Sony First To Market With Blue-Laser DVD Recorder 389
ekarjala writes "Sony has announced that the first DVD recorder using Blue-Laser technology will be available for sale starting next month. At $3,800 for the unit and media at around $30 per disc, I will not be an early adopter. Still, with 5x the capacity of standard Red-Laser recorders, can't wait for it to drop down into my price range." ellbee adds "The Inquirer ponts to a UK distributor that has pictures and tech specs. At $4k I won't be first in line - and this is a video, not data version - but when the price becomes reasonable the 23GB disks are where my backups will live."
Sony's dirty little secret (Score:4, Funny)
Will these be universally readable? (Score:3, Informative)
(their kit seems to be notorious for not reading burned media like VCDs... kind of kills home DV-VCD/DVD setups)
Re:Will these be universally readable? (Score:3, Informative)
23GB? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:23 (Score:2)
At least for the illuminated ones.
Re:23GB? (Score:5, Funny)
1996: Holy crap!!! You can now make your own cd's!!! 650 megabytes... that's like THREE of my hard drives on every disk!I'll never run out of space again!
1998: My new Computer... 6.3 Gigs!!! Seriously, I'm just gonna install EVERY GAME I EVER OWNED AND EVER WILL OWN, plus, I'll do "FULL INSTALL" versions! No more "light install" for me... EVER! I'll never run out of space again!
2003: Holy crap!!! You can now make your own blue-laser dvd's!!! 24 gigabytes... that's like THREE of my hard drives on every disk! I'll never run out of space again!
Re:23GB? (Score:3, Insightful)
Storage space is like money, you can never have enough.
Although it would be nice to consolodate my dozens of CD-Rs that have been collecting dust for a few years.
Ben
Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
I was wondering why Sony had (at least halfway) jumped off the +RW bandwagon. They were the biggest "-RW sucks, +RW is better" zealots, and then a couple months ago release a writer capable of both formats.
Perhaps they've known for awhile that blue laser tech will be incompatible with +RW, or are they stepping away from +RW on purpose?
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
I think what you meant to ask was 'is it possible to build a laser that could emit both red and blue wavelengths?'. While it is possible to make devices with tunable wavelengths over a small range, I don't know of anyone who can make the jump from red to blue. The reason for this has to do with the fact that the quantum wells used in normal semiconductor wavelengths which act as the optical power source for the laser ususally can only provide that power over a small range. You also have to have a way to tune the waveguide to pick the wavelenght you want, and getting from red to blue by normal tuning methods would require some kind of radical leap from current technology. So sadly, I don't think anyone could do the red/blue jump within a single device right now.
There is an out for this - you can put multiple lasers on the same read head and just turn on the one you needed for a given media type - my old laptop could do CD-RW and DVD in the same drive, and I noticed that there were multiple lenses on the read head indicating that more than one laser was present. So, for the cost of adding a bit of extra hardware a multi-media drive should be doable.
Re:These people are idiots! (Score:3, Funny)
Even if the price drops tenfold... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Even if the price drops tenfold... (Score:5, Funny)
Is this a trick question?
Re:Even if the price drops tenfold... (Score:2, Funny)
It's like the bumpersticker says "Save the whales, collect them all!"
Re:Even if the price drops tenfold... (Score:4, Interesting)
Those of us with 6MP digital cameras and MiniDV camcorders are already feeling the pain. While DVD-RW is good enough for now, I'm happy that an even bigger format is coming down the pipe.
Re:Even if the price drops tenfold... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Even if the price drops tenfold... (Score:3, Informative)
Whatever they want it to be. The inputs are either Firewire (iLink, ieee1394, whatever), and analog. There's not even an input for TOSLink/SPDIF - those are output only. Which means that you'd be fine connecting your hd-satellite receiver to it (via firewire), but if the infamous broadcast flag has been set, no recording for you. Yes, the analog-hole may still exist, but that will probably respond to Macrovision and prevent recording (from dvd/vhs/whatever). Besides, recording an analog signal on one of these kinda defeats the purpose, no?
