Electronics makers and studios in Japan and the U.S. have quietly started shipping “next-generation” high-definition DVDs, optical drives and related equipment in support of either Sony’s Blu-ray format, Toshiba’s HD-DVD, or both.
Samsung started first shipments of internal and external Blu-ray burners this month. The three-in-one drives, being marketed for “professional use” and priced at $1,000, can read and write Blu-ray as well as standard CDs and DVDs. The drives burn Blu-ray discs at 9 megabytes per second.
Sony, meanwhile, is shipping blank Blu-ray discs to Europe, with plans to begin U.S. delivery in the summer or fall. The single-layer discs hold 25 gigabytes of data, equaling roughly two ours of HDTV content, with a price tag of around $30 per disc. A rewritable version is available for $36.
Sony’s own Blu-ray player -- the BD-1000, priced at $1,000 -- is set to be in U.S. stores on May 23. Toshiba’s first players are scheduled to go on sale this month, at around half the price of Sony’s Blu-ray player.
Analysts predict that, as with any new technology, prices will fall sharply as market demand allows for large-scale manufacturing.
The lack of a clear winner or leader between the Sony’s and Toshiba’s competing formats -- and delays from equipment manufacturers who aren’t sure which horse to back -- is leading consumers, with the exception of die-hard home theater junkies, to ignore them both. It also has caused electronics makers to rethink their plans for the hi-def market.
“This is a sticky issue,” Richard Doherty, an analyst with Envisioneering Group, said. “It’s going to be very confusiong for consumers, and it’s going to be very daunting [for electronics companies]”
LG, which originally planned to have a Blu-ray player to market by this month, has scrapped those plans in favor of a hybrid model capable of playing both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. The company said in a statement that it should have the hardware ready for late-summer delivery.
But it hasn’t stopped studios from moving forward with plans to roll out content. Sony Home Picture will make the first batch of its Blu-ray movies available on May 23, the same date its own Blu-ray player is set to go on sale in the U.S.
However, while many studios had initially announced plans to back either one technology or the other, most have backed away from those commitments, choosing instead to support both formats.
Paramount and Warner Bros., for example, were firmly in the HD-DVD camp but will now make their movies available in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Disney has flipped in the opposite direction, originally announcing support for Blu-ray but later announcing products for both formats.
In the adult arena, Digital Playground announced earlier this year that it would release movies for Blu-ray, while Vivid CEO Steve Hirsch said his company will put out both Blu-ray and HD-DVD content.
Online DVD rental service Netflix has quietly added HD-DVD choices to its site. The company didn’t make a formal announcement of the addition, but when asked by XBiz, a spokesperson was quick to say that Netflix is already working on adding a section for Blu-ray movies.
