Toshiba Touts 51GB HD DVD

srizah writes to mention that Toshiba plans to launch a 51 GB HD DVD, with a 1 GB advantage over Sony's Blu-ray disc. From the article: Toshiba has submitted a triple-layer, 51GB HD DVD-ROM disc to the standard's overseer in the hope the technology will be adopted as a standard by the end of the year. If approved, it allow the format to exceed the 50GB storage capacity of rival medium Blu-ray Disc. The HD DVD standard currently defines single- and dual-layer discs capable of holding 15GB and 30GB of data, respectively."

Finally?

[pete6677]

Could this be the much-needed nail in the coffin for Blu-Ray? The sooner it dies (and you know it will, its backed by Sony), the sooner the HD-DVD industry can advance. Who'd want to buy while we're still in the midst of a format war and risk having the next Betamax? (Also a Sony product)

No way

[koh]

Are you kidding me?

The previously capacity-challenged HD-DVD grows larger than its Blue-Ray rival, therefore eliminating the last remaining advantage or BR and more or less killing it in the short-to-medium term... Along with the PS3.

This just after HD-DVD encryption was broken? I have to get my tinfoil hat.

Re:Finally?

[The Slaughter]

Since I already bought a PS3 and it came with a Blu-Ray as an extra (and pretty soon 1 million others will be in the same boat), I'd just prefer if Blu-Ray wins. Come on, we all know it's a superior standard. God the blu-ray discs look awesome as well.

Not a big deal...

[NineNine]

None of these high capactiy DVD formats are going to get any traction at all for at least the next few years. DVD has just recently become ubiquitous, and I'm willing to bet that nobody is buying these new players yet (except for the ones in the XBox 360 and the PS3). The TV technology (plasma and LCD) is still unbelievably crappy and overpriced, so there's no real reason for these new formats yet.

They are making it more and more complicated

[javilon]

Will current HD-DVD players be able to read three layers disks? If that is not the case, they are adding to the DRM nightmare.

Now you have to check that:

- You are using the right disk with the right recorder BlueRay/HD-DVD
- You are using the right variety of disk that you recorder can read (triple layer won't work on old players).
- You have everything hooked using HDCP cabling.
- All of your hardware supports DRM (if it doesn't your content will be downgraded and you will be worst off than you would with a dvd player).

And off course, the way things are going, in no time your new shiny expensive hardware will be rendered obsolete by a new iteration of the technology and/or the Digital Restrictions Management schema imposed by the studios.

You have to be masochistic to refuse the easy route to High Definition, a DVI connector, P2P and a BFHD (Big F*****g Hard Drive).

Re:Finally?

[nonsequitor]

I doubt that. Toshiba has made a 3 layer HD DVD disc. The current Blu Ray discs are only 2 layers. From what I heard Toshiba has designed discs of both formats at 10 Layers, considering that you get more data per layer of a Blu Ray disc it will still be bigger. Plus they have already made a 6 layer Blu Ray disc with a capacity of 200 GB. And we all know 51 is much less than 200. If it were an apples to apples comparison, it may have been a nail in Blu Ray's coffin. However, when you compare the largest Blu Ray disc produced, to the largest HD DVD disc produced, Blu Ray still has a clear advantage in capacity.

Re:Finally?

[Anonymous Coward]

midst of a format war and risk having the next Betamax?

One can't help but wonder how much Sony's previous Betamax failure will influence the outcome of this format war. More likely, the fact that the disks themselves are generally cheaper than blu-ray already signals a tipping to HD-DVD.

200GB 51GB

[Karganeth]

You seem a bit over the top. This is a 51 GB disk, TDK already has a 200GB Blu-Ray disk. Also, if you RTFA you might ahve noticed the words "The snag, of course, is that today's HD DVD players will be incapable of reading the new disc, which is something of a problem for early adopters, who will presumably have to buy new kit." This is NOTHING. Blu-ray is the better technology, and everyone knows it. Nobody wants to admit it because Sony, who created a rootkit, is backing it.

Re:The spec can't be changed now

[eclectro]

HD-DVD players can only read two layers, therefore no movie can ever have more than two layers.

I suspect that future players will be backwards compatible with the new format.

Re:Finally?

