Sony will sell BD writer around august 18th for $750

[ROF]

I have a home theater PC and it has a drive for recording content but I can't even remember the last time it held a movie disc. I usually use my DVD recorder or the old basement DVD player if I wanna watch a movie. In my opinion an HTPC is simply a PC that is not in the home office. It should be under the same restrictions as a PC drive.

In most peoples cases(again no pun) these burners that do not allow movie to be played will not even begin to effect them. Most people who watch movies do not own a HTPC. In fact quite a few people who don't think HTPC is a type of cooking spice.

[mats.hogberg]

So Sony will follow their tradition of contradicting them selves: Create and sell expensive hardware while taking any measure thinkable (and unthinkable) to make sure the content they sell fail to play back on their expensive hardware.

(Selling MP3 players, while installing root kits in my computer to prevent me from playing the music I've bought (carried on a CD) from them on the very same player)

The HTPC may be a niche product right now, but I'm sure it will be as common as the regular DVD player is today, in a not too far away future.

/Mats

[ROF]

So Sony will follow their tradition of contradicting them selves: Create and sell expensive hardware while taking any measure thinkable (and unthinkable) to make sure the content they sell fail to play back on their expensive hardware.


(Selling MP3 players, while installing root kits in my computer to prevent me from playing the music I've bought (carried on a CD) from them on the very same player)

Really? Or is Sony trying to increase the sales of music for sale in a format capable of immediately being played on an MP3 player instead of having their tracks ripped from a hard copy media format?

[mats.hogberg]

Sony started "copy protect" (or violate fair use) their audio "CD"s long before the music they contained was also available as MP3 or other format.
Also, I'm not likely to buy the same music once for every kind of playback device I have, which is the media industrys wet dream.

/Mats

[ROF]

Sony started "copy protect" (or violate fair use) their audio "CD"s long before the music they contained was also available as MP3 or other format.
Also, I'm not likely to buy the same music once for every kind of playback device I have, which is the media industrys wet dream.

Then you have not lived long enough or don't appreciate your artists. I have the same music on 8 track, vinyl, CD, mini-disc, and AC3 format.

[mats.hogberg]

Yes I have. And I've taken the older formats with me, converted them to newer as I've moved along, if a release in a new format didn't add any value to me. (Vinyl to casette, Vinyl to CD, CD to MP3) Add to that the levy many countries put on recordable media - casettes to start with, now on all digital storage media - that goes into the pocket of the media industry - the same industry that goes to any measure to prevent you from doing exactly what they got their money for.

/Mats

[ROF]

Fortunately I live in country that does not instill levies on such media or at least not all media. Of course, they do charge me something called a sales tax which in my opinion is really just double taxation. I already pay taxes on the money I earned why should I pay taxes on the money I spend? AH, but that is another topic entirely separate from this.

If a movie in high definition adds zero value to your movie experience you simply do not have to buy it. However, those that can see and hear the benefit will. I am in complete support of computer drives being incapable of reading these discs.

In this way the computer will be used for it's purpose and the movie player will serve it's purpose and if you want both you will have to buy both. If not you will just be stuck with a computer that *gasp* does computational task and/or a movie player that *stunned* plays movies.

[mats.hogberg]

I hear you, but the media hardware industry (Sony one of them) is driving the consumer towards media centers (which as we know is a personal computer in disguise) to take care of all the media playback needs. To come later and tell the consumer that they may only see the movie, bought from the same company, in VHS quality on the $$$ SuperTurboVaio can't be defended - not even by yoou, ROF. (No, I'm sure you can, just like I'm sure Sony will do it! )I'm pretty confident this trend will outlast at least the HD-DVD/Blu Ray media era.
Your distiction between computer tasks and media playback tasks doesn't hold water - or we'd still be sitting in front of amber text only displays and have only a beeper inside the cabinet.
The trick with low quality computer playback versions of what you've bought has already been tried with Audio CDs - to no avail, and rejected by the consumers.

/Mats

[ROF]

Your distiction between computer tasks and media playback tasks doesn't hold water - or we'd still be sitting in front of amber text only displays and have only a beeper inside the cabinet.

There is alot of things positive to be said about my monochrome friends.

[handyguy]

I think they took too long, now a HD is a much cheaper option.

[ROF]

Actually it has always been cheaper due to it being about half the storage space of blu-ray.

[ozymango]

for BD lovers....Sony just announced that they will sell a BD writer for $750 on august.

I'm curious to see how these sell. Has Sony made anything mechanical in the past ten years that has actually been any kind of serious market success? That is, in terms of "new technology"? The memory stick? Mini disc? Sure, they work ... but no Walkmans in the bunch!

[ROF]

I bought a $500 DVD Player from them. It lasted almost 2 years. Was replaced with a walmart special $140 DVD recorder(i forget brand). Still have it.