Bye Bye Toshiba: Samsung Ships the First Blu-Ray Player
asj
The format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD has finally reached
consumers, now that Samsung is shipping the BD-P1000 Blu-Ray player to
retailers. The BD-P1000 ($999.99 list), will go on sale June 25th,
making it the first Blu-Ray player to hit the market. Until now, the
only high-definition video player shoppers could buy has been the
Toshiba HD-A1, which has been in short supply.
The BD-P1000 is twice the price of the HD-A1, but Jim Sanduski, senior
vice president of marketing for Samsung's Audio and Video Products
Group, says that won't hurt sales. "Dealer demand is really strong,"
Sanduski says. "Yes, we are double the price of HD-DVD, but we are
confident people will buy as many as we can build."
The Samsung BD-P1000 supports full 1080p playback, something the first
generation of HD-DVD players do not. The BD-P1000 also up-converts
conventional DVDs to 1080p to improve video quality. The player comes
with HDMI, Component, S-video, and composite outputs. Samsung has also
included a 10-in-2 multi-memory-card interface for viewing digital
images directly from flash cards.
There will be just 10 Blu-Ray titles available when the BD-P100 ships,
including 50 First Dates, The Fifth Element, Hitch, House of Flying
Daggers, A Knight's Tale, The Last Waltz, Resident Evil Apocalypse, and
xXx. Sanduski says by the end of year the number of titles will swell
to as many as 200.
This is one area where Blu-Ray could have a potential advantage over
HD-DVD. "Eighty-four percent of all the movies released last year were
made by studios that have announced support for Blu-Ray," according to
Sanduski. "That is a huge strike against HD-DVD." To be fair, some
studios plan to release movies on both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.
asj
I have been canvassing HD-DVD and have seen unsold players and movie
titles here in NJ. Since Toshiba is widely-held to be subsidizing the
cost of HDDVD, you gotta wonder how long a company like Toshiba (which
is much smaller than the manufacturers who are shipping Blu-ray like
Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, etc) can last ;-)
rande...@gmail.com
asj wrote:
> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1977327,00.asp
>
> The format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD has finally reached
> consumers, now that Samsung is shipping the BD-P1000 Blu-Ray player to
> retailers. The BD-P1000 ($999.99 list)
>
much
about consumers.
Mark Jones
for less than $300.
Tarkus
Early adopters typically have more disposable income than most, and are
more willing to pay a premium for what they want. Both sides will be far
more affordable by the time this gets anywhere near mainstream.
--
"I did my duty, now I'd like to get on with my life. I'm going to
Tombstone."
Now playing: "Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush - He's Calling"
asj
> $1000 versus $500. You really think Toshiba will tank? You don't know
> much
about consumers.
considering these are targeted towards early adopters and the well-off,
and considering blu-ray has significantly greater storage, content, and
other capabilitles - uh, yes toshiba is in trouble. sales of toshiba
hddvd titles are already slow....
Joshua Zyber
news:1150462700.6...@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> The format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD has finally reached
> consumers, now that Samsung is shipping the BD-P1000 Blu-Ray player to
> retailers.
And initial reports are that it's a complete piece of crap.
Tarkus
Odd, considering it just shipped, and doesn't go on sale till the 25th.
--
"Here's to swimmin' with bow-legged women."
Now playing: "Bill Ward - Along The Way"
Alpha
"Joshua Zyber" <josh...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:D6ydna88B99spQ7Z...@comcast.com...
Not true.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Samsung_BD_P1000/4505-6463_7-31799185-2.html?tag=nav
Joshua Zyber
news:nlgx4fca...@tarkus.karnevil9.com...
>> And initial reports are that it's a complete piece of crap.
>
> 25th.
The players have been leaking out from retailers selling them early. A
number of people on AVSForum have them.
"Alpha" <no...@none.net> wrote in message
news:1296pu7...@corp.supernews.com...
> Not true.
>
> http://reviews.cnet.com/Samsung_BD_P1000/4505-6463_7-31799185-2.html?tag=nav
1) When has CNET ever been a reliable source for technical reviews?
2) The writer of that article says in it that he only had the player for
3 hours and didn't do much with it.
Alpha
Show one review that states they are a piece of crap (or anything like
that).
Roy L. Fuchs
>Blu-ray uses Java and supports Linux.
So does the Toshiba player, you retarded twit.
>
>I have been canvassing HD-DVD and have seen unsold players and movie
>titles here in NJ. Since Toshiba is widely-held to be subsidizing the
>cost of HDDVD, you gotta wonder how long a company like Toshiba (which
>is much smaller than the manufacturers who are shipping Blu-ray like
>Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, etc) can last ;-)
You're an idiot. They aren't subsidizing anything.
>
>
You're a fucking cut and paste retard!
Roy L. Fuchs
Roy L. Fuchs
Gave us:
>On 6/16/2006 4:04:20 PM, Joshua Zyber wrote:
>
>> "asj" <kali...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:1150462700.6...@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>>> The format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD has finally reached
>>> consumers, now that Samsung is shipping the BD-P1000 Blu-Ray player
>>> to retailers.
>>
>> And initial reports are that it's a complete piece of crap.
>
>Odd, considering it just shipped, and doesn't go on sale till the 25th.
Idiot. Magazines review sample models long before release dates in
the past. (Xbox 360) Why should now be any different?
Roy L. Fuchs
My review...
$1000! HA! That's a TOTAL piece of CRAP!
There ya go. There's one review that says they are a piece of crap.
Jay G.
Says who?
Anyway, Amazon is not a good indicator of overall popularity. It's just
one online retailer.
-Jay
Jay G.
> On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 20:56:29 -0700, "Alpha" <no...@none.net> Gave us:
>>>
>>
>>Show one review that states they are a piece of crap (or anything like
>>that).
>>
>
> My review...
>
> $1000! HA! That's a TOTAL piece of CRAP!
Funny, since you've said that cheaper items were more likely pieces of
crap.
Can you find a *relevant* review that slams the machine? Like, a review by
someone who's actually *used* it?
-Jay
Eli Renfro
Toshiba manufactures HD-DVD movies?
Rich
Oddly enough, when Sony was shipping their $1600 DVD player, Toshiba
and Panasonic
both shipped $300 and $600 players so back then people other than
"early adopters"
were being catered to.
GMAN
Roy L. Fuchs
You're an idiot. I said nothing about a popularity contest,
dipshit.
> It's just
>one online retailer.
>
and you are just one online twit.
I have disc orders that are not shipped as they are awaiting
inventory.
asj
My my someone forgot to take their vitamins today...
Jay G.
> In article <1gp5g2izuq7ym$.vfyczr8f...@40tude.net>, "Jay G." <J...@tmbg.org> wrote:
>>>>considering these are targeted towards early adopters and the well-off,
>>>>and considering blu-ray has significantly greater storage, content, and
>>>>sales of toshiba hddvd titles are already slow....
>>>
>>> Is that why Amazon can't keep up?
>>
>>Says who?
>>
>>Anyway, Amazon is not a good indicator of overall popularity. It's just
>>one online retailer.
>>
> One if not the largest.
True, but it's still capable of skewed results. Take these DVD sales
rankings for example:
http://www.videobusiness.com/topDVDSellers.asp?layout=marketData
Now for this week, June 11, 2006, the #1 Amazon seller is the #1 overall,
but then Amazon's #3 seller only made it to #10, while apparently Amazon's
#2 best seller didn't even make it into the top 20 overall.
Then, according to this site:
http://www.thedvdwars.com/index.cfm
As of June 15, 2006, the best selling HD DVD is ranked 1205th among Video
Discs sold at Amazon, which doesn't even beat the best selling Blu-Ray
disc, which is ranked at 1027.
-Jay
Jay G.
> On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 06:13:10 -0500, "Jay G." <J...@tmbg.org> Gave us:
>
>>On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 05:06:45 GMT, Roy L. Fuchs wrote:
>>
>>> On 16 Jun 2006 14:15:05 -0700, "asj" <kali...@yahoo.com> Gave us:
>>>>sales of toshiba hddvd titles are already slow....
>>>
>>> Is that why Amazon can't keep up?
>>
>>Says who?
>>
>>Anyway, Amazon is not a good indicator of overall popularity.
>
> You're an idiot. I said nothing about a popularity contest,
> dipshit.
Really? asj said that HD DVD disc sales were slow, and you offered Amazon
as a counter. Unless you were suggesting Amazon as indicative of overall
sales, what you wrote would be completely meaningless since it doesn't
contradict what asj said at all.
>>It's just
>>one online retailer.
>
> I have disc orders that are not shipped as they are awaiting
> inventory.
Which discs?
In any case, being out of inventory doesn't mean the discs are selling very
well. All it means is that they're out of inventory. The inventory issues
could very well be because of manufacturing issues or because the titles
simply aren't being shipped in large quantities.
-Jay
asj
Roy L. Fuchs wrote:
> Is that why Amazon can't keep up?
As I've posted before, low inventories does not exactly equate to hot
sales. Also, as I again noted before, even Warner has scaled DOWN its
HDDVD titles because of low sales volumes for HDDVD.
HD-DVD sales sluggish
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6332298.html
After a couple of weeks of availability, HD DVD is proving to be a slow
go at retail.
Toshiba is limiting its initial shipment of HD DVD players (VB, 4-13),
and with relatively few hardware units in the market, Warner Home Video
is restricting HD DVD title shipments to retail accordingly (VB, 2-10).
Non-hardware regional chain Newbury Comics has not sold one copy of its
HD DVD stock despite pricing its titles at about $20, a few dollars
less than rival New England area Best Buys.
"We've drilled down the margin on this to see if there is
interest," Newbury buyer Ian Leshin said. "There is customer
curiosity, and they say we're a lot cheaper than anyone else. But we
haven't sold a single unit."
