Something funny posted on the AVS forums:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV1nAiRRGnA

:rotfl:

My favorite was DRM vs. The World. :lol:

That was definitely funny.

Although the MiniDisc vs CD goes both ways since Sony had their hands in both... MiniDisc should've been by itself along with a seperate entry for UMD.
They could've also added A-Track vs MP3 and SACD vs Vinyl.

SACD vs. Vinyl? I would think more like SACD vs. DVD-A, but really both lost.

The video neglects Sony's successes, like video8 and Hi8, and 3.5" floppies. Also, Sony has collaborated on some wildly successful formats in the past, like CD and DVD.

Some of the comparisons aren't apt either. The competitor to MinDV should've been Digital6, which still exists. Also, I don't see how the Memorystick has lost to Compactflash. Both are still in use, but have been overshadowed by SD. At least Memorystick is doing better than Toshiba's Smartmedia format.

As for DRM, firstly, DRM has won out, with every major studio or record company wanting to put it on their content. Secondly, CDs don't have DRM, though some companies have tried to impliment copy protection for their content on CDs. Third, Sony isn't the only company to use various CD copy-protection scenes, and it wasn't even the first company to use them. Sony just had the bad luck of using ones (not even developed by them, but by third parties) that were overly aggressive in their approach.

Finally, for comparison, Toshiba has developed Smartmedia and co-created DVD... and that's really it as far as its hand in past formats.

Jay G

Most of the HD-DVD fanatics you will find bashing sony are doing it just because they dont want their 500 dollar or less investment to fail. If the reality was that hd-dvd and blu-ray were 1000, id say 85% of hd-dvd owners now would NOT be tooting the same horn. In fact, id say a lot of them would be talking about a ps3. Its about price to a lot of these "so called" early adopters who are just in it because the player was cheap. The temporary slight advantage of picture quality was just an added benefit, but thats now a thing of the past. The newest lionsgate pictures look absolutely stellar and rival anything hd-dvd has to offer, and they're BD25's and MPEG2. Tommorow warner releases VC-1 encoded Blu-Ray discs.

Any advantage once had (slight picture quality, price) was and still is short lived. So at this point, with nothing but negatives for the HD-DVD camp, they are trying all they can to take down sony so they wont have a 500 dollar footstool.

p.s. - As for more evidence that price is the #1 concern of the hd-dvd camp, theres a poll on AVS in the HD-DVD forum asking who will buy the new 1080p device. I couldnt beleive the amount of backlash from hd-dvd owners, they all bashed it! They said 499 is the most they will pay regardless of features and that "1080p sucks and so does hdmi 1.3". So again, these fanatics arent early adopters, they're just a bunch of cheap bastards (for the most part, not all) out to protect their investment (and if 500 bucks is such a huge investment to these people, then i have to wonder why they bought one in the first place).

Just my 2 cents from observations.

Looks like highdefdigest is giving Tears of the Sun very high marks.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/tearsofthesun.html

Has anyone read anything stating if the Sony encoders are still clipping white/black or has this been resolved ?

That I don't know.

I figured Vinyl would be best since SACD was supposed to be the audiophile's new darling format - yet Vinyl has outsold SACD and DVD-A combined.

Pairing up SACD against DVD-A is like finding out who the smartest kid with Down Syndrome is (my paraphrasing of "Waiting"). ;)

Here's an interesting piece of info direct from Sony's site.

http://www.us.playstation.com/PS3/about.html

Question:

Answer:

Hmmm... so the PS3 may not play all Blu-Ray discs. Doesn't inspire much confidence, does it?

If you actually paid attention at all you would know this is all completely untrue. As far as all of us being cheap bastards, I have the same opinion of people that buy a video game console to watch movies on. When/if Blu-ray puts out a product worth buying many of us will eventually come aboard. However, there is no reason to pay $1000 for a standalone player when the HD DVD option is half the player cost and to this point has delivered better quality movies. Believe it or not its completely stupid to pay $1000 for a player that has lower quality than its cheaper competitor. The best BD movies can hope for now is to match the quality of HD DVD and that still gives us no reason to pay $1000 for a BD player.

