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Ed Yeates ReportingThe DVD player you now have is about to become obsolete.
Major motion picture companies have been working with a Utah based company to start packaging new discs. And herein lays the GOTCHA. We'll need a new machine to play them!
It's the same size, even looks like your conventional DVD. But try playing it on your current machine - it won't! That's right; you'll need a new player.
Warren Osborn/ CEO, Seastone: "With HDDVD, the cost is about 500- to 700 dollars initially. Of course, the prices will come down. Blue Ray is going to launch somewhere between a thousand and 18-hundred dollars per machine."
Two formats - HDDVD and Blue Ray - are both competing against each other to become the chosen one. For production houses?
Osborn: "You could put a whole series, a TV series, on one disc."
Both high definition formats, we're told, will blow you away.
Osborn: "Better everything. Better picture. Better quality. More features. Better package. It's just really going to take home entertainment and TV to a whole new level."
Utah's Seastone Corporation will package both formats. That's why CEO Warren Osborne isn't taking sides.
Osborn: "We're making our package for either format, so whichever lasts, or if both last."
The rub for consumers-- a quandary once they get to the retail shelves. In addition to their conventional DVD's everybody has now, they're going to have to choose between HDDVD in the red case or Blue Ray in the blue case.
Seastone's packaging will also be high tech. New security features will prevent theft, even if someone tries to pry a case open.
Electronic gurus will probably buy right away, investing in whatever machine is needed to play the format they choose. But for most consumers, they'll probably wait until the marketing fray is over, until prices drop.
The HDDVD's will arrive on shelves in about two weeks. Blue Ray will hit the market two months from now.
