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HP Data Storage

HP Backs Blu-ray Disc Technology 185

Posted by michael from the we-have-a-winner dept.
neutron_p writes "Finally HP announced plans to include Blu-ray Disc drives across many of its product lines, including select consumer desktop and notebook PCs, personal workstations and digital entertainment centers. They will start selling PCs equipped with Blu-ray Disc drives in late 2005. An optical disc technology, Blu-ray Disc is poised to replace current DVD technology and become the next standard for personal computing data storage and viewing high-definition movies. More than 70 of the world's leading technology and entertainment companies have committed to the Blu-ray Disc format. Recently, Sharp unveiled Blu-ray disc recorder with Hard Drive/DVD which will be introduced on the Japanese market in December."
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HP Backs Blu-ray Disc Technology More

HP Backs Blu-ray Disc Technology

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  • Real Wikipedia Link (Score:5, Informative)

    by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Friday November 19, 2004 @12:54PM (#10865206) Homepage Journal
    Why did the article submitter link to test.wikipedia.org, I wonder? Here's the real article, with 5x the information on the format: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc [wikipedia.org]

  • Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)

    by PMJ2kx ( 828679 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @12:55PM (#10865213) Journal
    The drives also will include LightScribe technology, a labeling solution developed by HP that allows silk-screen quality text and graphics to be burned directly onto LightScribe-enabled Blu-ray Discs using the same laser that burns to the data side of the disc.
    There goes the Sharpie pen market!
  • What is a "terrestrial/BS/CS110 digital tuner" and what makes it so special? The first term is Terrestrial, and I know that means over-the-air. Also sometimes satellite, but I don't think so in this case. What about "BS" or "CS110" though? Does it/can it double as a digital cable box, so I don't have to buy one from the cable company?
    • BS means bachelor of science.

      CS110 is a beginners entry level computer programming course.

      The implication is that whether you are an expert on computers or not, you can use this product.
    • I believe that is the Japanese standard for digital broadcasts, which is why the previous /. article about the blu-ray HDTV recorders mentioned that they would not work in the US at all.

      Punching it into google gets me a lot of hits for satellite pages, so I suspect that it means that it can be used with a satellite signal as well as terrestrial signals.
    • In Japan there are three ways to receieve TV broadcasts: OTA (terrestrial), BS (Broadcast Satellite, run by NHK), and CS110 (Communications Satellite, 110 is the lattitude or longitude of that particular satellite, I think). Cable TV makes up only a tiny, tiny fraction of the TV market as most cities aren't wired for it, and even in major cities like Tokyo, most buildings aren't wired for cable and most landlords won't let you install it.

      OTA HD is only broadcast from Tokyo and Osaka for now. BS reaches the
    • The first term is Terrestrial, and I know that means over-the-air.

      Actually, it does not. People use the term 'terrestrial' to refer to OTA (over the air) broadcasts, but that word does not mean 'over the air'. Terrestrial means 'of or relating to the earth'. This is because its root is 'terra' which is (was) Latin for Earth. There are a few other, less well-known meanings for 'terrestrial' as well; in biology it means 'living or growing on land, not water' and as a noun, it can be used to describe a deniz

  • My cynical side squirms... (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Friday November 19, 2004 @12:57PM (#10865240) Homepage Journal

    With all that storage George Lucas will still find a way to re-re-re-release the bastardized Star Wars movies one-per BluRay disc and people will still buy them. "More Ewoks! More pouty Anaki! More lifelike JarJar! All in THX certified Dolby Megadigital 24+3 Digital Sound!"
    • And yet people still buy them. *yoda voice* Fools they are, yes. */voice*

    • "With all that storage George Lucas will still find a way to re-re-re-release the bastardized Star Wars movies one-per BluRay disc and people will still buy them. "More Ewoks! More pouty Anaki! More lifelike JarJar! All in THX certified Dolby Megadigital 24+3 Digital Sound!""

      He's already preparing for and HD release. When he set up for the current DVD set, it was all produced in HD for subsequent release.

      Sorry, but the current DVD release of Star Wars (original trilogy) will definitely NOT be the last o

    • If *ALL* SW movies came on one disc I would buy that. Just too convenient....then again - I don't own any SW movies right now :D....it airs on Cable TV just way too often - and well I am just not THAT big of a fan (though I do see the movies when they hit theatres)...
      Now put the LOTR trilogy on one Blue Ray and that will be slammin.
    • "With all that storage George Lucas will still find a way to re-re-re-release the bastardized Star Wars movies one-per BluRay disc and people will still buy them."

