Toshiba Touts 51GB HD DVD 236
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."
Can someone help me out? (Score:3, Interesting)
1 Layer = 15 gig
2 Layers = 30 gig (makes sense, 15 x 2)
3 Layers = 51 gig....wtf? 15 x 3 = 45
Re:Fifty one! (Score:1, Interesting)
Anyways, I am not buying into a so-called "next gen" optical disc solution until 128 GB is met or exceeded. It may be arbitrary, but most computers with ATA/IDE controllers can support 128 gigabytes and it is enough of an improvement in storage space for the optical medium to warrant investing money not currently being spent on DVD+/-R/RW/DL discs and hard drives.
Behind the curve (Score:4, Interesting)
TDK was showcasing 100GB blu-ray discs [theregister.co.uk] almost two years ago and has recently shown off 200GB blu-ray discs [xbitlabs.com]. The problem is people are slow to adopt the use of next gen optical drives for performing important back ups and at present the excess capacity is next to useless for the movie industry.
This does help HD-DVD in that the increased capacity does help them match Blu-Rays superiority in the important TV DVD market. Previous to this you could fit an entire high def season on one BR disc but would be forced to use 2 or 3 HD discs. Now they can both meet the single disc hurdle.
I just hope someone wins this battle quickly and we'll get one standard for both PCs and movies or if not at least drives/players capable of reading both.
That's a lot of eggs... (Score:2, Interesting)
...in one basket. 51 GB on a single CD-sized disc means the data is more physically compact.... which just means you lose more data if the disc gets scratched. 51GB is an improvement from 700 MB, I suppose, but I think cooler things could be being done.
The data storage technology development seems to be progressing the same way video games were/are for a while. Video games pushed for more violence, more sex, a higher polygon count, neater visuals, blah blah blah. Too many of them are just the same old crappy first-person shooters, with prettier graphics. Hardly anything ground-breaking or new. So now we have a disc that holds more than the last disc.... Whoo.
I guess it's not really data storage's job to be exciting or entertaining, so comparing with video games might not be the most appropriate thing to do. On the other hand, where are those super-cool hologram storage things I remember hearing about years ago??
Re:Fifty one! (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming Sony is actually preventing porn from appearing on Blu-ray (the only story we have about it is what some guy said people told him at a convention), porn is freely available on the Internet anyway, and Blu-ray has more studio support (Disney in particular), so I don't see it making a lot of difference.
Re:No way (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Finally? (Score:2, Interesting)
And if you know anything about the history of console sales, you would know that the technical merits of the system are not the only factor in what console sells the most.
Why is it that PS3s are widely available and languishing on store shelves while stores cannot keep the Wii in the stock? I mean, if the battle is so neck to neck as you believe, the PS3 boxes wouldn't be collecting dust - would they? Face it, Sony is a terrible company that practices anti-consumer behavior and they deserve to lose. Why would you even want to support them? They make MS look noble by comparison.
Re:Priceless... (Score:4, Interesting)
With VHS,
I rip and reauthor my kids DVDs (good backup plan too - I've had a DVD break once) to avoid that non-skip crap. It's fantastic to pop a DVD in and have the show just start.
There is one Kid G-rated DVD I have that has that seedy, loud music commercial about how illegal copying is bad. Sorry studio guys. That crap is scary to a kid. Why the hell do you force a viewing on a G-Rated DVD???????
Some of that non-skip you can fast forward through, some you fast forward the chapters.
Apparently there are DVD players on the market that actually skip this. Anyone know what they are?
I am not on the bandwagon for this BD vs HD war. I doubt I will get on it as it is very anti-consumer from my point of view. The entire HDCP over HDMI crap penalizes consumers if they make a mistake. There are still TVs that have HDMI issues and that's a lot of change to lose to have a non-compliant piece of equipment that will show crappy SD content.
In the good ole VCR days, you unpacked the thing, screwed the cable in the back of the device, screwed the other end in your 300ohm connector (or if you had a cable ready TV, right into the thing) , tuned to channel 3 OR 4 on your TV (and that was the worst decision if you could call it that) and you're good to go.
Now, you have to buy not-so-expensive-anymore HDMI cables and pray it works.
Then you may have to set on the monitor and the output device the resolution settings.
If your HDMI is flaky or doesn't work, then your $40 DVD on your $800 DVD player is downscaled (not yet but the day will come).
So really in review, this HD thing is sill untested.
Re:The spec can't be changed now (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm old enough to remember the capacity wars between Beta/VHS. The first Beta (B-I) was 90 minutes on an L750 tape and the first VHS (SP) was 120 minutes on a T120. Not to be outdone, Sony created B-II which doubled the recording time to 180 minutes. The problem was B-II was incompatible with the first gen machines. Sony's "solution" was to eliminated B-I (except for playback via a switch on the back of the deck) on all B-II decks. JVC (VHS) followed suit with LP (240 minutes) and the same incompatibility with first gen VHS decks (although LP decks retained SP recording capability).
Sony followed with B-III (4h30m) and JVC with EP (SLP on Matsushita made decks - 6 hour). The only company to maintain recording capability for all speeds was JVC. But both formats shared playback incompatibility on previous generation decks with tapes recorded at the higher capacity, slower tape speeds. After three speed VHS decks became commonplace, content providers started releasing long (over 2 hour) movies in the LP (and occasionally) EP/SLP speeds, leaving anyone who still owned an older deck to either buy multi-tape copies, buy a new VCR, or do without. Sony actively dicouraged releases in B-III speed, claiming inferiority of the longer recording times. (Interesting enough, although it had a slightly better S/N ratio, the B-II speed was actually prone to more crosstalk and flagging than B-III, making B-III much better spec-wise.)
While it makes for good press and scuttlebutt on /. (and I know I am risking flames for this) Betas demise had less to do with pr0n and more to do with JVCs higher initial capacity. Sony's 90 minute capacity was too little for the movie industry. Sony's shortsightedness in assuming people would only use the deck for time-shifting gave JVC the initial edge that Sony was never able to catch up with after the MPAA vs. Sony lawsuit was decided in Sony's favor and the movie industry embraced the VCR.
The bottom line is, JVC's decision to go with a 120 minute initial capacity and maintain it throughout the life of the format at least gave early adopters the ability to play prerecorded content on their decks. But neither company was averse to breaking the compatibility with current decks to increase capacity. I suspect this will be the case with the future HDDVD/BluRay battle. Future gen decks will be backward compatible with the current standard (including BluRay if Sony is smart about it), and the movie industry will most likely release content only in the initial format reserving future higher capacity releases for a time when the higher capacity players have better market penetration. But early adopters will be out of luck if they want to play the new content on their old first-gen decks.