I'm somewhat of a HD newbie so I've been hitting up all the HD review sites I could find and while I'm not sure of the reputation of dvdtown.com, they seem to have some smart peeps over there so I'm not quite sure what to make of this: http://www.dvdtown.com/news/dont-get...o-blu-ray/4407

This article is a couple months old so I'm guessing there's false information here...if not then why I haven't heard much about this?..Does this apply to PS3's also? I didn't post this to start a bickering match but more a legitimate concern on whether I should wait to buy a Blu-Ray player...

It's true. In order to bring Blu-ray to market as quickly as possible, they delayed the launch of certain features, some of which still don't exist in any player. The Blu-ray camp goes out of its way to avoid specifying which players to do what (without doing some legwork, at least), and it's unclear which players may support some of the later 'profiles' through firmware updates.

Don't get me wrong: I'm thrilled with the way my PS3 works as a Blu-ray player, and I'm not badmouthing the format, but the existence of multiple profiles, the ambiguity as to what's required, what's supported, and what varies from player to player is a mess that should never have existed.

All players can play all movies, but not all players can take advantage of all features. (1.0 players aren't required to do picture in picture video, 1.1 and BD Live players can play HD PIP video but are only required to do SD, only BD Live players are required to offer Internet capability, etc.)

or this could happen to you:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9gQG4OFgrpA

Jacob

this is why it's probably best to buy a ps3 if u want to purchase right now. sony have not made any definitive statement that this device will be made bd1.1 compatible via firmware, but it certainly has enough persistent storage (plus internet conectivity) to reach both this and bd2.0 if the patch is created. considering the things which have been added (sd dvd upscaling for instance) it seems likely this will be tackled as well.

hd dvd has only one manufacturer of players so they've found it easier (with exceptions such as children of men) to standardise around additional features. they are still adding to the spec, though, so it's not entirely accurate to say they are without similar future issues. i'm thinking particularly of triple layer discs (should they happen) and regional coding (should that happen). both of which have working groups at the hd dvd prg.

on a side note i'd like to ask what special features will be playable with bd1.1 that aren't now, asside from the afforementioned pip? a big deal is made of this by both hd dvd supporters, and no doubt by the marketing folks at the various bd player manufacturers when their latest decks are released. but what is the actual gain/lose?

That's the big one. Secondary audio decoding is another difference, although I'm not sure how many uses that has outside of PIP video. 1.1 also requires a minimum of 256 megs of persistent storage versus 1.0's 64K, and presumably that could impact some features (or at least the usability of those features) as well.

BD Live requires at least a gig of persistent storage along with Internet connectivity.

As one of those "smart peeps" from DVDTown, let me just say we don't all follow the editor's line of thinking on the format war. I'm of the opinion Blu Ray will eventually win out, despite missteps by everyone involved. The EiC doesn't speak for all of us, just so everyone knows.