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The Pioneer BDR-101A Blu-ray recorder
$1000 burning a hole in your pocket?

For those who cannot wait to get on the Blu-ray train, Pioneer's BDR-101A PC Blu-ray recorder is just starting to trickle into the retail channel.  Tiger Direct has just listed the BDR-101A for sale at a mere $999.99.  Many analysts had speculated that Pioneer would drop the price of the BDR-101A significantly after NEC and Toshiba both announced PC HD-DVD recorders for under $500. 

The HD-DVD camp currently does not have a recordable device, nor media, but Toshiba currently has the only next-generation set top player available on the retail market, the HD-DVD Toshiba HD-A1 -- though the Sony Blu-ray BDP-S1 player is also expected to show up at your local Fry's, eventually.

Pioneer announced the device several months ago at the Consumer Electronics Expo 2006 in Las Vegas.  Recordable media was announced a few weeks ago, with single layer 25GB once-recordable discs checking in at $48, and re-recordable discs coming in at $60.

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Blu-ray must win
By Mudvillager on 5/18/2006 2:40:43 PM , Rating: 2
I really hope Blu-Ray comes out as the "winner" in this battle. I'd hate seeing a techically inferior format winning. 1080p is REALLY that much better than 1080i. Ok the prices are a tad bit high at the moment, however prices are going to drop like crazy and in a year or so it'll be down to $100 for a reader.

Anyways creathir can you point me to a place where they state that bluray movies will go for 40-50 dollars?
Don't think Sony would be that stupid.




RE: Blu-ray must win
By michal1980 on 5/18/06, Rating: -1
RE: Blu-ray must win
By outsider on 5/18/2006 3:37:17 PM , Rating: 3
Lets say "powerful aliens" come down on earth and order us not to use BluRay or we will be exterminated. Than for the future people have only the choice of HD-DVD. And FYI current XBox360 don't have HD-DVD players.

Sorry but yours was the most brain-damaged post I've read in 2006. I cannot even force myself to be polite... for the first time in 2006!


RE: Blu-ray must win
By SunAngel on 5/18/06, Rating: 0
RE: Blu-ray must win
By SLI on 5/18/2006 3:32:46 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, Sony *IS* that stupid. And yes, the "inferior" technology will win...again, ala VHS vs BetaMax, and Surprise! Sony boffed up that one too!

Case(s) in point: (true) 1080P is "better" but the is not a digital camera in existence that can fim at that resolution and there are precious few HDTV's available tat can accept a 1080p input. Heck, Sony's spanking $4000.00+ SXRD LCOS HDTV cant even accept a 1080p signal! EVEN FROM THE PS3 that is due in 6 months! looks like the left hand dont know what the right hand is doing. Oh and your $499.00 ("cheap" version)PS3's dirty little secret? No HDMI. Yep. Kinda dumb to by a "blue ray player" for 499.00 and have to use component input dont you think? Like buying a Ferrari and yanking half the spark plug wires off. Lest us not forget that some 1st tier game developers like Sega and THQ are lamenting the fact the PS3 dev kit design *STILL* is not finalized and they have not been getting the dev kits they need (in time for the launch) this means LESS titles and poorer quality games at launch. Oh and the whole (lack of rumble thing is a total joke, Seems Nintendo can do wireless/gyroscope with rumble, whats Sony's problem...Oh ya..Immersion ;-) And Immersion has offered "many" solutions to Sony for it but Sony would just rather pay them 91 million over the longstanding patent dispute. The hits just keep on coming dont they? No offense, but Sony cant seem to do anything right lately. DRM rootkits anyone?


RE: Blu-ray must win
By outsider on 5/18/2006 3:54:56 PM , Rating: 2
In November, when PS3 is coming, it will have everything the 700+$ BluRay Players have plus it will:
-be the fastest gaming machine on the market
-feature the processing power of 10.000+ Athlon64s at 50GigaFLOPS
-be programmable and feature web surfing and everything else developers will create
-cost only 499$

Have people gotten so dumb that the Sony PR can publish stuff like that?