Well, to be fair all the players for HD DVD and Blu-ray will have warnings like that. They are covering their butts since its a new technology.

As far as the PS3 not playing all PS2 and PS1 games, even the current version of the slim PStwo has problems with certain PS2 and PS1 games. Since the PS3 is using the same chip for backwards compatibility it will also be unable to play these games. I think the list of titles effected is on the Sony Playstation website.

Vinyl simply has a sound that can not be duplicated by a digital format. It is just impossible. I think Vinyl will be with us for a long, long time as many love the warm analog sound.

That said SACD is a great format and is far from dead. I agree it will never catch on in a mainsteam world that thinks compressed MP3 sounds great, but Sony and Phillips really got the format right. They overpriced it as Sony always seems to do, but it is a great technology and Jazz and Classical still continue to support it. I won't buy a Jazz or Classical CD unless I can get it in SACD.

Slight advantage? Blitz, how about you shut the fuck up until you actually own a player for one of these two formats and have some miniscule idea of what you're talking about?

You mean.... he doesn't own a Bluray player?

What the fuck is he doing here talking all this shit?

You're absolutely correct. The reality, however, is that HD-DVD really doesn't cost $1000 and to get a player for that format I don't have to rely on a substandard build tacked onto a game machine. I was thinking of getting the 360 add-on but decided I'd rather have something that's built well. My PS2 was not cutting it as a DVD player as it simply could not read a lot of the DVDs I have, even ones that were brand new in packaging that another player had no problem reading.

So, yes, if HD-DVD was $500, then that would be a problem. But I've spent maybe $900 on HD-DVD and I have a player and 20 movies. I'd still need another $100 before I could even get into Blu-Ray.

And honestly, I think you need to stop posting in here until you actually own one of these two formats, especially if you're going to make claims about how things look.

Actually, most of the reviews seem to have a tone of: "Holy cow, this one doesn't look like complete crap."

Not having any real information to base your opinions on is part of the proud history of the Internet's various fanboys. As they say, ignorance is Blitz. Er, Bliss.

Im buying a PS3 come november. As most people who want a Blu-ray player, theres a problem with the samsung and we're waiting for the true launch. Just because i havent "settled" like some of you have done, doesnt make the reality of the situation any different. True launch, November this year. Watch for it =)

Yeah, some of us had to settle for a quality product that was affordable and let us enjoy HD movies for many months now. It really has been tough.

You mispelled "format"...

:lol: Deja Vu? Whatever, this never gets old!

At the expense of extras.

So, great, they can, at times, match HD DVD's quality but will we always have to ask ourselves "at what expense?"

Jeez...I don't have that problem with HD DVD.

Reality? Everyone, but you lives in reality.

Settled is buying into a format that doesnt give you a full slate of extras (if any) and at the very least matches picture quality (which it rarely does up to this point).

Go gather up your pennies and place your gamestop pre-order and let the adults discuss this for a while.

You really have no concept of this little hobby.

1. Buying HT gear is not an investment!
If it was... none of us would open our hardware and actually use it. We would simply leave it "Mint-in-the-Box" and hope it would appreciate in the coming years.

2. Since HT gear is ever-changing, we HT enthusiasts never settle for anything. If we did.... we would've been content with VHS.

3. Bluray officially launched on June 2006. Where the hell were you?

This week's update...
 

http://www.fantasticdamage.com/blog/hdformat2.gif

Now that we've got a lot of titles selling in each format, why don't we compare them against each other?

Here's what we're looking at: I track the average of a basket of titles that are available in DVD, Blu-Ray, and HD-DVD. Unless noted, they are all similar releases, and I track only the best-selling widescreen edition DVD of the film.

