I was at fry's and saw they were selling recordable HD-DVDs and Blu ray discs, but I couldn't find any burners/players. anyone have any links?

Do a search for "toshiba laptop hd-dvd". I don't think there are any separate drives available, yet. Other computers are also starting to have HDDVD as an option, but the laptops have been shipping for awhile.

yea ive seen the toshiba laptop and i think an HP HTPC. So they are selling writeable discs for both formats, but there are no writers available? Has there been any mention of a just an internal drive scheduled for release?

I'm not sure. Someone else may know more.

The Xbox 360 HD-DVD addon works as a player, they have tested it with the new WinDVD that supports HD and BD. You'll need HDCP compatible monitor and video card of course.

Just out of curiousity, how much were the discs going for?

What I was going to say. WinDVD is $99 though, so roughly $300 to enter the HD-DVD world considering that you have a monitor, and video card.

The new WinDVD is not available yet. You're thinking about Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra. And you don't need an HDCP monitor/card if you're using VGA or Component.

it was something insane like $25 for HD-DVD and i think $40 for Blu ray. There were different brands for blu ray and only 1 for HD-DVD.

I'm using a computer with a non-hdcp video card and the dell 24inch LCD connected via DVI, so I wouldn't be able to use the 360 as a drive then?

You can - if you use analog DVI. Digital DVI requires HDCP, I believe.

do you know how to tell the difference? doesnt the D in DVI stand for digital? wow and they wonder why J6P doesnt care about HD-DVD/BR

Take a look at the connectors here. DVI supports both analog and digital, digital only, or analog only.

Nope I was thinking about WinDVD.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2074264,00.asp

Both of those are less than VHS was at first, IIRC. Insanity is just a viewpoint.

u dont think a single blank recordable disc for $40 is insane?

Not really. If you go buy one today, you'll be about the 12th consumer to do so. Early adoption of technology is very expensive. In 3 years they will probably be a couple bucks each. If they catch on for PC users.

Nobody mentioned it yet, but aren't all the HDDVD drives now available just readers? I don't recall seeing a writer that was shipping. So the blank HDDVD is strange to me.

There is a thread on AVS that taks about how to get the XBox HD DVD player running on almost any PC with the new PowerDVD ULTRA software... $99 bucks!

While this may be the most cost effective way to get HDDVD on your PC, I would gladly wait for an internal, read-only drive myself.

There are some great new drives available from Toshiba, which they showed at CES.

The 903 is a desktop half height drive with read/write of dual layer, plus DVD and CD.

The 902 is a laptop 12.5 mm read/write dual layer drive.

http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Pat...0659c00002f5e/

This is probably a gray area discussion, but this raises interesting possibilities, like can you take a ripped HD-DVD image and play it on PowerDVD (for those of us with HTPC capabilities).

Yes, you can. And I don't see it as a "Gray" area. Consumers still have fair use rights, despite the best efforts of the studios to take them away.

I think you mean, best efforts of Congress. And you have no fair use rights on DVD, or via any "ripping" method of copying HDDVD. Sorry, call your Representative if you don't like it.

The only HD-DVD that can be copied and played from a hard drive right now is EAGLES-FAREWELL TOUR 1-LIVE MELBOURNE. All HD-DVD's except this one have AACS (Advanced Access Content System) implemented which prevents hard drive playback at this time. If you are interested in a using your system as a Home Theater Computer I would recommend you read up about it at AVS Forums HTC
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26

A few HD-DVDs have been AACS cracked, from what I've read, once the AACS group has determined the means by which this is accomplished all new HD-DVD's will contain a lockout and only play on an updated player (Software/Hardware) to close the security hole.

No, I meant what I said. Best efforts of Hollywood. Are you oblivious to the millions of dollars they shuffle Congress under the table in lobbying funds?

AACS was never "cracked". Title keys were simply deduced from a software player that failed to protect them in memory.

And it is possible to play these decrypted titles from a hard drive.