Erik Funkenbusch
> HD-DVD sales sluggish
>
> http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6332298.html
When are these guys going to figure out that people aren't going to just
jump on the latest gadget unless there is a compelling reason to do so?
Fact is, few people want to buy into one technology or the other right now
while it's uncertain, and given the whole issues with DRM and Sony's
rootkit, and other issues, people are wary about buying into any highly
restrictive technology.
Of course the manufacturers won't get it. They'll just think nobody wants
high definition movies.
John Bailo
>
> Roy L. Fuchs wrote:
>> Is that why Amazon can't keep up?
>
> As I've posted before, low inventories does not exactly equate to hot
> sales.
cf. XBox 360
--
Texeme Textcasting powers
http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
Derek Janssen
>
> As I've posted before, low inventories does not exactly equate to hot
> sales. Also, as I again noted before, even Warner has scaled DOWN its
> HDDVD titles because of low sales volumes for HDDVD.
>
> HD-DVD sales sluggish
>
> http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6332298.html
Ah, here's a thought:
Maybe less than ten percent of the population have actually GOT a hi-def
digital screen yet??
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray: The Esperanto of the home-theater industry.
Derek Janssen
eja...@comcast.net
Derek Janssen
> On 17 Jun 2006 20:04:00 -0700, asj wrote:
>
>
>>HD-DVD sales sluggish
>>
>>http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6332298.html
>
>
> When are these guys going to figure out that people aren't going to just
> jump on the latest gadget unless there is a compelling reason to do so?
“With every new technology, it will take awhile to pick up,” Bjorn’s
assistant buyer Xavier Dominguez said. “It’s like when DVD first came out.”
Er...No, it isn't:
You could play the first DVD's on your computer. You could play DVD's
on your Playstation. You could buy a DVD movie at a computer store,
hook them up to whatever low-tech item would decipher them that you were
already using anyway, and whatever you used, you could play them on your
old TV set. And even *then*, they made you never want to look at your
VHS tapes again--You wished for a world where "rewinding" had become
obsolete, and saw the doorway open.
We didn't buy DVD's because they were "sort of better". If that were
the reasoning, we'd be watching S-VHS to this day.
(Basically, the only reason the current industry thinks that any hi-def
format or any other new post-DVD movie delivery will "catch on" is the
main reason that they're convinced any *other* new technology will
"catch on" just for showing up: Blind panic, and terror of the unknown.
Corporate execs and industry analysts, deep down, don't really know WHY
DVD suddenly caught fire the way it did in '99--And as long as they
cann't come up with a nice, marketable reason they can take credit for,
and the phenomena remains a mystery to them, why then, gosh...it could
happen again! At any moment! 0_0
Causing them to suddenly hunker down in survivalist defense-battle mode
the second any new format shows up, and prepare for it to Change the
World again the moment it looks at them cross-eyed.)
> Of course the manufacturers won't get it. They'll just think nobody wants
> high definition movies.
Well...they'll be partly right.
Derek Janssen
eja...@comcast.net
Jay G.
> asj wrote:
>>
>> http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6332298.html
>
> Ah, here's a thought:
> Maybe less than ten percent of the population have actually GOT a hi-def
> digital screen yet??
>
> HD-DVD and Blu-Ray: The Esperanto of the home-theater industry.
Probably more like the espresso of the HT market, or the cappuccino.
Something of a niche product for a number of years, until you turn around
and suddenly it's available *everywhere*. Kinda like DVD when it first
came out.
-Jay
Jay G.
> Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
>
>> On 17 Jun 2006 20:04:00 -0700, asj wrote:
>>
>>
>>>HD-DVD sales sluggish
>>>
>>>http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6332298.html
>>
>>
>> When are these guys going to figure out that people aren't going to just
>> jump on the latest gadget unless there is a compelling reason to do so?
>
> “With every new technology, it will take awhile to pick up,” Bjorn’s
> assistant buyer Xavier Dominguez said. “It’s like when DVD first came out.”
>
> Er...No, it isn't:
> You could play the first DVD's on your computer. You could play DVD's
> on your Playstation.
No you couldn't. You could play DVDs on your *new* computer, provided it
came with a DVD-ROM drive, or on your Playstation *2*.
> You could buy a DVD movie at a computer store,
> hook them up to whatever low-tech item would decipher them that you were
> already using anyway,
No, you couldn't. DVD required the purchase of new hardware, there were no
way to upgrade something you already had when it first came out. Sometimes
it could play on something new you were going to buy *anyway*, like a
videogame system or new computer, but it was still a new purchase.
Incidentally, Blu-Ray and HD DVD are the same way. Blu-Ray will be
playable on the Playstation *3*, and HD DVD and Blu-Ray drives for PCs are
or will be available.
> and whatever you used, you could play them on your old TV set.
Well, technically you can with Blu-Ray and HD DVD as well. The difference
would be you won't see an improvement over DVD on a standard definition
set, wheras DVD offered an improvement over VHS even on a std def set.
> We didn't buy DVD's because they were "sort of better".
HD DVD and Blu-Ray aren't "sort of better." They provide up to a 6x
increase in resolution, with built-in progressive storage of the image for
better quality.
The main difference with HD discs over DVD is that HD requires upgrading
the monitor in addition to the player. Here, however, is the situation
where some people can actually attach a HD player up to something they
already have, namely a HD monitor.
The biggest thing that's hurting HD discs is the competing formats. Much
more people would be buying HD DVD already if there wasn't Blu-Ray coming
around the corner. Nobody wants to be left with a player from the losing
side, which is why it's not surprising the strongest HD DVD defenders are
those that own it.
-Jay
Kimba W. Lion
>they're convinced any *other* new technology will
>"catch on" just for showing up: Blind panic, and terror of the unknown.
>Corporate execs and industry analysts, deep down, don't really know WHY
>DVD suddenly caught fire the way it did in '99--And as long as they
>cann't come up with a nice, marketable reason they can take credit for,
>and the phenomena remains a mystery to them, why then, gosh...it could
>happen again! At any moment! 0_0
>
>Causing them to suddenly hunker down in survivalist defense-battle mode
>the second any new format shows up, and prepare for it to Change the
>World again the moment it looks at them cross-eyed.)
That's one of the best descriptions of corporate culture I've seen in a
while.
Kimba W. Lion
>HD DVD and Blu-Ray aren't "sort of better." They provide up to a 6x
>increase in resolution, with built-in progressive storage of the image for
>better quality.
Geek talk. 99.9% of the buying public won't know at all and will care even
less.
Joshua Zyber
> Show one review that states they are a piece of crap (or anything like
> that).
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7849002#post7850079
Alright… after spending several days with the Samsung player and several
different Blu-ray discs, I feel I’ve got an excellent grasp on what you
can expect from this player and the format in general for the next few
months. Old readers of DVDFile might remember that I used to be one of
the site’s main reviewers for DVD content, so I do have a bit of a
background here. I’m going to focus on what I viewed to be the best
looking of the BD titles I viewed in addition to a title that hasn’t
been covered elsewhere: XXX. This is a title that provides for a longer
running time than most of the early BD titles (123 minutes) and also
contains lots of movement to test MPEG2’s abilities.
The short of it is that I completely agree with Andrew P and, by
extension, BigMikeATL. Blu-ray, as it exists today in both hardware and
software, is a good, but not great format. I’m starting to see a bit of
a pattern with these early BD titles as they generally are shorter films
with bright, colorful cinematography. Those are the conditions under
which MPEG2 BD looks its best. While I was initially questioning what
the early adopter appeal of films like Hitch or 50 First Dates could be,
now I can understand it.
Let’s start with SD ability as it compares to the Toshiba. Again, I put
the player in the very good but not great slot. I think the Toshiba
still presents a slightly sharper picture overall when compared to the
Samsung. But the Samsung is very much improved over their older models.
So if you owned an 841, 850, 941, or 950, you should be happy with the
improvement that the BD-P1000 provides. However, those previous models
provided an option to pillarbox 4:3 material and zoom 4:3 letterbox
images, neither of which is possible on the 1000. So the Toshiba gets a
point on that, but the Toshiba also lacks the ability to zoom 4:3
letterbox material, so shame on them both. But overall, advantage
Toshiba on SD DVD presentation.
For BD ability, I’m now going back to my XXX disc and BD in general. Had
this format and these titles launched in early April, I would have been
happy. Unfortunately for Blu-ray, HD-DVD launched in mid-April and did
two things to impair BD: They’ve gotten more titles out to consumers and
they’ve provided an HD experience that is better than BD. Now the
difference isn’t huge, but it should be noticeable, even to people who
might not normally see these kinds of things. Sorry to have to say it,
but BD is an unimpressive format in the shadow of HD-DVD. Had they
happened in reverse, HD-DVD would have had to work hard to impress upon
people that buying their player (even at half the price of BD) was worth
the effort for the slight improvement they offered. Now, BD is in a
position to justify a premium for a product that is slightly inferior to
what is already available. When I first cracked open the HD-A1 in April
and popped in that Last Samurai HD-DVD, I was wowed with what I thought
to be the best HD image my television had ever produced. The HD image
was smooth and rich with a sharpness and depth I’d never experienced.
Most of the HD-DVD titles released thus far (with a few now famous
exceptions) have this “pop” that takes them out of the realm of what I
would consider normal HD. The Blu-ray discs I’ve sampled thus far, while
they’ve looked good to even great, have all lacked that “pop” and
instead generally look a lot closer to good OTA HD broadcasts. If you
were to show me the XXX BD and tell me it was a Showtime broadcast, I
wouldn’t hesitate to think you were telling me the truth. But I would
never believe that about most of the HD-DVD titles out there right now.
