when these do finally come out, will they be compatible with current HD-DVD players or will we need to get a new one to play these discs?

I hate to say it but this has gotten way over published.... every day it seems like there is the same story about 51GB HD-DVD. just release the damn thing and stop telling us about it....

Originally posted by sukhvail:

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when these do finally come out, will they be compatible with current HD-DVD players or will we need to get a new one to play these discs?

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- I believe that in order to gain approval with the DVD forum under the HD-DVD 'brand' then this tech has to fully work with the existing hardware (there may be some sort of exemption if it won't & it's clearly stated but I'm not sure that is the case).

This is the biggest reasoning behind the delay.

Originally HD-DVD was designed to work with a TL 45gb disc (3 x 15gb).

It seems quite clear that 30gb DL discs perfectly meet the retail movie requirement(s)......and things like the often mentioned LoTR movies with the zillion pointless 'extras' some folks seem to imagine so vital can easily come on 2 or more discs anyway
(and survey after survey shows people like multi-disc releases, they think they're getting something above the ordinary and 'special').

51gb will be very nice with PC burning.

HD-DVD burners are promised at a price "significantly below the BD competition".
IIRC BD burners are somewhere around the £500 level right now!
(I'm not sure if that single layer capable or for full dual layer capability)

With the HD-DVD tech being so closely related to regular DVD the DL & TL discs should also be affordable - unlike dual layer 50gb BD media which IIRC is around $50 a disc right now
(= a very very expensive coaster if it goes wrong).

Tales of BD trumping this with 100gb & 200gb disc capacity invariably ignores the facts that
1) none of the existing BD players or burners can use them either
2) that the price of the media will be astronomic - so astronomic that they might never be sold on the public retail market and the discs remain forever low volume very high cost 'professional use only' bulk data archiving media
3) that the price of compatible hardware will be astronomic because it too remains low volume high cost 'professional use only' bulk data hardware
4) once you go beyond the 3 layers they originally devised both 'systems' for you encounter slow down on the data transfer speeds as the data has to be checked for corruption (because it's coming through all those layers).

That doesn't stop BD being a great bulk data storage medium but it certainly doesn't make for a great video medium.

weird a blank HD-DVD is 8 bucks now I remember balnk dl dvds were 8 bucks 4 years ago.

How can a triple layer DVD be compatible with a dual layer???

No, this is a completatly different animal. The HD dual layer is just comming on line for real. It is kind of like Vista OS; it will not be very useful for a while. Still, if it is out there people will find uses for it. I doubt that Toshiba is pushing the hype because there is no obvious use for it. Maybe they are working on a new level of HD that is still secret.

hughjars, I do not know how you can say what will be impossible in the future. Everything is impossible until you figure out how to do it.