When will HD DVD and Blu-Ray computer drives come out? (1 Viewer)

[Ken Burkstrum]

I watch movies on my monitor which doesn't have HDMI and has the DVI and VGA slots. So to me hd-dvd and blu-ray players arent something I can do alot with. How long will it take for drives for these two formats to come out? Will they start off with recordable technology or will they be mean and start of with just the rom drives? I think I might of heard that the public won't be able to record to these discs, is that true?

 

[Juan C]

Panasonic, Samsung and BenQ have announced Blu-ray burners. Available in/around June.

As to HD DVD, they launch with readers, and expect to have burners ready for autumn (fall).

BTW, if you only want an HD DVD reader, you can have one right now - just grab a Toshiba HD-A1 and pull it apart.

 

[GlennH]

Even if you install one of these new drives, you may not be able to view full-resolution HD content through your monitor's DVI connection unless it supports HDCP. And it may require even more than that, like a new certified mother board too.

 

[JediFonger]

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paed...hdcp-vista.ars

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060214-6177.html

sounds like you'll basically need to buy a "certified" HD-content playback PC, otherwise, you can't play HD movies on the PC, unless the rules change. EVEN if you have HDCP display.

 

[Ryan-G]

I'm not sure about the motherboard, or a "Certified" PC. All I'm getting from that is you'll need a DVI/HDMI connection and a Vid Card with HDCP chips on it.

While these requirements are a little harsh, they(MS, Hollywood) can get away with it. Taking it a step further, and requiring a new motherboard which is beyond the ability of most PC owners is going to cause *enourmous* problems.

That's going to alienate the entire existing PC Market, especially the College are group. Alienating the college age group is not a wise choice, they have free time, and they have technical knowledge, and they *will* hack your OS and Drive and then pirate everything they can in vengence.

Additionally, it'd probably end up as an Anti-Trust lawsuit. It'd be *extremely* difficult to justify end-to-end encryption and down-sampling on the PC while turning around and permitting full signal transmission over component. You don't get it both ways, either unprotected signal is dangerous and component must be down-sampled, or it's not and the restrictions on computers must be lifted.

It'd end up an enourmous legal mess.

 

[Ken Burkstrum]

Well that's ugly news. I have the Dell 24 inch and I dont think it has HDCP, I think it's the NEWER 24 inch model that has HDCP. BAH!

I have an X850 XT PE, im pretty sure that is HDCP capable.

What is the technical problem here exactly? Whats going on here thats different from HD trailer and clips I watch all the time?

And what the heck does this mean for all those people with HD displays who dont have this HDCP and HDMI crap? This is frustrating.

 

[GlennH]

I think the restrictions on PCs will be more onerous than those being placed on consumer electronics, just by nature of the PC being a device that can more readily be used for pirating. Or so the story will go.

So while the studios may (at least for now) allow analog component video at 1080i, it may not be allowed via VGA on PCs. And the digital connections will have to support HDCP all the way through, whatever that may mean. We shall see.

My home PC is getting ancient (P-III, from 2000), but I'm not upgrading for awhile until the dust settles on all of this.

 

[Ryan-G]

I can understand their problem, but this is going to get really ugly really, really, fast.

Obseleting every existing computer today, even the one purchased off the shelves right now, is going to go over very badly.

Switching gears on a HDTV displays with a less than 10% penetration is one thing, switching gears on every existing computer in the world without the infrastructure present is quite another. HD-DVD and BR drives will be out in under 2 months, but none of the infrastructure for PPV is present, or available, and every computer on sale right up to the moment they release will lack the ability to use them. All the while Component is being used for High Def on TV, leaving the video path completely unprotected. Worse, it's been known this conversion is coming for some time, and Vid Card manufacturers have been purposefully leaving off the needed chips. Vid Card manufactuers that are tied to MS, via incarnations of the X-box.

