HOT: HTPC users -- HD-DVD/BluRay internal drive @ BB $299

Wow, that is a good price on a Combo writer.

EDIT: thought it was a BD/HD-DVD Writer, but it only reads those formats.
 
Holy crap!!! Thanks for the post.

This price is less than I expected :D
 
Perfect for the HTPC crowd. If I didn't already have an HD-DVD drive, I'd snap this up. Both formats covered, SATA, and a good price. Can't hardly beat it.
 
Oh /snaps 40!!! I might have to pick this up. Hopefully Blu-ray steps up their game and gets more exclusive content and studio support than HDDVD does at the moment. Things aren't looking so good for them.
 
w1retap said:
Oh /snaps 40!!! I might have to pick this up. Hopefully Blu-ray steps up their game and gets more exclusive content and studio support than HDDVD does at the moment. Things aren't looking so good for them.
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For my sake, I hope the other way around.

I bought my XB360 HD-DVD drive around a month ago and I've got 22 movies, plus 5 coming free via mail.

But... if I would take my own advice (I am the OP!) and buy this drive -- it wouldn't matter to me would it :)

The PC in my sig is hooked up to my 42" 1080p Philips Ambilight TV
 
kent said:
For my sake, I hope the other way around.

I bought my XB360 HD-DVD drive around a month ago and I've got 22 movies, plus 5 coming free via mail.

But... if I would take my own advice (I am the OP!) and buy this drive -- it wouldn't matter to me would it :)

The PC in my sig is hooked up to my 42" 1080p Philips Ambilight TV
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I was being sarcastic. Blu-ray is sinking pretty fast. :p I'm not going to buy it, lol.
 
w1retap said:
I was being sarcastic. Blu-ray is sinking pretty fast. :p I'm not going to buy it, lol.
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Can you do me a favor and stop spewing your Anti Bluray propaganda in each post? I know you are a cool person and everything, but it's really getting on my back to see post after post when there isn't a format war discussion going on :(


As for the topic, I wonder when these will be in stock or availible at the stores, I want to get me some hybrid lovin :)
 
I wasn't trying to make a war, I was responding to another members post. If I wanted to take it further I would have posted some facts. :)
 
Good to see the price is coming down. It would be nice if we can buy it by december for under $100
 
w1retap said:
I wasn't trying to make a war, I was responding to another members post. If I wanted to take it further I would have posted some facts. :)
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Your facts are also biased to the viewpoint you want to come across. I swear you think baby jesus cries every time somebody watces a movie in anything less than 1080p.
 
annaconda said:
Good to see the price is coming down. It would be nice if we can buy it by december for under $100
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I'd say that would be a pipe dream, if that was true, I'd say that would be great!! But sadly, these folks are going to milk it as long as bluray and hd-dvd exclusive drives are expensive.
 
this is pretty sweet, I hadn't even heard of there being hybrid drives out, this would be stellar in a nice home theatre system with an HDTV
 
Cool. I will wait until the Bluray/HDVD burners come out for that price...
 
SX2233 said:
damn add about 70~100 more bucks and I get a PS3 that can play great games and blu-ray too, I don't see how this is a good deal unless if iz a blu-ray-RW drive
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This is a Hybrid drive which can play HD-DVD's also.
 
Trepidati0n said:
Your facts are also biased to the viewpoint you want to come across. I swear you think baby jesus cries every time somebody watces a movie in anything less than 1080p.
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Really, once you're there -- you're there.

I subscribe to Dish Network (ViP622 500GB HD-DVR) and I've got the HD tier along with an OTA plugged into the DVR as well.

I get around 30-40 HD channels and I'll tell you -- save for Headline News and other niche channels, I watch 70% HD now. It doesn't matter what it is -- from pretty scenery on the Equator channel to something interesting on History/A&E-HD.

As far as movies, well if you like "HD-Lite" (slang for TV providers downsampling material, i.e. from 1920x1080i to 1440x1080i -- mainly to save bandwidth) then you'll love HD movies on disc format.

I really, really, really do not enjoy watching regular DVDs anymore. Broadcast HD is great because it often rids me of macroblocking which annoys the fire out of me. I record a lot of HD movies to my DVR.

When I go to the movie store (Movie Gallery) I only rent HD-DVD. No matter what it is.

I. Do. Not. Enjoy. Watching. SD.


As far as HD-DVD? I already had an X360 Elite so it was cheap. The day after I bought it was when Paramount/Dreamworks went exclusive.

A few things stood out for me in favor of HD-DVD:

- Entry cost.
- Media cost and availability (not really locally, my WM/Target carry the same titles and my BB/CC also carry the same titles -- but that's true with Blu-Ray as well)
- Lack of region encoding. I own Total Recall and Terminator 2, both French imports, both have an English 5.1 DD+ track.
- 5 free (but generally crappy) movies
- XBOX drive was perfect, I only have 3 HDMI inputs and don't wish to use a switch. (PC, DVR, XBOX Elite)
- Better online functionality than Blu-Ray


What I like about Blu-Ray is the 50GB storage (the TL45GB HD-DVD was approved, so this may be moot)

What I didn't like was incomplete specifications (ethernet port no workie!), Sony mandate, and lack of a Final Fantasy VII remake for the PS3.
 
