Pioneer denies promising dual-format hi-def DVD burner

[Bob Crabtree]

Pioneer has strongly denied that its still-distant third-generation high-def Blu-ray Disc DVD burner, the BDR-103, will be a combi model that's also able to write to HD DVD.

According to Pioneer, there's no truth in the rumour that is sweeping the internet. Instead, things appear to have gone horribly wrong after misunderstandings at a press briefing given by the company at IFA - to which HEXUS was not invited.

Pioneer's line is that a journo from the German mag c't completely misunderstood the roadmap that was being shown and what was being said during the briefing. Whatever the case, after the c't' story was posted, a whole lot of technology web sites then took it up.

More in this HEXUS.lifestyle.headline.

[Steve B]

getting invalid url here bob

[Bob Crabtree]

Sorry. I'd activated the forum thread before the story proper.

D'oh!.

Now live, though.

[Steve B]

*reading* i like the lifestyle news articles

youdaman bob

[Funkstar]

Read about this on Engadget over the weekend, thought it was a little too good to be true, especially when they are talking about 2 hardware revisions in the future, that never normally happens.

[vicar]

shame, would have been good for the consumers if one drive rules them all.

[nichomach]

Hmmm...you can see the Pioneer marketing droid now, can't you - "What do you mean "When pigs put on a display at Farnborough" - I said it'd just be a firmware upgrade!" *cue frantic typing of denial*

[Bob Crabtree]

I think that combi burners will come and that Pioneer will be among the first with them.

It's also possible that they'll be arriving by the end of next year.

But there's heck of a lot of variables right now.

Oh, but none of this means that I have the slightest clue whether or not c't mag cocked up.

[awm]

Maybe it got them in trouble with the Blu-Ray gang to be seen asociating with the HD-DVD thugs from the other side of town.

[Funkstar]

i'm convinced it is technically possible, and probably quite straight forward to do this, but it's politics getting in the way. If it's anything like DVD, we'll need to wait until both formats are relatively main stream before getting Dual drives, after all, that's what happened with DVD+-R. That would put it at the end of next year by my guess.

[Bob Crabtree]

The specs for the reading of the two types of disc are rather different - with, as I understand it, Blu-ray using a focus system that requires the laser pick up to be VERY close to the disc's surface and HD DVD using one where the distance between disc and pick up is three times greater.

This fact has implications that were explained in some depth at IFA to a couple of our guys and what they were told might make very interesting reading.

However, my guess is that these and other technical differences won't be insurmountable.

I suspect that in the end it won't be technical issues that are the biggest factor but money - who gets various licensing fees and how much that is.