HD DVD question

[suneetjulka]

Does anyone know if the Vaio VGN AR21M can play HD DVDs? It says on the sticker on the laptop "Full HD 1080" don't know what it means though

[kee-lo_]

Only BD from what I understand

[suneetjulka]

I know the AR21S plays Blu-Ray discs but the AR21M doesn't... can AR21M play HD DVDs though or do you need a new disc drive?

[Blencogo]

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are different formats of HD disc.

At the moment NO drive can play both types of disc. A player is being developed that will handle both but I think it will be a long time before a notebook drive can do this.

The purpose of these formats is the same and in the longer term one will be the winner and the other will possibly disappear - you are probably too young to remember the VHS vs Beta-Max video war when a lot of people wasted their money on the Beta-Max (Sony) system.

This time Sony and Dell are adopting Blu-Ray and Toshiba HS-DVD. Personally, I don't intend to buy either until the format has some real use to the ordinary user.

To answer your original question - No, the AR21M has a normal DVD/CD-ROM drive and you have to pay £800 more for the Blu-Ray equipped AR21S.

Full HD 1080 refers to the maximum resolution supported by the HDMI output on the AR21M - but I find this misleading as you do not have an optical drive that can import HD/BD content, or for that matter a screen that can display 1080i/p

[Baggsy]

The purpose of these formats is the same and in the longer term one will be the winner and the other will possibly disappear - you are probably too young to remember the VHS vs Beta-Max video war when a lot of people wasted their money on the Beta-Max (Sony) system.

Well, since the adult entertainment industry now has decided to go with HD-DVD for their HD video, I can see the scales tipping heavily in their favour.

Back in the day there was two things that won VHS the format war with Betamax, and that was the fact that blank Betamax-tapes with a capacity of more than 60 minutes was very difficult or impossible to come by (whereas VHS had 180 minutes) and the porn.

Still too early in this day and age where almost no one buys hard copies of porn movies any more, but we'll see.

I can also see the fact that HD-DVDs ecryption system was broken recently as a major advantage for them. If you think like a consumer and not and exec would you go for the format that you can buy cheap copies of when you're abroad, even though you risk getting pirated copies and bad quality product, or the format you have to pay full price for no matter what.

Early adopters will think of these things, and right now I think HD-DVD has the edge over Blu-Ray, but remember it took some time before we had DeCSS for normal DVDs too.

The war is still on, and unles you are an early adopter and must have the latest gadgets NOW, I would recommend you stick to normal DVDs for some time to come yet. It's not like it's gonna die overnight.

[jumpsuit]

Good point Baggsy.

And the information regarding the adult film industry was very 'revealing' :smileygrin:

[Baggsy]

Good point Baggsy.

And the information regarding the adult film industry was very 'revealing' :smileygrin:

Hehe, I thought someone might like it...

But the fact remains, Sony and their partners in the whole Blu-Ray consortium are against allowing porn on their devices. We saw it with Betamax and we're seeing it with Blu-Ray.

They DID however allow a few select japanese porn movies on UMD, but I think they realised from the start they needed something to lure in the customers with. Another point is that all the porn UMDs releases were censcored. Then again, you might actually see this as Sony admitting that UMD movies were a failure, and that they tried everything to hook people to portable movies. (My PSP is still at firmware 1.50, and I can use any media format I like through homebrew applications.)


Like I said in my previous post, the war is still on, but with Sony's constant and at time severely crippling DRM on all products they choose to release I know that if I had to choose right now it's HD-DVD for me.

[kee-lo_]

There's going to be a new format called HD Freedom, which is just a blu ray layer on top of a HD DVD so it can play in both. God knows how many film companies will go for this?

[jumpsuit]

Hopefully the nudey ones :smileygrin:

[Baggsy]

There's going to be a new format called HD Freedom, which is just a blu ray layer on top of a HD DVD so it can play in both.  God knows how many film companies will go for this?

Somehow I seriously doubt that will be done on any big scale. Production costs doesn't really justify the cost of this, especially when it comes to BluRay that's already rather expensive to make.

Yes, I know it's in reality only a HD-DVD and a Blu-Ray disc glued back-to-back, but what facitilies today has the capability to produce both? What this in reality means is that anyone wanting to make these discs hasto either get the equipment to make the kind of disc they can't, or partner in with another factory that has the other for themselves, and start shipping half-made discs one way ot the other, or even to a third party. The first solution makes more sense, but these professional disc presses are extremely expensive, even for the large companies that mass produce discs. The second solution is a certain way to get a massive failure-rate not to mention the extra risk of copies being stolen or lost, again increasing the risk of bootleg copies being made available long before the official product.


I have a hard time seeing these two formats coexisting, and even less so on the same disc. Also, if rumours are anything to go by, if BluRay and/or the PS3 doesn't succeed there's a very good chance that Sony Entertainment is going down, leaving only audiovisual and computers.

This is a battle Sony cannot afford to lose, but at the moment things doesn't look good for them, I'll have to admit...