HD DVD Writers/Readers coming soon?

There is some Blu-ray burners already on the market but where is the PC HD DVD burners? PC World has interviewed Maciek Brzeski, vice president of marketing for the Toshiba Storage Device Division to find out why. Last month, Toshiba announced it would ship the slim-line drive it showed during the summer. Maciek Brzeski says they expects to start shipping the slim-line drive by the end of the year: “We don’t expect to see [the drives] in holiday [products], but certainly we expect to see them shipping in notebooks by late Q1 of next year.”.

Brzeski anticipates seeing the drives in high-end notebooks, those that cost around $3500. Such pricing would put laptops with HD DVD burners in line with Sony’s VAIO VGN-AR190G, which shipped this summer with a slim-line Blu-ray burner.

That Toshiba is offering a notebook drive for its first HD DVD recorder, instead of a half-height drive for use in desktop PCs (as Blu-ray Disc makers have offered from the outset), is curious. However, this choice represents part of Toshiba’s strategy and attitude toward HD DVD disc burning. “We focused on delivering a slim drive for lots of reasons,” says Brzeski. “There is a bigger opportunity in the mobile form factor than there is in the desktop form factor. If I go out and buy a movie, I want to be able to watch it on the road. And with the writing capabilities, you’ll be able to back up–though I’m not sure people are going to use these for backing up. Plus, you can always use a slim drive in a desktop enclosure, but it doesn’t work the other way around.” Brzeski says half-height HD DVD recorders are in the works, “but those aren’t ready yet.”

Blu-ray Disc burners have been shipping for months now–why is HD DVD taking so long to catch up? Chalk it up to a philosophical difference, not a technological one, says Brzeski. Toshiba, he says, views HD DVD more as a technology for delivering prepackaged (Hollywood) high-definition video, not for creating your own disc-based content. “I honestly don’t believe in these early days that many people will be using HD DVDs and Blu-rays to back up content. If you look at the cost per GB to back up to disc, it’s not cost-effective.”

Source: PC World