It looked spectacular! They had it set up on a main endcap with an actual Blu Ray display. It was the best setup I've seen yet for either format. Usually they are just hooked up to a tv and the customer is left to guess what it being played. It was playing a demo disc. It had Into the Blue, Open Season, RV, Ultra Violet, and Click. They were all either trailers or extended clips. They also had a split screen on A Kinghts Tale. It showed a significant difference, but the HD side could have been better. A little grainy. The other clips were incredible. I'm sure the bit rates were maxed for these clips, but when compared to the demo disc they had playing in the Samsung this summer, it is night and day. There was a pretty big crowd around it with everyone oohing and aahing over the picture. Open Season looked even better than Ice Age: the Meltdown. There was a rafting seen (something with water rapids anyway... )that looked almost real. I plan on bringing a couple of my discs in this week to do a comparison. Initial impression is that Sony has a real winner here.

I've been planning on getting a PS3 for a while now, mainly for BD, but after all of the issues it's having and the fiasco that is the PS3 right now, I might hold off. And if I hold off, I might just forget about the PS3 and pick up this Sony. If it can be proven that a lot of the issues with some of the poor video actually was with the Samsung hardware, I might break down and pick this one up.

I was dying to take a look at this, but the local Best Buys said they couldn't put it out till the end of the week. I even told them I might buy it right there. They still said no.

Well that explains why my BB didn't have them out. They went to the back and got one for me no problem though. The website shows availabel to ship as well. Not sure why they need to be held back.

What are you collecting Blu-Ray players?

Feel free to send any extra ones you don't need down here.

the Tyson's Corner VA store had two BluRay displays up one with trailers, 'Chronicles of Narnia' and 'Sky High' looked amazing. Disney's 'Dinosaurs' on another smaller monitor (the image didn't impress me).

So since Sony launched the first BR player does that mean the war has officially started? I know it can't until Sony says so.

I remember being really unimpressed with the Samsung players and that demo disc.

IIRC, Ultraviolet and Pireates of the Caribbean looked really grainy and not much better than a regular DVD, so I was ready to write it off to a poor setting, but then it ran a Chicken Little scene with CG animation that looked phenomenal.

Nice to hear that something has improved.

Nope, I'm finished for now

Amazon.com is selling this for $870, but if you're a Best Buy Reward Zone member you can pick it up this weekend for the same price with their 12% coupon.

Saw the Sony last night (12/8) at Sears. They had the unit set up prominently on a “Blu-ray” display, and I could see the unit was running. Strangely enough, however, the adjacent Sony Plasma was showing their regular “in-store” video instead.

So, I looked to make sure the Sony Blu-ray was connected, opened the front panel on the Plasma, are started toggling through the video inputs. Sure enough, I found the Blu-ray Player on the HDMI input.

It was playing the demo disc mentioned above. Looked pretty good from what I could see. Some movie scenes contained more grain than others, but of course, that’s likely due to the transfer of each individual film.

I did notice the usual High-Def versus Standard Def comparison, and as with the Toshiba HD-DVD demo, I believe that they are “trying to pull a fast one” by visually overstating the softness of standard definition DVDs.

I left the TV on the Blu-ray demo. Why it wasn’t displaying it in the first place is beyond me. I mean, does Sears want to sell these units or not?

are there any stores that have a blu-ray (or hd dvd) on ONE TV and the same DVD on ANOTHER (same quality) TV??? I need to be impressed, and all the demos i've seen compare blu-ray/hddvd by putting a decent picture on the left and a blurry on the right (next gen on the left, s-dvd on the right)

I saw the same setup at Best Buy last weekend, and I was floored as well.

No way I can afford $800-$1000 for a player right now, plus I'd want to upgrade to a 1080p display. Plus there aren't many movies - yet

But this time next year, I might pull the trigger, if the price is right.

The demo truly was amazing. I haven't been this wow'd since I saw HDTV for the first time roughly 8 or 9 years ago.

They're finally up in my Best Buys as well. Nice display setup to be sure.

Re-heeeally. I just got a check for $850. What are the features of the Sony?

Edit: Nevermind. Just remembered the whole "not supporting DolbyTrueHD" thing.

The Sony has the 1080p/24 output that the other players don't have (Pioneer has this too, I think).