"HD DVD is still the superior format in my view, people talking of BR 4 layer discs becoming standard is utter speculation.... and will be yet another nail in the coffin as existing players won't be able to handle them... HD51 discs are readable by existing players, so you invest in something and it's not made redundant by the next "standard" that BR announce."
Hitachi has published a press release claiming to have developed a 100 GB Blu-ray disc, capable of being played in a already released Blu-ray player, although it requires a firmware, apparently to tweak the focusing mechanism of the laser. Neither Hitachi, nor Toshiba, has shown any working solution, so I will therefore take both developments with an appropriate amount of salt.
If Toshiba succeeds in bringing out a 3 layer, 51 GB disc capable of working in every single one of all the current HD DVD players, then I will stand down and applaud Toshiba, but if it only works in some of the players, then of course its not a viable solution. Of course, then you could claim that it is exactly like Blu-ray with the different profiles and that would be somewhat correct, but with the caveat that even if you bought a 1st generation Blu-ray player, you would still be able to play the new disc, just not with the new features.
If Toshiba does not succeed in making it work in every single player on the market so far, that would make that version of HD DVD somewhat near "dead in the water" and would certainly remove the claim of Blu-ray being the only specification under constant review. And according to this site, http://thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents (dated 9th october 2007), even Toshiba claims that it is not possible to get it to work without physical hardware modification, so until Toshiba (and Hitachi for that matter) shows a vanilla, older generation, HD player playing one of the new discs, then I will claim that the new "extensions" are worthless - for both sides.
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Standards - or double standards
@Scott Mckenzie
"HD DVD is still the superior format in my view, people talking of BR 4 layer discs becoming standard is utter speculation.... and will be yet another nail in the coffin as existing players won't be able to handle them... HD51 discs are readable by existing players, so you invest in something and it's not made redundant by the next "standard" that BR announce."
Hitachi has published a press release claiming to have developed a 100 GB Blu-ray disc, capable of being played in a already released Blu-ray player, although it requires a firmware, apparently to tweak the focusing mechanism of the laser. Neither Hitachi, nor Toshiba, has shown any working solution, so I will therefore take both developments with an appropriate amount of salt.
If Toshiba succeeds in bringing out a 3 layer, 51 GB disc capable of working in every single one of all the current HD DVD players, then I will stand down and applaud Toshiba, but if it only works in some of the players, then of course its not a viable solution. Of course, then you could claim that it is exactly like Blu-ray with the different profiles and that would be somewhat correct, but with the caveat that even if you bought a 1st generation Blu-ray player, you would still be able to play the new disc, just not with the new features.
If Toshiba does not succeed in making it work in every single player on the market so far, that would make that version of HD DVD somewhat near "dead in the water" and would certainly remove the claim of Blu-ray being the only specification under constant review. And according to this site, http://thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents (dated 9th october 2007), even Toshiba claims that it is not possible to get it to work without physical hardware modification, so until Toshiba (and Hitachi for that matter) shows a vanilla, older generation, HD player playing one of the new discs, then I will claim that the new "extensions" are worthless - for both sides.