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Hardware Technology

Sony First To Market With Blue-Laser DVD Recorder 389

Posted by timothy from the buy-now-to-subsidize-me-later dept.
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."
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Sony First To Market With Blue-Laser DVD Recorder More

Sony First To Market With Blue-Laser DVD Recorder

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  • Sony's dirty little secret (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:11PM (#5426196)
    The blue lasers are created using ground-up smurfs. Yes, that blue light is SMURF!

  • Will these be universally readable? (Score:3, Informative)

    by andyp ( 27347 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:12PM (#5426207) Homepage
    So will these be readable on Sony DVD players?
    (their kit seems to be notorious for not reading burned media like VCDs... kind of kills home DV-VCD/DVD setups)

  • 23GB? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dylan2000 ( 592069 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:13PM (#5426209) Homepage
    Finally I can stop buying new storage devices... 23GB should be enough for anybody!
    • > 23GB should be enough for anybody!

      At least for the illuminated ones.

    • Re:23GB? (Score:5, Funny)

      by BTWR ( 540147 ) <americangibor3@ya[ ].com ['hoo' in gap]> on Monday March 03, 2003 @08:18PM (#5428657) Homepage Journal
      1992: (when I owned my 40 megabyte Mac LCII 4/40) Holy crap! My new PC is gonna have 240 megabytes!!! That's SIX of my hard drives!!! I'll never run out of space again!

      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)

      by KalvinB ( 205500 )
      Actually when I first started my web-site I liked the idea I could back it up onto a cheap CD. But by the time I needed to do a backup the site had grown bigger than a CD. Then DVD burners came out and I thought it'd be cool to back it up on a DVD. But now that they're "cheap" my site would take up ~12 current DVDs. So I'm still sticking to a second HD. A couple 23GB discs wouldn't be so bad but by the time the cost comes down I'll probably need quite a few more.

      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)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:13PM (#5426218) Journal
    "Sony's Blu-ray machine will be able to play red-laser discs using the DVD-R and DVD-RW formats, but not those using the DVD-RAM or DVD+RW formats."

    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?

  • Even if the price drops tenfold... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:14PM (#5426227) Journal
    ...over the next year or two it'll still be cheaper for most people just to buy another hard drive to store their backups. Unless you have a lot of data. Do you really need to backup your pr0n?

  • What about DVD+-R/W? (Score:3)

    by Jason1729 ( 561790 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:15PM (#5426234)
    They're already jumping ahead to a new technology. I'm still waiting for there to be a real standard for normal DVD recording.

    Jason
    ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
    • There is. It's called DVD-R.

      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)

        by swb ( 14022 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:39PM (#5426470)
        I recently got a Sony DRU500AX at work and did some comparisons of +/- format compatibility of data discs.

        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)

    by kfg ( 145172 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:15PM (#5426238)
    So they can give the proper support to the artists who created that novel you're working on that you used this disk to backup.

    Ya damn thief.

    KFG

  • So... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shepd ( 155729 ) <slashdot@org.gmail@com> on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:16PM (#5426243) Homepage Journal
    Will Sony pull their usual boneheaded stunts and build DRM into the format?

    I'd love to buy it, but the Sony name is just too much of a put-off when it comes to media.

  • Forget DVDs (Score:2, Funny)

    by ryanvm ( 247662 )
    Fuck the DVD burner. I wan't the blue laser inside that can burn shit!!
    • Fuck the DVD burner. I wan't the blue laser inside that can burn shit!!

      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)

    by Capt'n Hector ( 650760 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:18PM (#5426258)
    23 GB for a 30 dollar disk, or 5 4.7 GB for 5 bucks... hmm

    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.

    • >>it doesn't have firewire 800 (or even 400 for that matter,) a must have for any DVD burning device.

      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.
    • The new format is, at least in part, designed for a HD-DVD standard. The idea is that with a larger disc capacity you can use a significantly larger bitrate for significantly higher resolution video. As such, it will still be one disc per movie.

      --

  • The more important question is.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by asparagus ( 29121 ) <koonce@NOSPAM.gmail.com> on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:19PM (#5426274) Homepage Journal
    Will this or MPEG-4 compression become the standard for HD-DVD?

