Ricoh device reads, writes Blu-ray and HD DVD

"How many of you have already started purchasing movies in the new formats?"

I think Comments[0] sums it up nicely :)

I haven't really seen an amazingly big deal about purchasing in next-gen except for hi-def movies. That said, why the hell would we need 50 gigabyte blu-ray when all the hell we want are movies in hi-def? The hi-def dvd will be more than enough for the movie and special features, I can't imagine a company filling all 50 gigabytes of blu-ray space... I mean comon... what the hell could they put in there?! That and hi-def hasn't hit off yet, I don't really see any of that stuff in stores n stuff. It's gonna be a year till it's mainstream.

I'll buy whichever format Jaws is released on first.

But if it's blu-ray, It'll be a good, long, while...

It may take longer than a year. DVD wasn't an overnight success, although it was clearly superior to VHS for picture/sound/content and more practical than laserdisc. It'll probably be years before DVD is unseated, just as it took years to unseat VHS. Consider that most people may not have an HD TV, there's really no point in buying an HD player to play HD movies for a lot of people.

Meanwhile HD discs will have to compete against HD content via satelite or cable, plus on-demand or downloadable and streaming content that's starting to emerge.

When you consider the data side (for computer storage), you're paying $1000 for a drive, to record onto a 50GB disc (price per disc = ??). Eventually the price will drop, but for the time being, buying a external 500GB hard drive at $250-$300 (even cheaper if internal!) is a much better option. And I'm sure quicker for accessing or re-writing data.

Q: "I can't imagine a company filling all 50 gigabytes of blu-ray space" ~ William

A: Lord of the Rings Exteneded Edition w/ All Bonus Material: One Disc

Nevertheless, I agree it IS a pretty pointless format.

I think Pink-Beam will win the format war. Pink-Beam owns all.

I think Pink-Beam will win the format war. Pink-Beam owns.

I see neither Hd-DVD or Blu-Ray taking off. The fact of the matter is that middle-class and lower class people (I don't know the exact numbers so don't bust my balls) is above 90% in the U.S. And the major bulk of these people have kids and other expenses that prohibit them from buying a $800 television as they can watch the movies and the shows they want on the TV they currently own ,it mat even be a big screen non-DEf TV that they are very proud to have. So to them a DVD that has all of these extras such as deleted scenes, alternate endings, and what nots are fine with them/me. Buying a new dvd player just to increase a little quality is not the same to us. after all it is the quality of the film that matters, not the quality of the tv. ! million HI-DEF players and TVs may come out, but everyone will still refer to the Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, and the Sound of music as the best movies ever made (and they may not even come out in Hi-Def, WHO KNOWS?). So to sum it up, the U.S. is not ready for another format. Hell we still have VHS movies in the rental stores. Why? Because they are still being sold and not everyone has elevated to the next step. Stop forcing us into spending our money! Do not buy into the next-gen movie format and maybe we can make a difference. But it won't work. look at GAS. A sucker born every minute.

Is all technology and economics frozen in time?

Capacities will continue to rise, performance increase, and prices drop. Look at digital cameras. Did you think you would be able to afford a decent digital camera 3 years ago? Look at hard drives. I never thought I would need a hard drive bigger than 42 MB.

Can't think of a reason or way to take advantage of all that space? Well, maybe the next business that can will be pushing the envelope and making a new market.

Congratulations to Ricoh, but their device will never see the light of day.

The obstacle to getting an integrated Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player is not technical; it is political.

You can not build a playback device for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD without getting a license from the associated consortium. And the consortiums have already stated that they will not license a dual-playback device.

A dual playback device would be best for the consumers. And the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD response to the consumers is: give us your money and go screw yourselves. They are only happy if they control 100% of the market and collect all of the royalties for next-gen DVDs, and they don't care how many golden gooses they have to strangle to get there.

Yay! Will these be expensive?

It's interesting that this article has been posted today...

I was just in the local electronics box store earlier today which has both an HD-DVD and Blu-ray demo set-up and I was evaluating the present offerings from each camp for myself. I was watching Aeon Flux when a guy in his late twenties walked up to me and started going on about blu-ray and how great it was.