All of which makes it a very expensive way to archive your home-videos, which you can't share unless your intended recipient can play back blue dvd's. Yes, you can record a red-dvd, but again, it defeats the purpose; you can get one of those for about $1000 or less nowadays...
Re:Even if the price drops tenfold... (Score:2)
What about DVD+-R/W? (Score:3)
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:What about DVD+-R/W? (Score:2)
Bleh on Sony for exploiting a name and confusing the public to push their own propriatary technology.
Ahh well, it's here now. If you're wanting to create video disks, go with DVD-R. If you're wanting to back things up, do some comparision shopping between +/-R. Which is a better choice depends on your platform/needs.
-Brett
Re:What about DVD+-R/W? (Score:5, Informative)
1) +RW was readable only on the Sony drives. None of the other DVD ROM drives I tried would read it.
2) +R was readable on one brand of DVD-ROM drives.
3) -RW was about the same as +R
4) -R was readable on everything, so its the format I've standardized on. I've heard bad things about the CD-RW media longevity, so I probably won't bother with any of the RW formats. DVD-R media are pretty cheap ($3 from major merchants, less from other merchants), so it doesn't really matter.
Hopefully a couple bucks of that goes to the RIAA (Score:5, Funny)
Ya damn thief.
KFG
Can you parse that ? ^ (Score:2)
I'm not creating a novel. Why would I back it up on a DVD? How often is there more than one artist writing a novel who would even admit not being the sole author?
Oh well.
Re:Hopefully a couple bucks of that goes to the RI (Score:4, Funny)
David
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd love to buy it, but the Sony name is just too much of a put-off when it comes to media.
Re:So... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, of course they will! (Score:5, Informative)
>> High-level copyright protection with one generation copy protection
Its even listed as if it was a positive feature!
Forget DVDs (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Forget DVDs (Score:2)
Why on earth would anyone want to burn SHIT? What did shit ever do to you? Were you the person who left that flaming bag on my porch last week?
The price isn't right (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if and when the price goes down, I can imagine dvd distributors going wild over this format. The lord of the rings collectors edition might even fit on one of these disks...
Looking at the back of that thing though, it doesn't have firewire 800 (or even 400 for that matter,) a must have for any DVD burning device.
Re:The price isn't right (Score:2, Informative)
It does have firewire, it's just Sony's 4-pin iLink variety. They're the two farthest right holes in the back panel photo.
LOTR? Er, that kind of defeats the purpose... (Score:3, Informative)
--
Re:The price isn't right (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok, now that I think of it, this device has a LOT of potential. It could bridge the gap between the TV and computer with just a few more ports on the back.
Re:The price isn't right (Score:3, Informative)
The more important question is.... (Score:5, Interesting)
They both exist. The patents are higher on MPEG-4, but it has more backers.
Anybody out there heard any spicy rumors?
-Brett
Re:The more important question is.... (Score:5, Informative)
Basically there are three proposals for "HD DVD" - Warner Brothers wants to take current red laser DVD-9's and change the DVD spec to allow the use of MPEG-4. This would, allegedly, give enough recording capacity for HD movies. Toshiba wants to use blue lasers with a disc having the same physical characteristics as a DVD-9, but retain MPEG-2 as the encoding format. Sony, Philips, and the rest are pushing the Blu-ray format - blue laser, MPEG-2, and a disc that is similar to current DVD-9's but are enclosed in a cartridge and only has a single layer.
The Blu-ray format is designed from the outset to be recordable. It also has the most raw capacity (27 GB - Toshiba's has 20 GB in recordable format, and obviously WB's wouldn't change anything from the current 4.7GB). I also like the cartridge idea, since it reduces scratches and other potential damage. In fact, the lack of a cartridge was one of the biggest complaints about DVD.
MPEG-4 doesn't have "more backers". It has a few companies that are intensely interested in it for patent revenue. The majority of the CE industry doesn't want it because of the idiotic royalty payments being demanded by the consortium. Even the players in the consortium are being edgy.