The sad truth is that MPEG2 just isn’t cutting it against VC-1. Now
while it’s difficult to impossible to be able to judge the quality of
one film in one codec against a different film in a different codec, I
can stack the deck to try and approximate a decent comparison. I
compared XXX BD to Unforgiven HD-DVD. Unforgiven is 10 years older than
XXX, so this should have been a slam dunk for image quality in favor of
XXX. Guess what, the VC-1 Unforgiven consistently outperformed the MPEG2
of XXX. Just look at chapter 4 of Unforgiven. All of the characters are
sharply in focus, while the intricate detail in the background wallpaper
is consistently resolved. XXX, by contrast appears somewhat soft and
lacking in dimensionality. In all of the BD titles I viewed there’s a
consistent soft, yet noisy quality to the images that appears as a
mixture of natural film grain and digital noise. Fine details, such as
rocks on the ground or wall textures, are often seen flickering
slightly, which is often annoying.
I’m also curious about how many of these initial discs are truly 1080p.
I saw more stairstepping and artifacting throughout one viewing of XXX
than I have in 2+ months of HD-DVD viewings. Here’s a few moments for
reference… at :38 the tail of the Revolutions logo there is some pretty
good banding visible. Right after that, serious jaggies on the XXX logo
that starts the film. At 32:08, look at the grill of the car for more
jaggies while 10 seconds later, at 32:18, you’ll also get some pretty
good stairstepping at the base of the balcony. Unfortunately (or
fortunately, depending on how you view it), these artifacts don’t appear
on the SD Superbit version of the film when viewed on the Toshiba A1.
More surprising, they also don’t appear when the Superbit DVD is viewed
on the Samsung BD-P1000. The banding was visible on the Superbit, but it
was much less severe than the Blu-ray banding.
Essentially, from what I’ve seen so far, visually Blu-ray is, at its
best, all of the worst qualities of HD-DVD right now. If you’re someone
who was bothered by the HD-DVDs of The Fugitive, Full Metal Jacket, and
Perfect Storm, you’re not going to find a ton to like in some of these
early offerings. Again, they can look really, really good, but they don’t
consistently look great. How much of this is a byproduct of the Samsung
player is unknown until other players make it to market but a few things
are pretty clear…
Sony, as a company, has a lot riding on the success of Blu-ray. With as
much at stake as they have, these titles needed to raise the bar over
what we’ve already seen. But because as a company they seem to be more
focused on their royalties and the ability to cross promote, they have
succeeded in being the second to market with the second best product.
Here’s an example of what I mean… The XXX disc has a selection in its
menus for “Previews.” These are the SD MPEG2 trailers for Stealth, Into
the Blue, and SWAT. So there’s approx. 200-250MB taken up by Sony trying
to get you to buy other Sony products. With that space, Sony could have
instead done a few other things. Why not include the XXX trailer and the
Rob Cohen commentary? Why not use that 200MB to try and eliminate that
banding at the beginning of the movie? Instead, Sony appears to have
needed that space to get you to spend more money rather than providing
us with the best product to entice us to spend more money. Compare that
with the Warner and Universal titles, which are not only visually more
impressive, but also packed to the rims with bonus content. Universal
certainly didn’t need to include all the stuff from the more expensive 2
DVD Cinderella Man, but they did and provided an excellent value on that
disc.
Sony has two things that have to happen and happen fast in order for
Blu-ray to really make this a good race: They need to implement the
advanced video and audio codecs and they need to get 50GB discs working.
They have to do both of these and they have to do them fast. With only
50GB and still working MPEG2, they’re probably going to be able to equal
or hover slightly below HD-DVD as it exists now. With newer codecs but
only 25GB discs, they’ll be able to match HD-DVD visually, but will have
a 5GB disadvantage. Only with both of these in existence will this
format even have a chance. And they need to do this much sooner rather
than later. Unfortunately, by the time the Sony player launches in
mid-August, there are going to be maybe 30 titles available, while
HD-DVD, by that point in August, will be sporting double that and could
be up to as high as 75 different titles.
A few of the quirks about the Samsung BD-P1000 that I haven’t seen
mentioned yet are the resolution and audio settings. On the video side,
I’ve had a few instances where the resolution would change on the player
without me having to select it. It switched from the 1080i that I had
set it to to a very much inferior 720p setting that softened the picture
even more that I found it at 1080. I’ll be curious to see additional
comments as the player becomes more widely available and whether the
player switching itself from 1080 to 720 happens with others. On the
audio side, I’m running the player HDMI to a new Denon 3806 HDMI in.
Unfortunately, there seems to be something bungled with how the player
handles the bitstream vs. PCM tracks. To play the Dolby 5.1 track, the
player has to have the digital out in the player’s menu set to
“bitstream.” However, if you select one of the Sony uncompressed 5.1
tracks from the menu, it will only play back in 2-channel PCM. Selecting
PCM from the player menu will output 5.1 PCM via HDMI, but then converts
the Dolby tracks to 2-channel PCM. So you could potentially have to
change player settings depending on the disc and soundtrack you want to
hear. Can anyone else using their player via HDMI confirm this behavior?
Ultimately, the potential is there for Blu-ray to succeed, but it is
unclear when that potential might be approached. For all of the
complaints about HD-DVD not being ready for primetime, I think that
despite all of its faults, the bottom line is that HD-DVD delivered the
big jump up in picture quality and interactivity that many of us were
anticipating and has set the bar in terms of HD. Blu-ray, unfortunately,
has failed to go “Beyond High Definition.”
Cliff
Equipment list:
Toshiba 50” 50H13 DVI in from
Denon 3806 HDMI out and in from
Samsung BD-P1000 HDMI out and
Toshiba HD-A1 HDMI out
Jeff Rife
> "Alpha" <no...@none.net> wrote in message
> news:1296vbc...@corp.supernews.com...
> > Show one review that states they are a piece of crap (or anything like
> > that).
>
> http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7849002#post7850079
Also, read this other post where the technical quality of both players
are tested:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7851027#post7851027
The BD-P1000 has a lot of flaws for a product that costs twice as much as
the HD-A1.
--
Jeff Rife | "Man, I thought Ultimate Robot Fighting was real,
| like pro wrestling, but it turns out it's fixed,
| like boxing."
| -- Philip J. Fry, "Futurama"
Derek Janssen
> On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 23:58:04 -0400, Derek Janssen wrote:
>
>
>>asj wrote:
>>
>>>http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6332298.html
>>
>>Ah, here's a thought:
>>Maybe less than ten percent of the population actually OWN a hi-def
>>digital screen yet??
>>
>>HD-DVD and Blu-Ray: The Esperanto of the home-theater industry.
>
> Probably more like the espresso of the HT market, or the cappuccino.
> Something of a niche product for a number of years, until you turn around
> and suddenly it's available *everywhere*.
Well, it's true that the companies who make the *makings* for widescreen
digital/HD screens are making them cheaper, so that companies can make
them more common in time for Everything to Change, rather like
auto-makers' sudden push to hybrid technology--
And now that it's easier for companies to mass-produce screens we can
even use, why, in three to five years, screens might be down
to...oh...dare we dream?...$900 or less!
So be patient, Toshiba and Philips--We'll be able to actually
buy/afford/need your product soon, and it's not like *forever*... :)
> Kinda like DVD when it first came out.
Uh, wonder why DVD *suddenly* happened in the summer of '99, and not a
slow evolution from it's '96-'97 opening in said niche-geek obscurity?
Might it have something to do with the "V-E Day" of DiVX suddenly
announcing bankruptcy, curious mainstream home-theater fans dancing in
the streets that the Format War Was Over If You Wanted It, and THEN it
was everywhere?
Kinda like VHS when it first came out.
(Me, I was there: I remember rushing down to Circuit City in June,
hoping to vulture a cheap salvage DVD-converted 'X player, by the time
they'd be *giving* them away--
But fortunately, salespeople at other stores told me the REAL reason 'X
had gone under, and I thought it wiser to splurge into debt with the
real thing, as I'd already made a place in my living room for one.)
In short, if we ARE going by history, one format will sell when the
other is dead, and not before. Sit tight, we got a nice...long...wait.
Derek Janssen (and y'know, that "Third Rock From the Sun" episode wasn't
*too long* before '99, if you look back)
eja...@comcast.net
Erik Funkenbusch
> You could play the first DVD's on your computer. You could play DVD's
> on your Playstation. You could buy a DVD movie at a computer store,
> hook them up to whatever low-tech item would decipher them that you were
> already using anyway, and whatever you used, you could play them on your
> old TV set. And even *then*, they made you never want to look at your
> VHS tapes again--You wished for a world where "rewinding" had become
> obsolete, and saw the doorway open.
> We didn't buy DVD's because they were "sort of better". If that were
> the reasoning, we'd be watching S-VHS to this day.
Umm.. Playstation DVD's came about long after DVD's had caught on. Most
computers didn't have DVD-ROM's until well after DVD's had caught on for
consumers. But much of the rest I agree with.
There was only one reason I bought a DVD player, and that's because The
Matrix came out on DVD 6 months before it came out on VHS. I think a lot
of other people bought DVD players for the same reason.
They need to find a few titles that people want so desperately on DVD and
make them available only on an HD format. They won't do that, though, for
a lot of reasons. The internet can short circuit any plan like that today.
Also, there will still be the concern about the format wars, which I think
is the single biggest factor. And the price is ridiculous, though I'm sure
that will come down over the next 6 months to a year.
Then, of course, there's the problem that only people who have High Def
TV's will want them, and that's a pretty small percentage today (though
growing), which means reasonable HD TV's (or even EDTV's) need to flood the
market.
> (Basically, the only reason the current industry thinks that any hi-def
> format or any other new post-DVD movie delivery will "catch on" is the
> main reason that they're convinced any *other* new technology will
> "catch on" just for showing up: Blind panic, and terror of the unknown.
No, the industry wants HD-DVD to catch on because they think it will solve
their current crisis with people copying movies. They just won't do what
is necessary to make that happen (create a single standard that can work on
all TV's)
>> Of course the manufacturers won't get it. They'll just think nobody wants
>> high definition movies.
>
> Well...they'll be partly right.