SX2233 said:
damn add about 70~100 more bucks and I get a PS3 that can play great games and blu-ray too
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This is a hot HTPC deal. Especially those of us with multiterrabyte arrays who ahem.. backup their movies.

Not to mention, I can't find any great games for the PS3. Sorry.
 
The link doesn't work anymore, and I couldn't find the drive on BB's site. I couldn't even find a similar drive anywhere else for that matter. I've never heard of a combo HD-DVD/Bluray drive before, and I seriously doubt that BB is the only one that has sold such a drive. Does anyone know who else sells drives like these?
 
scottmso said:
The link doesn't work anymore, and I couldn't find the drive on BB's site. I couldn't even find a similar drive anywhere else for that matter. I've never heard of a combo HD-DVD/Bluray drive before, and I seriously doubt that BB is the only one that has sold such a drive. Does anyone know who else sells drives like these?
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No one else. Bestbuy sometimes gets the first picks when it comes to new consumer products, don't ask me why, they did with the Western Digital Green 1tb drives and with many other products.

The only other option you have at this moment is proxy buying one from japan at a cost of $350 + ship or you can buy the super blue hybrid burner at $1,000
 
Ockie said:
No one else. Bestbuy sometimes gets the first picks when it comes to new consumer products, don't ask me why, they did with the Western Digital Green 1tb drives and with many other products.

The only other option you have at this moment is proxy buying one from japan at a cost of $350 + ship or you can buy the super blue hybrid burner at $1,000
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I'd suggest waiting the price is sure to fall soon. At least thats what I think :) I would only pay that much for a HD/Blue-Ray recorder.
 
How do these internal drives compare to standalone HD-DVD/Blu-ray players as far as features/quality?
 
joemama said:
How do these internal drives compare to standalone HD-DVD/Blu-ray players as far as features/quality?
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More functionality, same quality, same hd-dvd/bluray features. Much more complicated though.

Keep in mind, with this you need a lot of hardware that is HDCP compliant to make it work and it can give you crap and you WILL need software to make it possible... so there are hidden costs besides just the cost of the drive.
 
Well, technically the Blu-ray players don't have set standards across the industry, so its almost like a beta product. :p Some features of a BR movie might work on one player and not another. I have yet to see this happen, but the possibility exists, especially for future titles.
 
Has this been taken off of Best Buys website? The link dosen't seem to be working for me, and i can't find in on their site.
 
texuspete00 said:
Damn what's up with meganerd fanboy shit it's just a hot deals thread ffs.
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Ockie said:
QFT.
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No shit. I don't get why ANYONE would have anything bad to say about a relatively inexpensive hybrid drive.

In the reviews I've read, BD's have better image quality than HD-DVD (so far). With that said, if HD-DVD 3L becomes mainstream (and doesn't require a new drive to play them), then the difference is minimal in storage.

In the end, I look at a dual format drive as insurance. The studios are divided and in Europe, it sounds like BD is more popular (and we all know that region codes will be defeated).

Maybe we'd have more SACD/DVD-A in the u.s if all DVD drives supported both formats.

My DVDRs are DVD-R. My player does both.

Back on topic, I think this deal is super hot for HTPC people. This bodes well for hybrid set top players at reasonable prices in the near future.

That's when the market will take off. Most don't want to buy 2 players and nobody wants to have <insert format> and not be able to play a movie, because it's only available on <insert another format>.

too bad they're all gone
 
nilepez said:
No shit. I don't get why ANYONE would have anything bad to say about a relatively inexpensive hybrid drive.

In the reviews I've read, BD's have better image quality than HD-DVD (so far). With that said, if HD-DVD 3L becomes mainstream (and doesn't require a new drive to play them), then the difference is minimal in storage.

In the end, I look at a dual format drive as insurance. The studios are divided and in Europe, it sounds like BD is more popular (and we all know that region codes will be defeated).

Maybe we'd have more SACD/DVD-A in the u.s if all DVD drives supported both formats.

My DVDRs are DVD-R. My player does both.

Back on topic, I think this deal is super hot for HTPC people. This bodes well for hybrid set top players at reasonable prices in the near future.

That's when the market will take off. Most don't want to buy 2 players and nobody wants to have <insert format> and not be able to play a movie, because it's only available on <insert another format>.

too bad they're all gone
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It is a hot deal.

But when you read reviews saying BD has better image quality, it just cannot be compared as easily as you think. For titles that appear both on HDDVD and Blu-ray, it uses the same codec with the same bitrates. There would be no distinction. For movies that are exclusive to either side, you could not compare those because of the different mediums of original source material or film transfer methods. For many early BD titles, the film transfer method and encoding was poor, and they used primitive MPEG2 as their choice. Now that you see HDDVD and BD starting to use AVC and VC1 codecs and better source transferring methods, the look the same. Some titles happen to look better than others due to source quality transfers. It goes both ways.
 
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