LG lets loose pics, release date for internal Blu-ray / HD DVD drive - Engadget

SOMEONE needs to win these format wars already. $1200 for a burner? WTF?

Does anyone remember how much DVD burners were when they came out? I dont remember them being over $1k, but then again, I was pretty young.

when they hit the mass market, I remember them being around $500-600, but there was a time before you could buy one at your computer store when people were talking about $10k+ burners.

Then again, my memory is a sieve.

Why is it so hard to make an HD-DVD burner..

its almost been a year, and they are still scarce.

They just have Blu-ray recording capabilities and HD DVD recording? Is there any question which is the better format anymore?

HD DVD should just fold.

$1,200 is just crazy. You might as well buy a nice NAS setup and have 1-2 terabytes of storage at you finger tips.

.. for less then $1,200 The ONLY advantage some HD DVD backers claimed was that it was slightly less expensive.

.. well.

.. now this just blew that out of the water, you waste time combining these two formats.

Just put out a 4X blu-ray drive and be done with it! You're only encouraging Universal! They need a clear message, everyone else is backing Blu-ray, we'll wait for Back to the Future.

...

we've got Star Wars! Anyway, HD burners are out there, its just they're slim, 1X and only single layer (15GB), so a pretty big waste as well. Blu-ray is about to launch a SLOT LOAD BD slimline drive, that will take over the market for sure.

I don't know, I'm pretty sure at some point they cost that much, early on. I remember when CD burners first became available, and just the idea of being able to make your own CD was pretty exotic..

...

.. I remember my office got one, and I recall it costing in the ballpark of $1000 (I think it was a model made by Pinnacle Micro).

wow! I mean wow! who would have thought the [disk] drive would look like all previous disk drives save the brand and format logos.

i dont even care who wins the format war. i just want someone to win.
$1200 is WAY too much, Bluray burners can be found for about $600, there is no incentive to get one of these combos.

Like others have said, LG is just encouraging a long format war. BD drives are droping in price almost monthly now, by the end of the year HD DVD will loose what little advantage it has right now.

Also, in the article it says "Blu ray burner/HD DVD player", does that mean it burns Blu ray but only reads HD DVDs?

I'd be all for Blu-ray winning at this point if the picture was solid...

HD-DVD still wins in that department. Even at 1080p over HDMI, I'm very disappointed in Blu-ray. I'm not even sure why these minimal upgrades are even necessary at this point, when DVD is just fine.

Upscaling does a pretty good job nowadays. I don't know about you, but the ability to see women's facial hair on closeups isn't exactly my idea of enjoying a movie.

The first consumer DVD burners were in fact well over 1000, but prices fell rapidly and were around 200 about 2 years later.

I'm sure this will follow a similar path.

Looks like the ramp-up to produce players that do both HD-DVD and Blu-ray won't really matter much. Blu-ray is running away with the crown and HD-DVD, unless it can find a niche as a super-cheap alternative for data storage, has already "lost.

" Seriously, why pay $1,200 for a dual format burner when I can pick up a Blu-ray burner (the ever-increasing fore-runner) for $600?

SuicideNinja: You're probably disappointed by the video codec, not the disc format. Most blu-ray aren't in MPEG4 yet, and are still using MPEG2.

That does effect the quality of the image. This will change soon as Sony and a couple others are now releasing MPEG4 video that is discernibly better. I can assure you in my own experience, regardless of codec, the transfer to digital format also factors into the quality drastically.

I've seen some that look like an up-sampled 480p and others that are as crisp and clear as anything I've seen.

actually everyone, this is not a blu-ray hd-dvd burner..

. when it says 6x-10x for the usual dvd formats, does this include hd dvd? does this mean normal dvd write times are 6x for a $1,200 buner?

?? I don't see what the fuss of 1200 bucks for a BDVD/HDDVD player/burner.

At retail it seems that most players go for that kind of cash anyways...

Especially combo drives...

at least thats what it seems like here in Canada. I agree with one of the posts above though..

. I think the seven or so format logos are old. Also HD-DVD is not all that bad.

Sure there isn't much studio support for it, but thats not its fault. Sony has it's greedy hands in everything now lol. Also HD-DVD is also supported by Warner Bros.

.. not just Universal.

Also HD-DVD players are a little cheaper too...

For example the 360's add on is only 200 bucks.

Why would you want HD-DVD support on your Blu-ray Drive? HD-DVD will be extinct soon anyway.

.. I mean, if this drive was about the same price as a Blu-ray-only Drive I don't mind buying it but, I sure as hell ain't paying an extra $300-$400 just to help those losers at Toshiba to slow down progression of Technology with their low-capacity discs.

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