No, people want High Def movies, they just don't want to compromise to get
them.
Derek Janssen
>
>>And even *then*, they made you never want to look at your
>>VHS tapes again--You wished for a world where "rewinding" had become
>>obsolete, and saw the doorway open.
>>We didn't buy DVD's because they were "sort of better". If that were
>>the reasoning, we'd be watching S-VHS to this day.
>
> Matrix came out on DVD 6 months before it came out on VHS. I think a lot
> of other people bought DVD players for the same reason.
>
> They need to find a few titles that people want so desperately on DVD and
> make them available only on an HD format. They won't do that, though, for
> a lot of reasons. The internet can short circuit any plan like that today.
It's not the Internet, it's the fact that most movies that came out
during that Summer of Love had never been studio-restored, or available,
or only on VHS, up to that point--If you were thinking you now had to
"replace your entire tape collection", there was never a better time to
do it:
If it wasn't the Matrix, you bought your player because of SOME title
that was released between the summer of '99 and the spring of
'00...Okay, hands up, for how many was it the "Yellow Submarine"
restoration? :)
If they're selling a hi-def format on the down-convertable idea of
"Don't worry, you can still play your standard DVD's", I see a
particular flaw/difference from history right there.
And if they're not, I see an even bigger one.
Derek Janssen
dja...@comcast.net
Roy L. Fuchs
>No, you couldn't. DVD required the purchase of new hardware, there were no
>way to upgrade something you already had when it first came out. Sometimes
>it could play on something new you were going to buy *anyway*, like a
>videogame system or new computer, but it was still a new purchase.
There were NO software players at the time DVD was released, and the
ONLY player for a PC at the time was a creative labs job that REQUIRED
a hardware decoder card as well.
asj
> Joshua Zyber (josh...@comcast.net) wrote in alt.video.dvd:
> > "Alpha" <no...@none.net> wrote in message
> > news:1296vbc...@corp.supernews.com...
> > > Show one review that states they are a piece of crap (or anything like
> > > that).
> >
> > http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7849002#post7850079
>
> Also, read this other post where the technical quality of both players
> are tested:
>
> http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7851027#post7851027
Oh, goodie...reviews from a FORUM...i'm sure those people aren't
biased...ROTFLOL....
Face it, your HDDVD is selling as slow as can be, Warner is scaling
back its titles, and Blu-ray is starting to make waves even before it
comes out.....
End of game...checkmate!
Jay G.
Most of the advantages of DVD over VHS is "geek talk" when written out.
However, the public knew better image and sound when they saw and heard it,
and it will be the case here as well.
-Jay
Jay G.
>
> If they're selling a hi-def format on the down-convertable idea of
> "Don't worry, you can still play your standard DVD's", I see a
> particular flaw/difference from history right there.
The players for both formats are capable of playing DVDs, and can upconvert
them to 720 and 1080. However, I'm not sure what the "flaw/difference" is.
A lot of early DVD players were capable of playing VCDs, in addition to
audio CDs. PS2 could play PS1 games, PS3 will play PS2 games, and even
Xbox360 can play *some* Xbox games.
-Jay
Derek Janssen
>>
>>>HD DVD and Blu-Ray aren't "sort of better." They provide up to a 6x
>>>increase in resolution, with built-in progressive storage of the image for
>>>better quality.
>>
>>Geek talk. 99.9% of the buying public won't know at all and will care even
>>less.
>
> Most of the advantages of DVD over VHS is "geek talk" when written out.
What, you mean, like "Never having to fast-forward or rewind again", or
"Indestructible", or "Not worrying about the machine eating the tape"?
> However, the public knew better image and sound when they saw and heard it
Well, actually, no, they didn't:
The tech-geeks were the ones saying "Look at the clarity on 'Interview
With the Vampire!'...Just imagine how Twister will sound on your home
theater system!'"--
While the public were the ones saying "So, 'It's laserdisc but it's
not', what's the deal here?...Why aren't we just buying laserdisc? 0_o??"
(Now the "shelf" thing?--You had to start owning them for that to hook
you for life.
Having every movie come out at "sale" price was also a helpful
thunderbolt for VHS survivors.) :)
Derek Janssen (it was just DIFFERENT back then, okay?)
eja...@comcast.net
Jay G.
None of that contradicts what I wrote.
-Jay
Derek Janssen
> On Sun, 18 Jun 2006 14:19:50 -0400, Derek Janssen wrote:
>
>>If they're selling a hi-def format on the down-convertable idea of
>>"Don't worry, you can still play your standard DVD's", I see a
>>particular flaw/difference from history right there.
>
>
> The players for both formats are capable of playing DVDs, and can upconvert
> them to 720 and 1080. However, I'm not sure what the "flaw/difference" is.
The difference is, there's nothing we're "begging" to get that's not
already on DVD.
You could buy the Matrix, or Disney movie, or what have you, in a form
it had never existed before, and even "Bonus Features" seemed like a new
invention--
But Another Kind of DVD, Only Better Than the Old One, has sort of a
tough act to follow.
(Eg., Warner *could* have done their Matrix stunt and only sold
"Superman Returns" in hi-def format....But they didn't.
They weren't *that* stupid, and we're not that desperate nowadays.)
Derek Janssen
eja...@cocmast.net
Roy L. Fuchs
Roy L. Fuchs
DAmn! You actually said something that is correct.
Jay G.
>>
>> The players for both formats are capable of playing DVDs, and can upconvert
>> them to 720 and 1080. However, I'm not sure what the "flaw/difference" is.
>
> The difference is, there's nothing we're "begging" to get that's not
> already on DVD.
To be fair, with very few exceptions, there were very few older releases
that hadn't been released on VHS or LD at some point. Had DVD not come
along, new releases and re-releases would've continued to appear on VHS and
LD. And failing that, studios would've been restoring and retransfering
titles for HDTV. That's kinda the dirty secret of DVD: it is mainly
supplementing what studios would've had to have done for HDTV in any case.
> You could buy the Matrix, or Disney movie, or what have you, in a form
> it had never existed before,
Both Blu-Ray and HD DVD count as a "form it had never existed before."
> and even "Bonus Features" seemed like a new invention--
This was mainly a benefit of DVD combining the LD and VHS market. VHS
users got the advanced quality on features of LD, and LD users got the
prices of VHS.
> But Another Kind of DVD, Only Better Than the Old One, has sort of a
> tough act to follow.
No argument there. HD discs are not going to replace DVD as the dominant
video format any time soon. It's unlikely that HD discs will usurp DVD at
the rate that DVD usurped VHS. However, they are superior formats, and at
least one is eventually going to prevail, provided that people are still
buying videos on disc at that point.
> (Eg., Warner *could* have done their Matrix stunt and only sold
> "Superman Returns" in hi-def format....But they didn't.
What the hell are you talking about? Superman Returns isn't even out in
theaters yet. And the Matrix was available on VHS.
-Jay
Jay G.
> Jay G. wrote:
>>>
>>>>HD DVD and Blu-Ray aren't "sort of better." They provide up to a 6x
>>>>increase in resolution, with built-in progressive storage of the image for
>>>>better quality.
>>>
>>>Geek talk. 99.9% of the buying public won't know at all and will care even
>>>less.
>>
>> Most of the advantages of DVD over VHS is "geek talk" when written out.
>
> What, you mean, like "Never having to fast-forward or rewind again", or
> "Indestructible", or "Not worrying about the machine eating the tape"?
Okay, those features aren't so geek sounding, and are familiar to anyone
who owns a CD. However, I do have to take issue with "indestructible."
DVDs don't wear out like tapes, but tapes were a bit more hardy of a
transport system when dealing with actual people. I think Blockbuster was
able to get more rents out of a tape on average than DVDs. And you didn't
have to worry about a thumbprint ruining your viewing of a VHS.
>> However, the public knew better image and sound when they saw and heard it
>
> Well, actually, no, they didn't:
> The tech-geeks were the ones saying "Look at the clarity on 'Interview
> With the Vampire!'...Just imagine how Twister will sound on your home
> theater system!'"--
> While the public were the ones saying "So, 'It's laserdisc but it's
> not', what's the deal here?...Why aren't we just buying laserdisc? 0_o??"
Even an idiot knows why they weren't buying laserdiscs. The discs were
huge, 12", and didn't even hold a whole movie. You'd have to flip or
switch discs multiple times to watch a whole film. Plus, they cost a
premium. DVDs only cost fractionally more than VHS when it first came out,
and quickly came down to matching prices for new releases.
Honestly though, I'd think most people would reply "yes," if you asked them
if DVD looked and sounded better than VHS.
> (Now the "shelf" thing? ...
What shelf thing? Who said anything about shelves?
> Having every movie come out at "sale" price was also a helpful
> thunderbolt for VHS survivors.) :)
VHS had the same sell-through price, or less, at least for films. In fact,
they were initially cheaper, although they came out 3 months after the DVD
due to rental pricing on VHS.
-Jay
Jay G.
> Jay G. wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 23:58:04 -0400, Derek Janssen wrote:
>>
>>>HD-DVD and Blu-Ray: The Esperanto of the home-theater industry.
>>
>> Probably more like the espresso of the HT market, or the cappuccino.
>> Something of a niche product for a number of years, until you turn around
>> and suddenly it's available *everywhere*.
>
> Well, it's true that the companies who make the *makings* for widescreen
> digital/HD screens are making them cheaper, so that companies can make
> them more common in time for Everything to Change, rather like
> auto-makers' sudden push to hybrid technology--
The FCC is requiring *all* TVs produced to have digital tuners in them,
starting this year.
> And now that it's easier for companies to mass-produce screens we can
> even use, why, in three to five years, screens might be down
> to...oh...dare we dream?...$900 or less!
There are plenty of HD-ready LCD TVs for less than $900 today. HD-ready
CRTs are even less.
>> Kinda like DVD when it first came out.
