Blu-Ray and HD DVD: combo player/recorders the answer?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 11 October 2007 16:27

Opinion and Analysis

Combo drives have found their way into the marketplace not only in LG branded products. Now HP and Acer have started selling computers with combo Blu-ray and HD DVD drives, alongside LG’s consumer Blu-ray and HD DVD player and other initiatives, the inevitable move towards combo players and recorders being standard is well underway, although at least a couple of years if not more from being resolved with an official decision to go combo.

It happened with DVD±R, and it’s already happening with HD formats. The only danger? Ever improving video codecs, ever larger portable hard drive capacities in ever smaller physical sizes with HDMI connections to HDTVs and ever faster broadband connections through wired or wireless means.

Microsoft is already running a closed beta of ‘Internet TV’ for Windows Media Center users, Joost has become open to all at last and is available to anyone that wants it, the quality of YouTube videos is improving and video has finally become ubiquitous on the Internet.

Optical formats are still useful and widely accessibly today, in CD and DVD formats at least. But given the cost reductions of magnetic portable hard drives and the ever increasing capacities of flash memory devices, both of which are much hardier to everyday life than an optical disc.

Optical discs might take a decade and likely longer to disappear from store shelves, overwhelmed by 50GB and much larger USB flash drives or other as yet uninvented or unreleased forms of massive portable storage in a very small size.

Already, the window to get us all to buy movies in Blu-ray or HD DVD format is closing. Prices for players and discs are still higher than DVDs.

How long before iTunes sells movies in HD and the Apple TV is upgraded to full 1080p HD playback? Microsoft already rents HD movies and sells HD television shows through Xbox 360 Live in the US. Amazon’s Unbox service, Sony’s PS3 online store and plenty of other online stores will sell HD video content in the not too distant future.

Downloading anything is common today, but legal HD downloads of movies should surely be as common in the developed and highly developing worlds as YouTube by at least 2010 if not sooner.

In an age of terabyte hard drives Blu-ray and HD DVD, along with CDs and DVDs, are just highly portable storage formats.

In 2007, 4x speed Blu-ray recording is the fastest speed you can buy at retail. But surely, as the window for sales tightens ever further over the next couple of years, the drive for combo players to become standard will grow stronger, letting consumers buy any HD disc and being confident of being able to play it hassle free.

High-def content is cool, and if you love your technology, you probably already have a standalone HD player of some kind, or have one through a PS3 with Blu-ray, an Xbox 360 with an HD DVD drive, or an HD player and/or burner on your PC, or are going to get one.

But if you haven’t done it yet, why splash out on an HD player in ’07 when you’ll probably spend the same on an HD recorder and player in ‘08, unless you simply must have the very latest?

The reality is, as is the case with most technologies today (and long it may continue), that better, faster combo drives are on the way, both for your computer, and models with hard drives and HD TV tuners with a combo HD disc burner for your TV.

What a shame we have to wait that much longer, thanks to the format war no consumer wanted, and don’t just have “Blu-DVDs” instead. Will we (or rather, large multinational companies) ever learn? :-)