I indicated that so far I thought the HD-DVD picture was better but was not planning to pass judgement until I atleast saw a dual-layer MPEG-2 BD or a single-layer BD using the VC-1 or H-264 codec neither of which to my knowledge has been released yet.

Without missing a beat, he immediately suggested I not buy the samsung and wait for the PS3 instead since it was cheaper and it was the only console supporting next gen DVDs.

(regardless of the fact that I clearly hadn't decided on a format) I indicated that the 360 would probably have an HD-DVD add-on by the time the PS3 came out but that it didn't matter to me anyway since I prefer a stand-alone player.

He continued by adding that the add-on would probably be $400-$500 and would be obsolete within the year and Blu-ray would win because it holds 200 Gigs and that the PS3 would have a 6 million install base by Christmas.

I explained to him that the add-on would likely be somewhere between $150-$250 and that presently BDs are only single-layer 25 Gig discs and that I didn't think that Sony would have nearly that many PS3s available before the end of the year.

He then blurted out "Well I'll be ready for the PS3, X-bot", grabbed a copy of 'xXx' from the Blu-ray display and marched to the cashier and bought it.

I've been kind of dazed about the experience all evening... Has anyone else had an experience even remotely similar to this or do I just attract the freaks?

"When you consider the data side (for computer storage), ... but for the time being, buying a external 500GB hard drive at $250-$300 (even cheaper if internal!) is a much better option."

Okay, good scenario. But how on earth do you back up those 500GB in a timely, convenient manner?

I have 2 TB of HDTV data on HDDs. I'm doing exactly what you're saying, and I can tell you it's a damn hassle to manage, and I cannot wait for a 30-50GB optical recordable. The data sizes are just plain too large an inconvenient. There is a lot to be said for a nice compact disc holding a single movie.

-Pie

DocEvil, it sounds like that was a crappy experience. Or annoying to say the least. Calling you a name simply because you wanted to play it cautious? Sheesh.

I do, however, want to address something in your post.

"I ... was not planning to pass judgement until I atleast saw a dual-layer MPEG-2 BD or a single-layer BD using the VC-1 or H-264 codec neither of which to my knowledge has been released yet."

I have several reference-level HDTV MPEG2 recording that clock in well under 25GB. Go to AVS Forum and look up the recent broadcast of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or the long-standing discussions of The Fifth Element (sadly better than the Blu-Ray version) or Gladiator. Again coming in well under 25GB.

MPEG2 is not the problem here. Or at least, should not be. Rumor has it Sony's encoder is hosed... and it would have to be to blow these things when I have broadcast MPEG2 that knocks your socks off.

I do agree with being cautious, but MPEG2 should not be a stopgap. Ultimately, it should come down to image quality regardless of encoder technology used. Judge with your eyes, not with the way the bits are stored on the disc!

-Pie

Didn't M$ say that they WOULD endorse a dual supporting drive because they are confident in their format?

BD and HD-DVD will be the Laserdisc of the new millenium.

There is just not that large of a leap in quality from DVD to the Hi-Def formats to justify the switch in the mind of the average consumer.

By the time HD television penetration rates are high enough, new and better formats will be on the market.

What's after Hi-Def?

"16. What's after Hi-Def?"

Wonkavision

"16. What's after Hi-Def?"

Wonkavision

to those who wonder why all that space:

To make a game, lets say GTA,
they could make a gigantic game!
u would for instance NOT grow tired of the same lines from peeps on the street passing by, cuz they would have a LOT more to say..Ur radio stations would take ages to listen through.
Allso the ppl around would behave more like in reality, becuz rockstar had more room to make it happen!

nd if this is BS to u, think about how much space a SNES game used, nd how much a PsOne used..nd a Ps2 etc.
U will then see the space required rises DRAMATICLY!

nd to be perfectly honest:

the huge space is actually just a luxury problem, the key is how developers choose to use it..

If you see dvd as an 480p format then the HD 1080p is 5 times bigger in size. A DVD is 8GB so whatever is on a DVD takes 40GB in next gen format. So we probably wont see 3 movies like lord of the rings on a single blue-ray disk soon.
Look when we had tapes they were big, they had low quality no extra's no scene selection and you had to rewind the tape before viewing it. Futhermore the tapes sometimes broke etc and had bad quality in the first place. DVD solved all those problems, now you first have to buy an X-thousand$ tv before you can look at a blue ray disk. Will anyone replace his movies on DVD? I don't think so.
Besides what so bad about a DVD in the first place?

