OK...then you might have a deal. question is...when will 5 high quality BD discs be out by?

For anyone that wants to listen to an interesting interview about HD-DVD and Blu-ray, Major Nelson posted an interview in his podcast with the MS crew working on HD-DVD. Biased toward VC-1 and HD-DVD obviously, but lots of tech talk.

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2...ut-HD-DVD.aspx

Thanks for posting the link to the podcast. Very informative. It has a spin for HD DVD, but its also filled with a ton of interesting information.

Stopped in my local Best Buy the other day. I went to their HD DVD setup, which was near the home entertainment stands and receiver section. It was gone. So I thought they pulled it completely, but I wandered down to the HDTVs and it now is setting on an endcap there, about 20-30 feet from the BD setup. They keep moving it closer and closer to the BD setup. I hope they do side-by-side one of these days.

The new print ad for Circuit City is touting Blu-ray under the "4 Ways to Get HD Programming". Not a single mention of HD-DVD. Have they ever featured HD-DVD in their ad's before? I never really paid attention.

Also, I was on the phone with a DirecTV agent about two days ago, changing some programming, and I asked about their HD services. Was told it was $10 a month, which I knew, but they said they are debuting a new HDTV box in a couple of months, HD w/ DVR, which isn't available now. So, those of you looking to upgrade to their HD programming...wait a couple of months. I was told once you purchase the old box, you're contractually obligated to pay for that one, and you can't receive the new one until the other one is paid for. $100 a big deal, IMO.

Last weeks BB ad had a HD-DVD spread in it. So, im thinking those rumors of BB only pushing BD are just that, rumors.

They'll push what they're paid to push. Money talks.

I know, but everyone was speculating that they were only pushing BD....that hasnt been my experience.

Btw...i don't know if this has been noted but the first WB BD titles will definitely be MPEG2.

Great....we will have something to compare. Im very curious now.

Saw this in my Metro newspaper this morning:

A Gamer's Life: PS3 ‘Smackdown’ gets the smackdown
my view by robert summa

It has certainly been a rough build up for Sony’s next-gen “Wondershozen” of a console, the PlayStation 3, in the months leading up to its release on November 17. The company has been in the Dark Ages of negative press and fan reaction since announcing a $499 and $599 price point at this year’s E3.

And while this latest information to be released isn’t necessarily the end all be all for Sony and the PS3, it is perhaps a sign of things to come in the development community.

Yesterday, videogame publisher THQ announced that they would be putting their next iteration of their hot-selling WWE game — “WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2007” — on hold for the PS3, giving bitter rival the Xbox 360 the advantage of being the only one to claim to have a next-gen wrestling title.

THQ reacted to continued Internet rumors spelling out the demise of this title for the PS3 with a statement that read: “We have decided to postpone the debut of the SmackDown series on PlayStation 3 until the holiday 2007 timeframe.”

While this may seem insignificant to you — especially if you aren’t a wrestling fan — what this news does is bring to light what many of us have been proposing as far as the difficulty and costs associated with developing games for the PS3.

Much to Nintendo’s and Microsoft’s delight, this could be the domino that sets off a massive chain reaction of developers to abandon the PS3 as costs soar and a potential to recoup that expense shrinks.

Perhaps when the almighty God PS3 decends upon us, we will be ready.

The irony is that the piss-poor playback and disc errors of my previous DVD player is what finally made me get up and that same day find an HD-DVD player.

My previous DVD "player"?

A PS2.

I have no idea where the thread about in-store experiences went to, so I figured I'd to ss it in here.

Hit up the Shoreview Circuit City this afternoon while I was out. Salesguy was very polite, and did exactly what I asked by showing me to the BR display. They were showing "The Fifth Element" on a 56" Samsung DLP HDTV and it looked like garbage, to be honest. It looked like filmstock, just grainy with little definition. To hide my lack of enthusiasm, I just said "It's been a long time since I've seen this movie!", thanked him, and asked if he had my 42" Sony Grand WEGA LCD HDTV on display, which he did, along song the 42" Sammy DLP I was going to buy originally. Nice to see these side by side finally, and as I hoped, I'm still sold on the Sony.