This one's going to end up putting MS back into high profile Anti-Trust. Not only do they like picking on MS any chance they get, but they'll readily jump on them for obseleting every single computer in the U.S. Especially since there's some parallels here between the plan with Vista and the bundeling issue with IE, made even worse because it'll fuel an Anti-Trust due to their partnership with ATI and Nvidia. Then it gets absolutely morbid when you consider that ATI's already in hot water over the HDCP issue. Who benefits the most from this whole PPV thing? MS, ATI, and NVidia.

 

[JediFonger]

"With regards to shipping cards, they are correct: no matter what a box's feature list may say, no video card supports HDCP fully at this time. Why? They have not been completely programmed. Until the specifications for the access control system are completely finished, implementing prottected HD support in the video card is impossible. For those of you who have been following the technological follies of the content owners that want to usher in this new era of HD content, then you know this is nothing new: AACS, the next-gen access control scheme that will be used by both HD DVD and Blu-ray, is still not finalized. That's right: with players and products being hyped as "just around the corner," the cornerstone of the roll-out still isn't finished. Still."
-from the articles i linked up above.

i have the x850xt PE as well. it DOES NOT have a HDCP chip on it. sorry =*(.

you have the 2405. 2407 has HDCP on it and it is coming 5/1 (AFAIK). what i love about the 24" series more than the 30" is the component inputs, older analog inputs. very flexible. it is as much a HDTV as it is a display. i love convergence =).

re: what technical issue are you referring to? the Quicktime (H.264) trailers are highly compressed for internet distribution. i recently checked the mi3 trailer (#2) and the bit-rate is somewhere around 10mpbs. HD-DVD/BR are 26-36 upwards.

there's no technical reason why the PC can't playback HD-DVD/BR right now. HDCP is not a physical spec. it's a piece of software. the PC's the perfect platform for HD playback. in fact, didn't someone crack open the new Toshiba player? isn't it basically a Pentium 4 PC+HD-DVDROM drive? the only reason why we can't is politics of all this copyright crap stemming from DeCSS from the DVD era. studios are deathly afraid of new copyright measures being circumvented. thus, just like SACD and the downres of DVD-Audio playback on PC's, HD movie content will face a tough time getting playback on current PC configurations.

ultimately, the studios want the motherboard to have a HDCP firmware physically loaded onto a chip installed on:
1. the motherboard.
2. the video card.
3. HDCP display.
4. *possibly* the HD-DVD/BR rom drive itself.

wherever the signal passes, they'll wanna' mandate one.

 

[Ted Todorov]

Well if the studios and other powers that be are trying to guarantee that HD-DVD/Blu-ray go the way of SACD/DVD-A -- they are well on their way to complete success. Consumer electronics is littered with technology that died because anti-piracy measures and piracy fears strangled them in the cradle.

DAT is the perfect example: a vastly superior to cassette tape technology that went nowhere because of piracy fears. So what did the record companies get -- peer to peer file sharing that dwarfs any conceivable DAT piracy scenario, and $0 revenue from DAT. Meanwhile consumers were deprived of a super useful home recording technology. Yes, it exists for pros, but it was never allowed to become practical for amateurs.

Meanwhile DVDs are massively pirated, yet the studios make untold amounts of money from them. If they are determined that HD-DVD & Blu-ray won't be pirated like DVDs, they may well succeed by killing the HD business with stupid restrictions. If nobody buys HD media, nobody will pirate it. I imagine the pirate LD market was pretty puny too -- and so was the revenue compared to DVD.

Ted

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Please don't quote me on this, but I have read that a VAIO RC desktop will be coming out with a BD-R/w Drive - for $2300. MSRP, I guess.

Also, disk pricing is as follows: (at a 2X rate)!
25GB BD-R - $20.
25GB BD-RE - $25.
50GB BD-R - $48.
50GB BD-RE - $60.

Glenn

 

[Ryan-G]

Well, Panasonic announced a BR 2x read/write drive in June for $850 MSRP. Those disc prices aren't too far off when you consider a 25 pack of DVD+/- R is $20, and it'll take ~8 of them to hold the same capacity. So figure around $8 in DVD's, so the pricing there is only a 2.5 markup, not bad for a brand new tech.

