CDRLabs.com

So while people are still waiting for a (good) drive.
People now can buy media much cheaper. Up to the level of Dual layer DVD+R's for the single layer HD-DVD-R(2 euro's a disc) or slightly more for the Dual layer version.(3 euro's a disc).

some prices.
http://svp.co.uk/product/verbatim_15gb_ ... ewel_cased)_3723_x5
http://svp.co.uk/product/verbatim_30gb_ ... ewel_cased)_3724_x5
http://www.amazon.de/Verbatim-DVD-R-Roh ... B000NJWITE

Still I wonder how much folks are going to buy them without the drives.

Media manufacturers cranked out a bunch of HD DVD-R discs but without drives, no one can sell them. These price cuts are probably a way for retailers to clean out their inventory.

Were the HD-DVD drives in Toshiba laptops ROM's only?

Grain wrote:Were the HD-DVD drives in Toshiba laptops ROM's only?

Nope, they have some 1x HD DVD-R writers out now too.

Wesociety wrote:

Grain wrote:Were the HD-DVD drives in Toshiba laptops ROM's only?

Nope, they have some 1x HD DVD-R writers out now too.

Unfortunately, according to the testing that's been done, the recorded discs are so far out of spec, they may not even playback on HD DVD players

Unfortunately, I can't say I'm surprised.... Toshiba has never been known for making quality optical media recording devices.

HD-DVD 15GB blanks don't interest me anyway, and 25GB BluRay's aren't much better. The only thing I personally would be using them for is backing up HD optical media, and single layer blanks on either format will be fairly useless. One potential option though would be backing up HD-DVD's on BD blanks I'd be curious to see how much of the 30GB is used on pressed HD-DVD's? ie will some/most discs fit on a 25GB blank?

Ian wrote:Media manufacturers cranked out a bunch of HD DVD-R discs but without drives, no one can sell them. These price cuts are probably a way for retailers to clean out their inventory.

That was my second idea.(the initial deal was a typing error)
But check good.
SVP is selling the new design verbatim package and so do other sources.
The new design hasn't been there for a long time and all of those compannies have them filled under new products as well.
The only option would be that Verbatim europe is cleaning out the inventory, but based on the info that is highly doubtable at this time.

The SVP prices seem to have gone up? It's now £5.99 for a SL disc and £9.99 for a DL disc.

I've been out of the loop for about a year, but Toshiba still just barely has 1x writers out? That is truly pathetic. Doesn't look like much has changed in a year.

Grain wrote: One potential option though would be backing up HD-DVD's on BD blanks

I have been thinking about this too

But how is this possible and which softwares are needed ?

I am also thinking about the "transformation" of a HD-DVD video into a BD-video

SVP no longer sells them.

ALso I see more prices moving slowly up.

Word on the street is that a distributer cleared stock. And that SVP and a few other stores had to pricematch. Which would explain the domino effect we've been seeing and now the fast price rise.

Let's see if SVP is going to restock and at what price befor the begining of next year.

frank1 wrote:[I have been thinking about this too

But how is this possible and which softwares are needed ?

I am also thinking about the "transformation" of a HD-DVD video into a BD-video

I don't think it will be a big deal. Biggest issue will be removing or modifying HD-DVD's menu structure and extras to work on BD. If one was prepared to backup just the movie and audio streams, it should be quite fairly straight forward. Until BD media gets a bit cheaper, ie ~$6 I won't be too interested.

Grain wrote:

frank1 wrote:[I have been thinking about this too

But how is this possible and which softwares are needed ?

I am also thinking about the "transformation" of a HD-DVD video into a BD-video

I don't think it will be a big deal. Biggest issue will be removing or modifying HD-DVD's menu structure and extras to work on BD. If one was prepared to backup just the movie and audio streams, it should be quite fairly straight forward. Until BD media gets a bit cheaper, ie ~$6 I won't be too interested.

Well, we're at $8-$10 now, and we're looking at a price drop sometime early next year if things move ahead with LTH media. I'd say you'll see $4-$6 pricing fairly soon

Shortly thereafter, expect to see HD DVD movies selling on BD-R media for $10-$15

dolphinius_rex wrote:Shortly thereafter, expect to see HD DVD movies selling on BD-R media for $10-$15

I wonder how Toshiba CEO's will sell that one

Grain wrote:

dolphinius_rex wrote:Shortly thereafter, expect to see HD DVD movies selling on BD-R media for $10-$15

I wonder how Toshiba CEO's will sell that one

Honestly, I think the best spinning for either format is coming from the rabid fanboys.... really, I think they all have bright futures working for Toshiba, Sony and MS in the future

[buck] wrote:The SVP prices seem to have gone up? It's now £5.99 for a SL disc and £9.99 for a DL disc.

I've been out of the loop for about a year, but Toshiba still just barely has 1x writers out? That is truly pathetic. Doesn't look like much has changed in a year.

THey're back at svp now for the 5.99 single layer and the 9.99 dual layer.

I just bought Verbatim DRV+DL for 1.6EUR a piece and Philips DVD+R DL (CMC) for 1.2EUR a piece.

That is still far cheaper than the 7-12 euros per disc for HD DVD-R.

As for HD disc recording... having witnessed the poor quality of cd writing and dvd writing (single and then dual layer), I expect HD-disc writing to be abysmal at first, then slowly develop to be tolerable and then usable.

There'll be horrible incompatibility issues. The mechanical tolerances esp. for BD discs will suck at first - at least for the discs people can afford to buy.

Then we'll hit multi-layer recording & the lower layers will go through the same cycle in quality: from totally abysmal to usable.

Excellent home recording level will probably be reached in 4-6 years.

If it's any faster than that, I'm going to at least act surprised.

And the price of discs?

They will stay very high for very long (compared to DVD discs).