Posted by Allan on 09/06/05 15:44

Samsung to play safe with dual HD DVD/Blu-ray rig

Published Tuesday 6th September 2005 15:09 GMT

Samsung is to harness consumer confusion over which next-generation
optical disc standard to back by offering a player that supports both
HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc (BD).

The machine will launch sometime next year, said Choi Gee-Sung,
Samsung's consumer electronics chief, in an interview published by the
Financial Times Deutschland.

"We would welcome a unified standard but if this doesn't come, which
looks likely, we'll bring a unified solution to market," he said.

"It won't be simple but you'll see our solution in the coming year.
Consumers will be too confused otherwise," he added.

With talks held between the two camps to find common ground in order
to yield a unified format having broken down, consumers much now
choose which format to support. Backing the wrong format could leave
buyers with access to less content and, over time, more expensive
hardware. That risk may persuade them simply to ignore both formats
until a clear winner emerges.

Dual-play machines could break the deadlock. Both BD and HD DVD use
blue laser light to increase the storage capacity of a DVD-sized
optical disc dramatically. However, the two formats have very
different capacities, optical specifications and file structures.
Samsung's machine is likely to require at least two different read
heads for the blue-laser discs, not to mention another, red
laser-based head to read today's DVDs and CDs.

To date, Samsung has favoured BD over HD DVD, but today's statement
suggest it doesn't believe its favoured format will quickly establish
a clear lead over HD DVD.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/06/samsung_hdvd_bluray_player/


Well so much for that being "impossible".






"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game
because they almost always turn out to be -- or to be indistinguishable from
-- self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time."
- Neil Stephenson, _Cryptonomicon_

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