This disc works on DVD players old and new

Associated Press ^ | Dec. 7, 2004, 10:02AM | no byline

[weegee]

TOKYO - Two Japanese companies said Tuesday they have developed a DVD that can play on both existing machines and the upcoming high-definition players, raising hopes for a smooth transition as more people dump old TV sets for better screens. Toshiba Corp. and Memory-Tech Corp. said their disc has a dual-layered surface that can store both types of data on the same side.

For consumers, that would eliminate the potential headache of having to own two types of DVD players: Both will be able to read such discs, though only the newer equipment can take advantage of the higher-resolution technology.

The discs, which took six months to develop, will be able to hold 4.7 GB in the current format and 15 GB in high resolution, Memory-Tech spokesman Masato Otsuka said.

Making the discs won't cost any more than the companies now spend on producing current DVDs, Otsuka said.

The new DVDs rely on the HD-DVD format, which has the backing of the DVD Forum, an international association of electronics makers and movie studios. New DVD players using the format are expected to hit stores by late 2005.

Its competitor, Blu-Ray, is backed by Sony Corp., its Hollywood studio and News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment Group Inc. Blu-Ray has more storage space, but HD-DVD is expected to be cheaper to produce because its technology closely resembles current DVDs.

It's still unclear which will become the dominant technology.

[SunkenCiv]

Sony never picks the dominant format.

[reformed_democrat]

Sad, but true.

Anyone know where I can get BetaMax? I have two cases of Beta tapes and . . .

[SunkenCiv]

Heh... Sony... "VTR" instead of "VCR", beta instead of VHS, MiniDisk, 8mm/Hi8 (which was a better format however)...

I think all laser/disk type systems will be overtaken by the falling price / rising capacity of chip formats that are used in digital cameras of various types (and I would like it if some company made an answering machine that used CompactFlash or whatever else). While I doubt that the chips will ever quite reach the price of blank laser media (although...) they use less juice, can have contents altered basically indefinitely, and are more format-flexible for obvious reasons. :')

I nabbed (as an experiment) some DVD files, and converted them to the recent format MP4. Reduced 'em to about a third of their original size, making it theoretically possible to burn a DVD movie onto a few cheap CDs. Of course, it took hours to complete the process, and I already have the DVD anyway, so...