      And people will over-analyze each change and bitch bitch bitch!

  • HP Hacks Blu-Ray (Score:5, Funny)

    by RichDiesal ( 655968 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:01PM (#10865286)
    I've been on /. too long... I originally read the title as "HP Hacks Blu-Ray Disc Technology", and my first response was "I wonder how they did it."

    • Oh! (Score:2)

      by oGMo ( 379 )

      Same here! In fact, it wasn't until I just read your comment and looked back at the title, carefully, that I realized the word wasn't "Hacked". Here I thought there was some fancy reverse-engineering going on, and I just didn't see it in the blurb.

  • Could HDDVD/BR acceptance be a bad thing? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ceeam ( 39911 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:03PM (#10865315)
    $(SUBJ). I mean - DVDs (DVD-R/RWs) are just now getting widespread and if in a year's time we see that we all were stupid to move from CDs to DVDs and should've skipped them to get directly to BR then I don't think many would be happy and eager to get f'd up again by BR. Instead I'd expect them to get a bit pessimistic about new media "hypes". Really - is 4.5G (or 9G when (if?) dual-layer kicks in) too small for _anything_ in the nearest 5-7 years? High res video? What if they move from MPEG2 to MPEG4 instead? That would be a kick-ass amount of quality per one DVD. Everything else - like games - either their producers are stupid and don't know how to pack or their wares are really bloated.

  • HD-DVD (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:06PM (#10865347) Journal
    I wonder if anyone at the movie studios has realised that if they now put the home movie market onto HD-DVD after much of the PC industry has backed Blu-Ray, few people will have the equipment to make pirate copies? It sounds like a rather ingenious, non-permanent, anti-piracy scheme.
    • It's a technological arms race. The studios get a new format (CD, DVD, Blu-ray) and it works to prevent piracy for a while until the consumer gear to copy it becomes cheaper. It sounds like HP is already announcing Blu-ray writers though, unlike when CDs and DVDs were first introduced and it took years to make them commonplace.
    • Except that Columbia TriStar (now Sony), MGM (IIRC, now owned by Sony) and Fox have all announced that they are commiting to Blu-Ray for their movies. IIRC, no major company has commited to putting movies on HD-DVD, although Warner is expected to because they sit on the DVD forum.

      IIRC, those three make up for the majority of DVDs being released.

  • When are we going to see it on the shelves? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:06PM (#10865350) Journal
    Whoever hits the shelves first with a 200$ drive and ~$1 media will be the one that gets adopted.

    That's how it's always been, really, from Beta v VHS to DVD-R vs DVD+R, the latter of which resolved itself by having everything read/write everything else (+/- is pretty much irrelevant).

    That's how it will be with the next gen. Whoever gets their stuff out there will get bought.

    The PC market desperately needs some sort of cheap media that stores in the 10s of gigs. Even if it's only useful as an affordable/practical backup/archive system for home users.

    By the time I could afford a DVD-R, it's paltry 4.5 gigs was too small to be useful backing up 160gigs of drives.

    • Re:When are we going to see it on the shelves? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:16PM (#10865467) Journal
      " (+/- is pretty much irrelevant)."

      Technically there are some differences ...

      +R media has better multisession support. With many sessions, it uses only 2 MB overhead on the disc (per session) for whatever data they use to link sessions. In contract, -R media uses much more data in the border zones. (It varies per session, but 3 sessions will have up to 132 MB of overhead.)

      Most people don't know that a -R disc holds slightly more data than a +R. It's about 5.5 MB. I was astonished when I found out. Go look up the specs and you will see that this is true. This is not too relevant unless you are trying to back up a DVD that has so much data in 1 layer that it goes into this 5.5 MB limit.

      Optical Issues: There are weaknesses in the design of the optical properties. The explanation is long and I really don't understand everything [cdfreaks.com].

      • But, practically, any modern DVD player (for PC or set-top) that was meant to playback recorded discs will play back both formats. Every modern burner will burn both formats.

        The +/- thing is only an issue to folks burning discs for their modded XBoxes or PS2s, the way I see it (PS2s tend to prefer -, or XBox prefers +).

        For most all real life purposes, I can just buy whatever pack of discs are cheapest, make sure they have the letters "DVDR" in that order, and not worry about the technical differences.