RE: Blu-ray must win
By SunAngel on 5/18/2006 4:05:24 PM , Rating: 1
You need to thread carefully on this website. Comments like your will get you branded as a trollee, like me, and your score will get modded down while the troller's will get modded up.

BTW, you will want to buy the $599 system instead of the $499 system. HDMI will make all the difference in the world.


RE: Blu-ray must win
By outsider on 5/18/2006 10:53:54 PM , Rating: 2
"Have people gotten so dumb" was not referred to anyone in particular. It was about the consumers, it was about me too. I don't find it the least bit offensive and would be greatly disillusioned if someone did. We are still anonymous people on a web forum, not diplomats.
As to the flaming above, I am 100% convinced now I should not have posted it. Not only was it harsh, also what the post stated was obvious on itself. Shame on me at least twice.

What is the members' scoring for?

Me buy a PS3? I'm a mobile freak. If they made a mobile version with the LCD than maybe. BTW, no, I don't waste my time with the PSP as they show in the advertisments.


RE: Blu-ray must win
By epsilonparadox on 5/18/2006 5:15:32 PM , Rating: 2
fastest gaming machine? maybe on paper.
10,000 Athlons? Intel and AMD better pack up and leave the industry, the Cell will replace all.
Web surfing? Probably be the first console to get infected by a virus too.
only $499? Forget HDMI and 1080p gaming, Wireless, 40 gigs of space and flash slots.

I'm so excited about the PS3, I'm giddy.


RE: Blu-ray must win
By outsider on 5/18/2006 10:59:26 PM , Rating: 2
What is even insulting is that they included the FLOPS of the GPU in that 50GFLOPS number they came up. This is like saying "I have walked 1 million miles in my life" while counting all the car and airplane travels.
I wonder how 1080p would look after 5yrs on that 7900GT.

Enough bashing the PS3. This thread isn't about it at all.

Lets bash BluRay :P


RE: Blu-ray must win
By bob661 on 5/19/2006 1:24:00 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Lets bash BluRay :P
Yeah, stay on topic. :P


RE: Blu-ray must win
By Gatt on 5/19/2006 2:26:37 AM , Rating: 2
Um, just have to point out, film can easily be converted to 1080p, 2k, or even 4k resolution...

Plus the only movies filmed on digital camera's are Star Wars episode 2 and 3, and maybe one of Cameron's "Documentaries". I don't think any others have been filmed on Digital.

And IIRC the camera's used for SW 3 were 1080p capable, I think only the episode 2 ones weren't.


RE: Blu-ray must win
By abhaxus on 5/19/2006 4:47:20 AM , Rating: 2
I was about to do the math and say that your "4k" numbers were inaccurate... then I did the math and realized that you are right. 2,070,000,000 pixels * 16 = 32mpixels, which is approximately the resolution of film.

Would be interested to see the equipment used to create a 32 megapixel scan of those frames... or the massive room full of servers required to store one minute of video...

I personally can't wait to see 1080p HD-DVD with true 1080p output... there is a fair amount of debate that with good 3:2 and 2:3 processing on the HD-DVD player and TV that there is nothing lost for a 24p film source converted to 1080i, but I would still like to see it. We've got a 60" SXRD running Last Samurai and Apollo 13 in HD-DVD with their 480p versions on the TV next to it, and the difference is astounding. I work for a small electronics retailer and we've sold 50-60 of the HD-XA1s (the more expensive player) as a company (16 stores). Most of my customers are waiting for the cheaper version.

Can't wait for HD-DVD readers for the PC so I can justify the purchase of a 24" 1200p flatpanel and a drive :p


RE: Blu-ray must win
By Zoomer on 5/19/2006 7:31:26 AM , Rating: 2
Stamped media costs is not even a good fraction of the cost of recordable media!!!


