A few words about....Blu-Ray (1 Viewer)

[Nils Luehrmann]

There seems to be some rumors going around that Sony might be considering the removal of the Blu-ray drive in the upcoming release of the PS3. This so far appears to be unsubstantiated.

There was an official PlayStation meeting between Sony and a select group of game developers and retailers last week in Tokyo. At the meeting, SCE president Ken Kutaragi assured everyone that there are absolutely no plans what so ever to release the PS3 without a Blu-ray drive. Instead he unveiled the official PS3 development kit, codenamed Cytology which includes developmental tools for use with Blu-ray discs.

Sony has already shipped ~500 kits to developers world wide with another ~1,000 scheduled to be shipped out over the next couple months. The current kit runs at 2.4GHz, but Kutaragi was quoted as saying that Sony would release an updated kit that will run at 3.2GHz in December called the PS3 Reference Tool.

He did however suggest that the estimated price of 40,000 JPY (~$370) may not be entirely realistic, but that it is far too early to be able to accurately predict manufacturing costs and pricing.

Last year Sony was considering multiple versions of the PS3, with different specs and price points in order to cater to specific consumer groups. Although Sony has backed down from that strategy, if the current specs for the PS3 force it to be priced above $400 I would expect Sony to revise their strategy. If that is the case, I’d expect Sony to go back to the multiple version plan and possibly offer an ‘entry-level’ PS3 for ~$250 without a Blu-ray drive and some of the other hardware that the current PS3 specs include, and market the ‘fully-loaded’ PS3 as a “Super PC Media Center”, and price it accordingly.

I think we will all know a great deal more in September. Kutaragi has gone as far as one can without making an official announcement that Sony will have fully playable PS3 demos for those attending this year’s Tokyo Game Show.

BTW: At the PlayStation meeting last week, Sony revealed that they have sold more than 90 million PS2’s. In addition, close to 1 billion PS2 games have been sold so far.

 

[ChrisMatson]

I would be shocked if the final PS3 consists of anything other than the following:

• A single configuration (i.e. no tiered options)
• Blu-ray (or an unlikely, yet-to-be-determined compromised HD disc media)

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

As reported on by ZackR in the 'It's Official: HD-DVD Is HDMI Only' thread, today Fox released their official endorsement of Blu-ray, and will be announcing titles in the coming weeks:

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

Wow, Nils. That's huge news. It doesn't sound like they're going to be Blu-Ray exclusively, but I can't tell with just one quote. Does this leave just Warner, Universal, New Line, and Paramount in the HD-DVD (and still non-exclusive) camp? Also, like someone said in the other thread, it's interesting that the "Star Wars" films aren't mentioned.

On a sadder but not unexpected note, the whole graf about anti-piracy measures seems to indicate Blu-Ray will also require a digital path for full resolution. At least the PS3 comes with HDMI...

ETA: If Fox is exclusive, this gives Blu-Ray more than 45% of the market share already. That's hott .

 

[ZackR]

Thanks, Nils. This was actually the thread I wanted to post that in, but I searched and searched but could not find it. I am braid-dead today. Anyways, I am very happy to see that Fox is supporting Blue-Ray!

 

[Mark Bendiksen]

I don't want to read too much into that section of the article, but my initial impression was exactly the same as yours. I guess we'll find out for certain fairly soon.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Response to yesterday's official announcment from the BDA on their content management system:

 

[MattHR]

Lions Gate has just announced their decision to support Blu-ray.

Here's a bit from videobusiness.com:

AUG. 17 | The Blu-ray DVD format continues to gain momentum, with Lions Gate Entertainment the latest studio to commit to releasing movies and other titles on the Sony-backed high-definition format, expected to launch early next year. Lions Gate president Steve Beeks said Lions Gate was swayed in favor of Blu-ray by new disclosures on manufacturing costs. He also lauded the Blu-ray group’s decision to adopt renewable copyright protections. Lions Gate said it plans to put out new releases, library films and TV programming at launch. The company didn’t say how many or which titles it will release in high-def, but it touted recent DVD releases including Saw, The Punisher and catalog titles T2, Rambo and Dirty Dancing.

The full article is at:
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA635586.html

 

[PeterTHX]

I think once Blu-ray hits Paramount & Universal will join in. They already support UMD (how many people buy those for movies?) and I can see Sony giving them incentive to do so. They are NOT exclusive to HD-DVD. Warner is the only one exclusive, and even they seem to wavering on that commitment.

HD-DVD is largely vaporware. 2005 looks to be a "paper launch". Why anyone here would support them or boycott Blu-ray is beyond me.

 

[Paul.S]

Largely because of an issue also negatively impacting Blu-ray: the tardy finalization of AACS.

Let's see if Tosh gets their player out by Xmas before we start dismissing the HD DVD launch as existing on paper only. At least that camp has announced a, albeit largely delayed, slate of titles.

-p

 

[Paul.S]

Bill Hunt mentions "Sony Music" as being a Blu-ray supporter in his comments today. I presume he's speculating, as I don't think there's been any announcement of Blu-ray support by Sony BMG?

-p

 

[PeterTHX]

No one had actual HD-DVD hardware at CES.

Blu-ray has been around for awhile now. No one has yet to see an actual demo of HD-DVD equipment. AACS is just an encryption scheme.

HD-DVD is to media what the Phantom console was to video games.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Ronald Epstein

I bet everyone had a great time at the blueray demonstration, wish I could have attended as well. After reading this thread and what you had to say about the blueray demo. I am very excited about this format being available at my local retailers. I am currently looking to purchase a HD RPTV and hopefully it will be a 1080p model. It should be very awsum to have a 1080p picture and DTS audio to enjoy movies

Thanks for the news Ronald E.

 

[PeterTHX]

Forget about DTS. Blu-ray can be LOSSLESS. No DD, no DTS, no tricks. Just a digital representation of the original masters.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Amen to that!!!

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Preach it Brother! I've been SAVED by the 1080P/Lossless Audio disc!

 

[Carlos Garcia]

This may be a dumb question, but can someone please explain the difference between 1080i and 1080p picture quality? Thanks.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

1080i is really 960x540p as far as television scan rate timings are concerned due to interlaced filtering and the fact that you only see half of the 1920x1080 pixel matrix at one time as only odd or even scan lines are being drawn quickly on the screen (your brain has to weave the odd and even scan lines together).

1080i looks really sharp (sharper than 1280x720p) when there is little to no movement in the image (that happens rarely). However, things start to fall apart when there is fast motion in the scene or there are lots of stair stepped patterns in the image as they will start to flicker as if looking at a venetian blind.

In some respects 1280x720p is superior to 1080i especially for fast motion sports, etc. as the specs. have been drawn. Also, because of progressive scanning ALL of the pixels for a frame of video are painted on the screen at once, not half and half as with interlaced scanning.

1920x1080p is pure progressive like 720p, but because all of its 2 million-plus pixels are on the screen at one time the image is MUCH, MUCH sharper than 1080i or 720p and there are no motion artifacts... the best of both worlds. Also, there shouldn't be any filtering applied to the video signal like 1080i as there are no interlaced motion artifacts to hide.

Dan

 

[Joe Schwartz]

Dan, I think you mean 1920x540p, not 960x540p. Only the vertical resolution is cut in half.

 

[Paul.S]

In case peeps missed the link on the home page:

Feingold says Blu-ray will "overwhelm" HD DVD

-p