Toshiba touts 51GB HD DVD

[Azzin]

Originally Posted by El Reg

Toshiba has submitted a triple-layer, 51GB HD DVD-ROM disc to the standard's overseer in the hope the technology will be adopted as a standard by the end of the year. If approved, it allow the format to exceed the 50GB storage capacity of rival medium Blu-ray Disc.

The HD DVD standard currently defines single- and dual-layer discs capable of holding 15GB and 30GB of data, respectively. That's plenty, say the format's supporters, for a movie encoded in 1080p HD resolution and a stack of extras.

Originally Posted by El Reg

The snag, of course, is that today's HD DVD players will be incapable of reading the new disc, which is something of a problem for early adopters, who will presumably have to buy new kit. Toshiba last week positioned the new disc as an "extended capacity, high-end option"

Click me for more info.

[beecee]

thats pretty decent!

use the full 30 gig for pic and sound, and if required use a 3rd layer for extras.

[sinizterguy]

Toshiba and HDDVD are so much more consumer focused. If this was the Sony/BD camp, they would just say tough, buy new equipment if you want to go anywhere near the disc.

[richard plumb]

Originally Posted by sinizterguy

Toshiba and HDDVD are so much more consumer focused. If this was the Sony/BD camp, they would just say tough, buy new equipment if you want to go anywhere near the disc.

did you miss the part where these discs won't play on current players?

[mgillespie]

Shame Toshiba also announced existing players, including the latest US models won't support the tripple layer disks.

This is nothing more than a last ditch desperate attempt to counter the 50GB Blu-Ray onslaught.

Toshiba also mentioned at CES that current players (including the newly launched models) don't support tripple layer discs, and never will...

Bad news for anyone that has already bought a HD-DVD player or Xbox add-on...

All in, a very bad week for HD-DVD and XBox owners.

In a single week:

Universal failed to announce any HD-DVD titles in 2007, yet Blu-Ray announce exclusives like Pirates Of the Carribiean 1/2 and slew of Pixar and Disney titles.

Microsoft announce IPTV, HDMI on a new version of the XBox, none of these features are available on the existing units.

Toshiba announce a tripple HD-DVD, and that all exisiting HD-DVD players won't play them.

[dllord]

Originally Posted by richard plumb

did you miss the part where these discs won't play on current players?

LoL Thats what i was thinking!

[gandley]

more to fact is the disc has not even gone before the dvd forum yet to gain acceptance, it is just a technology proposal/possibility at this time. not even a paper launch.

would be great if this became a reality, but not really likly till mid 2008. a nice timed annoucment thou when you think BR is gaining some momentum.

[mgillespie]

Originally Posted by gandley

more to fact is the disc has not even gone before the dvd forum yet to gain acceptance, it is just a technology proposal/possibility at this time. not even a paper launch.

would be great if this became a reality, but not really likly till mid 2008. a nice timed annoucment thou when you think BR is gaining some momentum.

Unlikely to ever happen, if existing players won't play them, there are 80,000 annoyed early adopers, and 90,000 annoyed Xbox HD-DVD owners....

The longer they leave it, the more they stitch the early adopters, all they have done by releasing this info, is destory peoples faith in HD-DVD (not that peoples faith needed destroying any more after Universal's lack of HD-DVD titles at CES )

[gandley]

my understanding is from what i read on AVS there is little chance of the A1 XA1 reading the disc but it may be possible the new drives in the XA2 A2, EX1 E1 may be able to read the discs. but no FIRM statment yet.

[Tejstar]

Well it seems that Toshiba has already submitted the proposal according to this article.

[amardilo]

I thought these new 51GB discs would work with existing players as I have seen this mentioned in lots of places.

http://avzombie.com/blog/2007/01/08/...mat-announced/

[Nuff_HiDeff]

Based on my snooping at CES, the 51 gig discs will "likely" play on the A2, XA2, A20, E1, XE1 and Xbox HD DVD player.

Uncertain as to A1 and XA1, due to different level of error correction chip on board, but it is possible...

[gandley]

Originally Posted by Nuff_HiDeff

Based on my snooping at CES, the 51 gig discs will "likely" play on the A2, XA2, A20, E1, XE1 and Xbox HD DVD player.

Uncertain as to A1 and XA1, due to different level of error correction chip on board, but it is possible...

A1 and AX1 also have different drive from the later models

[gandley]

Originally Posted by Tejstar

Well it seems that Toshiba has already submitted the proposal according to this article.

according to insiders, no not yet, but will shortly

See AVS for info as i dont have the link to hand

[richard plumb]

this is all stupid willy waving anyway.

One the one hand, the compressionists/Amir wax lyrical about how many encodes are only 10-12Mb/s now, so you don't need all that capacity. On the other hand, here are Toshiba trying to one-up bluray by 1GB.

Does this capacity increase also align with their '1.5x' proposals so they'll get some extra bitrate out of it? If not then its a waste of time and I doubt we'll ever see it in the market apart from a few discs for PR reasons.