RE: Blu-ray must win
By creathir on 5/18/2006 4:09:40 PM , Rating: 1
I am just looking at media costs and figuring the studios would want to make at least a dollar or two on the release...
(It was an overexaturated price... realistically, it will be around the $30 mark... just as the HD DVD... I was just pointing to a quite possible scenario... given current media costs)

- Creathir


Error
By astrodemoniac on 5/18/2006 4:53:00 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
For those who cannot get wait to get on the


Anyway, that's a crazy price but I guess that's what we've always seen with this type of HW.




RE: Error
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 5/18/2006 4:58:06 AM , Rating: 2
Sven is a nice guy, don't get me wrong. Unfortunately he writes about as well as he speaks. Thanks for the correction, I've fixed it and let him know.


RE: Error
By astrodemoniac on 5/18/2006 5:28:56 AM , Rating: 2
LOL!! No no no, this is unnacceptable, I wanna see heads rolling :D

:P


RE: Error
By Samus on 5/18/2006 5:32:13 AM , Rating: 2
Haha, no problem Kris, the grammer here is what makes Dailytech what it is ;)


RE: Error
By astrodemoniac on 5/18/2006 5:50:07 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
the grammer here is


LMAO, I hope you were looking for irony :P


RE: Error
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 5/18/2006 6:24:47 AM , Rating: 5
We don't have a tagline for DailyTech yet, maybe I should make it:

"DailyTech: Our SciTech News are Better then Are Grammer"


RE: Error
By Visual on 5/18/2006 10:28:44 AM , Rating: 2
I completely agree, their isn't no SciTech news better then you're grammer


RE: Error
By hoppa on 5/18/2006 1:14:58 PM , Rating: 2
How many comments must I read before one of them is actually about the article? There should be a way to mark posts as grammar or error corrections so I don't have to waste my time with them. And yes, you can mark this as that too.


More space
By xit2nowhere on 5/18/2006 9:02:27 AM , Rating: 3
Why is it only 25GB ?
Where is that 50+ GB media that they said made Blu-ray superior to HD-DVD ?
And that would prolly cost twice the current price.

Bummer...


Players
By DigitalFreak on 5/18/2006 8:08:11 AM , Rating: 2
So where are the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD PC drives (players, not burners)?




RE: Players
By THEREALJMAN73 on 5/18/2006 10:07:19 AM , Rating: 2
Yeah for real - I want a CD/DVD/BR/HD-DVD reader like ASAP. I can wait for the writer when they cost 50 bucks.

Even at 50 gigs I find that amount of data you can write to a single disk too small. When I can burn 200-300gig on a single disk I will be excited. Until then I will keep building my hard drive farm (3.1 TB and growing).


RE: Players
By BillyBatson on 5/18/2006 10:38:31 AM , Rating: 2
by that time i no longer think you will be impressed as file sizes would have grown as well and the ratio will once agian normalize to around what it is now


RE: Players
By DigitalFreak on 5/18/2006 11:23:27 AM , Rating: 2
I could give 2 shits about burning when the media costs as much as it does... :-)


RE: Players
By bldckstark on 5/18/2006 1:20:03 PM , Rating: 2
Why would the HD-DVD be the most cost prohibitive if it is the least expensive of the two? Especially if my TV doesn't support Blu-Ray's 1080p?


Not too bad
By etriky on 5/18/2006 7:40:34 AM , Rating: 2
$1000 isn't too bad. I think the first CD burner I ever saw was somewhere around $1400. Maybe someone else has a more accurate memory.




RE: Not too bad
By gerf on 5/18/2006 7:43:32 AM , Rating: 2
My brother worked for Phillips, and got it for a discout at $450. Also, DVD burners were astronomical at first.


