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I hope that the BDA gets serious about this bcs BD could incorporate a 3-D spec so that 3-D BD software could be backwards compatible with all standard players as well as provide true 1080p24 3-D playback in full-fidelity with 3-D equipped devices by using the secondary video stream running in...

Amen. In fact, things are actually progressing more quickly with HDM. Already Warner, Sony, and Universal got slammed early on for recyling inferior masters off the shelf, and we're seeing a few classics (like CE3K) hit HDM sooner than they emerged on DVD. Certainly nothing like the...

Now that MS has made public their motivation for advancing the cause of downloading without regard to supporting an HDM disc experience, I'm wondering if all the folks who accused Bill Hunt, Dan Ramer and other industry insiders of being conspiracy-theorists have realized that those folks were...

If there's any truth to that rumor (strange that no other reliable source has confirmed yet), the reasons could be: 1. Toshiba makes money off of DVD royalties. 2. MS makes money off of HDi royalties and the OP systems that hardware needs installed to run it. Certainly we've seen Toshiba...

Properly mastered, virtually any film (even 16mm stock) will look more failthul to the original in HD than in SD. Improper mastering can affect all media everwhere, including 35mm release prints. (this is not disagreeing with you that it would be a shame if Paramount simpy used the current...

Blu-ray is not Sony. The BDA makes decisions about the format. And hardware pricing happens to not be one of them... that's up to the individual companies making the players.

Criterion has already produced several test-disc Blu-ray titles in-house and is poised to enter the game. Their primary reason for waiting this long was to avoid the complications of a dual-format scenario. Expect to see them embrace BD more quickly than it took them to warm up to DVD (remember...

What are you talking about? I thought we were talking about the disc-based high-definition format war having come to a close and the new competition frontier between high-def BD and standard-def DVD.

Well, you certainly answered the question of whether or not it was possible to keep FUD-spin going now that the format-war is over. I wasn't sure if it could be done... or at least done well... but your post proves that mind-boggling FUD can be invented in the most unlikely of ways as long as an...

Not only have those companies already enjoyed years of making money on DVD player sales, but your above post is exactly the reason that the CE companies wanted a new format and got behind Blu-ray to begin with (ie, the chance to sell some new hardware without losing money against the low-cost...

Including DTS and all branching features? In any case, You point is the very point I make over at blu-ray.com. It's one thing to charge me $300 for a BD player. It's another thing to charge me $300 for a player that doesn't perform to the full spec which has been finalized for months (one...

You guys don't get it... The reason that no one other than Toshiba even bothered to produce HD DVD hardware was because it just lost money (especially when you factor in R&D costs, not just the actual components). So why in the world would any BD-hardware company want to "pick up where HD...

BD is the last time we'll probably get a "physical" media that brings us 1080p. The "next format" won't necessarily offer more detail/fidelity since 1080p can be more or less transparent for most modern film images at a 30-degree viewing angle (color depth and added resolution for 70mm images...

HDM will succeed in a quicker time-frame than that. I think that even the "average" viewer won't have difficulty seeing the improvement of full HD on their 42" flat-screen from an 8-10 foot distance (I can *easily* tell the difference between SD and HD on my boyfriend's 40" Plasma and the sofa...

Agreed. We're coming from a legacy of remembering how to sit comfortably from NTSC interlaced sets and most room decorating and significant others place restrictions on how large we can go with our displays or how we are/aren't able to move the furniture. And in a typical living room sitting...

You're sitting too far away from your set to appreciate the improvements of full 1080p fidelity versus the other sources you mention. Full 1080p reveals most of its benefits between 1 and 1.5 screen-widths away. As a point of comparison, I watch my 8-foot-wide 106" screen (properly) from the...

And that's nothing new. Some folks watch SD/HD on-demand. Some folks by packaged disc-based software. Some folks do both. I would HOPE that on-demand quality gets better and better because I'd love to be able to use on-demand services with high-quality 1080p for titles I only want to watch once...

I don't remember the BDA ever suggesting that both goals had to be fullfilled in the next six months. Seems logical to give manufacturers a chance to recoup some of their development costs and as hardware prices gradually fall over time, the mass market will grow. The two goals are not in...

When we say "too expensive" let's separate the discussion when we're talking about *us* as enthusiasts at HTF versus the average-consumer wal-mart shopper. Sure, $50-100 for the Walmart mom. But for an enthusiasts who actually knows the difference between 1080i and 1080p and...

Agreed. The early adoptor crowd may jump in before those budget-price-points appear, but for the format to really gain mass appeal, prices will need to come down.

And Toshiba lost millions of dollars selling HD DVD hardware and no other major CE manufacturer (except Onkyo with a few rebadged boxes) was willing to come near HD DVD hardware or Toshiba's prices for this reason. You can have a short-term sale to push popularity/penetration of a product...

That's possibly the best illustration of the HD DVD/BD hardware-price situation yet. BD hardware is already falling faster than the DVD hardware model did. It will continue to fall, but thankfully there will be enough room for manufacturers to profit that they'll invest in R&D and continue to...

Agreed. But if Fox had produced HD DVD's, they'd have charged the same (rediculous) prices for those too! Pricing of software seems to extend more directly from a studio's mindset than from format/software competition. Even with DVD Fox overcharges, and Blu still has to compete with DVD for...

You may not be aware, but there are MANY manufacturers making BD hardware other than Sony. And they all set their own prices according to what is needed to generate profits to recoup R&D costs given what the market will bear. Just because Toshiba was willing to forgo the conventional...

part of the problem is that folks could buy heavily discounted HD DVD software and then trun around and trade it in for full-price BD versions. And since no one really saves their receipts long-term when they buy movies, folks who really bought their HD DVDs prior to Toshiba's closure wouldn't...

I think it's only going to get better. Warner has some of the best standards in place for transfers and restorations. Disney and Sony have some of the best standards in place for compression and authoring. I think that now that all the studios are focusing on HD media together in...

While multi-channel analog is a nice work-around for those without HDMI, it's not the last word in transparency as many receivers then perform another A/D conversion for DSP like bass management, and even without that step, you're stuck with the sound quality of the A/D converter in the player...

Let's suppose the (impossible) goal of attaining true HD image resolution through military-grade upconversion was possible and affordable. That still wouldn't remove the edge-ringing and compression noise from MPEG2 SD DVDs compressed at under 10 mbps. One thing that I've noticed with...

Panny will probably introduce the BD50 at a premium, but then drop the price over the next few months.

Good point. Though I would think Toshiba could leverage a desireable combo-player which could command a slightly higher price (profits?) with less direct competition and provide a nice option for the HD DVD consumer who'd like to have one HDMI connection to his/her reciver/projector, and or the...