HD-DVD, Blu-ray launch timing becomes clearer

IDG News Service - Launch timing for the HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc optical disc formats became clearer today with the disclosure by two companies of their initial sales plans.

The two formats are vying to replace current DVDs for high-definition content, such as movies, and have pitted industry giants against each other. The main backers of HD-DVD include Toshiba Corp., NEC Corp. and Intel Corp. while those backing Blu-ray Disc include Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (Panasonic) and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

Sony Corp. said its first Blu-ray Disc player, the BDP-S1, will be available in the U.S. from July at about $1,000. The company had previously committed to an "early summer" launch. Samsung plans to put a Blu-ray Disc player on sale in April.

The Sony player will support a video output at 1,080 lines of resolution and progressive scanning, the company said in a statement. This is dubbed "full HD" and is the highest of several video formats considered high-definition. As a concession to content providers, the full HD output will only be available via an HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) connector that supports copy protection. Owners of TV sets without an HDMI connector will be able to watch up to a 1,080-line interlaced signal, which is the second highest rank of high-definition picture.

Sony has priced its first desktop computer that will have a Blu-ray Disc burner. The drive will be able to write to 25GB and 50GB BD-RE (rewritable) and BD-R (write once) discs. Sony will start selling 25GB BD-RE and BD-R discs in April for $20 and $25 respectively and 50GB capacity versions of the same discs later in the year for $48 and $60 respectively.

The Vaio RC will be launched in "early summer" and will cost around $2,300. At the Cebit IT show in Germany last week, Sony announced plans for a Vaio notebook with a Blu-ray Disc drive.

On the HD-DVD side, Warner Home Video said it will start selling HD-DVD titles on April 18. The first movies will include Million Dollar Baby, The Last Samurai<.i> and The Phantom of the Opera. The discs will cost $29 each and will be followed by 17 additional titles including Batman Begins, Constantine, Training Day and The Matrix, the company said in a statement.

Warner's launch timing, the first HD-DVD content to get a launch date, calls into question Toshiba's plan to put HD-DVD players on sale in March.

Toshiba said Friday that it intends to synchronize the launch of its first players, the $500 HD-A1 and $800 HD-XA1, with the availability of content. The launch plans of other studios are yet to be announced but Toshiba's statement indicates its player could be delayed a month should content not be available until April.

A similar delay could hit Samsung's April launch plans since the earliest Blu-ray Disc content announced to-date is set to go on sale on May 23.