    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)

      by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:54PM (#5426593) Homepage
      Go read this [medialinenews.com]. It's from last September, so I suspect the battle lines have changed some, so feel free to Google for more info.

      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.
      • Ugh... I'm definitely with Toshiba as a (mostly) educated consumer on this one. Cartridges? No thanks. More mechanical parts to break down, and as long as you handle your DVDs / CDs carefully (hell, not all that carefully... the things are practically indestructible with the ECC they've got...) then they last forever anyway.

        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.

        • 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

          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.
        • 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.

          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.
    • DVD, ATSC (US HDTV), ISDB (JP HDTV) and DVB (EU HDTV) all use MPEG-2, so it isn't much of a surprise that Blu-Ray uses it as well.

      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.
    • Yes, the first three are actually the same. Also called H.26L or H.26L4 if you look at some of the drafts. Should provide better compression than current MPEG4 ASP (23% smaller on one preliminary benchmark I saw), designed for chip implementation (No GMC, but 1/8th PEL instead of QPEL, integer quantization algorithm and more).

      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

  • Ahem (Score:5, Funny)

    by llamalicious ( 448215 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:19PM (#5426275) Journal
    5x the capacity of standard Red-Laser recorders

    Could someone offer a meaningful translation to LOC's per disc please?

  • Worth it? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Metallic Matty ( 579124 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:19PM (#5426277)
    At the current prices; it may seem quite expensive indeed for most people.. however, I could see that this $4,000 price tag would not be unreasonable if you were doing some very large amounts of storage. (Such as business record backups.)

    Besides; blue is a superior color to red =D
  • I purchased the Sony DRU-500A in December 2002, it failed (won't recognize DVD's) last week. It took me over 4 hours to get an RMA number and I'll be without my drive for over 2 weeks as they attempt to fix it.

    I'll wait until someone like Pioneer or HP comes out with one.

  • is DRM included?

  • 23GB Backups (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vasqzr ( 619165 ) <vasqzr@noSpaM.netscape.net> on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:27PM (#5426347)

    "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)

    by tekunokurato ( 531385 ) <jackphelps@gmail.com> on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:28PM (#5426353) Homepage
    With all the problems with DVD and CD degeneration over time, I'm not looking at backing anything up on probably unstable media like this. I don't feel like losing my data within a year or two.

    Give me larger capacity hard drives and better networking, and I'm happy.

    • Re:No way. (Score:3, Informative)

      by Abcd1234 ( 188840 )
      Yeah, 'cuz harddrives are vastly more reliable than a CD/DVD, right?

      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)

      by timeOday ( 582209 )
      With all the problems with DVD and CD degeneration over time, I'm not looking at backing anything up on probably unstable media like this. I don't feel like losing my data within a year or two.
      Everytime I see a post like this, I usually dig up some studies about how CDs are expected to last around 100 years, and then a bunch of people attest that they have almost-20-year-old CD's that still work.

      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)

      by Jester99 ( 23135 )
      You want larger capacity hard-drives? Those -used- to come with a 3 year warrantee; now they're only guaranteed for one.

      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)

    by mrjb ( 547783 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:29PM (#5426362)
    So we're gonna have blue lasers as well as red ones now? Good, then I'll finally be able to tell apart the good guys from the bad guys ;)

  • of course (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Xaoswolf ( 524554 ) <Xaoswolf.gmail@com> on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:33PM (#5426401) Homepage Journal
    but when the price becomes reasonable the 23GB disks are where my backups will live.

    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)

    by Mish ( 50810 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:34PM (#5426404)
    With the help of babelfish (and 15 minutes of correcting it's massive mistakes) I've translated this document:

    http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/d...030303/son y. htm

    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)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:37PM (#5426441) Homepage
    This DVD format is what is needed to get HD content onto a DVD so that you dont have to flip the disc for a movie..

