HD DVD

[Tink1717 2]

Two questions here:

1. Is there a difference between Blu Ray discs and HD DVD's?

2. Are there any HD DVD burners for Mac? (I found HD DVD burners from Sony (Blu Ray) and NEC ($2100.00))

Skydivers don't knock on Death's door. They ring the bell and runaway... It really pisses him off.
-The World Famous Tink. (I never heard of you either!!)
AA #2069 ASA#33 POPS#8808 Swooo 1717

[DSE 3]

1. Yes, there is a significant difference between HD DVD and BD (BluRay). At the moment, the players are not cross compatible. There was rumor that Pioneer was going to build a cross platform drive, but they're very loudly denying this.
BD uses blue lasers (BluRay) and HD DVD uses red lasers. BD has a total layer capacity at this time of up to 240GB at 70ms seek times. HD DVD has a max size of 30GB at a 120ms seek time.

2. Sony doesn't manufacture HD DVD burners. They manufacture BD burners. Sony is one of the parents of BluRay. At this moment, only Toshiba manufactures HD DVD burners.

Sony, Pioneer, TEAC all manufacture BD burners for both Mac and PC. NEC announced, but is not shipping (AFAIK) HD DVD burners. Only Toshiba is shipping burners.

Be real sure about your move, given the cost of an HD DVD burner, and the concerns about access at this time. Only Microsoft and Toshiba support the format, whereas with BD, there are hundreds of manufacturing partners, plus dozens of content providers. Were I in your shoes, I'd wait until CES next week in Las Vegas is over. We'll see who "won" the format war at Vegas, more or less. My money is on BD, or some freebie/cheepie Chinese system that circumvents both BD and HD DVD.

[tunnelfly 0]

Quote

BD has a total layer capacity at this time of up to 240GB at 70ms seek times

Typo? 240GB seem a bit too much for a pastic disc (at least in this decade...)

No.1 reason NOT to be an astronaut: ...You can't drink beer at zero gravity...

[erikph 0]

http://www.videohelp.com/hd has info & a comparison between both. maybe you can also find info about writers on this site.

blue skies,

http://myjumps.blogspot.com/

[DSE 3]

Quote

Quote

BD has a total layer capacity at this time of up to 240GB at 70ms seek times

Typo? 240GB seem a bit too much for a pastic disc (at least in this decade...)

No. Not a typo.
It's expected that both TDK and Samsung will announce yet ONE MORE layer (8 layers) on BD, allowing it to have over 270GB, but the question will be the seek time. TDK claims that they believe they can develop layering structure of BD to hold two terrabytes but that this development won't happen soon ('ll wager never). Note that on the BD FAQ, they only point to 200GB capacity, but that page isn't updated to Samsung's layered announcement of October 2006, adding 40GB more space.
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_capacity_data

[tunnelfly 0]

So is there any point in buying HD DVD?

And about multilayered BD: do you think we will see them on the shelves in the near future, or do we all have to buy the single or double layer units first?

No.1 reason NOT to be an astronaut: ...You can't drink beer at zero gravity...

[DSE 3]

Well....I can't really say if there is any point in HD DVD, I'm a believer in the BluRay camp.
We'll see multilayered BD on the shelves in 2007. Where it gets interesting is that HD DVD and BD were both delayed due to copy protection. Just yesterday, the crack for HD DVD was announced, and you can watch a vid on YouTube that demonstrates exactly how to bypass the encryption. That may or may not affect BD. I'll have a better idea after attending the BD conference next month during CES.
I truly don't believe HD DVD will make too big a wave in the biz, but I could easily be wrong on this one. I thought Beta would beat VHS, just because of size and quality. I backed that horse wrong.
Rather than say "it's not worth it to buy HD DVD" I'd prefer to say..."It's better to wait and see." The success of BluRay is already evident. The question remains as to whether HD DVD can come along and topple it. If Toshiba is willing to bleed $$ in the short run, they could very well wrest the crown from BD.
In the end, consumers (us) will be the losers if that happens. If Micro$oft hadn't gotten mad at the BD consortium, HD DVD would have been dead 18 months ago.