First combo PC burner
 

Source + full article: http://www.opticalstorage.philips.co...cle-14836.html

Hey, that Philips things looks coooool. The 25 gig single sided DVD blows away current dual DVD's....let alone the 50 gig DVD! I really hope Blu-Ray wins the battle.

I still think this whole HDTV-revolution is an over blown farce. Not technology wise, but practicality wise. An up-coming format war means very little, IMO. Until you can pick up an HDTV set for 150 bucks at Walmart, I see little reason to be concerned about this format war. And while HDTV sets do look clearer then SD TV sets, the difference is not radical enough to warrant hundreds of dollars of extra spending by the average consumer...who is already loaded with debt. Also, 30% of movie-going Americans are still using VHS, and don't even own a DVD player yet! HDTV is years, and even a decade away from the average consumer, so by the time this war is settled, there might be a clear choice/victor. Until then, the only folks concerned about this format war are early adopters and tech gurus....such as ourselves.

Also, while one could look at this format war as a big delay in bringing HDTV to the masses, one could also look at it as a big rush to drive down HDTV prices. The key factor in who wins this format war is price, and not technology.

Ahhh, very true Glenn. But you see, that 30% of slow poke adopters is just that... "30%". It's like videogames really, in that there are still quite a few people that don't own a PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube, or even a Gameboy Advance! Does this possibly small percentage of people hurt videogame and console makers? No. I mean, if you can't get that 30% to buy HDTV stuff, aim at the 70% that do. Companies can't please everyone, so they please who they can.

That's why this HDTV-revolution is happening. The interest for HD, as well as digital programming in general, has gone way, way, way up in the past few years. So now the big tech companies are aiming to please.

And I've noticed Adelphia Cable is giving people great deals on HDTV, since the satellite companies (like Dish, Voom!, Direct TV, etc.) are already doing it. Local TV stations, even in my market (39, I think--West Palm Beach), are now broadcasting in HD and my old station (WPTV) is still shooting DVCPro SD, but their "anchor cameras" on the set are HD.

I think this will ensure that HD will be the thing in 2006 or 2007, whenever the deadline is. Of course, that's what I think, but who knows if I'll be right or not...

heath

There is no HD deadline...only a Digital TV deadline...usually called DTV.

D'oh! I forgot that it's DTV, not HDTV...

heath

Personally I would rather have those LoTR extended editions on
a blu-ray disc (in SD) than on 4 DVD's, and it makes great discs
for backing up things... but I doubt we'll see SD footage on the
things and well, we all know the rest of story (war, prices).

The war gets nastier
 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...6&sid=95609565

http://www.videobusiness.com/article...4&catType=NEWS

Tell me if that last link works or not.

You have to log in/be a member on the second one, but the first one is very telling--gamers are supporting Blu-laser...

heath

Some major news!
 

Source: http://videostoremag.com/news/html/b...rticle_ID=7014

Some (massive) titles include:

- The Italian Job
- Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
- Forrest Gump
- Braveheart
- Mission Impossible 2
- Sleepy Hollow
- Star Trek: First Contact
- The Bourne Supremacy
- The Chronicles of Riddick
- Apollo 13
- U-571
- 12 Monkeys
- Dune, The Thing
- Spy Game
- Pitch Black
- Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
- Batman Begins (!)
- Blade
- Dark City
- Harry Potter series
- The Matrix trilogy
- Ocean's Eleven & Twelve
- The Perfect Storm
- Se7en
- The Sopranos
- Troy

etc. etc.

For complete list see: www.thedigitalbits.com

Fortunately for me, I don't own too many of those titles, so I'll hold off on buying the Sky Captain DVD then (I have doubles of too many DVDs, because one will have a set of special features, then the second will have a different set that doesn't include the first's s.f.).

heath

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like all this "hype" seems misdirected. It seems like the main "standard" needs to be defining things like menu and chapter construction - things that differentiate a movie DVD from a DVD with a bunch of files on it.

Right now, most new DVD players don't care if it's a pressed DVD, a burned DVD-r, DVD+r, DVD-rw, or DVD+rw. Heck, they'll even play Audio files. (WMA & MP3), as well as plain old MPG files - of just about any variety. Put your JPEG stills on a disk (any variety) and it'l show them.

It seems like a defined file structure for HD-DVD should be able to be burned onto any disk it would fit. Compression continues to improve too! WMV in HD takes up about the same space as SD-DVD.

What am I missing?