#19

GTA:SA for the XBox used less compression then what's used on the X360 right now and came in at 3 gigs. Now Oblivion comes out with 16 Square miles, with HD graphics/textures, 200 hours of of script for NPC's, with much more and is only 6 gigs. Just Cause a games slated for the PS2/Xbox/X360 is well over 300 square miles and will fit on a DVD 9 with room to spare.

The developer of Crackdown (the creator of the GTA series) came out and said DVD9 will be more then enough to create next-gen open ended games.

Don't believe the hype. Blu-Ray is needed for HD Content way more than games. Sony's just packaging it for your vote in a format war.

#12 - the fact that he punctuated his argument by angrily grabbing a copy of xXx and rushing off to the counter in a huff pretty much tells me all I need to know about that dumbass. It's funny how people try to apply the extremely limited "knowledge" they gained from their internet friends and press releases, but when they actually run into someone that has knowledge beyond titles of forum posts, they get all pissy and wind up insulting you.

#19, I'm sorry you're so misled by what you think these discs can do. All they have is more space - that's it. They don't improve character AI - having Blu-Ray capacity doesn't make "ppl behave more like reality" just "cuz rockstar has the room to make it happen." As for radio stations...sure, they could fit more music. However, if they included the amount of songs you're talking about, they'd probably lose money on the game from licensing rights alone.

To be honest, HD-DVD nor Blu-Ray have me excited. I already have a progressive up-scaling DVD player and the jump from DVD to HD or BR isn't the same as it was from VHS to DVD. It is even less noticeable when going from up-scaled progressive to one of those formats. I won't be picking up my PS3 until 2007 when the good titles start shipping, and I should have my 3rd HDTV by then (this one being 1080p), so maybe at that time I'll start buying.

To #8:

You might think high costs would keep poor families from buying expensive electronics, but you are certainly forgetting about purchasing on credit. It makes for terrible economic policy (just look at our federal budget!), but it is a way to get expensive stuff in your house now.

That poor family might not be able to afford a $5,000 TV today, but they can afford (or they think they can afford) $150 monthy payments for the next four years. Yep, that "$5,000" might very well cost them $7,200 after interest and fees.

I think Sony is very well aware of this. Electronics have always been expensive, but they haven't always been cost-prohibitive.

Sony is forgetting that it's porn that drives new media technologies. It's what drove video cassettes, DVDs, and the internet. Get porn on board and you're good (FACT!).

If you say you can't tell the difference between an HD signal and a DVD's NTSC SD signal, you are either losing your sight or lying. And complaining about 'too much storage space' makes you sound like a fool... How can you possibly complain about something like that? The price will come down and víola, you'll have more storage space. If you really think the costs are going to remain high, you should wander through Best Buy today: DVD players for $59, DVDs on sale for $8.99, Xbox Platinum games $19.99, 360 awesome (?) (yeah right) launch titles at $39.99...

HD tvs, HD broadcasts, HD video games, and HD discs (BlueRay or HD-DVD) are all coming at us faster than many here think, and all prices will continue to drop, as electronics ALWAYS have, only the early adopters take the brunt of it.

Here's the news: Companies will always be manufacturing new stuff to buy. Yes it can suck. But personally, I loves me some HD resolution. Bring on the HD movies.

.

I was looking at the Samsung new BD player this week at Best Buy and had a simular experience. The Best Buy guy told me that I should not even be looking at the HD DVD player because HDDVD does not support 1080p and is only 15 gig large. When I told him that there player didnt do 1080p but the format supports it and even showed him the back of the box thats said it, he then went to the PS3 argument. Its funny that a next gen dvd drive now has fanboys. As of now there are more movies on HDDVD but there are few good ones on either format. And as said before upscaled looks almost as good. My tv is only 42 inches and im more than 13 feet away so there is no real difference between upscaled and HDDVD or Bluray that I can see.

Whats comming up after Blu-ray and HDDVD you ask? Well, this for one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc

I hope Ricoh is able to abate both of these waste-of-time formats.

To me, the only reason to own an HDTV is for gaming. Movies? DVD is just fine.