High Definition Disc Storage Stutters
High Definition Disc Storage Stutters
August 14th, 2006: The battle for high-definition disc storage takes a strangely amateurish turn as Sony goes too early with its Sydney Blu-Ray PC disc-drive.
The time to rip and replace all over your document back-up devices is still not here if the Sydney launch of Sony's BWU-100A, Blu-Ray PC disc-drive unit is anything to go by. The $1,399 BWU100A (with 2x write speed) is available this month.
The issue that has techno analysts and bloggers alike are getting hot under the collar about is that Sony has launched the drive without the ability for it to play commercially available Blu-Ray movies. The issue for the professional sphere, despite the fact that the BWU-100A, can be used for storage, is that it has indeed been 'launched' minus a key capability that would have given it mass public appeal - and therefore reduced cost.
The Sony launch comes in the same month as the European Union requested information regarding licensing deals for both Blu-Ray and its competitor in the lucrative optical disc storage market. According to a reporter, Tim Mellor at the IDG news service, "The Commission suspects that the licensing terms the companies are applying breach European competition rules." Sony is denying this.
The two formats are supported by industry heavyweights, with Hitachi, LG Electronics Inc, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Pioneer Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp Corporation, Thomson Multimedia and Sony weighing in on the side of Blu-Ray. NEC and Toshiba are in the HD-DVD corner.
Both disc formats offer the ability to store tens of gigabytes of data, 'burned' from desktop drives. Both include various levels of digital rights management and encryption. While both are aimed primarily at audio-visual formats, the sheer amount of storage made available by them would be of obvious benefit for data back-up and archiving.
The fact that the first view that the public will get of a commercially available disc-drive from one of the world's most respected manufacturers is being met with howls of derision, can only help HD-DVD, but in the short-term at least, delay business take-up of a potentially useful device.