NEC developing chip to allow both blue-laser formats to be read in single drive
There's emerging news that NEC have developed a chipset that can read (or perhaps more accurately, decode) both HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. As we've reported before, Ricoh have developed an optical component that can read both disc formats (the laser itself is the same but as the data is stored at different depths it's the lens that needs to change), and apparently NEC would develop this technology to be used in conjunction with Ricoh's solution.
That's interesting because there wasn't any obvious mention by Ricoh that their solution wasn't standalone, but presumably it's not. If a chip is required to actually decode the data stored on each disc, then it sounds as if NEC and Ricoh will be dependent upon one another. Two sets of overheads?
Other issues: Well, as always there's licensing issues, and Sony at least don't sound too keen to grant them to dual-format boxes. Price? Hybrids will be more expensive than single-format players, as you'd expect, but not as expensive as buying one of each.
It's a good solution if it can be licensed - better for consumers than choosing a format or buying hybrid discs for sure. There's some hurdles to jump before it goes live, though.
(Via Akihabara News)
