*yawn*
that's too bad. ;)

You're not? Then when are you picking up an HD player? All I read is your defending BR. (sic)

Oh...and I hope you don't get SIC and tired of typing that.

So the only way to prove I'm not a BR boy is to buy into HD. Hilarious.

Isn't interesting how every week we learn of another Sony screw-up or broken promise? I find it also interesting how many people are jumping sides and buying HD DVD. It seems most were on Sony's side before the HD DVD launch.....but now that is changing very quickly. It appears from reading this forum and AVS, the majority are going with HD DVD instead.

I too supported Blu-ray a couple of months ago. However, I came to realize that Blu-ray is mostly hype with nothing proven. Each week reinforces that. I suspect many Blu-ray fans will be quite disappointed when Blu-ray finally does launch when they start hearing the video quality is slightly better with VC-1 and the superb audio quality with DD+ on the Toshiba --- which the Sony and Samsung players won't even provide I'm hearing...is this true???

Well, if you're not buying BR and you're not buying HD, why are you here? Obviously you have an interest in one or the other. From your posts, it's "the other."

Damn, you people are punchy this morning.

having an interest != buying

glass houses, man.

Sony is the king of broken promises just look at 2005's version of the PS3 compared to what they actually delivered in 2006. They have a history of playing loose with the truth when it comes to their products.

Let me clarify a few things about Blu-ray though. Blu-ray discs can all have DD+ on them, but the 1st gen players can't decode it. They can only extract the core DD 5.1 stream. Also Blu-ray can support VC1 and H.264 however, Sony hasn't made those tools available so launch software for Blu-ray will be in Mpeg2. The worry for the early Blu-ray titles is with MPEG2 and maybe even LPCM soundtracks on a 25GB disc space will be a major issue and video quality could be degraded because of this or extras may have to be left off.

Again, HD DVD is far from perfect first generation hardware either, but considering the cost difference you are really getting cheated on first gen Blu-ray players.

Can someone explain the "clippings whites and blacks" to me?

I don't know what that's about.

Contrast.

Well, it seems to me that if someone decides to be an early adopter of Blu-ray and not HD-DVD, he is a "BR boy." If someone decides to be an HD-DVD early adopter and eschews Blu-ray, then he is an "HD-DVD boy."

But even with that aside, it would seem that, to be not considered in one of those two categories, a person should have a somewhat objective viewpoint, and should be able to see both the merits and flaws of both formats.

Sure.

Not even close.

There is a range of (usually) 256 levels of white/black, labeled as 0 (black) through 255 (white). The video system should allow for all of them. NTSC never came close (around 8-235) and sometimes the better systems (DVD, HDTV, HDDVD, etc) cut off the blacks and/or whites rather than show all the levels. It seems like they are trying to match up with the old NTSC system. Either that or they are idiots. This is very bad and looks horrible.

TVs and DVD players will have settings for black level, often just labeled Normal and Darker. When using composite or Svideo (NTSC), the lighter setting should be used. When using component or digital video, the darker setting should be used. HDTV, HDDVD, BD shouldn't even HAVE a setting available since component is the lowest possible connection....these should default to darker. I can use my Toshiba projector as an example. Out of the box, it didn't default the HDMI input to darker, they had to do a firmware upgrade to fix that.

Now here's what clipping is:
If I set my TV to clip black level, it cuts off from 0-7 on the scale. And that makes everything in the picture that has those levels chop off at 7 and just show them all at level 8. Let me try to explain:

Imagine a target showing all 255 levels with each ring getting progressively darker as you go inwards. Normally you can see each ring individually as if there was a line between them. If you cut off the black levels, the last 7 rings all look the same, no lines between them. And, in reality, it tends to look a little purple and blobish since it seems to do more than just show all these levels at 8. I think it changes them in other ways, hence the purplish look. Quite ugly. A film like Dark City could lose half the detail in a particular scene, you wouldn't be able to see anything.

Same happens for whites, although the black is what people really care about since it is more common in film.

Now, I wonder what "New reports coming out the BR is clipping whites and blacks on their discs." actually means. Got a link?

If they are actually clipping, as I described above, then those discs are damaged in my opinion and I would never buy them. If they are simply encoding with a system that only matches NTSC, that is a problem, but it shouldn't change the picture onscreen too much. It would not be ideal, and it MAY be a reason not to buy them.

Sorry. That's the way it was explained to me.

Check AVSforum. the BR discs will be clipped. The Toshiba player itself is doing it (but not the discs) and it will be fixed with firmware.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=680008

This is why I hate Sony. And Toshiba. I really wish some "real" companies were behind these 2 products.

Sony, I agree with.

I have a Toshiba TV and HD DVD player. Love them both. Can't complain about either.

I don't get where the Toshiba-bashing comes from.

Neither do I.

Yeah, me too....like Microsoft or something.

;)

Seems the story of clipping is only coming so far from an MS (VC-1) encoding fella. It would be nice to get some sort of confirmation from a more neutral source.

I want more info on this besides AVS posts, but it is sad if true.
BTW, I caught the below black problem the first day I owned my Toshiba, however, it is only a problem with the HDMI. I hook mine up with component to avoid it. The first thing I do with any player is hook up video essentials and make sure it is set up with proper color and especially proper black levels. Clipping on the HDMI port is a problem with several players on the market.

Yeah, the BTB issue with HDMI needs to be fixed, but to me, it wasnt as annoying as no pillarbox of 4:3 material on component.

Here's something new:

Know how everyone has their HD DVD player set up to decode their audio via the analog channels?

The Samsung BD player can't do that. Doesn't have the analog output on the back. Interesting.

That isn't really new. We knew that neither the Samsung nor Sony would have on-board decoders. No decoders = no analog outs.

However, the Sony will have support for LPCM so it should have the analog out for that. If the Samsung is missing this feature then it won't even support that.

And supposedly the Samsung should have had the analog out according to early specs. So it IS new.

I just downloaded the spec sheet for the Samsung and it lists 5.1 analog out and it also lists Dolby Digital Plus decoding. Unless something has changed the Samsung looks pretty solid. Where does the info come that the Samsung is missing the 5.1 analog out?

Pictures of the back of it. ;) Seems pretty solid.