Sony Announces 50GB Blu-Ray Video Deck

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/36576.html' target='_blank'>http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/36576.html</a><br /><br /></div>"Sony has committed itself to shipping second-generation consumer-oriented Blu-Ray video recorders by the end of the year, the company said today. The new systems will support single-side, dual-layer Blu-Ray rewriteable discs with a total capacity of 50GB. Current Blu-Ray rewriteable discs provide 23GB of storage on a single layer. The second-generation machines will also support the so-called 'BD-ROM' format - the Blu-Ray equivalent of today's pre-recorded DVDs, Sony said."<br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/1416.jpg" /><br /><br />The electronics giant touted, last year, their 23GB disks which had data transfer speed of 11MBps - more if data compression is turned on. The 12cm Professional Disc for Data (PDD) discs are fitted inside airtight protective cartridges and are available in rewriteable and write-once versions. The drives connect to the system over an ultrawide 160 SCSI interface. The 50GB drives, part of their blue laser technology push, that have been just announced have a 22MBps transfer rate. Sony plans to futher double capacity and performance in their 3rd generation drives and disks.

[bryhawks]

AWESOME! I was just wondering the other day where the Blu-Ray/high density optical media was, imagining the bliss of ~25GB on a disc...I didn't know they were already at dual-layer! 50 GB! :D

Now we just need a drive for the computer.

--> I just re-read the post, and see that this is 2nd gen. technology (and due by end of year :?) Sure didn't hear much about 1st gen products. Anyone seen/used one?

[brianchris]

I just re-read the post, and see that this is 2nd gen. technology (and due by end of year :?) Sure didn't hear much about 1st gen products. Anyone seen/used one?

Agreed. I wonder what generation they'll be at when a Blue Ray recorder actually hits the market :roll:

I remeber first learning about Blue Ray at the Sony both during the 2003 CES, and I was excited then....HDTV content on discs!!!

On a somewhat related note, anyone have the scoop on HDTV capable Tivo's?

-Brian

[Jason Dunn]

Blue Ray products were released in Japan last year I believe, but it's not surprising that we didn't see them in North America - Japanese consumers are willing to pay more for gadgets than we are. ;-)

[Zack Mahdavi]

Blue Ray products were released in Japan last year I believe, but it's not surprising that we didn't see them in North America - Japanese consumers are willing to pay more for gadgets than we are. ;-)

Uggh... stupid Americans.. :) j/k

[klinux]

how reliable/fragile are those airtight PDDS?

[Suhit Gupta]

how reliable/fragile are those airtight PDDS?
So apparently they weren't aimed entirely at end users so far, however I think that will change with the 2nd generation disks. But it isn't clear as to how durable they will be making the 50GB platters.

Suhit

[Crocuta]

The extra space is sure attractive, but they're at it again with more standards wars and I'm not jumping until there's a winner. Blue-Ray is nice, but it's not backward compatible with DVD (mostly because the disk in a case). HD DVD is backward compatible and has about the same capacity as Blue-Ray, so it makes more sense to me. But, of course, neither side will stop fighting until the consumers are all totally confused and half of them have bought the wrong thing. What we need is for these nutcases to get together and hammer out a single next generation DVD format and have everyone use it.

[Jason Dunn]

Yeah, you'd think they would have learned from the +R/-R disaster... :roll:

[Suhit Gupta]

HD DVD is backward compatible and has about the same capacity as Blue-Ray, so it makes more sense to me. But, of course, neither side will stop fighting until the consumers are all totally confused and half of them have bought the wrong thing. What we need is for these nutcases to get together and hammer out a single next generation DVD format and have everyone use it.
You make a competely valid point, although who is to decide which the better technology is?! Plus a bit of competition is sort of good...

Suhit

[Crocuta]

What we need is for these nutcases to get together and hammer out a single next generation DVD format and have everyone use it.
You make a competely valid point, although who is to decide which the better technology is?! Plus a bit of competition is sort of good...

The 'who' is a consortium of all the manufacturers of these devices. History shows us that it's better for everyone when they do this. They did it with DVD and the medium exploded, replacing VHS in an amazingly short time. Then they didn't do it with DVD-R/+R/RAM. Consumers were confused and only hard-core people really understood what the differences were. That dramatically slowed acceptance of the technology. Now the 'solution' we've ended up with is the ridiculous idea that you have to buy a drive that supports multiple standards. This is hugely inefficient, requiring additional production costs and the paying of technology licence fees to more than one company. That's not good for consumers or the economy as a whole. And it still adds complexity to the consumer's use of the product as they still have to decide which kind of DVD to burn for which kind of use.

