Verbatim gears up to ship 2x HD DVD-R discs
By Darren Murph 
posted January 7th 2008 8:19AM
posted January 7th 2008 8:19AM
Believe it or not, we were getting pretty jazzed up that 1x HD DVD-R media was getting set to ship in late 2006, and here we are in 2008 wondering why we're just now getting to 2x. Regardless, Verbatim is finally gearing up to ship 2x-speed HD DVD-R/RW discs sometime this quarter, but for whatever reason, we're left to wonder just how much the firm plans on charging for said media. But yeah, it's pretty safe to say these won't run ya cheap.
Those discs are pretty useless without HD DVD writers on the market. But I hope they will come soon at an affordable price.
"But yeah, it's pretty safe to say these won't run ya cheap."
True, for the same money you can get double sized Blu-ray with more widely available choice of burners and cheaper discs :)
Verbatim should halt production...I've got a feeling no one will be buying these much....
I said this in the regular Engadget post (why aren't they cross-linked???), so I'll just repeat it here.
Yes, their timing isn't ... er ... wonderful, but HD DVD still is not dead. It's merely has "just a flesh wound". :) But depending on the cost, this could still be a way to keep HD DVD alive in the data realm. From what I've seen, a 25 GB Blu-ray disk runs about $25, about $1 per GB. If Verbatim can run with a better price than that, say $10 for 15 GB, that could make HD DVD a more viable alternative to BD for data storage. Yes, it's still more expensive than four DVD-Rs, but it's far more convenient to back up on one disc than having to back up onto four DVD-Rs.
Of course, as was mentioned already, I have yet to see an HD DVD writer, although there seem to be quite a number of BD writers. If Toshiba can get their asses in gear and get more HD DVD writers out there at an affordable price, then it's very possible to say rumors of HD DVD's death (at least with respect to data storage) are greatly exaggerated.
Yes...more writers...that will keep HDDVD alive.
Who gives a f**k about studio support, right?
Gee, I could have SWORN that I said "at least with respect to data storage" in my post and nothing about movies. Funny that.
:) HD-dvd "I'll bite your legs off"
25GB Blu-ray disks run around $12 - $18 normally if you look
http://www.shop4tech.com/z/Blu_ray_Media/1_299/
http://www.datamediastore.com/cd-dvd-optical-media-blu-ray-discs.html
If your patient and keep your eyes out for sales I've gotten them as cheap as $6 per disk
John, that's a lot of "if"s and "Maybe"s there hehe.
I think the most pertinent part of your assessment is the "It's merely a flesh wound" quote, which seems to be the attitude of Toshiba, but we all know how it went ;)
"All right. We'll call it a draw." :)
Man I bet HD DVD had a lot of stuff planned for this year to make their final push against Blu-Ray before WB totally dismantled their momentum. Since their press conference was canceled I won't be surprised to see a few more random HD DVD items streaming out.
Yeah, something interesting is the Amazon sales rank data, it clearly shows a freefall in HDDVD sales ranking after the announcement. Tell me that is not an indicator that HDDVD is in trouble...
Toshiba, if it were smart, would produce a knockout blu-ray player with final specs for $300 and dominate the blu-ray player market....what else would be a better way for Toshiba to benefit from losing the format war?
while people think of backing up their data on blu-ray discs they'd have to buy a blu-ray disc writer and then blank media, when they could have gone to a local store and purchased for an external hard drive, or even an internal hard drive. and yeah i would love to leave my computer on day and night for a week on a p2p server getting an HD DVD movie or a Blu-ray movie. this is the dead format, MASS STORAGE DISCS.
Let's see. Where to start...
You can't do incremental backups on a hard drive without using up additional hard drive space (obviously), but multiple copies for redundancy or offsite storage requires a whole, new hard drive as opposed to just another blank disc.
Hard drives do not appreciate being unused for long periods of time, which is how most optical media is treated. I've seen a large number of hard drives die very shortly after sitting idle in storage for over a year. Some types of optical media can last up to 30 years if handled and stored properly. Good luck on hard drives coming close to that.
Run out of space? You have to buy a new hard drive, which costs a lot more than buying a blank, optical disc, and you have to spend time transferring that data over. Not a big deal, obviously, but it still could be more of a headache than just popping in another blank disc.
Large-capacity hard drives are fine, but they're still putting all of your eggs in one basket. That would REALLY suck if your primary hard drive died then for some reason a problem is encountered on your external drive that results in the whole thing being lost. (Yes, I have seen that happen, so don't throw any excuses of it being "hypothetically possible" at me.) At least with optical media, you're limiting how much can be lost to a bad disc.
Have you ever formatted the wrong hard drive in a multi-drive system or erased an archival file that shouldn't have been erased? If not, consider yourself to be lucky. At least with write-once optical media, there is no chance of accidentally erasing data.
So, yes, there are most certainly many circumstances in which write-once optical media, while costing more per GB, is a far more favorable alternative to magnetic media. Any other platitudes to throw at us?