>
> Uh, wonder why DVD *suddenly* happened in the summer of '99, and not a
> slow evolution from it's '96-'97 opening in said niche-geek obscurity?
> Might it have something to do with the "V-E Day" of DiVX suddenly
> announcing bankruptcy, curious mainstream home-theater fans dancing in
> the streets that the Format War Was Over If You Wanted It, and THEN it
> was everywhere?
DIVX was around for only 7-8 months, from winter of 98 to summer of 99. It
was at best a hiccup in DVD adoption, especially since every DIVX player
could play DVDs, so there was no real competition in an "either/or" sense.
More likely, if adoption of the format actually did "explode" in 99, it was
because the prices on players had finally come down to a reasonable level,
and that all the major studios had finally jumped on the bandwagon.
> Kinda like VHS when it first came out.
Beta had a far larger market than DIVX ever did, and even had the lead for
a while.
> (Me, I was there: I remember rushing down to Circuit City in June,
> hoping to vulture a cheap salvage DVD-converted 'X player, by the time
> they'd be *giving* them away--
You may have "been there," but you aren't remembering it correctly. The
DIVX players were never clearanced out. They could always play DVDs, out
of the box from day one. They did cost $100 more than a comparable DVD
player, and when DIVX was discontinued, Circuit City marked down the
players accordingly, even offering $100 rebates to previous purchasers.
> In short, if we ARE going by history, one format will sell when the
> other is dead, and not before. Sit tight, we got a nice...long...wait.
Or, like DVD-R and DVD+R, both could co-exist in the market with the
majority of people buying players that could work with both. Or like VHS
and Beta, both could be popular enough to cause interesting inventories at
video stores and cause a *real* hurt when one format goes under.
-Jay
Jay G.
> On 18 Jun 2006 13:23:14 -0700, "asj" <kali...@yahoo.com> Gave us:
>>>
>>> http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7851027#post7851027
>>
>>Oh, goodie...reviews from a FORUM...i'm sure those people aren't
>>biased...ROTFLOL....
>>
>>Face it, your HDDVD is selling as slow as can be, Warner is scaling
>>back its titles, and Blu-ray is starting to make waves even before it
>>comes out.....
>>
>>End of game...checkmate!
>
> You're an idiot.
Really? You're going to give him the win that easily?
If I were you, I would've at least pointed out that the forum is dedicated
to Audio Video Systems in general, so there's no indication that there'd be
a general bias towards either format. Also, in regards specifically to the
reviewers, these people have bought *both* formats with their *own* money,
so they don't have a vested interest in seeing one fail just to protect
their "investment."
-Jay
Jeff Rife
> > Also, read this other post where the technical quality of both players
> > are tested:
> >
> > http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7851027#post7851027
>
> Oh, goodie...reviews from a FORUM...i'm sure those people aren't
> biased...ROTFLOL....
I'd trust people on AVS Forum far more than I would trust any advertiser-
supported review...whether it is on a web site or in print. Many audio
equipment manufacturers would stop supplying sample units to magazines
that didn't give them "it's great...buy it" reviews.
The people on AVS Forum have spent their own money (some of it hard-
earned) on the equipment, and if they say it's a dog, it's probably a
dog. If they say it still exhibits all the old flaws of the Faroudja
video processor chip, then it does.
Now, everybody there has opinions, too, and because of that when
somebody pulls out a meter and objectively tests equipment, everybody
else will call them on it if they don't post honest results. So, yeah,
smart people trust posts from long-time AVS Forum users.
Stupid people with an agenda (that would be you) laugh at the wrong time.
--
Jeff Rife | "...who paved the way for The Alan Parsons'
| Project...which I believe was some sort
| of a hovercraft."
| -- Homer Simpson
Kimba W. Lion
>However, the public knew better image and sound when they saw and heard it,
>and it will be the case here as well.
I really doubt they did. Many people were very frustrated by DVDs because
they were getting "those damn black bars" on the top and bottom of the
picture when their good old VHSs filled the screen. And sound? I don't know
one person besides myself that hears their DVDs through anything but the
TV's built-in speaker(s).
Most people's home viewing comes down to, 'I got a picture, I got sound,
what more is there?'
Black Locust
"Jay G." <J...@tmbg.org> wrote:
> To be fair, with very few exceptions, there were very few older releases
> that hadn't been released on VHS or LD at some point. Had DVD not come
> along, new releases and re-releases would've continued to appear on VHS and
> LD. And failing that, studios would've been restoring and retransfering
> titles for HDTV. That's kinda the dirty secret of DVD: it is mainly
> supplementing what studios would've had to have done for HDTV in any case.
> What the hell are you talking about? Superman Returns isn't even out in
> theaters yet. And the Matrix was available on VHS.
Actually, all 3 Matrix films are/were available on VHS. They may be OOP
now; I'm not sure. Infact, Star Wars Episode 3 was the first MAJOR movie
to not be released on VHS and that was in November of 2005. VHS took
much longer to kill off then it really should have. Only NOW are the big
film studios finally ceasing pre-recorded VHS production completely. So
looking at it that way, will DVD co-exist with one of the HD formats
until something else comes along to replace them both? Seems pretty far
fetched, but that's basically what happened with VHS..
> -Jay
--
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we.
They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people,
and neither do we." - George Dumbya Bush
Derek Janssen
> In article <r9l149yxqupz$.l7kcrj0l4knj$.d...@40tude.net>,
> "Jay G." <J...@tmbg.org> wrote:
>
>>To be fair, with very few exceptions, there were very few older releases
>>that hadn't been released on VHS or LD at some point. Had DVD not come
>>along, new releases and re-releases would've continued to appear on VHS and
>>LD. And failing that, studios would've been restoring and retransfering
>>titles for HDTV. That's kinda the dirty secret of DVD: it is mainly
>>supplementing what studios would've had to have done for HDTV in any case.
>
>>What the hell are you talking about? Superman Returns isn't even out in
>>theaters yet. And the Matrix was available on VHS.
>
> Actually, all 3 Matrix films are/were available on VHS. They may be OOP
> now; I'm not sure. Infact, Star Wars Episode 3 was the first MAJOR movie
> to not be released on VHS and that was in November of 2005. VHS took
> much longer to kill off then it really should have. Only NOW are the big
> film studios finally ceasing pre-recorded VHS production completely. So
> looking at it that way, will DVD co-exist with one of the HD formats
> until something else comes along to replace them both? Seems pretty far
> fetched, but that's basically what happened with VHS..
Yes, but you have to realize--
It wasn't "DVD's looked sort of nicer on screen than VHS", it was "DVD's
made you look at your VHS's as if they'd been chipped out of stone by
Neanderthals with bear knives...'Ooh, I'll REWIND my Matrix VHS tape,
and then I'll get out my 80's spandex and play Pac-Man on my Atari!'"
Maybe HD's are a little "neater" than DVD's, but they ain't the quantum
leap to make us turn against DVD's like a pack of jackals--
Remember CD's and vinyl, or word processors and typewriters: To become
a "replacement" technology, the new gizmo has to make you *LOATHE AND
DESPISE* the old technology...
Derek Janssen (as opposed to "Huh. Looks neat.")
eja...@comcast.net
Roy L. Fuchs
>Both Blu-Ray and HD DVD count as a "form it had never existed before."
No, they are not. They are a new iteration of the 5.25 inch optical
disc form factor.
Roy L. Fuchs
<Kimba...@noemail.com> Gave us:
>Most people's home viewing comes down to, 'I got a picture, I got sound,
>what more is there?'
Not true.
Jay G.
By that argument, DVD wasn't a "form that had never existed before" either,
since that was "a new iteration of the 5.25 inch optical disc form factor"
as well. Movies had appeared on VCD before they did on DVD.
However, considering the multitude of technical differences between the
formats other than just the diameter of the disc, most people would
consider VCD, DVD, and HD discs to be different formats, with HD-DVD and
Blu-Ray being the newest, and ones that haven't existed before. Hell even
you admit that they're new.
-Jay
Jim
as far as Joe Sixpack is concerned, the only real difference is how much
data one can cram onto the disc (read: how many movies will fit?)
--
When all else fails...
Use a hammer.
Some people are like Slinkies
They serve no particular purpose
But they bring a smile to your face
When you push them down the stairs.
Otis Bricker
news:4qWdnZlRUtNmHwrZ...@comcast.com:
> Maybe HD's are a little "neater" than DVD's, but they ain't the quantum
> leap to make us turn against DVD's like a pack of jackals--
> Remember CD's and vinyl, or word processors and typewriters: To become
> a "replacement" technology, the new gizmo has to make you *LOATHE AND
> DESPISE* the old technology...
>
>
It took 7 years for CDs to reach 25% of US households. I still remember the
debates among audiophiles on the sound quality of CDs being inferior to
Vinyl. It took a while for recording engineers to learn how to deal with
the medium. Early recordings were poorly equalized since most were done
with the expectation of of RIAA curve.
It took years for DVD to out pace VHS in sales. Even now, I think more
homes have VHS than DVD.
I think we tend to shrink this time in memory so that it only seems as if
it happened 'overnight'.
TV broadcasts in the US are due to switch soon. This will increase the
awareness of the quality difference. Having seen a DVD/HD comparision on a
1080 monitor, I will say it was not DAY/NIGHT but it was a BIG difference.
I will not be replacing my cheap DVD until I can get one of the newer
formats. HVD anyone?
ON
chrisv
>VHS took
>much longer to kill off then it really should have.
Oh? Show me an alternative for recording, say, 8 hours of video, that
costs anywhere near the $100 of a SVHS machine.
Oliver Wong
"Jim" <ja...@the-computer-shop.co.uk> wrote in message
news:_vRlg.61748$rC1....@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net...
>
> as far as Joe Sixpack is concerned, the only real difference is how much
> data one can cram onto the disc (read: how many movies will fit?)
