Spiky

Mod note: continued from round one:

That's not rumor. It's fact based on the specs as we know them. And have known them for months. None of these machines are worth anything on the audio side. Last I checked, the Pioneer couldn't even play CD, so that would make it a downgrade from the Samsung, in features at least. Sounds like a BD idiot wrote that.

digitalfreaknyc

They weren't really referring to audio. We don't know what any of these players are going to look like until they're out.

Spiky

I assume you mean the video output rather than the actual looks? They'd have to screw up (like Samsung did on HDMI) for it to be bad. Video is the one thing I'm not worried about on either format. Well, not much. With 1080p24 as the baseline, I assume any company that has historically made decent video players will continue to do so. Sony, Pioneer, Denon, Panasonic, LG are a start. And any company that has sucked will continue to do so. Philips, Cyberhome, etc.

It's basically a non-issue compared to the audio. I find it hilarious that 99% of the discussion is on video. And most of the comments are "it looks awesome!" Duh, it's 1080, CBS football looks awesome, too. No logic at all.

The Bus

Video is the big draw for next-gen discs. More people have HDTVs than 7.1 receivers or high-end ($1000+) speakers.

digitalfreaknyc

Have you read the BD reviews? That's NOT the reaction at the moment.

RockStrongo

The digital bits has put up the hd-dvd news from today about the various studios. Curiously though, they say that Warner is going to release 35-50 hd-dvd titles and an unknown amount of BD titles. Of the articles that they cited, I didnt see ANYTHING about the BD titles. Funny that they added that blurb.

bboisvert

I just went there (digital bits) for the first time in a while... why don't they have a SINGLE blu-ray review up yet? Seems little odd to me. I know that they have never been a very timely or prolific site for reviews, but to not have a single one yet? Seems like they have almost daily blu-ray announcements. But they apparently don't watch them.

Qui Gon Jim

Anyone else read that Sony exec that said that there are "already 100 BD titles on the market" in an interview? Blatant, flat out lie.

kvrdave

I think that is accurate. Of course they are all of the same movie, and it took 500 discs to get enough that worked.

Ain't it time to close this for length?

digitalfreaknyc

it wasn't sony. it was pioneer.

The Bus

No, it was Phil Harrison.

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/wee...835502,00.html

There were only 24 as of today.

Supermallet

Some interesting stuff from going to Best Buy and Magnolia today.

First, I finally got a chance to see the 2007 Mitsubishi 1080p TVs. They looked really awesome, but I'm waiting for the 732 series so I can get the dark detailer, because a lot of the shadows were losing detail.

Anyway, they had the Mits 57731 hooked up to the Toshiba HD DVD player. They actually took the demo player off the shelf and hooked it up for the first time since BD came out! Yay! And they let me mess around with the settings. They were playing the HD DVD demo disc, and we were flipping around on it. Batman Begins, King Kong, and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory all looked awesome. There were also some shots of various flowers that made my jaw drop. They let me mess around with the TV settings, which also helped. I spent about half an hour talking to one of the HT guys, who completely agreed with me that BD wasn't worth anything right now, but he was still interested in seeing what the PS3 could do.

What's really interesting is he told me that they have sold 12 HD DVD players since launch, and only 3 BD players. He said they would have sold more HD DVD players, but he can't get them fast enough. As for BD players, they still had some in stock, none were selling. The one bad thing is that he confirmed that they've been continuously getting discs a week late. Apparently the reason for this is that they aren't getting enough discs to go around to the various stores.

I then stopped over at Magnolia A/V. They had no HD DVD player hooked up that I could see. They did have the Samsung hooked up to the most beautiful Pioneer Elite plasma. The TV was only $10,000, so I thought what the hell, I'll buy it. Yeah, I wish. Anyway. They were playing the demo disc. Ultraviolet did look great, but as Josh said, it's hard not to when you have no details to ruin the image. Right after the Ultraviolet trailer, the Hitch trailer came on and it made me cringe. Artifacts everywhere, and the whole picture looked very harsh.

So, a definite improvement at Best Buy. Not so much at Magnolia.

bdhart

The Gresham, OR BB hooked their Toshiba HD player back up to a crappy tv last time we were in. They were only playing a regular dvd on it and not a HD DVD.

The sad thing was, the upconverted DVD on the Tosh playing on the crappy tv looked twice as good as the new Blu Ray demo disc playing on the Sammy set up.

darkside

A couple of the local Best Buys seem to have HD DVD players in stock, however, they have them up in the rafters and not on the shelf. I asked if they had received any new HD DVD discs at one and was immediately taken to look at the Blu-ray demo. I informed him I wanted to know about HD DVD not Blu-ray and he informed me this was HD DVD. Great, Best Buy continues to be on the ball.

