Will burning software give Blu-ray the edge over HD-DVD?
by Richard Lawler 
posted Nov 3rd 2005 at 4:46PM
As much attention has been given to the wavering of various Hollywood studios and PC manufacturers, a noticeable trend is developing among the makers of various CD/DVD burning software makers. They are by and large supporting Blu-ray.
As I mentioned earlier about the makers of Ashampoo, HD-DVD enthusiasts may have quite a time burning disc's without the software to do it, and now it is Cyberlink announcing their Power2Go suite will support Blu-ray, no mention of HD-DVD.
More after the jump.
The only software I've heard mention support for HD-DVD is Ulead's InterVideo. Nero, Roxio, and now Cyberlink
are all Blu-ray only, at least for the time being. A lot of early
adopters are people who look forward to being able to back up their
video in high definition on next generation DVD's or any other kind of
data for that matter. If their software of choice only works on one
kind of disc, why would they even look at the other?
Now I may be completely off, as none of us have the media much less any drives to record with, and the time till any of the above are affordable is quite a way off. But as loudly as the HD-DVD group is shouting "HD-DVD is Real", could that be trumped by "Blu-ray Ready"?
Now I may be completely off, as none of us have the media much less any drives to record with, and the time till any of the above are affordable is quite a way off. But as loudly as the HD-DVD group is shouting "HD-DVD is Real", could that be trumped by "Blu-ray Ready"?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
hmurchison @ Nov 4th 2005 2:53AM
Please do more research in the future. An "easy" google search shows that Sonic Solutions, Ulead and Apple Computer all make or will make HD DVD authoring solutions.
I don't know what's given you the impression that you'll be able to back up anything from Blu Ray. The battle around "Managed Copy" which is a part of the AACS encryption system is still underway. Even if MC is supported you likely won't have the righs to back up to another optical disc anyways.
Richard Lawler @ Nov 4th 2005 3:41AM
Thanks for checking the post out. I did however mention Ulead's Intervideo having HD-DVD support.
Sonic Solutions has announced professional products supporting HD-DVD as well as Blu-ray, however in their Roxio branded consumer products they have only announced support for Blu-ray so far. You can check for yourself: http://www.sonic.com/about/press/default.aspx
I'm primarily a PC user so thanks for the heads up on Apple's software, with their status as a member of both the DVD forum and BDA it will be interesting to see which format shows up in a Mac first.
The software situation may change before the discs become widely available anyway, but it is curious that all these companies are getting so far out in front in terms of Blu-ray support.
The backup I'm referring to is backing up TO a blu-ray or HD-DVD disc, from existing video on the computer or video from a DVR or camcorder "or any other kind of data for that matter", obviously free of DRM so managed copy being implemented or not would not be relevant to that situation.
Managed copy or no, I haven't heard anything yet about whether or not or how we may be able to back up next generation optical discs onto another disc, or even real details on how managed copy will work exactly but I hope to have more information soon
hmurchison @ Nov 4th 2005 5:41PM
Richard I think Managed Copy is right up your alley. I was stunned when I read about it because I had naturally assumed that there would be NO copying whatsoever.
It's good to see that Blu Ray has some authoring apps coming because HD DVD was actually first with getting out a subset of their authoring environment. Because we're seeing more affordable apps supporting Blu Ray I can only surmise that the BDA is very close on finishing up the touches.
I expect that the first authoring environments for both platforms will be lean at first giving way to more full featured updates as the platform(s) mature.
We video lovers can only cross our fingers and hope for the best. I don't like format wars but there will be a winner eventually