I'm ignoring "burnable Bluray" right now, 'cause I think we're still a
while away from that technology.
That being said, are vendors actually going to sell BR disks with
multiple movies on them? I hadn't heard of this and I'd be skeptical of such
rumours.
I suspect Joe Sixpack is mainly concerned with "How much is it gonna
cost?" and "What's so great about it that should I stop using my DVDs?"
- Oliver
JEDIDIAH
> "Jay G." <J...@tmbg.org> wrote:
>
>>HD DVD and Blu-Ray aren't "sort of better." They provide up to a 6x
>>increase in resolution, with built-in progressive storage of the image for
>>better quality.
>
> Geek talk. 99.9% of the buying public won't know at all and will care even
> less.
Anyone with a good eye for detail will be able to notice the
difference. They won't know WHY but they will see it, just as they
can see it between VHS and DVD. Even people who are not particularly
visual will notice it.
--
OpenDoc is moot when Apple is your one stop iShop. |||
/ | \
Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------
** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY **
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JEDIDIAH
If that were the case, my myopic wife never would have sprung
for the HDTV and we would still be using the CRT projection TV. Even
for TV broadcasts there's a world of difference between those two
technologies that you don't need to be a geek to appreciate.
>
>
> Not true.
JEDIDIAH
Tivos are that cheap now.
Jim
> On 2006-06-20, chrisv <chr...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
>>Black Locust wrote:
>>
>>
>>>VHS took
>>>much longer to kill off then it really should have.
>>
>>Oh? Show me an alternative for recording, say, 8 hours of video, that
>>costs anywhere near the $100 of a SVHS machine.
>
>
> Tivos are that cheap now.
>
but can you play Doom on a TiVo?
I'm an ubergeek. I like my expensive kit. Which is why I built my own
DVR over three years ago, using an AMD Athlon XP2400+, a Gig of RAM and
an 80GB HDD. Throw in a WinTV PCI card, and it's ready to rip. Nice case
on it, DVD burner, and I got me a £500 (then cost) DVR that I could do
everything else on as well. These days, video
capture/editing/transcoding is all that box does. I got bigger, better
and faster boxen to do my other stuff on. So many boxen now, in fact,
that I've got a storage /cluster/ (four machines), two workstations I
use myself, the kids have a laptop each, the wife has her Mac laptop,
and I got on top of all that, my plethora of portable gadgetry, among
which half a dozen laptops and subnotes, two iPaq PDAs (one of which has
GPS) (which I'm looking into installing Linux on), and two or three
tablet PCs.
Jim
> JEDIDIAH wrote:
>
>> On 2006-06-20, chrisv <chr...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> Black Locust wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> VHS took much longer to kill off then it really should have.
>>>
>>>
>>> Oh? Show me an alternative for recording, say, 8 hours of video, that
>>> costs anywhere near the $100 of a SVHS machine.
>>
>>
>>
>> Tivos are that cheap now.
>>
>
> but can you play Doom on a TiVo?
>
> I'm an ubergeek. I like my expensive kit. Which is why I built my own
> DVR over three years ago, using an AMD Athlon XP2400+, a Gig of RAM and
> an 80GB HDD. Throw in a WinTV PCI card, and it's ready to rip. Nice case
> on it, DVD burner, and I got me a £500 (then cost) DVR that I could do
> everything else on as well. These days, video
> capture/editing/transcoding is all that box does. I got bigger, better
> and faster boxen to do my other stuff on. So many boxen now, in fact,
> that I've got a storage /cluster/ (four machines), two workstations I
> use myself, the kids have a laptop each, the wife has her Mac laptop,
> and I got on top of all that, my plethora of portable gadgetry, among
> which half a dozen laptops and subnotes, two iPaq PDAs (one of which has
> GPS) (which I'm looking into installing Linux on), and two or three
> tablet PCs.
>
addendum: getting back on topic, I bet I could get a machine specced the
same as my DVR for something close to £140 or even lower these days -
assuming I could still lay my paws on a Matsonic 8157E board and an
XP2400+ processor...
Erik Funkenbusch
> addendum: getting back on topic, I bet I could get a machine specced the
> same as my DVR for something close to Ł140 or even lower these days -
> assuming I could still lay my paws on a Matsonic 8157E board and an
> XP2400+ processor...
Certainly, but why spec it so low when you can spec it to do so much more?
chrisv
>On 2006-06-20, chrisv <chr...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>> Black Locust wrote:
>>
>>>VHS took
>>>much longer to kill off then it really should have.
>>
>> Oh? Show me an alternative for recording, say, 8 hours of video, that
>> costs anywhere near the $100 of a SVHS machine.
>
> Tivos are that cheap now.
Plus a monthly service fee, of course.
Jim
to keep the cost to a minimum, maybe?
OK, you can get a standalone DVR for a hundred bucks, but there you're
looking at an embedded system and /maybe/ a 1GHz processor. Being as
it's there to do only one thing (compress streaming video), it shouldn't
even need that.
As a dealer, I'm finding it more and more difficult to lay my hands on
anything lower than a 2800 Sempron32.
Erik Funkenbusch
>> Certainly, but why spec it so low when you can spec it to do so much more?
>
> to keep the cost to a minimum, maybe?
> OK, you can get a standalone DVR for a hundred bucks, but there you're
> looking at an embedded system and /maybe/ a 1GHz processor. Being as
> it's there to do only one thing (compress streaming video), it shouldn't
> even need that.
Actually, it's MUCH less than that. Last specs I saw for a series 2 TiVo
was a 50Mhz low voltage PPC.
My guess is that the Series 3's will be much beefier.
asj
buying players before content, and Java BD-J authoring of Blu-ray discs
* Posted while eating late lunch on Nokia 9300 and Opera Mini Java
browser.
Blu-ray Assault to Begin; Samsung Proclaims 'Incredible' Pre-Sales
After months of speculation, excitement and street date delays, the
Blu-ray
format is set to launch over the next week amid a flurry of marketing
hype
for the format's first player and discs.
Samsung began shipping its first stand-alone Blu-ray disc player, the
BD-P1000, to stores last week in anticipation for its on-sale street
date of
June 25. Sony will prime the pump for the player's debut by issuing
its
first seven Blu-ray disc titles tomorrow, June 20; Lionsgate will
launch its
support for Blu-ray with another six titles on June 27.
Samsung plans to have its player in over 2,000 storefronts nationwide,
including such major chains as Best Buy and Circuit City. In
conjunction
with Sony, the companies will also provide demo players and discs to
retailers to offer side-by-side comparisons with rival HD DVD in order
to
subjectively sell the format to potential consumers.
The electronics manufacturer also claims that interest in the BD-P1000
and
Blu-ray so far has been strong. "Pre-orders have been incredible,"
Samsung
spokesman Jose Cardona told Video Business.
---------------------------------------------
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/06/20/sony_pictures_blu-ray_movies_today/
With Toshiba having launched its HD-A1 and HD-XA1 HD DVD videodisc
players
in April, Samsung is preparing to be the first brand to formally
launch a
competitive Blu-ray Disc player in North America, with its BD-P1000
set to
premiere on Sunday. Despite that firm date, customers nationwide are
already reporting having purchased BD-P1000s from Best Buy store
shelves -
just sitting there nonchalantly like any other DVD player, as if shelf
stockers didn't know the difference. But today, those early adopters
will
finally be able to play real BD media - not just upconverted SD media
- as
Sony Pictures releases the first batch of BD movies today.
Video outlets today should already have received, and will likely have
displays ready for, 50 First Dates (Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore),
Hitch
(Will Smith), House of Flying Daggers, the original Terminator, the
sci-fi
"new cult classic" The Fifth Element (Bruce Willis), Underworld
Evolution,
and XXX (the film, not the rating). One title, A Knight's Tale,
originally
scheduled for release today, is being pushed back to 25 July. The
high-energy motorcycle violence film Ultraviolet joins the line-up
next
Tuesday. Lion's Gate Home Entertainment is due to follow up next
Tuesday
with the BD releases of 2006 Best Picture Crash, Terminator 2:
Judgment Day,
the horror flick Saw, Lord of War (Nicholas Cage), and the Marvel
Comics
vigilante piece The Punisher.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Java: Brave New Disc-Authoring World
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,126163,00.asp
Blu-ray Disc relies on BD-Java (BD-J) for its disc-authoring
environment;
HD DVD uses Microsoft's XML-based iHD, or Internet High Definition. "I
think
BD-J is better future-proofed," says Eklund. "But it is complex," and
implementing it properly will take more time, he says.
The switch to BD-J required adding programmers and engineers to the
disc-production mix.
BD-J has two different profiles. Sony's first content will be in what
Eklund
refers to as BD-MV, or "movie mode." "The menus will still be quite
different than what you're accustomed to with DVD," he promises.
"BD-MV is a
powerful format for creating interactive menus, and it will give a
better,
more seamless experience than what users are getting from DVD. You
don't
have to jump around between menu pages as you do with DVD. We use a
graphics
layer to present all of the text information, so you don't have to go
back
and access the disc in order to access the menus. We also have a tool
called
a pop-up menu that the user can use to access disc features during the
movie's playback, so, for example, you can get to a commentary track."
As powerful as BD-MV is, it has its limitations. "We are currently
still
investigating how we're going to author picture-in-picture content,"
says
Eklund. "But I'm sure we will be exploring that later on in the year."
asj
Ray Ingles wrote:
> Gee, really pulling out all the stops there. I'm a big fan of the
> Terminator (the movie, not the governor), but even I wouldn't shell out
> that kind of cash to watch it in HD... and I wouldn't shell out *any*
> amount of cash for the others
Only the initial group of titles from one of many studios. Hold on to
your hats, the battle for the world's living rooms is about to turn
hot. Microsoft with its stoodge toshiba on one end and Java/Linux/etc
on the other side.