Re:The more important question is.... (Score:3)
More compression (even with MPEG-4, which BTW was designed for low-bandwidth applications, certainly not HD streams) equals more compression artifacts, which I do not want on my dearly-bought HDTV. If blue lasers are around, why not upgrade the lasers? Either way, current DVD players won't be able to play them, and the blue lasers will still be backwards-compatible with the current DVD and CD laser standards.
Finally, Toshiba's idea keeps the same physical format, which IMO is very important - it lets a billion storage cases out there be kept, and lets HD-DVD / DVD / CD changers be built easily.
Re:The more important question is.... (Score:3, Informative)
Forgot to reply to this bit -- no they won't. Blue lasers cannot read current DVDs or CDs. If you want a player that can read both blue and red laser formats then you either need two lasers or one with a selectable frequency.
Of course, if you want to read CD-R/RW as well, then add either a 3rd laser or a 3rd frequency.
You may be able to get away with optics (which is how most non-Sony DVD players read CD-R/RW), but I dunno if that'd work for blue lasers. It's a much larger frequency shift.
Re:The more important question is.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually MPEG-4 is a better all around algorithm. At the same bitrates as MPEG-2 there are significantly less visible errors, and an interuption of the data stream does not have as large an effect on the picture (square block drop out from satelite on a rainy day anyone?) I do tend to agree with you that cartridges, especially encorperated ones suck, look at almost every format that has used them and see how far they went (DVD-RAM for one). Manufacturers always think their new shiny optical media will be too scratch intollerant, etc and with first generation drive electronics and optics this may even be true, but eventually all the optical formats have opted to drop the caddy.
Looks like MPEG-2 (Score:2)
This is especially true when you factor in the cost of adding an MPEG-2 decoder chip anyway for DVD backwards compatibility and the general availability of high-quality MPEG-2 encoding hardware.
H.264 / MPEG Level 10 / MPEG4 AVC + AAC audio (Score:3, Informative)
H.262 is the DVD format, and these people are making a new and better one.
As for physical format (DVD, BluRay, NextGen-DVD or whatever, that's undecided but most agree on the file format.
Kjella
Re:The more important question is.... (Score:5, Informative)
MPEG-4 gets a bad rap with people who don't know much about video compression, because the only MPEG-4 content they see is highly compressed DVD rips and internet porn. In reality, MPEG-4 really shines with a reasonable bitrate when compared to MPEG-2, to the point that many believe that MPEG-4 completely obsoletes MPEG-2.
One camp of the HD-DVD standard struggle wants to actually continue using red-laser DVD technology, but coupled with MPEG-4 compression. Apparently 1080i or 720p MPEG-4 combined with filtering and preprocessing at normal DVD bitrates (5-9 mbps) looks pretty good! (Hopefully, this proposed standard won't get accepted. Let's move forward with higher capacity media. And while this format might look good enough, I want completely artifact free HD to display on my 48" HDTV.)
-Mani
Ahem (Score:5, Funny)
Could someone offer a meaningful translation to LOC's per disc please?
Worth it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides; blue is a superior color to red =D
I won't buy one (Score:2)
I'll wait until someone like Pioneer or HP comes out with one.
DRM? (Score:2)
23GB Backups (Score:5, Insightful)
"but when the price becomes reasonable the 23GB disks are where my backups will live."
By that time, you'll need 100GB to back your system up.
By the time CD recorders were ANYWHERE near mainstream, you couldn't DREAM of backing up a hard drive with one 700MB CD.
No way. (Score:5, Insightful)
Give me larger capacity hard drives and better networking, and I'm happy.
Re:No way. (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you consider that many drives these days are failing in the 2-3 year range, many within 1 year. The fact is, hard drives simply have more parts which can break down.
Of course, you can use a RAID configuration... but then you have to spend a ton of money to get such a thing set up (multiple drives, RAID controllers, etc).
