Cool Tech Reviews

Last week was a big week for the Blu-ray high definition DVD ([1], [2]) but there was some interesting news about the competing HD DVD format - ‘Teardown’ finds Toshiba taking a loss on HD DVD player:

Toshiba Corp. is taking a substantial loss on sales of its new HD DVD player in hopes of buying a head start in the battle for the next generation of DVD technology, according to a “teardown” analysis conducted by market research firm iSuppli Corp.

According to iSuppli’s teardown analysis, bill-of-materials (BOM) costs for Toshiba’s HD-A1 HD DVD total an estimated $674, far exceeding the unit’s $499 U.S. retail price. The estimated BOM figure excludes costs for manufacturing, testing, cables, remote control and packaging-costs that could easily push the total cost of each unit to more than $700, iSuppli (El Segundo, Calif.) said.

iSuppli’s analysis suggests that Toshiba is subsidizing the HD-A1 in an attempt to gain early market share over players that use the rival Blu-ray high-definition DVD standard, the firm said. Initial Blu-ray players, which are slated to cost $999 or more, are scheduled for launch by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sony Corp. and others this summer.

I’m not surprised at the results of the analysis, but the price of the player is only part on the equation. The availability of something to play on it is going to be critical and Blu-ray seems to have more movie studios lined up at the moment, but only time will tell and perhaps the consumers who may just sit this one out.

Business Week online’s Arik Hesseldahl does the honors in Sony’s Pretty, Pricey Picture:

The Good Gorgeous video. Blu-Ray burner. Huge hard drive
The Bad High price. Feeble battery
The Bottom Line Great for those willing to pay through the nose
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First let’s get to the Blu-Ray disc. The video quality is gorgeous. Sony (SNE) furnished a copy of a Blu-Ray disc with the movie Hitch, and while I can’t say much about the content of the film, the video looked great, with lots of detail within the shot. The movie has several overhead shots of New York City that looked almost cinematic, even on the 17-inch notebook screen. The machine boasts a glossy, glare-resistant screen, the kind that are quickly becoming more common.

But let’s get one thing straight: This isn’t the kind of notebook you’re going to want to take everywhere with you, and certainly not one for watching movies on an airplane or anywhere else you don’t have a power outlet. With the disc playing I watched the battery run down from fully charged to less than 20% full in about 30 minutes, at which point the screen displayed one of the strangest shutdown routines I’ve ever seen: a patchwork of wavy multicolored lines.

Ouch! But then it seems to be directed more at the desktop replacement market and at $3500, you might want to keep it chained to desk anyhow. Of course when you’re talking high definition DVD, there has to be one more caveat:

Blu-Ray disc content is just now beginning to hit the market. (The computer ships with House of Flying Daggers in the box.) If you really, really want to shoot and edit HD video and have a critical need to burn it to Blu-Ray, you might be willing to pay the premium. But as yet, that’s not a good enough reason for me to lay out that much to be an early Blu-Ray adopter. I suspect that will be the judgment of most people as well.

There’s also the risk that you might end up backing the wrong horse in the brewing battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Unless you really think Blu-Ray is where it’s at, and indeed many companies do, I suggest staying on the sidelines until the winner is clear.

Oddly, Hesseldahl never mentions the model number, but it seems to obviously be the Sony VAIO AR190G which was also reviewed by Justin Jaffe at CNET:

At $3,500, the VAIO AR190G is intended primarily for the long-suffering professional video editors and producers whose HD files have been marooned on laptop hard drives or trapped on DVD-ROMs, which are not supported by Blu-ray set-top players. With the VAIO AR190G, you can now import a video directly from an HD camera (via FireWire), edit the content on an excellent 17-inch 1080p display, and burn it to a Blu-ray disc or play it on an HDTV or monitor (via the HDMI connection)–never settling for less-than-HD-quality compression, media, or playback.

Of course, as with most new technologies, you will have to suffer a number of indignities with the VAIO AR190G. Aside from the high price point of the laptop itself, there’s the painful price of media: approximately $20 for a 25GB BD-R or $25 for a 25GB BD-RW, both of which burn at a syrupy 1X. (Fortunately, a 50GB BD-R will soon be available for $48 and a 50GB BD-RE for $55–ouch.)

If you’re a professional video editor, it’s all a deductible business expense anyway, I guess, but I think the advice for most consumers is to wait on this technology a while.

If you have always wanted a Paul Bunyan sized notebook PC, Stuff Magazine has some news for you about the Acer Aspire 9800 series:

Team HD-DVD has just extended its lead over Blu-Ray Utd thanks to a piledriver from Acer; it’s just made the second HD-DVD-playing laptop, following Toshiba’s G30 last month.

If anything, the Aspire 9800 is even more accomplished than Tosh’s world first. We may be guilty of over-using the word ‘cinematic’ to describe screens, but not here – it has a 20in, 1680×1050, which is good enough for 1080p high-def.

20″ sure isn’t going to fit on an airline tray table. This seems to be a Europe-only announcement so far:

Acer, the leading vendor in the notebook sector for EMEA – Europe, Middle East and Africa, today presents the new Aspire 9800, a new notebook series with a spectacular 20-inch LCD screen, delivering enough power, functionality, flexibility and presence to rival the very best desktop PCs.
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Equipped with the largest screen size currently available in a notebook an Acer 20.1″ CrystalBrite colour TFT LCD display (WSXGA+ resolution of 1680 x 1050) featuring Acer CrystalBrite technology for maximum screen brightness in all lightning conditions and powered by the high-end NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 graphics card with up to 256MB dedicated video memory, the Aspire 9800 guarantees an altogether immersive multimedia experience. In addition, the DVI-D* connectivity provides faster and higher-quality images for high-definition entertainment on external monitors.
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Storage-wise, a generous HDD of up to 240GB meets the needs of multimedia file collectors. For the optical drive you can choose between the excellent slot-loading DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive or an HD-DVD drive (when available - ed.).

And there’s more including a Intel Core Duo processor, memory card reader, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Dolby sound, TV tuner, video camera, and some models include a Bluetooth connected VoIP phone/speakerphone. Stuff says it is coming to the UK in May and starts at £1500 ($1800), but somehow I expect that most will end up pricier than that. I also haven’t seen anything on weight or battery life and it probably doesn’t make much difference - this is more of a portable PC than a laptop. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but I wonder at what point it isn’t preferable to have a separate keyboard and monitor.