RE: Not too bad
By BZDTemp on 5/18/2006 9:06:33 AM , Rating: 2
The first CD burner I use was a 1x/2x SONY burner. It cost around $4000 plus you needed a PC with SCSI running a DOS bruner program and if you wanted to burn in 2x the planets had to align correctly. Even when burning at 1x about 20% failed.

Still burner, which was the size of a big VCR, did have the feel of High End hifi with a very smooth tray and all.

Media at the time was around $20 if you could get it! At one time we had 10 CDR flow in by personal curier from Germany. Thoose discs real price ended at something $150 a piece. (Note we are talking about 1991/92 money)


RE: Not too bad
By BZDTemp on 5/18/2006 9:08:01 AM , Rating: 2
Sorry for the bad typing and stuff.


Are these things fast?
By Ticholo on 5/18/2006 7:27:58 AM , Rating: 2
How long do these drives take to record a 25GB disc?




RE: Are these things fast?
By Shadowself on 5/18/2006 9:37:21 AM , Rating: 3
The burn rate if this drive is not listed (published yet) so no one really knows. However, we can calculate the fastest it can be done.

Standard speed for Blu-ray drives (1x) is 36 Mbps. All drives (players and PC drives) announced so far have been 2x drives (72 Mbps).

Thus IF we assume this maximum speed that's just 8MBps (not much faster than the original SCSI-1 spec of 21 years ago). Thus a full 25 GB disk would take 3,125 seconds (or over 52 minutes) to burn if the maximum rate were achievable. Since it is unlikely to burn at any where near full speed expect it to take *WELL* over an hour to burn a full 25 GB disk.


RE: Are these things fast?
By DigitalFreak on 5/18/2006 11:21:19 AM , Rating: 2
Wouldn't that be 9MBps (72Mbps/8)


What would you do?
By creathir on 5/18/2006 12:20:30 PM , Rating: 1
As a consumer, not a tech freak, what would you honestly do?

You walk down the new HD movie section of Best Buy... and you see HD-DVD for $30 (still a FREAKIN' RIP-OFF) and you see BluRay for... $50? Even $40... Which would you do??? You do not know the difference other than that both are HDTV, and one sounds like a DVD, and the other sounds like some sad little thing. You hear the Best Buy guy telling everyone how the picture is SO much better on the BluRay, so you say to yourself, I'll go ahead and pick up this one movie today. Then you make your way to the players... and you see the HD-DVD for $500... and the BluRay for $1200. You ask the clerk is there ANY way to get a cheaper BluRay player and he tells you to pre-order a PS3 for $499, but it will not be out until November 18th. You wanted to pick up a HD player for that new LCD you got, but are now going to have to wait until November to pay the same price that you will today for a different technology? You then ask the clerk the EXACT difference between BluRay and HD-DVD, and he tells you that some BluRay movies are 1080p (some geek term) while HD-DVD can only do 1080i. He asks what kind of TV you have, you tell him, and he informs you that it is only a 1080i/720p LCD. Should have known that $1500 LCD was not as great as you thought it was.

So, which are you going to adopt? Are you going to wait until Thanksgiving to watch HD movies? Maybe you will shell out the $1200 (almost the price of the LCD panel) for a technology that you really could not even use...
Or maybe you will make your way back to the HD aisle, and pick out some HD DVDs, and grab an HD DVD player.

As a consumer, the latter... the HD DVD solution is by far the most cost prohibitive, especially when you consider the TV you just bought does not even support the BluRay's technology that gives it an advantage.

You remember back to the early 80s... when VHS was just coming out... and your boss was BRAGGING about his Betamax player... about how it has higher quality, and how it will be what everyone uses. He claimed that the quality was so superior, it was worth the price tag.

- Creathir




RE: What would you do?
By bob661 on 5/18/2006 1:59:00 PM , Rating: 2
That was excellent creathir! That's exactly how J6P would see this. A little informed because he/she knows the tech exists but not a geek like us. I think since most people are of the instant gratification type, you'll see that customer buys the HD-DVD player and movies because he can have it today for a good price and it's almost as good as BluRay. With that $500 savings he can get more movies or some other auxillary equipment for his setup.


