Sony Blue Laser DVD

[George Bellefontaine]

Sony Japan has announced they'll be releasing a dvd player/recorder using the blue laser technology. Don't know when it will be in North America but it's gonna be expensive. Over $3000.
Well, it's a start.




My Homepage!

[Burke Strickland]

Sony's first SACD player was $5,000, and look where the prices are now. Typically, when they introduce new technology, the first model is a "statement" piece priced to give an aura of high-end quality to the new genre. I'd expect more reasonably priced gear to be available within a year of the initial offering.

Burke

[Chris D]

Ah, but don't we have another half of this problem here? We're not just releasing a new player, it's a new media format. We would actually have to have HD Blue-laser DVD's for this to be of any use. Matter of fact, I've heard that blue-laser players might not even be backwards compatible with standard DVD's.

Even if you make the player, I don't think the entertainment industry is close to giving an OK to producing the discs yet. There's still so much grief over the whole copy protection issue.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Burke Strickland]

Matter of fact, I've heard that blue-laser players might not even be backwards compatible with standard DVD's.

Rumor has it that Sony is considering including a red laser in their blue laser players to address that issue. (Reportedly, a competing consortium has already commited to this approach with their blue laser machines.) As for software availability, "if you build it, they will come".

Think back to the early days of DVD -- some people asked why hardware (HW) manufacturers bothered to provide facilities for DTS output since no titles were available with a DTS soundtrack. It had to start somewhere. If the HW had not already been in the supply stream with DTS playback as a fairly universal feature, (and it did take some jockeying over "standards"), no DTS titles would have ever been forthcoming.

Sony holds one of the largest movie collections in its corporte clutches and could easily provide enough content to be interesting to early adoptors, even if all the other studios held back at first. Once the market gets established, the others will follow, along with resolution of the copy protection issues.

Just my WABEG.

Burke

[David Meek]

While travelling this weekend, I was catching up on reading some of my audio/video mags, and there was a blurb in one that talked about this. There are actually TWO blue-laser formats, plus Warner's red-laser that are being pushed! Can anyone say "BetaMax"? Sheesh.
:evil:

I'll go back, find the mag and post the details. . .




David - HTGuide flunky
Our "Theater"
Our DVDs on DVD Tracker

[Danbry39]

I might be mistaken, but I think CREE has stated that they will eventually be able to produce a silicon carbide based blue laser for under $20 a unit, with a life duration of 10,000 hours. I haven't followed their progress for a while, but apparently there were obstacles which were causing delays in meeting this goal. Again, excuse me if I'm wrong, cause my memory ain't what it used to be, but the lasers used by Sony will be saphire based and more costly. It is new technology afterall.

In any regard, I think the cost will come down, hopefully with backward compatibility. That's when we're really going to experience true HD DVD's on a single disc. The sets are there and consumers are hungry. Now, how many years before we see Toshiba, Sony, or Panasonic come out with a $200 blue laser machine?




Keith