IMHO, optical media, like CD or DVD, can have vastly better lifetimes over hard drives, any day. If they are properly taken care of (dry, dust-free storage, proper handling, etc), there is no reason such media can't last for a very long time.
Then again, if you're really serious about backups, you'll use tape media and multiple, rotating tapes.
Re:No way. (Score:3, Interesting)
This time I'm just going to wait and see if anybody mentions a *reason* to believe that CDs are unstable.
Re:No way. (Score:3, Informative)
The only medium we as humans have developed that keeps for a decent amount of time is paper.
You'll always need to media-shift your backups every 3 years or so in electronic form to prevent bit rot.
Blue vs. red laser (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Blue vs. red laser (Score:3, Funny)
of course (Score:4, Insightful)
By the time you can afford this, you will have terabytes of data and using these will be just like backing up gigs onto a normal cd-r.
Pictures and Specifications (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/d...030303/so
Into english, you can access it here:
http://www.doomx.net/blueray/
Complete with pictures of the media and player.
too bad there isn't a reader.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Problem is, the content providers do NOT want us to have HD versions of their movies at home. which is also what kills HDTV sales... Hmm buy a $1900.00 for the el-cheapo model or $13,000.00 for the mid-hi end version and have NOTHING I can watch on it except if I'm lucky enough to have a HD station nearby or the Dish network HD channels. I cant buy my favorite movies in HD even though Lucas could get off his arse and sell a DVHS copy of SW-II but he doesnt want that to exist.
This would be great for video espically for HD to take off finally... but I'm betting it wont ever happen.. at least not for us drones.
no plans on launching it overseas (Score:3, Informative)
Watch out, TiVo (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless the Sony unit has some weird-ass DRM. Its certainly conceivable that they would mark each recorded disc with something that says 'only play in the deck I was made in'.
So, yeah. Once we crack that (is it done yet? huh? is it?), it's all good.
On a slight tangent, I see signs that Sony is backing away from DRM. The system in their NetMD players is a fiasco - especially now that they are actually poised to become popular - and they've pretty much admitted to that. Anyone catch that Wired article [wired.com] last issue? It was quite strange to see Keiji Kimura, head of Sony Electronics, basically admit that they got their asses kicked by Apple. In the Walkman space no less!
Re:Watch out, TiVo (Score:4, Interesting)
TiVo does know what's good for them. And it's to stay as far away from anything like this as possible.
Heck, I'm still surprised that they're going to offer show sharing between TiVo's - even though it's an added cost package to do it. Pleased, but surprised. Of course, they've taken some fairly significant steps to try and ensure that show sharing will be limited as intended, but I question how long that'll last.
TiVo knows that doing anything like this is going to open it up to lawsuits. Big ones. Especially with HDTV. So why bother? Just keep recording to HD and giving a mostly blind eye to the video extraction crowd - especially since the extraction software is still hokey and only works with Series1 TiVos (the new S2 TiVos are proving hack resistant, although some progress is being made... if you're willing to take a soldering iron to your BIOS).
TiVo is much better off improving their software, offering value added packages like the HMO, and spending it's legal muscle defending its patents against Motorola and Scientific Atlanta -- not burning capital in courts defending itself from the networks, the studios, and every cable company in the US.
In any case, a disc based TiVo would stick you back in some of the nightmares that plague VCRs - have a disk in? Is it blank? Does it have enough capacity for the shows you want to record before you can change the disc?
Oh, sure, you can stick a HD in there and then just dump to disc when you want to, but then why should TiVo bother? Just continue offering a "Save to VCR" option and stream the data out a digital port where a D-VHS, or Bluray recorder, or whatever can suck it down and save it. Of course, I'm presuming that the HD TiVo will still have this, and that's just a guess at the moment. We'll see. But if it did then it's less likely to cause legal problems than TiVo putting the recorder in the same box.
Re:Watch out, TiVo (Score:2)
TiVo does know what's good for them. And it's to stay as far away from anything like this as possible.
Okay I see your point. Legally they have played it very smart so far and a blatant 'program-sharing' capability might get them in trouble.
Having said that,
Your point is good, though. Sometimes I forget that the world is run by myopic hamsters with ties.
Re:Watch out, TiVo (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately they are not a hardware company and will not be doing any innovating in the hardware space any time soon. There's too much risk from the media companies -- even today you can't do batch "Save to VCR" from Now Playing.
I'd buy a Tivo with a HDD *and* a DVD recorder, but not one with just a DVD recorder, even a 23GB model. I have an 60GB Tivo2 and its barely big enough on basic quality with reasonable program retention; 23 GB would be wholly inadequate, although it might be interesting with some kind of multidisc jukebox feature, although I suspect that disc changes and fragmentation would rendering it unusable after a while.
I'll pass (Score:2)
Great news (Score:3, Insightful)
Not for me, thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
Now when one of the real hardware manufacturers comes up with something like this, then I will be interested.
While I'm at it, has anyone tried writing DVD's with cdrecord-ProDVD? They've locked it up so tight, you need a reg key to do anything with it now.
$3,800? (Score:3, Funny)
$3,800? How much that in iBooks?
Dig that funky caddy. (Score:2)
Of course knowing Sony it probably has a memory stick jammed up its ass, or something similarly proprietary.
23gb? Thats great but ... (Score:2)
and I can't wait (Score:3, Funny)
and I can't wait until I have something worthy to burn.
Sony = beta live forever/beta is dead (Score:4, Interesting)
The first thing that was interesting is that they say current red laser DVD recorders sell for $342 (50,000Y converted) - last time I checked most were in the $200 - $250 range.
Secondly, this may play an important role in a battle between DVD format wars - it's odd how this NEW blue laser won't even support the format that Sony is membered by in their DVD Forum that supports DVD+
This new drive will be backwards compatible with DVD-
DVD- was the better format to begin with. Sony has now even seceded to combo DVD+/DVD- drives
I have never understood why Sony MUST in every case make their own format. There is such a thing as innovation through standardization too. Apple has learned this more recently. I honestly think it boils down to ePenis envy. (From the old JVC won the VHS/Beta war)
Did anyone catch if they are faster? Can they write faster than 4x?
Price drop (Score:2)
By the time this price becomes reasonable, DRM will make it useless.
By the time DRM dissappears, storage capacities will have made this as useless for backups as the 5.25" floppy.
Re:Price drop (Score:2)
Blue CDR? (Score:2)
Sure they're the older technology, and more widespread, but they're also cheaper, and that's the main selling point.
Or in Matrix: (Score:2)
Re:I won't buy one (Score:2)
Great strides right around the corner (Score:3, Informative)
Not only will this technology be safer than CD for information storage, but it will also push the recording/playback speeds something like 2x or 3x beyond what is possible with current CD drives -- the media itself can't spin anywhere near as fast, but the multiple layers make it function like a RAID. Neat stuff.
Re:Great strides right around the corner (Score:4, Insightful)
Not trying to be flamey, but do you have a link for this? I've always understood that as wavelengths get shorter (i.e. higher energy) the penertation ability (aka absorption length, usually defined as the distance light can travel into something before falling to 1/e of its' original power) goes down until you hit wavelengths somewhere in the UV/X-ray range. Moving from red lasers to blue lasers should then cause the penetration depth to become smaller, not larger. The reason for this is that molecular bonds have resonance energies on the order of UV light, and electron orbits have resonance on the order of X-ray light, so the closer you get to this range (in this case moving from long red wavelengths to shorter blue wavelengths) the more strongly the light interacts with the material and hence the more strongly the material can absorb the light energy - meaning that the absorption lengths go down.
Again, I'm not trying to say you're wrong, it's just that that statement doesn't jive with the physics I'm familiar with, so I'd be curious to know if there's some other phenomena going on here that I don't know about. Thanks.
