Thursday, October 12, 2006
Enter Stage Left: HD-VMD
Posted by Damion Chaplin in "HARDWARE" @ 07:00 AM
"A third player in the next-generation DVD market has released what it hopes will be an alternative format to the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD format struggle. New Medium Enterprises said this week that it has begun taking orders for its HD-VMD (Versatile Multilayer Disc) player, a format that the company says will support high-definition video. The $175 player will begin shipping in November, according to a company spokesman... According to a spokesman for NME in the U.K., the HD VMD player will be sold in the U.S., U.K., and Asia, although the exact retailers "are still being worked out," according to the spokeswoman. Details of the second-generation player weren't disclosed."
Whoa, whoa, whoa! A High-Definition optical disc player for $175, available next month? Why wasn't I told about this? It seems too good to be true, and it still is at this point. With millions invested in the Blu-ray and HD-DVD arenas, studios aren't likely to look for a third option, unless obvious advantages exist. HD-VMD does have the one important thing going for it that studios and consumers both care about: price. It's super-cheap and can be easily manufactured by slightly altering conventional red-laser technology. However, as we saw at the beginning of Blu-ray and HD-DVD, no one is interested in it at all until content is available for it. So while this player may go on sale next month, you won't be able to play anything but your traditional DVDs and CDs on it for a while (and maybe forever). More info on HD-VMD can be found here.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! A High-Definition optical disc player for $175, available next month? Why wasn't I told about this? It seems too good to be true, and it still is at this point. With millions invested in the Blu-ray and HD-DVD arenas, studios aren't likely to look for a third option, unless obvious advantages exist. HD-VMD does have the one important thing going for it that studios and consumers both care about: price. It's super-cheap and can be easily manufactured by slightly altering conventional red-laser technology. However, as we saw at the beginning of Blu-ray and HD-DVD, no one is interested in it at all until content is available for it. So while this player may go on sale next month, you won't be able to play anything but your traditional DVDs and CDs on it for a while (and maybe forever). More info on HD-VMD can be found here.