Next, I popped into Shoreview Best Buy, literally around the corner. They had a BR display as soon as you walked in, featured in the Magnolia HT center. "Ultraviolet" was showing. I know the film had an intended soft filter, but there was no definition! NONE! The only time anything looked mildly sharp was when the "Ultraviolet" logo came up. I then asked to see the HD-DVD display, and waited approximately 10 minutes as the clerk dinked around, switching channels, plugging and unplugging wires, trying to figure out why it didn't work. He finally gave up, and so did I.

Last stop after dinner was Blaine Best Buy where they had both displays anchoring their HDTV wall w/ recliners. First, BR. The sample disc was showing, so I caught glimpses of "Sahara" which looked good in spots, "Hitch" which looked incredibly soft and fluffy, and a BR promo spot which looked just as unimpressive. The Sales Manager briefly explained to the onlookers the basics of BR, explaining the whole 480p vs 1080p, and how "this is the one" and "the only downside is that there's only a few titles as you can see". Then, the older guy with kids said "A little pricey, ain't it!?" and walked off laughing. Seemed like a casual movie fan, but not stupid, but frugal. I asked the SM where his HD-DVD display was, and he said "This is our HD-DVD display, this is actually Blu-ray". I then shook my head and said "Ok, thanks. I was looking for HD-DVD". So, as I was walking away, I saw another display. Lo and behold, HD-DVD! I was finally going to see this sucker in person. Caught a couple of glimpses, which were featured on a 2 year old, "out of box" clearance Sony 32" LCD HDTV which had the entire bottom left hand corner 's pixels burnt out! Featured were "Jarhead" which was OK, "Charlie and the Choclate Factory", which I thought was a BR title, looked vibrant and beautiful.

The BIGGEST surprise was how absolutely astonishing "Van Helsing" looked. Sharp, sharp picture..almost 3D like in the action sequences. I may rent it again just to re-evaluate the movie, because it's been so long. Suffice to say, I'm still sold on HD-DVD.

Does Corky St. Clair work there?

when will sony realize that blu ray picked the wrong time to come out.

Pretty interesting interview with Joe "Video Essentials" Kane: http://www.cinenow.com/us/news-2118.html

The first 5 minutes are very Europe-centric, but he makes some interesting comments, such as, "It is my personal belief that Blu-Ray is all about greed."

Apparently satellite and terrestrial HDTV is just widely launching in Europe. Imagine going from PAL straight to HD-DVD / Blu-Ray.

I posted that several pages ago.

And since NTSC has less resolution than PAL, i don't know why that would grant an

I think he assumes that people getting into HD-DVD are familiar with HDTV, so it's not as big of a change as it would be from either PAL or NTSC to HD-DVD.

Because in the US the progression went like this: NTSC -> Broadcast HDTV -> HD-DVD/Blu-Ray. There's a clear improvement (IMO) between Broadcast HDTV and HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.

Uhh...and that's what's happening in Europe. it goes like this PAL -> Broadcast HDTV -> HD DVD/BD.

No, there isn't. Unless your reception sucks. Fix your reception.

There's potential for minor improvement. That's about it. BD certainly hasn't given an improvement. More than half the HD channels out there are 1080 resolution, the only improvement with the discs is going to native progressive format. The major difference for the future will be consistency, but that assumes HDDVD/BD actually become consistent. Too early to know for sure.

And you forgot DVD as a step in there. NTSC broadcast is usually half the vertical resolution of DVD. It was a big step up to make full use of the NTSC format on disc.

HD DVD is a DEFINITE improvement over my Cable HDTV reception. It's not as massive as DVD->HD DVD...but it's still there.

There is probably alot of factors that can make it better than broadcast (sat/cable provider, sat/cable receiver and receiver/tv settings come to mind).

And, then there is the source....broadcast could be using a worse source than what was used for hd-dvd....we very well might see better broadcasts in the future.

From my point of view, I definately see a difference in broadcast versus hd-dvd....I even see a difference in my local ota versus MPEG4 local broadcast on dish.