8/16/06 (1 title tracked): Kiss Kiss Bang Bang tracked
8/22/06 (2 titles tracked): Training Day added
8/24/06 (4 titles tracked): Rumor Has It... and Good Night and Good Luck added
8/25/06 (6 titles tracked): Mission: Impossible III and Mission Impossible: Ultimate Missions Collection added
8/29/06 (10 titles tracked): Blazing Saddles, Firewall, Full Metal Jacket, Lethal Weapon added
8/30/06 (13 titles tracked): Tomb Raider, Sleepy Hollow, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow added
8/31/06 (14 titles tracked): A View From Space with Heavenly Music added
9/05/06 (18 titles tracked): The Fugitive, Swordfish, Space Cowboys, Guitarscape Planet added


The graph speaks for itself. The drop in DVD's ranking as time progresses occured as older catalog titles were added. DVD still vastly outsells either format, but on 8/31/06, HD-DVD's average sales rank surpassed that of DVD's: don't get too excited, A View From Space... was added that day and that title sells very poorly on DVD. On 9/1, Rumor Has It... and Full Metal Jacket both skewed Blu-Ray and HD-DVD closer to each other.

So far, the only title that sells better than DVD in both HD-DVD and BR is A View from Space with Heavenly Music.

Yeah, DVHS is great.

In AV terms it is the difference between a soft launch and a hard launch. This winter looks like it'll prove very interesting for both formats. The main question for HD DVD is whether they can gain some more hardware and software support soon.

Yeah, HD-DVD had a soft launch too, theirs was just better than BD. They will truly launch this Q4 also. :rolleyes:

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/news/...t_Out_2006/163

http://www.videostoremag.com/news/ht...rticle_ID=9494

Have there been additional HD DVD player manufactuerers set to launch this winter?

I can't wait for the TRUE launch of BD format come this holiday season!!!


Give me a break. Is that all you guys can hold on to now? Why can't you just admit to yourselves that it was a launch, a hugely FAILED launch. A launch is a launch. Will they improve? YOU BET THEY WILL, because that is the only place they can go, up.

"True launch"? "'Settled'"? Do you have any idea what you're talking about? I agree that Blu-rry is gaining momentum. Last week saw Fox announce its first wave of titles(although only 2 are even noteworthy). Disney will be releasing titles soon(although again, they're mediocre titles at best). WB today is releasing its first batch of BD discs using VC-1. Tears of the Sun just got a great review for its transfer from HDDVD Digest. And of course, the PS3 is 2 1/2 months away.

But let's not candycoat the situation. Blu-rry's launch(and yes, its "true launch" occurred months ago) has been a disaster thus far. When a title doesn't look like crap, it's a revelation. Sony is still insisting on using MPEG-2. There have been only a handful of releases that I would consider decent films(unless you think Ultraviolet and The Benchwarmers are a mark of cinematic excellence). And the Samsung player has a bug affecting video quality that still hasn't been corrected via firmware upgrade.

HD-DVD meanwhile has plenty of momentum of its own. Universal just officially announced King Kong for mid-November. WB should have several big name titles out by the end of the year, including Batman Begins and Superman Returns. When a disc doesn't have a great transfer, it's the exception to the rule. Dolby TrueHD is being offered on several upcoming titles. Classic films are being released in addition to newer ones. And Toshiba continues to offer firmware upgrades to work out the early kinks in their player.

Oh, and yes the HD-A1 is half the price of the Samsung player. That doesn't make us early HD-DVD adopters cheapskates. It just means we're able to get HD quality video and audio for as little as 363 bucks. No offense, but what kind of idiot would spend 3 times that amount on a faulty player for a format that so far seems like a marginal improvement over upconverted SD-DVD?

The only ones that I know of are the 360 addon drive and the toshiba euro models. But, I think Amir hinted that we might see 2nd gen this winter in the US. Not sure though.

Guess what...the Panasonic has been pushed back.

Was supposed to come out this month. Now it's coming out in November.

The Pioneer is still nowhere in sight.

Its definitely superior to anything Blu-ray has offered.

I'd say it's pretty much a definite.

Also, CEDIA is next week so we'll know more about everything after that.

The Pioneer dual-drive just had the kabash put on it. More Sony muscle at work.

FWIW, I think Burnt was just trying to be an ass by asking the question, as usual.

you misspelled HD DVD! :D

These things are only funny when they're true. :)

To him, it is. Something about blu-colored glasses.

I dunno.

I'm burnt out on him and his posts, to be honest. ;)