The on-again, off-again story of advanced optical-disc recording will keep consumers on tenterhooks yet again this autumn, with manufacturers in the Blu-ray camp still not ready to introduce their movie-players to the huge European market.
Pioneer, one of the stalwarts of the Blu-ray camp, admitted this week it would not be ready to launch the players by the time of the Sept. 1 to Sept. 6 trade fair IFA in Berlin, the principal European consumer electronics show.
Toshiba, leader of the camp that makes the rival standard, the HD-DVD, insists it will be ready to roll in Europe when the Berlin show opens. Both camps have had a rocky beginning in Japan and the US.
At a briefing in Germany, Pioneer said it still had no "concrete" plans for a European launch, but believed the January 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Blu-ray makers hope to offer movie-players in bulk, would "lay the ground" for a Europe launch.
Blu-ray is a disc format that uses the light of blue lasers to read tiny pits in the surface of a disc. CD-ROMs, which are only used today for music, were conceived to hold 0.7 gigabytes of data, DVDs for 4.7 gigabytes per layer and Blu-ray discs for 25 gigabytes.
HD-DVD discs, made to the rival specifications of Toshiba and allies, can only cram 15 gigabytes on a single layer, but are easier to manufacture, and what is more important, have reached the market quicker.
Toshiba says it will release a HD-DVD player for European shoppers in a Toshiba-designed case at IFA, but cannot yet disclose what components will be inside, or what the box will cost.
That information is only likely to be finalized on Sept. 1, the German arm of the Japanese consumer electronics group said in the port city of Hamburg this week.
US consumers say it is has been difficult to obtain Toshiba players. This has led to allegations that Toshiba may be making a loss on US sales of the devices priced at US$499 and US$799.
While both HD-DVD and Blu-ray devices are already available for data storage on computers, the discs' main use will be for selling pre-recorded movies in superb, high-definition quality that will make existing DVD films look grainy by comparison.
It might need 50 gigabytes to store a full-length feature film at top quality. To do so will require triple-layer, 45-gigabyte HD-DVD discs. Blu-ray promises with two layers and a capacity of 50 gigabytes.
Sold on the next-generation discs, console games will have stunning graphics and will fit onto a single disc. But consumers will find it exasperating to have to choose between two incompatible standards in the shops.
Most of the hold-up has been blamed on special software to prevent illegal copying of movies.
A German computer magazine reported that the software still does not completely prevent copying. CT said it tested both HD-DVD and Blu-ray devices with software that takes a snapshot of every single picture of a movie and then recombines these into a new film.
CT said the conversion software, which reintegrates the audio as well, worked on Windows XP systems. It said it tested a Sony personal computer with a Blu-ray drive and a Toshiba notebook with a HD-DVD drive. Both makers say updated software will soon prevent this.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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