Of course, what happens without Vista remains to be seen...

 

[Ken Burkstrum]

this really really REALLY sucks man. I spent so much money on this stuff thinking it would end up cranking 1080p from every source known to man, I thought I was good to go. I'm nowhere close to good to go! I'm like the guy with the 100 inch tv that doesn't have component on it.

I'll kill them all.......

What are you gonna tell me next, my SVS wont be able to play the bass in blu-rays!!!!!!!!

 

[Member 323668]

Once upon a time, the user had full control over his PC.

Now VISTA gives the OS/computer total control over you and your privacy.

Do you really think people are that stupid and install the Vista spyware on their PCs? scnr

 

[Ken Burkstrum]

Vista has control over your privacy and is spyware? So..what's the deal with that are they gonna change it or are people just not gonna buy it or move to another OS or what?

HDCP is the new 666 to me. I suppose buying a 3840x2400 monitor aint gonna do sh*t for me later on when stuff passed 1080p comes out is it? I'll get a ribshot with "oh, you stupid bastard, you can only watch 2160p videos with SEXHDCP support on every single piece of equipment in your PC and even then, your still gonna need a $10,000 big glowing box that does nothing but process the super high definition signal. Besides, you bought one of the first 3840x2400 monitors, you dont have the write cords and you dont have the response time or refresh rate to watch super hgih definition properly. You stupid stupid hopeless consumer".

I quit, I can't beat the system. 1080p looks like crap up close to a larger then normal monitor. Otherwise I would just aim for true 1080p and be satisfied for the rest of my days.

 

[Ryan-G]

I haven't heard anything about Vista being invasive, and if it were, it'd have MS deep in legal doo-doo. Many people use computers to handle sensitive data, and if MS were poking around in that data, MS wouldn't exist in a very short period of time as every government in the world picked them apart.

Regardless, even if they were doing that, people would install it by the truckload. You seriously underestimate the stupidity of the public.

I think it was said best by a comedian. "The average IQ in America is 100. Half of the people in this country are stupider than that."

 

[Juan C]

Pioneer Blu-ray burner tested:

First Look: First Blu-ray burner lives up to the hype

PC World tests show that the Pioneer BDR-101A drive's performance and capacity are impressive.

 

[MandyHan]

From an article I read, it said the MPAA lost 6.1 billion to piracy last year. From that, I gather that more than just Brad Pitt and Co. are suffering from it.

It makes me think articles like this are the truth, but can anything really be unbreakable?

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2006/04/unbreakable-drm.html

 

[Ted Todorov]

That is very funny -- click on that link if you haven't. Of course the MPAA's piracy figures are pure fantasy, and I'm sure that exactly 0% of the piracy occurs because they neglected to restrict the output resolution of some piece of equipment...

The irony of course is that the MPAA/RIAA do next to nothing going after the REAL, ACTUAL PIRATES -- you know people SELLING obviously pirated CDs & DVDs. I work on Wall St., and for years now there have been people selling pirated $5 CDs & DVDs on tables on Wall St., almost directly across the street from the New York Stock Exchange where most of the MPAA/RIAA companies are listed!

Where are all their high powered lawyers when we need them??? I'd be the first to applaud if they stopped those pirates from blocking the sidewalk and threw them in jail. Instead they are to busy suing grandmothers and 12 year olds for file sharing and figuring out new ways of preventing audio/videophiles from seeing and hearing the high res material we paid their corporate masters for!

 

[Glenn Overholt]

They never show us everything. The other day I saw a bust go down on TV. I think it was in L.A. somewhere. They picked up 6,000 bootleg disks - but what really impreassed me was a stack of liner notes for MI-3!

You have to realize that most of the piracy doesn't go on in the US of A, but in other countries like China (PRC) and Russia. Of course then you'll get into stuff that we just don't talk about here on HTF.

Glenn