Will the PS3 with only component out play blu-ray movies? what to ya'll think? now, i saw a sony Blu-ray player hooked up to an HDTV at best buy, with component cabels, playing blu-ray flick in 1080i, and the manager at best buy said there are no restrictions yet, but only through HDMI. Does this tell us anything about the future? if blu-ray only plays through the HDMI ps3, it wall cause mass confusion and anger, and it will be suicide on sony's part.

Yes it will. As of right now, no studio has any plans to down rez the component connection. It is a possibility in the future, but I think it is very unlikely. In any event, you will always be able to play blu ray movies on the component PS3, it may just be in 480P (I believe) if the studios change their policies. I believe everything I just said will apply to the XBox 360 as well.

Your answer is not exactly correct. All of the players in both formats that are available now and soon to be released (including both PS3 models) are already designed to enforce the image constraint token (ICT) flag, and they can (or will be able to, when they are released) limit the resolution of of any disc played via component to 960x540 pixels.

However, if a disc is not encoded with the flag, then the player will not enforce it. And, as it stands today, none of the discs currently released have been encoded with the flag, and none of the discs announced or planned for the foreseeable future are going to make use of it. It may be as many as six years before any studio considers using it on any of their discs. Then again, it may happen next year. No one can say for sure yet.

So, even when/if studios do begin encoding their discs with the flag, all discs released prior to that change will still play at full resolution over component.

On the other hand, the only way to get any advanced audio codecs (DD+, DolbyTruHD, and DTS-HD Master Audio) on the PS3 will be through HDMI. So if you're getting the $500 one, you will be severely limiting your audio options.

There is no Sony BD player yet. What you saw was a Samsung player.

I think that Sony leaving out HDMI in the cheaper PS3 model may be a good move for consumers, because it could cause the studios to delay introducing ICT.

Good point. Time will tell if this turns out to be true.

What I wonder is if these restricted titles start appearing, who will the public complain about? The studio releasing the disc (Damn you Warner Bros for putting out this crappy disc!!!)? Or Sony (Piece of crap equipment!!!)? Who is going to get the brunt of it?

I believe by law a sticker needs to be on the case. "This movie will only play in full resolution if your TV or A/V receiver has an HDMI connection."

If you think people are confused now, just wait.

I'd say it will probably be the studio that releases the disc. People will compare it to other discs that aren't downconverted, but look fine, on the same equipment.