However, I went to a second one and the guy knew all about HD DVD and was very knowledgable. I asked when they would put HD DVD back on display and he said Magnolia was it since Blu-ray is paying for the endcap space. He agreed HD DVD was the better deal right now and seemed to know a lot about both formats. Nice that at least one guy working there has a clue about HD video.

The Bus

I went to Circuit City yesterday and asked if they had any new HD-DVDs in stock. The guy walked over and checked the racks for me (since I'm incapable of doing that myself ) and then was like, "Oh, we have a display here" and showed me the Blu-Ray titles.

I know these are teenagers working for $9/hr but would it be hard for stores to tell people what they are selling?

candyrocket786

Looks like you got one of those lazy bastards.

A "real" CC Associate will actually check some type of "inventory binder" that they normally have on hand.

The Bus

Yeah, they did, and it didn't list any HD-DVDs. I had one guy one time actually go to circuitcity.com and check the SKU from there. Still didn't fix the fact they don't put out the titles on release. The Circuit City is about 15 minutes closer to me (than BB) and usually has the correct slightly-discounted MSRP.

As it turns out, the Amazon shipping center is literally down the road from me so I get HD-DVDs the next day, usually (although processing takes time).

The closest retailer is Wal-Mart but that one doesn't stock any HD-DVD stuff (plus it has sales tax), so it looks like B&M retailers are out for me.

Spiky

It shouldn't be, it just doesn't make sense. HDTV has been out for over half a decade. All the discs do is make it stable and portable. It's barely evolutionary, certainly not revolutionary. That came in 1999 or whenever exactly the first HD transmissions started.

And you don't need a high-end system to appreciate good audio. Although a decent one may be necessary. Discounting my sub, none of my speakers were over $400 MSRP. And almost everything on the market right now is a 7.1 receiver.

Spiky

Maybe he meant "discs".

Jay G.

As a niche product.

By that logic, DVD was a nothing product, since it didn't provide anything that LD hadn't already. Or even VHS, since all that did was make TV "stable and portable".

Is that $400 each? I think that qualifies for over an over $1000 speaker set. I bet the majority of home theater owners paid $400 total for their setup.
Everything on the market right now. There's plenty of people with 5.1 systems (myself included) that aren't going to be upgrading their HT setup anytime soon. Some may even have 6.1 systems that they use with existing DVDs.

Honestly, to me, the step up from 5.1 to 7.1 seems incrimental, especially compared the to 500% increase in resolution from SD to HD. 6.1 to 7.1 is even less of a jump. I undertand that the audio codecs have improved in qulaity as well, but that's again a subtle difference that can be affacted more by speaker quality than the discs themselves.

Josh H

I have to agree. I can't wait until I can afford a big 1080p set, but I'm not at all anxious to upgrade my cheap 5.1 system. (A sony receiver, and a sony speaker bundle--speakers weren't packaged with receiver). But I'm also not an audiophile, and not much of a videophile either. I just want a big TV mainly, and want to wait until I can afford a 1080p one to be "futureproofed" as much as possible.

The Bus

I haven't gotten a chance to look at the top software sales daily. Unfortunately, the data may be nonexistent at times. I may at some point switch to simply reporting the same software data The DVD Wars does.

<hr>

Reporting on HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray always seems really lopsided in support, along the lines of "Every studio supports Blu-Ray, only Universal Studios supports HD-DVD" (more or less). But how does that translate into the demand for consumers for those movies? Surely, the support of Lions Gate counts less than the support of Disney/Buena Vista, but by what margin?

What I did was count up the box office grosses of the top 40 movies of each year (2000 - Aug 6, 2006) and then divide them up by studio. The reasoning is that studios with huge theatrical hits will be studios with home video releases that matter to more folks. Not perfect, but it's an idea.

My findings are below:

Drexl

Hey, I have a theory about that "100 Blu-Ray titles available today" comment.

Maybe what he really was talking about was the titles available to authoring houses and replicators. As in, there are 100 titles completed and/or available to be authored and manufactured on Blu-Ray discs. Sure, many of them are not available to consumers for purchase yet, but he didn't say "available to consumers" now did he?

Supermallet

I have a theory, too:

He was blowing smoke.

digitalfreaknyc

While we're at it...why don't we just say "there are 100 Blu-Ray titles sold to the people who still have a player."