By jkresh on 5/18/2006 5:54:01 PM , Rating: 2
Unless I am very much mistaken hd-dvd can do 1080p it’s just the first generation Toshiba player that limits it to 1080i (I believe most if not all of the released movies are 1080p). So bluerays 1080p is not an advantage of the format just of the initial drives. So many people seem to think 1080p is blueray only and I know Sony keeps mentioning 1080p but if you look at the box of most hd-dvd discs that are being sold they even say 1080p on them so its not a format issue just a cost saving on the initial player.


RE: What would you do?
By MDme on 5/18/2006 7:27:59 PM , Rating: 2
"As a consumer, the latter... the HD DVD solution is by far the most cost prohibitive , especially when you consider the TV you just bought does not even support the BluRay's technology that gives it an advantage.
"

by cost prohibitive you mean???

Cost prohibitive means something that is too expensive. you probably meant cost effective.

:)


Well, got to start somewhere!
By GTaudiophile on 5/18/2006 7:49:33 AM , Rating: 2
$1000 now. $500 in six months. $250 by Christmas?

Price aside, I am waiting for a combo BR/HD Reader/Writer. I think Samsung is working on one.




RE: Well, got to start somewhere!
By GGA1759 on 5/18/2006 8:22:16 AM , Rating: 2
Six months from now is Xmas.


By OmegaPrime on 5/18/2006 11:22:19 AM , Rating: 2
May to November is 6 months ;)


the price is about what I thought
By IMPoor on 5/18/2006 12:52:50 PM , Rating: 2
At $1000 it is expensive but remember it is brand new. Both CD and DVD burners where actually more expensive when they first came out. That was the same for the media. The good thing is I am confident the price will drop much faster than they did with the cd and dvd burners and media. By the end of the year there will be a bunch of brands out there and the prices will be closer to $500. then a year from now we will all start buying them when the price drops again.




By bob661 on 5/18/2006 2:01:02 PM , Rating: 2
More than likely I'll pick up a bluray player next summer if it comes in under $500 with some 2nd gen features and fixes. If it doesn't get cheaper than I'll go with 2nd gen HD-DVD. There seems to more titles for HD-DVD anyways.


coasters
By Anemone on 5/18/2006 6:37:04 AM , Rating: 2
Coasters might cause quite a stream of nasty words at this price. 2 coasters in a row and they might snap :(




Media vs. Hard Drives
By Harinezumi on 5/18/2006 12:34:46 PM , Rating: 2
Hmm, so the 25GB media for this goes for $48, which is also the price a decent 80GB SATA drive. I really don't see the point in getting one of these until the media goes below the $/gig ratio of regular hard drives, let alone DVD+/-R media.




1000$? it's CHEAP!
By Boboche on 5/19/2006 11:25:09 AM , Rating: 2
I remember paying 2500$ for my first CD-R (sony) almost 15 years ago. for a 1X device, and 30$ for every blank CD bought in batch of 25 or more.

This technology at this introductory price is not so bad for people who want to get ahead of the game or develop something without having to deal with OEM paperwork/nda/etc..

Of course you can complain that a DVD-R is 50$, the fact is you don't even realise how good you're getting it.




$1.92
By creathir on 5/18/2006 12:22:41 PM , Rating: 1
$1.92 per GB...
What a deal... for disposable media at that. Slower performace, and most likelyhood of getting destroyed than a HD...

No thanks.
- Creathir




Costs
By tk109 on 5/18/2006 2:27:32 PM , Rating: 1
People need to stop bringing up the cost of the first DVD and CD players. YES we know that they were super expensive. And it would be relevant except for the fact that HD-DVD is just as new and costs HALF as much right now.

These prices are going to kill Blu-ray.




"If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion." -- Scientology founder L. Ron. Hubbard

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