Blu-ray and HD DVD blank-disc price shocker!

[Bob Crabtree]

Although we don't know for sure when Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD burners are coming to the UK or their prices, we do now know roughly how much blank high-def discs will cost.

More in this HEXUS.headline.

[Mike Fishcake]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahaha

Oh dear me!

*wipes tear from eye*

That really is a cracking way to reduce piracy - price the blanks almost as expensive as a regular movie.

Yeah, I know writeable CDs and DVDs weren't as cheap as they are now compared to when they came out, but this is riiiiiidiculous!

[unreal]

So you can buy 100 DVD's for the same price as a single 25gb Blu-Ray disc...

[Funkstar]

and this is a surprise how?

Retail packs of DVD-R disks are about £1 each in packs of 10 for a recognisable brand. that works out as £0.23 per gig.

The best value disk on that list is the dual layer BluRay*at £20 for 50gig makes £0.40 per gig.

True it's not far off double what you pay for DVD-R media per gig, but i don't think that is silly money. I remember crapping myself when i had a buffer underrun on a Pioneer DVR-101 using £22 media.

* this is why i think BluRay will be the format of choice for data storage/archival

[Tak]

Indeed, high price for new technology, what's the shocker?

[sawyen]

the shocker is probably that they arent as expensive as we previously thought they were..

50GB for £20 is pretty decent tbh.. I mean, when you throw in bulk buy and some time for prices to cool down.. we could be seeing 50GB media for under £10..

Alternatively, HD-DVD don't look all that appealing.. 30GB variants, while having inferior storage capacity is almost as expensive as 50GB BD-media.. Not a great call for HD-DVD

In case anyone feels like reminding me that HD-DVD drives will be cheaper.. Yes.. I am perfectly aware of that..

God bless cutting edge technology..

[chuckskull]

50GB rewritable looks pefect for back ups, the write once stuff is a bit OTT though.

Ah well, you can rest assured, a few months after lauch you'll be able to pick up a pack of 50 for pennies produced in a barn in taiwan somewhere

[Stoo]

It was the same story with cd-rw's then dvd+/-r(w), and then again with DL..

Prices will come down, then we'll be having stories about the shocking price of holographic media discs in 5-10 years time..

[Yohji]

New stuff is always far too expensive for the normal consumer... This isn't that suprising.

Still fun though

[autopilot]

Originally Posted by sawyen

50GB for £20 is pretty decent tbh

Is it?

You can buy a Samsung Spinpoint 250 250GB SATA drive for £50

That makes a blank HD/BR disk 2 - 3 times more expensive than a top quality hard drive, gig for gig.

Now look at HDD and then look at blank DVD. How can a HDD, with all its many parts and componants etc, cost less to produce than a couple of optical disks?

Sure, they have production plant and R&D costs to cover. But one of the benifits of HD-DVD is that fact that you can produce them using almost exactly the same production line.

No, £20 for a single 50gig disk is a massive rip off. Sorry.

[Jonny]

Originally Posted by dangerous_dom

</SNIP>

I agree, completely.

If you're after massive, quality storage, buy a HD, not an expensive DVD!

I'd sooner buy a big HD and never need to back up to disc again. Faster write times, no problem of scratching it, easy to search/edit data, etc.

[DR]

I can't wait to get an HD-DVD drive, means the huge RAID array which I am running can be backed up easily and quickly.

[Stoo]

Yup, ditto David, except I'll be going for blu-ray

as for the others, fine, buy a nice big hdd and never back it up to offline media, just don't moan when your hdd fails and you lose all that data..

Meanwhile the rest of us will have safely archived our data onto nice safe optical media, which will have dropped down to a couple of quid per disc by that point.

[autopilot]

Originally Posted by Stoo

Yup, ditto David, except I'll be going for blu-ray

as for the others, fine, buy a nice big hdd and never back it up to offline media, just don't moan when your hdd fails and you lose all that data..

Meanwhile the rest of us will have safely archived our data onto nice safe optical media, which will have dropped down to a couple of quid per disc by that point.

But what about scratches? What about the few coasters you are bound to end up with (especially with a new technology) - are you going to get a refund on those? Also, the dye used in optical disks only has a limited life span too (some cheap DVD/CD's wont last more than a couple of years), so they won't last forever either

You could buy a few drives and run a RAID array and even have a couple of removable HDD's and enclosures, and still these would work out way better value for money for your offline storage.

Each to thier own though. I can see pro's and con's for both, but until they bring the price down i know what i would rather do in the short term. But sure, get yourself some nice £20 disks Stoo. In fact, please buy thousands mate. It's the kind people like yourself that will eventually bring the price down for the rest of us

[Jonny]

Originally Posted by Stoo

as for the others, fine, buy a nice big hdd and never back it up to offline media, just don't moan when your hdd fails and you lose all that data..

??? That's why I backup! If I have the original data and a backup copy, I think theres very little chance of them both dying at the same time, especially as the backup drive is in an IcyBox seperate to the other drive...

I think theres much more chance of your disks getting scratched/misburnt than BOTH my HDs failing at the exact same time.

[MD]

Blueray blanks are already on play.com