[The PS3 Will Fail]

"Since I already bought a PS3 and it came with a Blu-Ray as an extra (and pretty soon 1 million others will be in the same boat),"

Ah yes, Sony is well on their way to losing this generation of consoles. I can't wait! [Sony deserves to lose. lik-sang.com lawsuits and the rootkit fiasco should not go unpunished.]

"God the blu-ray discs look awesome as well."

Great reasoning there. You are exactly the type of consumer Sony loves to have.

Re:The spec can't be changed now

[tlhIngan]

The HD-DVD spec was finalized a while ago. HD-DVD players can only read two layers, therefore no movie can ever have more than two layers. All this talk about more layers is just PR wanking.

Technically, no.

Think about it for a moment. Look at all the HD-DVDs on the market, and HD-DVD players. They're missing something. Something that has annoyed the world over (not so much North America, but the rest of the world). Blu-Ray has it alright (they've simplified it - somewhat, but it's still present).

The "feature" that's missing in HD-DVD? Region coding. Yes, HD-DVDs are region-free. HD-DVD players have region numbers alright - that's for the DVD playback. HD-DVDs, nope. HD-DVD flippers, yes, for the DVD side. Now how in the world is the content industry going to accept that a major "next-gen" format will allow someone in Europe to get a high-quality movie that's probably just playing in theatres?

The other thing is well, HD-DVD supports managed copy, which I don't think is quite standardized yet (managed copies is a DRM way of letting you take your HD-DVD, copy it to your hard drive to play on your laptop, or move it to an iPod to play, or other thing).

Anyhow, it's not like more layers can't be put into the spec - I believe there is future capability for 4 layer HD-DVDs. 2 layers was put into the spec because it's trivial to produce using existing DVD processes (HD-DVD's main strength is how one can recycle existing DVD plants to make HD-DVDs - basically very little is needed to upgrade it from DVD-only to DVD-and-HD-DVD. Hence all the DVD/HD-DVD flippers out there - it's no biggie to the production line).

Re:Finally?

[Total_Wimp]

So which version of DVD do I burn for Macs and which do I burn if I want to put my movie ina DVD player?

Dual format is better than nothing, but I'd rather have a "winner." I know that every one of my VHS tapes is going to work in just about every VCR you can find in a home.

Of course it's even better if we don't have a fight at all, like with CD, but I guess it's a little late for that at this point?

TW

It's about production sizes, not disc sizes

[dagamer34]

It's not about the amount of storage space a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc can hold, as both formats have proven adequate to storing HD movies with amazing quality. No, it's about being able to get those discs into mass production with little increase in costs. That's why that 200GB Blu-Ray disc is pointless if it costs 10 or 20 times more to produce. Blu-Ray lost out earlier last year because while it did HAVE 50GB discs in it's initial spec, it took until late November to use them in movies. HD-DVD has been using dual layer 30GB discs from the start.

We'll just have to wait and see how long it takes before these discs become reasonable to manufacturer. Until then, I'm sticking to DVD.

Re:hey guys, help me make a decision

[phlegm]

You should tag it as FUD since it obviously is. 200 gig is far bigger then 51 gig.

No need to do that anymore

[melted]

The war is already won by HD-DVD, for three reasons:
1. It's cheaper to produce
2. There's porn on it
3. Higher capacities don't matter for H.264/VC-1 encoded content

These map very closely to VHS vs Betamax war:
1. VHS was cheaper to product
2. There was porn on it
3. Higher image quality didn't matter much

Except #3 is not even about image quality this time around. Image quality is identical between two standards, they use the same codecs at the same bitrates.

Re:the winnar is pr0n

[Babbster]

Okay, here's the problem with what you say about Vivid being "Blu-ray exclusive": They still haven't released a disc. On the other hand, Wicked has already released an HD DVD movie and Digital Playground (which was also supposedly going the Blu-ray route) has 5 on the way. The entire basis for Vivid being "Blu-ray exclusive" is a statement from the boss over there that they were leaning toward Blu-ray because the PS3 would have it and they expected that community to be open to buying Blu-ray porn. Of course, that statement was made before a single PS3 had been sold and before Microsoft hit the market with their HD DVD add-on. In short, it was a speculative statement as opposed to a true commitment.

Right at this second, I don't care either way since I don't have either player yet (though I'm leaning towards HD DVD based on the price factor and the fact that there is more content available on HD DVD right now). However, when people claim superiority of one format over the other on anything besides the technical merits, it should be based on facts as opposed to statements of intent.