scooby_dooby said:
The things that worries me about Blu-ray is how slowly it sems to be coming along.
Isn't it like 4 year old technology? And they are still struggling to produce DL optical discs? And readers? Why is it taking sooo long to even see 2x readers on the market?
I lik bluray cause it has more potential and more storage, but at the same time I wan't something that will be affordable as a consumer, that includes burners, readers and the eventual costs of blank media. Blu-ray just strikes me as being very expensive and slow moving(i.e. prices stay higher for longer)
I know Sony is trying to convinve everyone it's actually won't be more expensive, but I don't really buy it.
Both BRD AND HD-DVD are tech from a few years back. What's slowed everything has been the unification talks, and trying to bring in support. Why aren't there 2x HD-DVD readers on the market?
BTW, what makes you think BRD manufacturers are still having difficulty making DL discs? I'm curious to know what reliable new source some of you are getting all this HD-DVD and BRD info from. The only thing I've read on either format has been this forum...or some other forum. All the official info is pretty much the same as it was a few years back. AFAIK, there's no official word on production capabilities for either format. But someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. But so far, it's all hearsay, and I have no problem labeling it all as such until something official comes. It just seems to me like it's one side of the other trying to prop up their chose format through scuttlebutt.
Lastly, the cost issue for BRD keeps coming up. What are the costs? How much will each disc cost using present production techniques? I mean this for HD-DVD AND BRD. All conjecture to this point. Yet, some would like us to believe that BRD has to be the more expensive format. Not just that...but the cost has to be passed on to the consumer. This flies in the face of every other optical format to date. Optical media is a plastic substrate with a readable layer. Unless the materials are made from oil, I don't know why we should expect HD-DVD or BRD to cost more their CDs or DVDs in a couple years. That's the key. The cost argument is the Day1 argument some would like us to believe. It's the cost when capacity has gotten into swing. The 2007 per-disc cost. What's that gonna be? $1 per disc? $.25 per disc? Whatever the cost, it will be marginal. The cost the consumer pays will be supply-demand based, NOT materials based. That said, who gives a crap what either format costs. Short of cossting $20 to make a disc, we aren't gonna see any price difference. I'm sure the price of HD-movies will be fixed regardless of production costs. The only way we see an effect is if the discs are REALLY expensive to make.
IMO, cost isn't an issue to us. In two years, everything normalizes on that front. Even then, the few snippets I've read on here and GAF claim that HD-DVD needs new plants to get production capacity to a good level. Retrofit plants (again, based on the hearsay) run slower, period. All but negating the cost advantage. What's it cost to build a new HD-DVD facility? What about a new BRD plant? Should we end-users even give a rip?
HD-DVD is in no system. BRD is in one. This is a console forum...still. Why are there still debates about the HD format when only BRD means anything to the console race now? This is ignoring the obvious inferiority of one format to the other. Should we start debating MO drives too? Maybe we can generate more fud about that new Iomega disc format that's supposed to be better than both BRD and HD-DVD. Maybe it's the fanb in me talking now, but this whole debate seems to originate from certain people's rabid dislike for Sony, and nothing more. PEACE.
