AfterDawn: News

Fujitsu to sell first Blu-ray PC

Computer Manufacturer Fujitsu has announced it will become the first company to ship computers with integrated Blu-ray Disc drives. They will be available in Japan in June. The company also will release notebook PCs that include HD DVD drives; a safe move as it caters for both camps. The new desktop PC from Fujitsu will include a 37-inch LCD screen and will sell for around 600,000 yen ($5,063) according to a Fujitsu spokesman. The notebook will sell for 400,000 yen ($3,371).

Toshiba also unveiled plans this week to begin shipping HD DVD-enabled laptops by mid-May. They are expected to cost around the same as the Fujitsu models. NEC Corp. also revealed that it hopes to launch HD DVD-compatible personal computers by autumn this year and that it would consider offering PCs equipped with Blu-ray drives as well if there was demand.



The transition to next generation optical disc technology will be slow with very few early adopters, mainly due to the high cost of the new technologies. Most consumers will find switching to blue laser discs frustrating, especially since DVD has been so successful. The fact that there is a war between two competing formats doesn't help much either.

Source:
Reuters

Written by: James Delahunty @ 11 Apr 2006 20:57

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• 10 comments

• cityoke2

  Wow The transition will be tough and it will be a couple of years before i can afford either of them. but hopefully the dvd will last and be poopular for a long time.

  12.4.2006 05:55 #1

• lawndog

  wow whats sad is that I still have old VHS tapes. And in a couple years my DVDs will be useless?? What a crork of ......... Is there not a way just to improve the dvd players themselves?? I mean every couple of years are we gonna be buying new stuff just to watch movies that are being reproduced, and over priced?? And then sit there and listen to the RIAA saying that we are downloading to much and that is why the cost is up on HD-DVDs and Blu-ray dvds.??? Anyway....
  The cost of HD-DVD and Blu-ray players is pretty costly, but I think the price listed above for a comp that has it allready seems lower that a stand alone player. So why could we not just run the video to out TVs via our video anf audio cards??
  Maybe I'm totally wrong and just some stupid, blue collerd red necked hillbilly. But WHERES THE LOVE,
  what happened to consumers first. We are NOT all rich, live in mansions, and drive nice cars.
  I rent a 2 bedroom townhome, and drive an 02' kia Rio.
  Which me and my wife share. And raise our 5 year old daughter.
  Like I said wheres the love.
  Ok done with my hissy fit.
  LD

  12.4.2006 11:03 #2

• tanviper

  BluRay and HD-DVD player will play your current DVD collection, so no worries there. Once a clear winner in this war is won, I plan on, from that point, only buying new movies in that format. I'll replace a few of my current DVDs with the winner's format, but most of them will stay DVD. Just wait a year or two. by that time, it'll all be over.
  
  I don't see them repalcing this new format for 10+ years. That's how long DVDs been around, and it'll be around for a numbers of years still. Heck, you can still find VHS tapes!!
  

  12.4.2006 14:57 #3

• milfhuntr

  I think the current format is fine and there is no need to go out and replace your entire library in HD or Blu-ray. The original masters can only be pushed so far. Everything else is just engineering bells and whistles. I think the current format is sufficient and until the the 2 new formats have been on the shelves for a while the prices will be to high and eventually if we all play the waiting game instead of Joe Cool look what I have the prices will drop significantly. You can only push the visual construct so far and before you know it we will need optical upgrades to our eyes to notice the differences :P

  12.4.2006 15:43 #4

• rav0

  Being very new products, the price is naturally high, and the mareting is fairly strange.
  
  However, what possessed anybody to create these disks? HD video content can be stored on current DVD disks. These new formats will have an advantage over current technology, because of their storage size, but that storage space isn't a necessity for HD video at all.

  13.4.2006 13:32 #5

• signal

  i am always up for the new and improved. I havent really kept up with the news coverage n blue ray, but with the limited knowledge that i have based on the subject, i dont thik there will really be a winner to this so called "war." they will both be an option on the market. but in sure that soon to come we will be able to just upgrade to drives with these features and keep the computers that we currently have. but i dont know so correct me if i am wrong.

  13.4.2006 20:54 #6

• rav0

  You're not wrong about upgrading existing PCs.

  13.4.2006 21:02 #7

• milfhuntr

  Well as far as HD tech yes it is possible to compress HD onto a DVD but you sacrifice elements of the picture. By having uncompressed video you would not notice any artifacts or pixelization of the video and the sound will be much richer. One other reason that they want this new format is to curb piracy. The current tech is simply to easy to crack and any new protection they put on is broken within days or even hours of it's release. They assume that by having new tech and new code that they will stop pirates from stealing their material. How wrong they are. As soon as the tech hits the shelf there will a program to defeat the copy protection and "rip" the movie. Then of course Nero HD or Blu-ray PLatinum or whatever they choose to call it will be able to burn it back out to recordable media.
  
  However, as I said this technology will be expensive on the onset but if you play the waiting game and wait until this time 1-2 years from now it will make a huge difference. Just recently we have seen huge leaps in LCD and Plasma technology that have dramatically change the quality and price of this media. I would suggest that rather than being the kid on the block with the latest toy you wait a bit and be the kid on the block with the best toy. :D
  

  Pet Semetary - "Sometimes dead's better!"

  18.4.2006 08:47 #8

• rav0

  Ummm ... Blu-ray won't let HD video movies be stored uncompressed, it wont even let a movie in SD be stored uncompressed.
  
  Using Blu-ray will let movies be saved using less compression, but the quality difference between 100 minutes of HD video taking 50 GB and the same 100 minutes taking 5 GB is minimal.
  

  http://rav0.be/

  18.4.2006 15:23 #9

• cjdl420

  rav0 (Junior Member) 18 April 2006 19:23 _
  Ummm ... Blu-ray won't let HD video movies be stored uncompressed, it wont even let a movie in SD be stored uncompressed.
  
  Using Blu-ray will let movies be saved using less compression, but the quality difference between 100 minutes of HD video taking 50 GB and the same 100 minutes taking 5 GB is minimal.
  
  
  
  Well said.
  
  This new technology will only make it easier to store large amounts of data (i.e. your movie collection) on fewer,however more expensive,discs.
  
  I for one say " Thank you"
  
  

  1.5.2006 21:37 #10