cnn.com — Britain-based New Medium Enterprises (NME) said on Tuesday it had solved a technical production problem that makes it possible to produce a cheap multiple-layer DVD disk containing one film in different, competing formats.
Sep 26, 2006 View in Crawl 4
greyareaSep 27, 2006
This doesn't end the format war, it perpetuates it. No one has won this war and all this is doing is selling arms to both sides.
nigel502Sep 27, 2006
this is awesome and makes sony cry at night
phoenixfurySep 27, 2006
Please forgive me as I don't have time to read every comment. Sure they will be just a touch more expensive to manufacture as standard DVD's, but the bigger problem is each format is still going to require a licensing fee for each copy of the movie that's on it. Wouldn't this make such a hybrid disc prohibitively expensive?
ibeetleSep 27, 2006
I think it is funny that every one here is Sony this... HD DVD that... No one is going to do this... no one is going to do that... when...No one here has a high definition DVD player (if you did you would know it is HD DVD; no hyphen, and Blu-ray Disc; with a hyphen). And no one here had a high definition television. So what does it matter to anyone?I guess people just love to bitch and gripe.
gormlySep 27, 2006
who is this "we" you are referring to?Competing companies do not get together and say "hey, lets share our newest tech so we can share the profits"The world isn't fair, the faster you learn that the less stress you'll have in your life
topher06Sep 27, 2006
Honestly, give it like 8 - 12 months and you will have uber-format dvd player that will do it all. The licensing costs for HD-DVD or BR-DVD support will diminish once the respective companies have recovered most of their R&D costs for each format, and at that time it really makes no sense to force the industry to have separate players for each format.At that time, you can pick up a $50 HD-DVD/BR-DVD/SACD/DVD-Audio/DVD/CD/VCD/DIVX/XVID/WMA/WMV/OGG/ACC/MP3/JPG/QT/AVI/JELLOplayer and recorder at Walmart.
tmcdiggSep 28, 2006
Baby steps are needed..like first introducing the technology in BLANK MEDIA!FIRST: introduce the method at the Asian manufacturing plants to LOWER our DUAL LAYER prices!!Second: introduce multilayer discs with color lightscribe!Third: introduce multilayer discs in blueray/hd-dvd formats! Bring cost of discs from $20-50 to around $5-10BTW will this process work in making "BLANK" media as well? or are we talking about a prerecorded "fab process"?
imtigger2Sep 28, 2006
The Beta/VHS analogy is a bad one. I went through that (even tho' I'm only 25.. ::cough::cough::) and Beta was very successful in the high-tech, high-end field. It didn't fail, VHS was just more mainstream.I think a better analogy is the Divx b.s. created by Circuit City. People were just getting used to the DVD format, most were finally jumping in, then they come along with these Divx machines and confuse the crap out of most consumers (a couple of friends of mine included).BR and HDDVD are not "new" to consumers. They look the same in packaging and the disc itself. They don't know, nor do they care about the benefits or the tech specs, they care that they have a machine, in their living rooms right now, that can play the DVD discs out there, and the picture looks fantastic... even on their new HD LCD'sSetting the tech industry aside (the people who know the tech specs, and actually understand them), your average consumer will purchase what the manufacturers will them to purchase. Like a big herd of cattle, they will come in droves to purchase these BlueRay or HD-DVD discs and machines because they're told to. However, because 98% of people can't afford the equipment, or the discs (most people rent, not purchase), the formats will just quietly die and go away, and the people who invested in this new technology (PS3 owners?) will get burned.VHS became super popular when TDK and Maxell started selling cheap CASES of blank VHS tapes to the consumers, to beat the snot out of Sony... and it worked. As a reseller of the competing formats, I can say that even the fact that you could get 6hrs of recording from a VHS tape, in s**tting quality video, always beat the 2hr Beta tapes in the consumers eyes. The majority of consumers have no CLUE what they want, or need.
slyjApr 13, 2007
Don't understand why anyone would "cry" about divx. These new dvd players and recorders that are divx capable rock.Certainly not as if they don't play your "normal" dvds. And this divx format that it's capable of playing puts an entire movie on to a cd. So......if you dl as much media as I do, and are as sick as I am of all the time spent wishing there was a better way......well there is....and life is much easier now