Joshua Zyber
news:1150828343.9...@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
> http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Sony/Samsung/Hardware/Blu-ray_Assault_to_Begin_Samsung_Proclaims_Incredible_Pre-Sales/111
>
> Blu-ray Assault to Begin; Samsung Proclaims 'Incredible' Pre-Sales
You're getting desperate now. The players and discs are out in people's
hands, and even the format's biggest former cheerleaders are calling it
a dog.
asj
>>http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Sony/Samsung/Hardware/Blu-ray_Assault_to_Begin_Samsung_Proclaims_Incredible_Pre-Sales/111
> >
> > Blu-ray Assault to Begin; Samsung Proclaims 'Incredible' Pre-Sales
>
> You're getting desperate now. The players and discs are out in people's
> hands, and even the format's biggest former cheerleaders are calling it
> a dog.
LOL....i think everyone pretty much can figure out who's "desperate",
and it begins with the letter "T".....oh, yeah, links, dude....
Joshua Zyber
>> You're getting desperate now. The players and discs are out in
>> people's
>> hands, and even the format's biggest former cheerleaders are calling
>> it
>> a dog.
>
> LOL....i think everyone pretty much can figure out who's "desperate",
> and it begins with the letter "T".....oh, yeah, links, dude....
Go to the Blu-Ray sections and marvel at the sheer volume of people
voicing their disappointment.
And stop cross-posting. It's obnoxious.
asj
> www.avsforum.com
>
> Go to the Blu-Ray sections and marvel at the sheer volume of people
> voicing their disappointment.
How many times are you going to use a FORUM as some sort of proof.
There are obviously two camps here, and citing a forum filled with both
sides is not considered "proof" of anything.
I cite news reports showing that HD-DVD is falling flat on its face,
with slow sales and Warner cutting HDDVD titles, you give me a FORUM.
Great job.
asj
Hands On: Samsung's BD-P1000 Blu-Ray Player
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/002302.html
Design. The industrial design of the Samsung is far superior to that of
the HD-A1 in several ways. The sleek, piano-black box has a tapered
look; a circular, pressure-based front navigation panel; comfortable,
lightweight remote control; and a 10-in-2 card slot reader for reading
photos or MP3s. The player even resumes disc playback where you left
off, whether you press stop, or you power the unit down-a nice touch.
Responsiveness. Again, the Samsung rates ahead here. Across a variety
of standard definition and high definition films I threw at it, the
Samsung was generally fast at navigating around and titles and menu
options, and the remote's soft-mold buttons responded to my commands
in a timely fashion. Sometimes, the Sony BD discs I tried (including
House of Flying Daggers and Fifty First Dates) were a bit sluggish when
accessing chapters, but this problem did not seem evident with
standard-def discs, which leads me to believe it's an issue with the
discs, not the Samsung player.
Roy L. Fuchs
us:
>On 2006-06-20, chrisv <chr...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>> Black Locust wrote:
>>
>>>VHS took
>>>much longer to kill off then it really should have.
>>
>> Oh? Show me an alternative for recording, say, 8 hours of video, that
>> costs anywhere near the $100 of a SVHS machine.
>
> Tivos are that cheap now.
I will never buy a DVR until there are no subscription BULLSHIT
attached to them, and they will record HD program material.
Roy L. Fuchs
us:
>On 2006-06-20, Roy L Fuchs <royl...@urfargingicehole.org> wrote:
>> On Sun, 18 Jun 2006 22:45:22 -0400, Kimba W. Lion
>><Kimba...@noemail.com> Gave us:
>>
>>>Most people's home viewing comes down to, 'I got a picture, I got sound,
>>>what more is there?'
>
> If that were the case, my myopic wife never would have sprung
>for the HDTV and we would still be using the CRT projection TV. Even
>for TV broadcasts there's a world of difference between those two
>technologies that you don't need to be a geek to appreciate.
>
Learn how to quote properly and answer the right post in a thread,
dumbass. I never said that.
>>
>>
>> Not true.
THAT's the part I wrote.
Roy L. Fuchs
<er...@despam-funkenbusch.com> Gave us:
>On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 16:23:05 GMT, Jim wrote:
>
>> addendum: getting back on topic, I bet I could get a machine specced the
>> same as my DVR for something close to ?140 or even lower these days -
>> assuming I could still lay my paws on a Matsonic 8157E board and an
>> XP2400+ processor...
>
>Certainly, but why spec it so low when you can spec it to do so much more?
You guys should have went and checked out the post I made of an
image of my system in alt.binaries.pictures.misc the other day.
Reposted...
I have the HDTV / HD DVD / screamin' multi OS PC from hell!
Roy L. Fuchs
I'll say it one more time, fucktard. My machine is ALSO under
Linux, and also works with interactive discs, even that type of media
on std DVDs.
Get off your low horse, retard.
Roy L. Fuchs
>Joshua Zyber wrote:
>> www.avsforum.com
>>
>> Go to the Blu-Ray sections and marvel at the sheer volume of people
>> voicing their disappointment.
>
>How many times are you going to use a FORUM as some sort of proof.
You're an idiot. The people's voice, as well as the LACK of sales
will ALWAY, and has ALWAYS been the engine of commerce. If it is
shit, the fish won't bite... at all...
Reviews are everything. Just ask ANY broadway producer that has ever
had a "bomb" that was thought to be a "sure thing"...
>There are obviously two camps here, and citing a forum filled with both
>sides is not considered "proof" of anything.
You're an idiot. They are reviews by VIDEOPHILES that bought the
machines! As well as folks that were given players FOR review.
>I cite news reports showing that HD-DVD is falling flat on its face,
No. YOU drew that conclusion. The news merely stated a slight
slowing in sales.
>with slow sales and Warner cutting HDDVD titles, you give me a FORUM.
>Great job.
Warner isn't "cutting" anything. It is ONE option of the many they
have, and losing money is kinda stupid. Remember "Field of Dreams"?
Here's one for you:
"If you press it, they will buy (it)." Warner isn't going to shoot
themselves in the foot.
You are an idiot.
asj
>
> You're an idiot. The people's voice, as well as the LACK of sales
> will ALWAY, and has ALWAYS been the engine of commerce. If it is
> shit, the fish won't bite... at all...
So....the lack of sales of HDDVD is telling...right? And the reportedly
very strong pre-sales orders for Samsung's Blu-ray player is also
telling, right?
And btw, being foul-mouthed and repeating all the time that someone is
an "idiot" with no particularly congent argument to back this up makes
YOU look like the idiot.
>
> Reviews are everything. Just ask ANY broadway producer that has ever
> had a "bomb" that was thought to be a "sure thing"...
Going to a forum where there are opinions from both sides of the
fanbase is not as enlightening as going to a non-biased review (and i
provided one link from PC mag where the reviewer clearly favored
Samsung's Blu-ray). There seems to be a faction that desperately wants
HDDVD to succeed and Blu-ray to fail. Unfortunately for this faction,
they're not going to get their wish.
Content is everything, and the LACK of content for HDDVD is again,
telling. It sucks when most studios back the other side....
Roy L. Fuchs
>Roy L. Fuchs wrote:
>> On 20 Jun 2006 19:22:28 -0700, "asj" <kali...@yahoo.com> Gave us:
>> >How many times are you going to use a FORUM as some sort of proof.
>>
>> You're an idiot. The people's voice, as well as the LACK of sales
>> will ALWAY, and has ALWAYS been the engine of commerce. If it is
>> shit, the fish won't bite... at all...
>
>So....the lack of sales of HDDVD is telling...right?
No. There is no lack. There is a slowing as folks have ALREADY
fucking bought the first titles available. I'd bet sales numbers
closely match the number of player owners, you fucking retard.
As was said earlier... the reason for slowing sales is lack of
titles, not lack of interest, dipshit.
> And the reportedly
>very strong pre-sales orders for Samsung's Blu-ray player is also
>telling, right?
It is NOT "strong". It is not even "brisk". It is as expected or
even "mediocre".
>And btw, being foul-mouthed and repeating all the time that someone is
>an "idiot" with no particularly congent argument to back this up makes
>YOU look like the idiot.
You ARE the idiot, fucktard. It is your posting style, and the
fact that you attempt to cross-post to other groups, as well as your
bullshit insistence that HD DVD is dead. It is your brain that is
dead son... HENCE IDIOT!.
I calls 'em likes I sees 'em!
>
>>
>> Reviews are everything. Just ask ANY broadway producer that has ever
>> had a "bomb" that was thought to be a "sure thing"...
>
>
>Going to a forum where there are opinions from both sides of the
>fanbase is not as enlightening as going to a non-biased review (and i
>provided one link from PC mag where the reviewer clearly favored
>Samsung's Blu-ray).
You're an idiot.
>There seems to be a faction that desperately wants
>HDDVD to succeed and Blu-ray to fail. Unfortunately for this faction,
>they're not going to get their wish.
You're an idiot. Folks want hi res movie enjoyment. Some folks
here want to whop yer lame ass upside da head with a large mallet.
>
>Content is everything, and the LACK of content for HDDVD is again,
>telling.
That must explain it. Your skull cavity is so thick, (how thick is
it?) there is only room for two grams of brain matter.
That must be why you learned how not to shit yourself.
Well, sonny, you ain't gonna shit anybody here either, dipshit.
We got your number, we got your ass! You WILL learn by the numbers!
I WILL TEACH YOU!!!
> It sucks when most studios back the other side....
Your analysis is the only thing that sucks, little boy. Leave Usenet
to the adults. Go find a bridge to jump off of.
Joshua Zyber
> Joshua Zyber wrote:
>> www.avsforum.com
>>
>> Go to the Blu-Ray sections and marvel at the sheer volume of people
>> voicing their disappointment.
>
> How many times are you going to use a FORUM as some sort of proof.
You obviously don't know anything about AVSForum. It's where hardcore
home theater enthusiasts and many industry representatives discuss the
intricate technical workings of new products.