    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)

    by cribb ( 632424 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:38PM (#5426463)
    from another article on the same story [pcworld.com]
    To date, Sony has only talked in vague terms about Blu-ray recorders becoming available in 2003 and an April launch is a surprise, not only because Sony had given no hints that it was close to a commercial product but also because high-definition broadcasting, for which it was designed, has yet to take hold in Japan or anywhere else in the world. The BDZ-S77 has a built-in tuner for Japan's direct-to-home satellite broadcasting service which carries a high definition channel.
    and:
    Sony has no plans to launch the recorder overseas, Yanagisawa said.

  • Watch out, TiVo (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:40PM (#5426473)
    If TiVo knows what's good for them they'll offer a machine that has blue DVD-recording capabilities. Not that they should discontinue the HD based ones, but another Blue DVD model in addition to those.... I could see this new Sony deck being a really popular item once it comes down in price. The HD doesn't offer any real significant advantages over such a beast other than continuous capacity. A disc-based TiVo would let you exchange shows like we used to on VHS. (btw, I'm from Canada, we can do that legally.)

    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)

      by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @05:03PM (#5426676) Homepage
      If TiVo knows what's good for them they'll offer a machine that has blue DVD-recording capabilities

      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.
      • If TiVo knows what's good for them they'll offer a machine that has blue DVD-recording capabilities...
        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,

        ...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...

        ... isn't this the same liability, essentially? As long as the show can come off the recorder they're gonna get nailed for sharing. I don't own a TiVo, but if what you say is true and they can do this now, I am curious as to why they haven't been challenged already. Seems similar to the 'no-FireWire' decree that DVD manufacturers agreed to obey. If the (digital) signal comes out of the box at all, whether on disc or via cable, I'd imagine they'd be liable in any case.

        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)

      by swb ( 14022 )
      Tivo has decided they are a services company that sell TV listings and software updates to boxes that bear the Tivo name. Basically they want to hit you up for $14-20 per month every month for the priviledge of using their 'service'. Yes, I'm familiar with the lifetime contracts, I have one -- but very few of those will still be in use in 5 years as the hardware dies or is phased out through no more software updates.

      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.

  • Call me crazy, but I refuse to spend money on industry-crippled media and industry-crippled media writers, especially from Sony (maker of crippled media and member of the RIAA and MPAA). If that means I'll be recording video on S-VHS tapes for the forseeable future, so be it.

  • Great news (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CrypticOutsider ( 615336 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:43PM (#5426505)
    for those want to buy a DVD-RW, (R, +R or +RW as you prefer) as it should help accelerate the price-cutting there. Though I do wonder if CDRWs will go the way of the cassette recorder very soon (pretty much driving them from the mainstream except for portables).

  • Not for me, thanks (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:44PM (#5426518) Homepage
    You can bet your boots that Sony, having a big investment in media, will put in a heap of DRM into this product. I wouldn't be too surprised if the firmware wouldn't allow you to burn a DVD without first 'registering' it with some member of the RIAA.

    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)

    by zozzi ( 576178 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:45PM (#5426521)
    At $3,800 for the unit and media at around $30 per disc

    $3,800? How much that in iBooks?

  • I hope that form factor for the recordable blue DVDs(shown on the UK reseller page) becomes popular. I've always thought that optical discs should come like that, just like a big floppy. No more of this 'handle by the edges crap'.

    Of course knowing Sony it probably has a memory stick jammed up its ass, or something similarly proprietary.

  • how many pr0n jokes will that hold?

  • and I can't wait (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jonny Ringo ( 444580 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:50PM (#5426566)
    "Still, with 5x the capacity of standard Red-Laser recorders, can't wait for it to drop down into my price range."

    and I can't wait until I have something worthy to burn.

  • Sony = beta live forever/beta is dead (Score:4, Interesting)

    by adzoox ( 615327 ) on Monday March 03, 2003 @04:54PM (#5426602) Journal
    The article is very interesting on many fronts. Most have pointed out that there may be a hidden copyright scheme already so I won't comment on that.

    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?

  • but when the price becomes reasonable the 23GB disks are where my backups will live."

    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.

  • So, if a blue lazer allows 5x data storage on DVD's, why not incorporate this technology into CD's?
    Sure they're the older technology, and more widespread, but they're also cheaper, and that's the main selling point.
  • Why oh why didn't I buy the blue drive.

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