        • Personally, I have never had problems reading either format, but I have clients who have had problems giving DVD+R masters to duplication houses, where DVD-R masters are fine.

          • AFAIK, DVD-R was designed originally for the mastering process, and is layed out more like a pressed disc, whereas +R was designed for consumer use, so I guess that's what that's all about. It's also the reason older DVD players and PS2s supposedly like -R better, too.

            Still, I don't think that makes much of a difference, if at all, in the consumer world. I mean, the entire TV industry always used Beta, but it didn't make a bit of difference in the marketplace.

            When it comes to burning your home videos or
        • "But, practically, any modern DVD player (for PC or set-top) that was meant to playback recorded discs will play back both formats. Every modern burner will burn both formats. The +/- thing is only an issue to folks burning discs for their modded XBoxes or PS2s, the way I see it (PS2s tend to prefer -, or XBox prefers +)."

          Agreed. And agreed.

          "For most all real life purposes, I can just buy whatever pack of discs are cheapest, make sure they have the letters "DVDR" in that order, and not worry about the

  • DVD is the standard and will be for 5 to 10 yrs (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    People have an investment in the players, companies have an investment in production of the drives, recordable units are begining to get cheap enough to displace VCRs, and people are happy with DVD. Seriously dvd video is good enough on any type of tv for my eyesight, that is similar to most americans. Blu-ray has a future in data storage as our requirenments continue to grow, but it will be 10 years before we hear about renting a blu disc, unless they make it ubiquitus, cheap, and prove its superiority.
    • I have to disagree as well. The playstation 3 is going to be using blu-ray technology. You still don't think we will be hearing about blu-ray disc rentals??? Along with that I'm sure we will start seeing HD movies in the next few years. Even if people don't get a new DVD player I bet Sony is going to put on in the PS3, which will probably catch on faster anyway. DVD video is good, but not great. Bigger TVs and projectors are down to consumer level pricing.

  • May help in choosing formats... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Sensible Clod ( 771142 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:07PM (#10865368) Homepage
    In the +/- DVD format war, HP backed the slightly-superior-but-not-DVD-forum-approved + format. Now they back the Blu-Ray. HP may have some weird people working for them (certain ones I'd even call wacko), but I'd say they're smart just the same when it comes to choosing the better of two emerging technologies.

  • why blue ray is necessary (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jrod5000 at RPI ( 229934 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:23PM (#10865541)
    1. 4.5 gigs just isn't enough storage space to be a viable backup medium. plenty of people have posted about this.

    2. DVD video just doesn't scale. Sure, dvds look great on your 10 year old 30" behemoth tv set in the den, but try watching them on a new million inch HDTV... you can see with your own eyes that the MPEG2 compression just isn't so great. even with fancy progressive scanning and other image enhancement algorithms, the quality just isn't there especially when compared to higher resolution HDTV. whats needed is less compression and higher resolution video. and that requires more storage space. HD-DVD is one solution and Blue Ray is another. which spec is better is an academic debate for another post.

    you want to know where the early adoption will be? home theatre. not computers.

    • backups (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bill, Shooter of Bul ( 629286 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:51PM (#10865880) Journal
      I think I need to popularise a law dictating the truth about backups and medium used for them. Henceforth, It shall be called Bill's Law:

      By the time backup media that is large enough to back up your current hard drive is cheap, you will have upgraded to a new hard drive with a capacity such that it will no longer be practical to back up with that media.

      Ok the phrasing needs some work, but thats certainly been mycase. When I had a hard drive that was only four gigs, cd-r's looked perfect. It would only take six of them. By the time I got one I had a 30 gig hard drive. But then it looks like dvd-r's will work as a back up. By the time I get one my hard drive is 250 gigs. So by the time I get a Recordable Blue Ray that stores 500 gigs I'm sure I'll have a 30 terrabye drive.
      • ...Henceforth, It shall be called Bill's Law:

        By the time backup media that is large enough to back up your current hard drive is cheap, you will have upgraded to a new hard drive with a capacity such that it will no longer be practical to back up with that media.

        How about:

        The available size of inexpensive, removable backup storage media will always be insufficient to conveniently backup one's data.
      • My current hard drive is a 40 gig. an 80 gig drive to back it up onto is cheap. Of course, I wouldn't actually use an 80 gig drive like this, but, if you changed "your current hard drive" to "an average consumer-grade hard drive" your theory holds.
    • Well, I think that 4.5 Gigs isn't that bad for a backup medium. Considering that most data will be media files, most people will only have to backup the files once, and then incrementally backup the new data they get. Just be sure to verify each disc you burn, and to store them somewhere safe.

