEG2) movies! With such amount of SD or 720p TVs we don´t need 1080p movies (and I dare people at 2-3m away from the screen to notice any difference between 720p and 1080p).

Conclusion: an improved (and cheap) DVD-based technology (something like "DVD HD" or "DVD 720p") but with VC-1/DIVX 720p movies would be enough. Players would be cheap, media/movies would be cheap, movies backup would be cheap (this is the main reason why SONY/TOSHIBA changed media and format!) and we already would see HD differences on our 99% TVs.