Where are the Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD read-only drives?

[NTB]

What's the point of implementing H.264 acceleration if you have to go out and spend just as much for an HD-capable PC drive (even if it does have write capabilities) as you would for a stand-alone, set-top player?

Nathan

 

[dwcal]

The Xbox360 HD-DVD is read-only and costs $200. It connects to PCs over USB, and I think it works for video playback. It's still not a good deal with standalone HD-DVD players dropping to $250.

http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2006/11/8303/

 

[jkresh]

there are usb 2 hd-dvd players for just over $100 if you look (and the xbox drive works fine and is widely available), as far as I know there are no blue ray player's only recorders but they are coming down in price (can be found closer to $400 if you look, which isnt too bad). By winter I would suspect that it will be fairly easy to find recorders of either type for around $300 or so and dual format recorders should be around that price by next summer.

 

[Gatt]

Pioneer makes a read only BR drive, it's fairly rare at the moment, but it's out there.

http://dfwdepot.com/opticstor/...t_info&products_id=258

Not sure if you can find it elsewhere, haven't started looking myself because my 7800GTX isn't HDCP. But it's starting to hit the retailers now, and $275 for BR isn't a bad deal if your goal is to watch movies and not burn.

 

[ForumMaster]

LG already had a drive that reads both formats for around $400 and a similar drive that also writes to Blu-ray for $500.