I can't seem to find much info about any forthcoming offerings on BL of HD drives for computers, cost, cost of media, sizes etc. OK I have read here and there about this and that but nothing that gives an 'overall' picture of how it's going to play out.

Maybe I missed it on this board? Search results are a bit hit & miss from what I can tell.

Hi,

do you really want DRM-crippled hardware?
As far as I know, both types of drives didn't hit the market, because the copy protection- and DRM-schemes aren't yet ready.

There should be some articles on cdfreaks.com about that.

Michael

The only thing you could do with one at the moment is make 30GB data discs, and $20 coasters. As far as we can see, there will not be any HiDef video content available that will allow burning discs, although this may change to allow 1 copy if you validate your ownership online.

Blu-ray and HDDVD, I think, will both die quickly.

There will be the odd one or two people that will get them to go with their HDTV equipment and then find that they wont work together due to different connecters and the need to spend $600 on a converter that is needed to bypass the DRM c**p. There is so much DRM wrapped up in them that even the studio's are now re-thinking things (http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/03/27/un..._stand_on_ict/)

Persoanlly they have locked the format down so much that even looking at the disc will cause failure to play on a set-top box for fear that you have a video camera pointed at the screen. I would not put it past them to stop set-top drives playing recordable discs because you could have copied an original movie onto it.

As always, this is my personal opinion and is probably total b***ks

Activation failed to make Windows the least profitable software in the world. Hardware makers and entertainment industry involved with Blu-ray and HD DVD will continue to evolve as they have for decades to compete against other emerging, at much faster rate, technologies.