OT: HP officially shipping hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD.

apit34356 wrote on 6/26/2007, 10:19 PM
This is a news release

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HP has quietly snuck through an update to its home desktop PC range with the computer giant now officially shipping its media centre systems with hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD drives.

The firm has added the drives to both its Intel (m8010y) and AMD (m8100e) processor-powered Pavilion media centre models.

HP's decision to adopt the Blu-ray format, which is already backed by Sony as well as many of the Hollywood studios, alongside high definition DVD could satisfy consumers who are stuck with having to make a choice between the two competing formats.

But HP's notable shift of gears in the high-end market is not limited to consumers.

It also announced today that the firm is to extend its worldwide sales and marketing agreement with Microsoft to push high-performance computing (HPC) into the mass market.

It said the partnership hoped to deliver supercomputing clusters for enterprise and mid-market customers, and reckoned that the adoption of HPC by companies could see easier deployment and support.

The multimillion dollar deal with Microsoft could be significant for HP which is currently sitting in the number two spot for worldwide computer sales.

It said its HPC systems will ship with Windows Computer Cluster Server (CCS) 2003 and will be sold direct as well as through reseller channels as part of the firm's unified cluster portfolio, which includes support on HP ProLiant servers and HP Blade platforms.

HPC vice president and general manager at HP, Winston Prather, said: "We see the addition of Microsoft as an important part of our unified cluster portfolio program to expand the market and bring HPC technology to the mainstream."
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Side note:
HP's shipping hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD drives helps explain "T" big reduction of sales projection and manufacturing of HD-DVD players. This hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD drives will help the "content" HD-DVD survive a little longer. Also, puts more pressure on Walmart to pay the fees for BluRay sooner than later as probably planned for the new cheap HD player. A Walmart hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD player would be a better plan for general DVDs, cheap DVDs, HD-DVDs and BluRay. Of course, I think Sony does not like to be bundled with the other formats in basic players, lost of brand name.

Comments

DJPadre wrote on 6/26/2007, 11:50 PM
i wouldnt touch HP if my life depended on it... maybe their scanners but thats about it..
apit34356 wrote on 6/27/2007, 9:52 AM
HP's retail sometimes is way too loaded with "poor" software tools that slow down a decent machine. But HP's giving up on the HD-DVD alliance with Intel, MS and "T" by using a hybrid drive is a better choice for anyone in the DVD disc manufacturing business. This will help other OEMs to use hybrids in low-end machines that do not need or can not pay for the higher media cost for Blu-ray or HD DVD at this time. This will permit MS X-360 to upgrade to a hybrid player without too much noise and could really help the add-on market for X-360. Not a fan of HD-DVD, but the hybrid will lower the cost of moving to HD.
Laurence wrote on 6/27/2007, 7:35 PM
There is no way that Bluray is going away. The question is whether or not HD DVD can survive. I'm hoping it does because red laser HD DVD is such an inexpensive and effective HD content delivery medium. What I'd love to see is for HD DVD to hold on and not give up long enough for dual format players to gain a foothold. That way we can all have the best of both worlds: extended content Bluray movies at Blockbuster, and cheap HD DVD format DVD+-Rs to deliver our own HD masterpieces on (up to 50 minutes anyway)!

Hopefully this HP player is a sign of more dual format players to come.