Thursday, December 16, 2004
NEC Developers Hybrid Drive Capable of Reading CD, DVD, and HD-DVD Formats
Posted by Jason Dunn in "NEWS" @ 05:00 PM
"Engineers at NEC have developed a prototype optical disc drive that supports the new HD-DVD format and is also compatible with CD and DVD formats, they say. The drive is the latest to come out of NEC's research and development work supporting the HD-DVD format. HD-DVD discs are capable of storing several times more data than DVDs and are being positioned as the successor to DVD for storage of high-definition movies. The format's main backers are NEC, Toshiba, and disc-maker Memory-Tech. It's also supported by the DVD Forum. The companies promise the first commercial HD-DVD players and drives in 2005. The three-format drive supports playback of read-only (ROM) and rewritable versions (RW) of HD-DVD and read-only, write-once (R) and RW versions of CDs and DVDs."
This is a step in the right direction, but ultimately until we see drives that will read/write both HD-DVD and Blueray, consumers will remain confused just as they were with the -R +R fiasco. Actually, now that I think about it, this will probably be even worse - sales of DVD players capable of reading HD content will never hit mass-market levels until a consumer knows they'll be able to play every bit of DVD content on the market. No one wants another Beta/VHS war, yet that seems to be where it's headed now. :roll:
This is a step in the right direction, but ultimately until we see drives that will read/write both HD-DVD and Blueray, consumers will remain confused just as they were with the -R +R fiasco. Actually, now that I think about it, this will probably be even worse - sales of DVD players capable of reading HD content will never hit mass-market levels until a consumer knows they'll be able to play every bit of DVD content on the market. No one wants another Beta/VHS war, yet that seems to be where it's headed now. :roll:
