Thinkpads Forum

This is a lenovo released comparison report. It will tell you the difference among 3 T61 and between 2 R61 models.

Bluray is going to be an option soon for T61/p.

Is that chart even accurate? I just ordered a T61 widescreen 14 inch and the only way I could get the 4 in 1 card reader was by scrapping the ExpressCard slot.

Unfortunately Lenovo did not offer a ExpressCard + 4 in 1 card reader option

I believe the comparison table does not talk about Express Card at all.

Secondly this table does not deal with buying constraints, it's merely for informative purposes.

I wonder why there cant be a cheaper HD DVD option. Bluray is like 710$ in dell While some dell laptops cost 499

released?

looks like an internal Lenovo slide to me.

snife wrote:released?

Not yet but will be soon.

snife wrote:looks like an internal Lenovo slide to me.

Indeed.

I did find it interesting though for the comparision table between T61 and R61 - it just highlights how little point there is having both T and R series anymore.

Can you really buy Blu-ray for the R61 today? I've seen it in some of the "feature" lists but not truly orderable yet.

Anyway, I hope to add Blu-ray to my T61p, so I am encouraged.

Yeah, I have an R61 with bluray (wish they went with HD-DVD though - bluray seems an odd choice for a previous member of the dvd-r camp), the 9mm drives always take much longer to arrive.

snife wrote: bluray seems an odd choice..

Thanks.
I think HD-DVD is close to going under. Its movie sales are running about 50% of blu-ray.

Maybe if you read Sony's reporting of the facts but it varies - Bluray is having a push now because of the PS3 and the the sheer volume of free disks that were given away - this will probably flip in the next month now that HD DVD is giving away 5 disks with each player. However, I personally dont think there will be a winner, in the end there will be dual format players and the early adopters will be punished as usual.

My point about it being an odd choice is that Bluray is from the same type of group that was behind DVD+R (the more popular of the 2 formats I think) but IBM was a member of the DVD-R group and gripped onto that format for years (by disabling the DVD+R functionality on drives which supported it).

Does DVD+R and DVD-R refer to the direction of spin, clockwise or counter-clockwise?

barrywohl wrote:Does DVD+R and DVD-R refer to the direction of spin, clockwise or counter-clockwise?

No no, just different formats of media that differ with the way they are burned by the laser, its a very similar situation to the difference between hd-dvd and bluray I believe.

barrywohl wrote:I think HD-DVD is close to going under. Its movie sales are running about 50% of blu-ray.

That's odd. I thought I had read that the porn industry had picked HD-DVD over Blu-ray?

nonny wrote:

barrywohl wrote:I think HD-DVD is close to going under. Its movie sales are running about 50% of blu-ray.

That's odd. I thought I had read that the porn industry had picked HD-DVD over Blu-ray?

well yeah, they have but i think the main death of HD DVD is the fact that Blu-Ray is being pushed more. Sony must be paying off some peoples or something. When you go to Best Buy (around here) Blu-Ray movies are displayed on 50" 1080p glorious displays while the HD-DVD is displayed on smaller 32" ones as far as i saw. I never saw 2 setups right beside each other, one playing HD-DVD and one Blu-Ray on the same type of TVs.

What's the likelihood of a UltraBay Slim 9.5mm HD-DVD/Blu-Ray dual format burner, though? Media costs are prohibitive (Hell, DVD-DL still is), so I'm not jumping in anytime soon, but I see me using my T61 for some time and would probably upgrade given the chance.

That reminds me...how's holodisc technology coming along? Is it anywhere near laptop-size compatibility?

Tholek wrote:What's the likelihood of a UltraBay Slim 9.5mm HD-DVD/Blu-Ray dual format burner, though?

Likelihood is high in the long term i think - maybe not a dual format burner but at least a burner for one and reader for the other, desktop drives already exist so i'd expect 18 months - 2 years, my DVD collection isn't even complete yet so I personally have no intention of migrating to HD media anytime soon anyway although I might use it for backups if the media price comes down a bit.

I wonder how much the Blu-ray drives for t61/p will cost...

I though HD-DVD will be the one. I know bluray has many technical advantages but the price is also much higher than HD-DVD (both for the optical drive and the media).