Re:I won't buy one (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I won't buy one (Score:4, Insightful)
Suddenly, thousands of ow...ow...ow...ners of the original Playstation cri...cri...cri.nge simultaneously.
Re:I won't buy one (Score:2)
By "prone to error," you mean precise, right? As in "an x-acto knife is much more prone to error than a cleaver, because the blade and subsequent sharp edge is smaller."
Just like Light Sabers!! (Score:5, Funny)
Easier, is the dark side.
It takes real skill and devotion to use blue ( or green
Re:I won't buy one (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously as the storage area required per bit of data decreases, the signifigance of small errors, (which may not have effected larger storage areas), become more important. But that is no reason to stop inovation. Part of bringing the technology to market is minimizing those errors.
Re:I won't buy one (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I won't buy one (Score:3, Funny)
Holy crap dude, if you want to be taken seriously, LEARN. TO. SPELL.
I mean , George W. Bush would blush at your english!
Re:I won't buy one (Score:2, Funny)
I had no idea our president was a Slashdot contributor.
Re:I won't buy one (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:dvd? (Score:3, Informative)
Won't be any dual layer burners. (Score:3, Informative)
Kjella
Re:dvd? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:dvd? (Score:2, Insightful)
5*700=3500
But maybe he ment 5*sizeof(dvd).
Probably missunderstod it there.
Re:More than 1.1 billion CDs are thrown out each y (Score:4, Funny)
Fruedian slip? CDs may be wasteful, but cripes, I'm not sure murder is the solution.
Help!
Re:More than 1.1 billion CDs are thrown out each y (Score:3, Funny)
AOL!!!
Re:More than 1.1 billion CDs are thrown out each y (Score:2, Funny)
More than 1.09 Billion AOL CDs are thrown out each year.
In other words, duh!
If we want to cut back on the waste, have a mass-produced, cheep form of advertising --> something along the lines of floppies. Hell, I still use said AOL floppies.
*** But as long as use non-rewritable media for advertising purposes, customers who don't want your product are simply going to pitch the junk instead of "recycling" it.***
Re:More than 1.1 billion CDs are thrown out each y (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn! that many CDs thrown out for no reason how many are thrown out for a good reason like they have an install for a crappy ISP and aren't reusable for writing data?
And all of them are AOL cds (Score:2, Redundant)
I wish that they were useful for something.
Re:More than 1.1 billion CDs are thrown out each y (Score:2)
A burned CD has a lifespan of about 10 years. After that (and often before that) it will lose data, become unreadable, etc.
So when you have all your data on CD, you are stuck with hundreds of CDs in a few years. - Will you *really* read everyone again and move the data to something else?
That's why I use CDs only as short-term backup and medium to carry my music in my car CD-player.
It's much smarter to copy all important data on a second hard drive - You can move all you data in one go when you upgrade.
Re:More than 72 billion statistics made up each ye (Score:5, Funny)
I usually throw them out because they're damaged, burned wrong, have obsolete, sensitive or transient data, or such.
Of course, every once in awhile I'll throw out a stack of 200 or so for no reason at all, other than it being my little way of giving mother nature the finger.
Re:huh? backups? not. (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, it may not be good for a direct backup of your drive, but for archival purposes. The thing that is nice about 23 GB is that I would be able to fit my entire porn collection on one disc, my mp3 collection will barely fit on one disc, my downloads directory will fit on one disc, etc. So I'll effectively be able to archive everything in an organized way. My system partitions are generally pretty small (though they contain all my important data), and I could back them up on one or two discs, so it would actually work as a good backup solution if everything else is already archived. At least in my case.
Now the thing is, when these drives become affordable, my porn collection may be 100 GB, and I don't want to have to spread my porn collection out of over 5 discs. Its kinda difficult to swap discs in the middle of... uh, nevermind
Re:huh? backups? not. (Score:2)
Are you implying that 12 hours of DVD quality porn isnt enough for one of your 'sessions' ?
Re:Ew. Scratches. (Score:2)
Re:23Gb for backup? (Score:2)