Now competition... that's a good thing, but only at certain levels. Competition in production is good; competition in interoperability is not. Imagine the decrease in value your telephone would have to you if you could only call people with the same brand of phone. Or if your Internet were only shared with people who used the same ISP. (Used to be that way before the Internet, eh?) Or if each brand of automobile used its own type of fuel. Competition doesn't have to be (and shouldn't be) about competing between standards. Competition should be about competing on features, price, production efficiency, etc. That's the type of competition that's good for society.

I would suggest that there is no downside to the selection of a standard in this case and it doesn't matter which one they choose. You or I might have a preference, but in the long run, any standard for blue laser is better for all of us than a format war.

[Jason Dunn]

Well said Crocuta! I think competition among FORMATS is a bad thing (assuming that the format is as good as it can be based on the input of multiple groups), but competition among HARDWARE is a good thing. ie: once everyone agrees on a format, innovate within that standard!

Then again, if there were no competition among formats, I'd still be using a Betamax player...hrm... :lol:

[Suhit Gupta]

Umm, is this why there are eight different popular flash memory cards?
1. CompactFlash Type I
2. CompactFlash Type II
3. Memory Stick
4. Memory Stick PRO
5. SmartMedia
6. xD-Picture Card
7. MultiMediaCard
8. SD Card

And PDA, camera and flash card reader manufacturers are struggling to bundle as many different types of readers into one unit as possible. Flash memory still seems to be thriving and it seems as though SD and CF are winning in the race as of now. This came out of competition.

Suhit

[Suhit Gupta]

The 'who' is a consortium of all the manufacturers of these devices.
Yeah, if they all always decided on one format then the progress in that genre of technology would be slow in my opinion. There have to be 2-3 separate competing formats (often non-compatible) for something to truly succeed. And your VHS example is weak because VHS had already been around for so long and was in desperate need of change. The amount of data stored as well as the quality/clarity of picture made the DVD possible.
Now competition... that's a good thing, but only at certain levels. Competition in production is good; competition in interoperability is not. Imagine the decrease in value your telephone would have to you if you could only call people with the same brand of phone. Or if your Internet were only shared with people who used the same ISP. (Used to be that way before the Internet, eh?) Or if each brand of automobile used its own type of fuel. Competition doesn't have to be (and shouldn't be) about competing between standards. Competition should be about competing on features, price, production efficiency, etc. That's the type of competition that's good for society.
Yeah but we don't live in that kind of ideal society. My example of flash memory is the kind of competition, though annoying, is somewhat healthy. OTOH, I do find that the compeition between DVD -R/+R was crazy because the format of the DVD was already decided, but there was argument on the tech for writing it. I generally agree with you on your points above.
I would suggest that there is no downside to the selection of a standard in this case and it doesn't matter which one they choose. You or I might have a preference, but in the long run, any standard for blue laser is better for all of us than a format war.
It probably is, however it has to prove itself against the other formats, or new format that will no doubt also be released. :)

Suhit

[Suhit Gupta]

Well said Crocuta! I think competition among FORMATS is a bad thing (assuming that the format is as good as it can be based on the input of multiple groups), but competition among HARDWARE is a good thing. ie: once everyone agrees on a format, innovate within that standard!
Perhaps we have to define the difference between format and hardware. Do you consider the difference between Blue Laser disks and HD DVD disks hardware differences? In that case, shouldn't the flash memory cards also be considered as hardware diffs and not format changes?

Suhit

[Zack Mahdavi]

Umm, is this why there are eight different popular flash memory cards?
1. CompactFlash Type I
2. CompactFlash Type II
3. Memory Stick
4. Memory Stick PRO
5. SmartMedia
6. xD-Picture Card
7. MultiMediaCard
8. SD Card

And PDA, camera and flash card reader manufacturers are struggling to bundle as many different types of readers into one unit as possible. Flash memory still seems to be thriving and it seems as though SD and CF are winning in the race as of now. This came out of competition.

Suhit

I'm hoping eventually we'll "standardize" on one medium... Just like what happened with VHS vs. Betamax a LONG time ago, and 3.5" vs. 5.25" floppies. I read an article about a few months ago that suggested that the market for SD was quite large, and soon SD will become a "standard by numbers" by 2005. I wish I could find that article again, but I don't remember where I read it.