      If you want to save time, then buy a large hard drive, format it with a cross-platform readable file system and copy all the data over. Remove the HD and store somewhere safe. With a removable SATA HD caddy thingy, yo

    • 4.5 gigs just isn't enough storage space to be a viable backup medium.

      4.5 GBs is enough to be a backup medium if you have a smaller hard drive. It's not a problem if your drive is 40+GBs. By the time Blu/HD comes out, hard drives will be far larger, making them unsuitable as a backup method. Buy one extra drive for backup, or spend the money and get a tape drive.

      you can see with your own eyes that the MPEG2 compression just isn't so great

      Actually, MPEG-2 compression is very good. The problem is that

  • Get vendors to use it first (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bruha ( 412869 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:31PM (#10865614) Homepage Journal
    AFAIK the only software yet to come on DVD so far are certain Linux distros. Reguardless that dvd drives can be bought for less than 20 dollars nowdays. Games typically can span 3-5 cd's and they still say they do not want to distribute on DVD. Course if they didnt have to pack a thick CD set they could put more copies of the same product on the shelf in a slimmed up packaging.

    And with Blue-Ray coming out it wont make much of a difference if the distribution channels still stick with CDROM.
  • HP has to back SOMETHING. The trick with Technology is that you have to stand behind a product, push it, and hope that consumers accept it. If you stand by the wayside, you are bound to be grabbing ticket #4,165,280 (ficticious) at Bankruptcy court.
    Technology, especially for home theaters(as one poster put it), Will always be moving forward. But it is not the baby steps that make the majority change, it's the leaps and bounds.
    A VCR to a DVD = Better picture, sound, content, and navigation. It was innova
  • The drives also will include LightScribe technology, a labeling solution developed by HP that allows silk-screen quality text and graphics to be burned directly onto LightScribe-enabled Blu-ray Discs using the same laser that burns to the data side of the disc.

    So, any bets as to how they're going to do this?

    My guess is they just going to put thermal printer [wikipedia.org] paper on the backside of the disks and use hardware/software like Yamaha's DiscT@2 [giles.com]. Either that, or some kind of substrate embedded in the disc on t

    • Re:Thermal printing? (Score:2, Informative)

      by tenton ( 181778 )
      Lightscribe [lightscribe.com] has been talked about for a few years now. Similar to the Yamaha technology, except you're not using the data layer for drawing; it's a dye on the other side of the disc that you will be burning.

  • A pointless stopgrap (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jabuzz ( 182671 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @03:10PM (#10867037) Homepage
    The increase in storage from a DVD to either of these blue laser format optical disks is simply insufficient to make it worth while. From a CD to a DVD was a 10 fold increase in storage. From a DVD to a blue laser based disk is only around three times the capacity.

    This is just not worth the effort and cost, especially when there are holographic alternatives in development that have the potential to offer over 100 times the storage capacity of a DVD.
    • CD to DVD is only about 6x, depending on whether you're talking 650MB or 700MB vs 4450MB.

      BlueRay is 25GB, or about 5x (maybe 6x).

      The holographic stuff is nice, but show me a working prototype. Or better, show me something where I can buy a drive for under $500 and media for less then $5. Until then, it's just all pie-in-the-sky and I refuse to get anxious about it.

  • CDs did well because they were basically a replacement for audio cassettes and LPs. DVDs did well because they were a replacement for VHS Tapes. What is the purpose of the Blu-Ray disc. Sure they store more than dvd's, but that doesn't mean that they will start putting movies on them. DVD resolution is already high enough that most TV's don't even do dvd's justice, and increasing the resolution can't be detected by the human eye anyway. The only thing that these may be useful for is putting a lot of mo
    • What is the purpose of the Blu-Ray disc.

      HDTV resolutions.

      that doesn't mean that they will start putting movies on them

      Sony has already committed to doing that.

      most TV's don't even do dvd's justice

      My HDTV supports more resolution than DVD's contain (480i). About 20% of TVs currently sold are HDTV capable, and that percentage is increasing. People that own HDTV's are prime customers already for upconverting DVD players [crutchfield.com] with fancy deinterlacers so that DVD's don't look like crap on their HDTVs. Th

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