> There are obviously two camps here, and citing a forum filled with
> both
> sides is not considered "proof" of anything.
>
> I cite news reports showing that HD-DVD is falling flat on its face,
> with slow sales and Warner cutting HDDVD titles, you give me a FORUM.
> Great job.
A PR release from Samsung is not a "news report", dumbass.
> Going to a forum where there are opinions from both sides of the
> fanbase is not as enlightening as going to a non-biased review
Your logic astounds me. By your reasoning, hearing opinions from both
sides of the argument is less helpful than reading heavily biased
articles likely paid for by one of those sides? Fascinating.
JEDIDIAH
The universe doesn't revolve around you. Get over it.
[deletia]
--
Apple: because TRANS.TBL is an mp3 file. It really is! |||
/ | \
JEDIDIAH
...not for the same level of functionality as an SVHS deck.
The monthly service fee supports features the VCR doesn't have.
JEDIDIAH
I guess this means you will be getting DirectTV now.
Tarkus
> On 2006-06-20, chrisv <chr...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>> JEDIDIAH wrote:
>>
>>>On 2006-06-20, chrisv <chr...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>>>> Black Locust wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> VHS took much longer to kill off then it really should have.
>>>>
>>>> Oh? Show me an alternative for recording, say, 8 hours of video,
>>>> that costs anywhere near the $100 of a SVHS machine.
>>>
>>> Tivos are that cheap now.
>>
>> Plus a monthly service fee, of course.
>
> ...not for the same level of functionality as an SVHS deck.
So you can archive an unlimited number of programs with Tivo?
--
"The blues isn't about feeling better. It's about making other
people feel WORSE, and making a few bucks while you're at it."
Now playing: the radio
chrisv
>>>> Show me an alternative for recording, say, 8 hours of video, that
>>>> costs anywhere near the $100 of a SVHS machine.
>>>
>>> Tivos are that cheap now.
>>
>> Plus a monthly service fee, of course.
>
> ...not for the same level of functionality as an SVHS deck.
>
> The monthly service fee supports features the VCR doesn't have.
You don't get that $100 price unless you commit to the service for
some period of time, guy.
JEDIDIAH
> On 6/21/2006 6:59:40 AM, JEDIDIAH wrote:
>
>> On 2006-06-20, chrisv <chr...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>>> JEDIDIAH wrote:
>>>
>>>>On 2006-06-20, chrisv <chr...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>>>>> Black Locust wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> VHS took much longer to kill off then it really should have.
>>>>>
>>>>> Oh? Show me an alternative for recording, say, 8 hours of video,
>>>>> that costs anywhere near the $100 of a SVHS machine.
>>>>
>>>> Tivos are that cheap now.
>>>
>>> Plus a monthly service fee, of course.
>>
>> ...not for the same level of functionality as an SVHS deck.
>
> So you can archive an unlimited number of programs with Tivo?
That's just what I need, a whole mess of bulky magnetic
tape flaking itself into oblivion wasting a god-awful amount of
space in my house.
Tivo will do that better too. The end result with be
cheaper, more maintainable, and remarkably more compact. Then
you open up the possibility for a nice cascaded DVD jukebox
solution or just a monster harddrive.
Tape techology simply sucks.
--
Linux: because everyone should get to drink the beer of their |||
choice and not merely be limited to pretensious imports or hard cider. / | \
Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------
** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY **
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.usenet.com
chrisv
>Tape techology simply sucks.
I agree. I was one of the very early adaptors of car (and home)
CD-players for this very reason.
But, an affordable replacement to SVHS is not yet available, AFAIK.
When it is, I'll joyfully expunge the last bit of tape from my life.
GMAN
function in a semi coherent fashion, whereas the linux in the Blu Ray players is
built into a fully consumer electronics product.
JEDIDIAH
Actually, you can get that price in a number of ways that
imply a contractual commitment. It could just be for the underlying
cable service and you might not even pay anything for the Tivo (or
other non-tivo pvr).
This argument worked much better when everyone and their
brother's cat didn't have a PVR solution of some sort and when
the naked hardware cost $500.
--
Oracle... can't live with it... |||
/ | \
can't just replace it with postgres...
JEDIDIAH
Sure it is. Dirt cheap DVD recorder consoles are all over the place.
The media is cheaper, takes up less space and is more reliable.
It's also easier to duplicate or modify.
Jeff Rife
> > Going to a forum where there are opinions from both sides of the
> > fanbase is not as enlightening as going to a non-biased review
>
> Your logic astounds me. By your reasoning, hearing opinions from both
> sides of the argument is less helpful than reading heavily biased
> articles likely paid for by one of those sides? Fascinating.
It does seem weird to me, too. Even he thinks AVS Forum has opinions on
both sides of the issue. And if both sides are represented, then if the
BD-1000P were significantly better than (or even as good as) the HD-A1,
there would be a *lot* of people saying just that.
Since it's clear from AVS Forum posts that the first Blu-Ray player isn't
worth the $1,000 price tag, and that the first HD-DVD player is a better
deal, either everybody there is an HD-DVD shill, or the BD-1000P just isn't
that good. When you go back and look at previous posts where people tout
how much better Blu-Ray will be, and now turn an about face when they get
the actual player and movies, that says that even the Blu-Ray supporters
are disappointed, which is a bad, bad sign for the format.
--
Jeff Rife | "I'm putting on a happy face...I'm taking the
| high road.... It's just three hours out of my
| life, and, oh yes, I'm drinking straight vodka."
| -- Caroline Duffy, "Caroline In The City"
Joshua Zyber
>> www.avsforum.com
>>
>> Go to the Blu-Ray sections and marvel at the sheer volume of people
>> voicing their disappointment.
>
> How many times are you going to use a FORUM as some sort of proof.
Hey jackass, I didn't point out that forum to you so that you could
start spamming there too. I'll warn you that AVS is a moderated forum,
and the owners don't take kindly to trolling behavior like yours.
> There are obviously two camps here, and citing a forum filled with
> both
> sides is not considered "proof" of anything.
>
> I cite news reports showing that HD-DVD is falling flat on its face,
> with slow sales and Warner cutting HDDVD titles, you give me a FORUM.
> Great job.
You want a "review". Here's a fun one, from a site that's been a big
Blu-ray cheerleader for the past year or more:
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents
"Well... I've had my first experience with Blu-ray Disc, and Samsung's
BD-P1000 Blu-ray Disc player. For the record, I have four titles on
hand... The Fifth Element and The Terminator (from Sony and MGM) and
Lord of War and Crash (from Lionsgate).
You know how I keep saying that these formats are being rushed to market
about a year before they're ready? And you recall how hard I was on the
HD-DVD camp for their klutzy launch and buggy hardware? And you know how
I said that Blu-ray Disc looked like the superior format, at least on
paper? Well... unfortunately, the Blu-ray camp has dropped a dud with
their big launch too. Every bit as klutzy as HD-DVD. Think Clark Kent
klutzy, or Gerald Ford klutzy, or Chevy Chase playing Gerald Ford
klutzy."
...
"Now it's time to look at my first Blu-ray Disc. Naturally, my hand
swerved towards The Fifth Element. The title was an amazing bit of
reference work on standard DVD, and that Superbit version was awesome.
Obvious choice, right? Should look amazing in HD. Yeah... it should. But
it doesn't. In fact... I'm not going to come out and say it looks like
crap, but it is easily the worst looking high-definition title I've seen
yet, and I've seen 30+ titles now. The image is muddy looking, lacking
in crisp, clean detail. The colors don't quite pop off the screen like
they should. Just a mess. Okay... I will say it. It looks like crap.
Sony should never have released this title like this. In fact, they
should be embarrassed about this disc. Seriously, if you compare the
upscaled Superbit standard-definition DVD to this, the Blu-ray Disc
looks only marginally better. This should have been a reference title in
high-def and it's not even in the ball park. My brow furrowed in
troubled surprise at this point. Wow... and not the good kind."
...
"There are some problems I'm seeing right away with all of the Blu-ray
Disc titles on the BD-P1000. First, when I switch to 1080i, I'm noticing
some very obvious scaling issues that I don't see when the player is set
to 720p. I also don't see anything like this on the Toshiba HD-A1 at any
resolution, so this is specific to THIS player, which may be why Samsung
ships it with 720p set by default. Second, I'm noticing a very slight
"studdering" problem. About once a second, or maybe once every few
seconds, the video seems to hesitate for just a instant - a tiny
fraction of a second. You notice it most when the images on screen are
moving quickly, or when the camera is panning. It may be that this issue
is related to the first. Still trying to figure out what I'm seeing
here. Lionsgate's Lord of War was the title where I noticed it first,
and I'll have to check them all before knowing whether it's just this
title or all of the discs. Again, it's not something I've seen on any
HD-DVD titles thus far."
...
"I think I may end up giving Round One of this format war to HD-DVD, and
that surprises the hell out of me. Sure, that Tosh HD-DVD player was a
lemon until the firmware upgrade, but it's worked like a charm since.
And the first 25 or so HD-DVD discs I've viewed just look better overall
than the first 4 Blu-ray Discs I've seen. The HD-DVDs also have a LOT
more extra features than the Blu-ray Discs"
...
"I keep hearing these comments (both official and unofficial) from
Blu-ray execs saying that they're leaving off the extras so they can
give all the extra disc space over to the best video quality possible.
Which tells me that Blu-ray is having major disc space problems. I've
heard from more than a few industry sources that Blu-ray is having
trouble getting the dual-layered BD media to work, which means that
discs with lots of extras and good video quality aren't an option now.
It also means that longer movies aren't an option now either. Both are
problems for this format that don't seem to be troubling HD-DVD at the
moment - at least not at first glance, based on the initial title
offering."
...
"I'll have more to say about Blu-ray Disc and the Samsung player in the
next few days, as I spend a little more time with it. But so far, I'm
less than impressed."