HP Blu-Ray drive - really plays HDDVD too?

Just wanting to make sure that this is, in fact, a dual Bluray/HDDVD drive? I would have thought that there'd be much more noise about this if true?

From the HP web-site - opens in a separate window copied below

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s...and&v1=HP+Pavilion&series_name=dv9700t_series

"Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), is a next-generation optical disc format developed to enable playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as the storage of large amounts of data. This format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs—you can put up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc. This extra capacity, combined with the use of advanced video and audio programs for encoding and decoding digital signals (known as codecs), means an unprecedented HD experience.

Storage capabilities of Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc HD DVD Traditional DVD Traditional CD
Storage capacity 25GB (single-layer)
50GB (dual-layer) 15GB (single-layer)
30GB (dual-layer) 4.7GB (single-layer)
8.5GB (single-layer) Less than 1GB

What are the advantages of HP's Blu-ray Disc player?
It's engineered to take full advantage of BD technology while being compatible with other high-definition (HD) DVD technology, plus it's backwards-compatible with traditional DVD and CD technology. It reads BD discs, reads HD DVD discs, and reads and writes traditional DVDs and CDs.

Capabilities of HP's Blu-ray Disc player
Blu-ray Disc HD DVD Traditional DVD Traditional CD
Read Yes Yes Yes Yes
Write No No Yes Yes "


Cheers

Martin

 

yes, it looks like that's the case! pretty amazing, i didn't even know that such a drive existed one-up for HP

 

Not one-up for HP, one-up for whichever company manufactures that. But definitely cool if true.

 

"DISCLAIMERS: HD DVD discs cannot be played on this Notebook PC."

Looks like HP is just trying to mislead customers, they're actually saying it can upscale regular DVDs to HD (note the term "(HD) DVD" used).

 

Idiots. That will go really well with customers when that hits the fan.

 

Whats misleading is the whole High Definition description for HDDVD and Blu_Ray. When you select to customize you get a choice between a Blu-Ray or a HDDVD player.

 

link (might resize window)

kinda hard to fake if you asked me

 

Then, if you read the disclaimers on the BluRay drive it says:

"DISCLAIMERS: HD DVD discs cannot be played on this Notebook PC."

 

D'oh - thought it was too good to be true

Cheers

Martin

 

Any why the hell is the Blue Ray more expensive ????