PC/Apple Users: HD-DVD and BluRay discs - Question

Rameses

Rameses

Rameses

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
8,453
Now then

Us PC users all have a ROM drive etc...but with these two types of media coming out...What exactly will play?

I mean do we all need to go out and buy rom drives for HD-DVD playback and another for BluRay?

Another question would be this...What of the iMac? How can they use these new media's?

Also, on another point. Do we all need to buy another DVD player for telly to watch HD-DVD?

Oh and another, is BluRay going to be based on storage or is that too heading for films etc...

I Thank You....
 
Both formats will be used for everything DVD's are used for at the moment I beleive.

As for compatibility, from what i've heard there will be a handful of standalone players that will incorperate both technologies, but they will be damned expensive (as they will need multiple lasers/picups etc).

Personally I wouldn't worry about blu-ray and HD-DVD in computers for at least a year, as they are going to be very expensive and you can pretty much bet early models will have some interesting "features" when it comes to playing disks that are released a year or so later ;)

I suspect that what will happen is one format will either die, or most players/drives after the first 12-18 months will start to have compatibility with both formats.
 
Its like history repeating itself...

Just read a very imformative article on it...

Have a read here

See the thing is Werewolf...I am seriously considering getting a iMac, and with the new 'Boot Camp' will hopefully be using both OS's...

I know you said that people dont need to panic yet, how the hell are people supposed to get HD content on their PC's?

BTW, are most new monitors/imac HD compatible?

Arrrrggggghhhhhhhhhh :p
 
You'll be able to get HD on the PC/Imac via either drive (you can get it already thanks to Window Media player which supports a HD format, and there are/were even HD WMA DVD's, DVD's encoded with Windows Media Player format codeds*).

Remember, the drives will be using standard IDE/SATA/SCSI interfaces, they will have to as you're not going to get PC manufacturers adding a special controller just for the new optical drives when the current interfaces can easily deal with the data rates.

Many monitors can do HD resolutions, and have been able to for years (my old 21" Sony would manage 720p fine, and I think would manage 1020i).

The big question will be, does the average PC/mac video card be able to satisfy the copy protection that they want on HD devices, DVI in theory should do it, but it needs an optional componant (HDCP) on both the card and display if the copy protection flag is enabled (IIRC modern cards are meant to have it, but AFAIK there is some query about it being enabled).


Re monitors and imac, I beleive any normal DVI monitor should be fine - but don't quote me on that ;)

*ADV-Films in the U.S. offered some HD Anime DVD's up for pre-order at one point about 18-24 months ago, but ended up withdrawing the pre-orders when it became apparent that at the time demand wasn't there with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray around the corner.
 
I know you said dont quote you, but I'm gonna ask again... :p

I see the iMac as a perfect computer to me, albeit now I can still play my PC games using boot camp.

Now, as the iMac isnt upgradable etc, I dont want to fork out 1500 on a iMac which cant use HD-DVD disc etc...

This will be used as a TV too, using a Freeview USB Tuner, *if* at any point we get Sky HD in living room, we already have a cable going from Sky+ into my bedroom (which I dont use), would this offer me the chance to watch live HD content on it?

I'm confused, am I making any sense at all? :p
 
I suspect that the imac itself won't be upgradable, but the chances are you would be able to get an external HD/BR drive for it in the future - chances are if you can hold off 6-8 months they will be doing imacs with the drives.

This is assuming the imac doesn't have any way to replace the existing drive (I'm fairly sure even Apple don't lock down their systems quite that tightly), so that when the drives become available they could be installed.

At the moment it won't be able to do HD from discs because the hardware simply isn't available.


With regards to HD into the mac from SkyHD, I don't think that is possible at the moment, but there may be HD USB TV cards in the future that would allow it.
Also remember Sky+ isn't HD, you'd need the Sky-HD unit and presumably a very long cable to the bedroom (and depending on the outputs of the Sky unit it still might not work if Sky HD only uses HDMI/DVI connections).



As I say i'm making a lot of guesses as we're talking about something that isn't even on the market yet :)
 
Not that it matters, how long had dvd's been out before they put games on them? Shoot, I just bought bf2 Special Forces and it came on two cd's. I know they have two different versions, but its annoying when they don't have the dvd one and you get half life 2 on 5 cd's.
 
Games have been on dvds since at least 2000, If I remember the ps2 was released in 2001, and nearly all its games were dvd at the time.

Theres no reason developers should be putting games on cds, all it does is increase costs and waste installation time. If peoples pcs dont have dvd drives they are almost certainly too old to play the game anyway.
 
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