Sony Japan Unveils First Blue-Laser DVD Recorder

[joepic]

According to an article by Forbes, Sony has unveiled their first DVD recorder to use Blu-ray technology. With a price tag of about $3800, these things are not going to be cheap.

Japan's Sony Corp said on Monday it would start sales next month of the world's first DVD recorder that uses blue laser light and can pack a two-hour high-definition TV programme onto a single disc. It won't be cheap, with a retail list price of 450,000 yen ($3,800) while low-end DVD recorders using conventional red lasers go for as little as 50,000-70,000 yen.

The discs this recorder uses aren't cheap either. A 23GB disc will run you about $30. Of course that is 23GB of space. You can fit a lot of MP3's on there.

According to the article at Forbes, this recorder will include a built-in broadcast satellite tuner and will hit store shelves in Japan on April 10. No word yet on when it will be available here in the US. For more information, the entire article can be found here.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/newswire/2003/03/03/rtr894807.html

[defense]

very interesting to say the least. It was obvious the blu-ray was going to be very expensive, but from everything I've read it was still going to be 1-3 years before they were released. Shit, Sony must be working around the clock. That's why I love Sony. After others follow suit and through the next three or four years, the blu-ray will probably be the same price as the DVD Burners now, making it affordable for most to switch.

[twodogs]

"Sony's new device records and plays back Blu-ray discs, but can also play back DVD, DVD-RW, DVD-R, CD and CD-RW discs. However, the recorder won't be able to read DVD-RAM or DVD+RW discs." - Business Week

Interesting about-face by Sony - started with +RW, then do both +/-, now featuring only -RW.

Does this mean we should stop making +R's ???

[defense]

Sony's new device records and plays back Blu-ray discs, but can also play back DVD, DVD-RW, DVD-R, CD and CD-RW discs. However, the recorder won't be able to read DVD-RAM or DVD+RW discs." - Business Week

Interesting about-face by Sony - started with +RW, then do both +/-, now featuring only -RW.

Does this mean we should stop making +R's

It is an interesting about-face by Sony, however, to answer your question we should not stop MAKING or USING DVD+R's. There are still many benefits of DVD+R/RW's and the article you submitted mentions SONY's blu-ray doesn't read the DVD-RAM or DVD+R/RW disks, however, that's not to say that companies which follow suit won't make their blu-ray burners better and MORE VERSATILE then SONY such as by burning ALL major formats, putting the pressue on SONY to make an even more versatile BLU-RAY burner to keep up with those. It's all about competition, and just as SONY has taken their stances on Piracy, etc, they see where that has gotten them with the sales of their crap PHONY SONY multi-format DVD players. It's gonna be interesting to see what the next few releases of these blu-ray burners are like.

[-jsl-]

The original Japanese press release from Sony does not mention support for DVD+R/RW but it does not state "will not play DVD+R/RW" as the Reuters news article claims.

From the press release:

Playback: Blue ray disk * , DVD video, DVD-RW (video and VR mode),
DVD-R (video mode), CD for music, CD-R (CD-DA), CD-RW (CD-DA)

This is a product for the Japanese market where the DVD+R/RW format is quite small which might be the reason why Sony did not mention support for the format in the press release.

If a player works with DVD-R/RW it usually works with DVD+R/RW too so I would be surprised if Sony's Blu-ray recorder actually refuses to play DVD+R/RW media.

[joepic]

This product is NOT for your home use

Sony has also announced that they have developed a blue laser optical data storage disc drive and cartridge-type disc media. The media will store up to 23.3GB per disc and is expected to come in both rewriteable and write-once versions.


The new media will offer 23.3 GB of capacity per disc, while the new drive sustains a maximum transfer rate of 9 MB/sec, making it ideal for professional data-intensive applications such as document and medical imaging, e-mail archiving, enterprise content management, multimedia projects, graphics design and audio/video editing. Both are expected to ship to OEMs this summer.

The drive and media will feature a durable, airtight structure to prevent dust particles from coming in contact with the drive mechanism and disc surface, increasing reliability for critical applications. Rewritable media and write-once read many (WORM) media for regulatory and secure storage requirements will be supported.

The 5.25-inch internal drives will incorporate an Ultra-wide 160 SCSI interface for easy integration into high-end workstations, servers and automated libraries commonly used for storage and archival purposes.

Expect to see drive's based on Sony's technology by the end of the year. Also expect to pay a lot of these first generation drives. According to Sony, they will cost about $3,000 per drive and around $45 per disc. More information on Sony's new blue laser optical storage products can be found on their website.
http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/3525

[donpedro]

...Both are expected to ship to OEMs this summer....

.....Both an external drive and a Sony-branded version of the drive are expected to be brought to the market before the end of the year....

...Sony hopes to bring a second-generation drive and media to the market by 2005 that will feature 50 GB of capacity with a transfer rate of 18 MB/sec...

We have still some time.... Let's keep burning with DRU500A

[i-on-s]

i saw a article in Playstation Magazine about PS3 and they will be using Blu-Ray Drives for it which is amazing! the PS3 is gonna have tons of shit like 80gig h/d, TV Tuner/Recorder, Built-in Internet Access...kinda sounds like a PC more than a Console to me but it also said it wasn't gonna hit streets untill 2005

[AceYu]

Expensive now but so was DVD-r not so long ago. Australian prices for DVD-r have droped from +$40 to $2.50 for some cheep media. and players can be go for under $AUS 100. wont be long before blu-ray follows suit

Later BRETT