NEC Electronics introduces the dual-format HiDef DVD chip
We always love new technology, but with things like storage media, we always have to hope that our choice is correct with regards to buying the more common platform. Being on the losing side would mean that your hard-earned money would go totally down the drain. I mean, even though it might be fun to show off those Sony\’s videocassette recording format, introduced in 1975″>betamax players once in a while, but all of us knows that it’s still money spent on the wrong thing.
And for some reason, companies never seem to understand that showing off their power by introducing proprietary/new media formats is an immature thing, which only leaves a lot of consumers angry, and pretty much confused. One of the culprits here is Sony. I could name formats, but it would be pointless since it would include just about every format Sony has sided with in the past, so what is a poor consumer supposed to do? One way is simply putting off the decision until there’s one clear winner.
But for some people who live and breathe gadgets, this might not be a viable option. However, you can count on some mature companies to bring an amount of sense into this whole mess and for today, we have NEC taking that role. What they’ve done is gone ahead and created a “hybrid” chip which will be able to handle both HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats and although they’re still just chips and not the final product, we can now expect drives with this chip in the coming year. The other nice thing about them is that the price of this chip is on par with those other chips which are exclusive to HD-DVD or Blu-ray drives. What this means is that you probably won’t have to shell out a huge amount of money to enjoy both formats at the same time.
And going by their estimates, it seems that they are pretty sure of its success as they’re planning on shipping around 3,00,000 chips every month starting from April 2007. Well, once these drives are out, I don’t see why people would buy stand-alone drives anymore as the advantages of this chip makes it a sure success even before it’s out.
We always love new technology, but with things like storage media, we always have to hope that our choice is correct with regards to buying the more common platform. Being on the losing side would mean that your hard-earned money would go totally down the drain. I mean, even though it might be fun to show off those Sony\’s videocassette recording format, introduced in 1975″>betamax players once in a while, but all of us knows that it’s still money spent on the wrong thing.
And for some reason, companies never seem to understand that showing off their power by introducing proprietary/new media formats is an immature thing, which only leaves a lot of consumers angry, and pretty much confused. One of the culprits here is Sony. I could name formats, but it would be pointless since it would include just about every format Sony has sided with in the past, so what is a poor consumer supposed to do? One way is simply putting off the decision until there’s one clear winner.
But for some people who live and breathe gadgets, this might not be a viable option. However, you can count on some mature companies to bring an amount of sense into this whole mess and for today, we have NEC taking that role. What they’ve done is gone ahead and created a “hybrid” chip which will be able to handle both HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats and although they’re still just chips and not the final product, we can now expect drives with this chip in the coming year. The other nice thing about them is that the price of this chip is on par with those other chips which are exclusive to HD-DVD or Blu-ray drives. What this means is that you probably won’t have to shell out a huge amount of money to enjoy both formats at the same time.
And going by their estimates, it seems that they are pretty sure of its success as they’re planning on shipping around 3,00,000 chips every month starting from April 2007. Well, once these drives are out, I don’t see why people would buy stand-alone drives anymore as the advantages of this chip makes it a sure success even before it’s out.