Not so fast
Check out this article. Intel will try and bring Toshiba and Sony back to the bargaining table once again. Check out Intel's comments about being able to copy HD DVD's to a hard drive. If HD will permit this and BD won't that will seal my support for HD. Interesting comments from Intel:
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
October 5, 2005; Page A12
TOKYO -- Intel Corp. wants to take the initiative in bringing to the table two groups competing to set the technological standard for next-generation DVDs, an executive said.
In what could turn out to be a blow to the Sony Corp. camp that is promoting the Blu-ray standard, Intel and Microsoft Corp. expressed their support for the rival HD-DVD format in late September. Toshiba Corp. leads the consortium pushing the HD DVD.
The two groups aren't in talks to unify the two incompatible standards and plan to roll out DVD-hardware products based on their separate formats starting this year.
Donald MacDonald, vice president of Intel's Digital Home Group, said the announcement last month doesn't mean Intel is discounting Blu-ray.
"We are not excluding anything," he said, though he didn't say how Intel intends to bring the two rivals together.
The world's largest chip maker, based in Santa Clara, Calif., is committed to achieving what consumers want -- one format for high-definition DVDs, Mr. MacDonald said in a meeting with reporters after a speech at an electronics-industry convention, Ceatec Japan 2005, being held in Makuhari, near Tokyo.
"We have to avoid the format war" that will prevent consumers from experiencing the high-definition DVD world, he said. "We certainly need to have one format."
Intel and Microsoft, however, see the HD-DVD standard as a more consumer-friendly format at the moment, he said.
Under the "mandatory-managed copy" concept that the HD-DVD group has endorsed, users can load DVD content onto a hard-disk drive and view the material with a remote display device anywhere in the home, such as a personal computer or a TV in another room.
This is precisely the kind of digital consumer electronics that Intel is pursuing with its new technology, Mr. McDonald said. Without such a feature, "it's a problem," he said.
