Blu-ray Capacity Increase Via Firmware 232
LordofEntropy writes "Blu-ray.com reports that Sony and Panasonic have announced a new optical disc evaluation technology that increases capacity from 25GB to 33.4GB. The tech uses existing Blu-ray diodes and is accomplished via firmware upgrade. The article says it is not known if and when the upgrade will be adopted into the Blu-ray spec. However, given that Sony and Panasonic are behind it, 'it will likely happen later this year.'"
There's a likelyhood I'm about to post this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The diodes can stay, but the processor's gotta (Score:2, Insightful)
Glad I purchased a PS3 then and not a cheap Wal-Mart garbage player!
Re:The diodes can stay, but the processor's gotta (Score:3, Insightful)
There's some logic to over-buying sometimes. PS3 has been compatible with every change to Blu-Ray such as BD Live. Some same-age players got left in the dust with that one.
Re:The diodes can stay, but the processor's gotta (Score:5, Insightful)
Equally, before Christmas Walmart in some states were selling a blu-ray player for $55. You could buy a new player annually for five years and spend less than a PS3.
Of course the PS3 offers a lot more, but if you just want to watch Blu-Rays on your HDTV, over-buying is an expensive way to go about it.
Re:The diodes can stay, but the processor's gotta (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why I got a quad core for my last upgrade. When I did I heard a lot of "yeah but you'll never use all those cores anyway." And now even browsers are being optimized for n-cores. :)
Of course being a programmer helps in judging some aspects of where software might be heading...
Re:Also announced new encryption that needs it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The diodes can stay, but the processor's gotta (Score:2, Insightful)
First blu-ray players didn't start at $50, there was a time when they cost as much or more then a ps3,
Second, and more importantly, Can your $50 Walfart special transfer movies to your psp so you can watch it on the plane, Or do you have to take the disk with you and risk scratching it?
Re:Pushing the spec... (Score:3, Insightful)
Awesome! I have a one GB mp4 that I'd like your help getting onto a CD-ROM...
Also, a GB of JPEGs and a GB of FLACs.
Thanks so much.
Re:The diodes can stay, but the processor's gotta (Score:2, Insightful)
There's some logic to under-buying too. My DVD player still plays every DVD that I've tried :)
Re:The diodes can stay, but the processor's gotta (Score:4, Insightful)
There's also some logic to waiting until a standard actually finalizes before buying into it.
It seems like that BluRay is in a perpetual state of flux and that you would have to be a chump
to buy a player because either it will need an immediate firmware fix or some change will come
along to the spec to make your player unusable.
A cheap doorstop is better than an expensive one.
Nevermind the $100 players. What about the older more expensive ones. At least the cheap new
players might benefit from technological progress, Moore's law and cheaper components.
Re:Makes you wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing you've never run an MFM drive on an RLL controller. Or drilled a hole in the case of your 720k floppies. Or cut a notch on your single-sided 5.25" floppy. Or used a TSR that read/wrote a custom format on those floppies that squeezed a couple-three hundred more kilobytes on them. Never heard of the 486-SX. I could go on...but I'm lazy.
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
but is guaranteed to have a century-plus shelf life after writing to it."
Which is why some of my discs have this strange thing eating away the metal backing on the disc, burned once, put in a case, and never touched again. That data is irrecoverable.
Even when it's not touched, it's shit. Until they lose the need for a reflective backing, it will always suck.
Re:The diodes can stay, but the processor's gotta (Score:5, Insightful)
maybe I'm old school, but back in my day a STANDARDIZED SPECIFICATION essentially means that everyone got together, said what they wanted the new tech to accomplish, the engineers had many a heated debate on the exact methods as to how it was going to happen, the marketers figured out how it was going to be sold, the accountants begged the engineers and marketers to do it cheaper, and when all was said and done, there was a new technology that was a STANDARD. A piece of hardware/software that was certified to read and/or write content written to that spec was the end user's assurance that their content would play back on their hardware, period. Vinyl records started as mono, and they played back on every Victrola of the day. Whether I play a record back from the 1920's on a similar vintage Victrola, or my 2008 vintage Numark TTX turntables with brand new Shure Whitelabel cartridges, the record will play, end of story. The reverse is also true; all of my vinyl pressed in the last few years will play back on a record player that rolled off the assembly line during the Harding administration. A CD pressed to Redbook audio spec* today will play back on a CD player from 1985. This is how standards work. If the most recent disc labeled to conform to the Blu-Ray spec does not play on EVERY Blu-Ray player that has been certified to also conform to the Blu-Ray spec, then one of three things must be true: 1.) The disc isn't to spec and shouldn't have been certified, 2.) the player isn't to spec and shouldn't have been certified, 3.) the Blu-Ray spec is incomplete at best and broken at worst. Vinyl, 8-Track, Cassettes, VHS, CD-ROM*, 3 1/2" floppy, and for the most part DVD-ROM* have gotten along just fine without firmware updates, else we are talking about a moving target, which is the very situation that specifications are written to prevent.
*For these, I am referring to commercially stamped media, not CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R, etc. designed for consumer use.
Re:The diodes can stay, but the processor's gotta (Score:3, Insightful)
First blu-ray players didn't start at $50, there was a time when they cost as much or more then a ps3,
Second, and more importantly, Can your $50 Walfart special transfer movies to your psp so you can watch it on the plane, Or do you have to take the disk with you and risk scratching it?
This is a key feature, because it is definitely worth buying a PS3 for the ability to watch high definition blu-ray media on the small, low-resolution psp screen.
Re:Only PS3 games are likely to benefit (Score:4, Insightful)