Impressions from Blu-ray demo at Sony Style (1 Viewer)

[Randy Korstick]

Yeah give Rob-HD a break he's only doing his job. Lets wait for his twist on the Times review of BD. Good review for a player not even in its final version. Too bad the Toshiba player didn't get that good of reviews in its final version.

 

[John McAdams]

Randy,

Can you post or link the Times BD review?

 

[Rob_HD]

Sheesh..

 

[Austan]

Rob_HD its nice to know that you have a HD-DVD player and are a big fan of HD-DVD. I think everyone here has congratulated you on your purchase and I think we all might even be envious. But please stop flaming all these post. Everyone seems to be Pro-something and you are just plain ANTI-BLU-RAY. Try arguing for your case instead of against someone else's.

Your comments are appreciated and you do make some good points. We need people like you to have hands on experience and are willing to spend your money (so we dont have to). You should relax and enjoy your investment instead of fearing what Blu-Ray has to offer...

"I sense great Fear in you...Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

 

[Larry Sutliff]

I've gotten annoyed at one or the other side at various times because of some of the stuff they've posted; Rob certainly isn't a good spokesperson for HD DVD on these forums, that's for sure. But don't be swayed to one or the other format because of the stuff posted on message boards. HD DVD is great, BD is also gonna be great, and I plan on supporting both.

 

[Rob_HD]

Hi Austan - just so there's no confusion, I don't hate Bluray.

I want both formats to be strong, but there are many here who want to bury HD DVD before either format has gone head-to-head to prove themselves.

I would like both formats to be strong so that they can compete fairly, which will ensure a wide selection of competitively priced movies for all of us, in Hi Def. Restraining content from one of the formats hands an unfair advantage to the other that it may not deserve.

If it were not for the existence of HD DVD, you would probably be paying $40 or $45 per BD movie, and there would certainly not be any consideration of $400 players for a year or two after launch. Now they will have to compete, which, again, benefits us, the buyers.

Even if my preferred format were Bluray, I would be glad for the existence of HD DVD, as it is forcing everyone to compete.

I am glad to hear that the early BD demos look so good. I can't wait to see one on my own setup at home, on a 109" screen. I will own a BD machine as well as my HD DVD player, naturally. My raising issues that need to be resolved, both in terms of compression and audio will "encourage" the BD camp to rectify these quickly, as I feel they are important to more users than just myself.

Do you think I am trying to destroy Bluray because I want the studios to release on HD DVD as well as Bluray? Is that because you think that if the movies were released on both BD and HD DVD, that Bluray would "lose"? If one is confident that BD will be superior, then one should welcome the release on both, so that comparisons can prove it's superiority.

I will state that I have not displayed "rancour" on these forums, nor hatred for the BD format. At worst, some of my early posts expressed frustration at inaccurate information that was being disseminated.

I note that there is almost not one single other HD DVD supporter that is vocal here, and wonder if that is because of the warm time that anyone is given when they express that HD DVD is their preferred format?

Each of us will discuss good and bad things about the other format and our preferred format also. So an outlook of respect is a very positive thing which will allow an exchange of ideas that can form an accurate opinion about each of the formats.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I will be saving up for the Sony BDP-S1 and should have it around October.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Rob, I posted for awhile in these threads but got tired of the negative attitudes expressed towards something that had delivered, and continues to deliver, an incredible home theater experience for me. Hence my new signature. I'll continue to post in those threads that discuss HD DVD software, but that's probably about it.

To be fair to David, since this is his thread; I didn't stop posting because of him. And David - I'm glad that you had such a good time with the Bd demo. Your positive experiences mirror the ones I've had with HD DVD and perhaps from that perspective you can understand my own frustrations with regard to negative viewpoints of something I overwhelmingly view as positive.

Back to the topic at hand...

- Walter.

Edit: I obviously got this confused with David's Bd demo thread.

 

[Ryan-G]

Um, that's exactly what you are trying to do. In fact, you've been pimping a petition that is specifically designed to do just that, siting Internet message board polls as "Evidence", and making certain to skew everything you can find to make it sound like BR is terrible.

To top it off, you then hauled off and tried to silence anyone and everyone who disagreed with your petition and it's "Facts".

In honesty, your posts seriously remind me of the shills I've watched in stock forums trying desperately to pump up/down a stock, wouldn't be terribly surprised if you had multiple accounts in order to do just that.

 

[Rob_HD]

Hmmm... I think it's clear in my posts and also in the petitions that much of these are not facts, but statements by insiders and bystanders. As such they cannot be shown or purpurted to be facts unless confirmed or proven as fact or fiction by the powers that be.

Anyone who has a copy of the Hitch BD ROMs that have been distributed care to see whether it is SL, Mpeg2, etc how much data is on it (20 or 25 Gig)? Anyone care to confirm how many were produced and what was the yield?

This would probably be quite constructive.

 

[Ryan-G]

Here's something for you to look at Rob,

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...8778&CatId=482

Pioneer manufacturer Blue Ray drive already in retail channels. Released several weeks ago.

http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_ro....dailytech.com

Sony press release announcing 25 Gbyte production and availability, which I was able to easily locate for sale in the UK already, and stating that as of May 6th the intention was to release 50 Gbyte discs in June.

They are in production, they are available. Blue Ray is doing just fine, it's already available for computers and will be shortly for stand alone players.

If they can sell 25 Gbyte discs it goes to follow that they can use 25 Gbyte discs for demo/preview discs.

 

[Cees Alons]

Walter, that's really sad, and certainly not something we encourage on this forum.

Please go on posting about your experiences with the HD DVD player. Many members are genuinely interested (and at least me! ) in both formats, as well as your judgement (and that of several other members I can now think of) in particular.


Cees

 

[Rob_HD]

HI Ryan - I hesitate to point out that the article about the disc production refers only to the 25 Gig and 50 Gig "Recordable" media.

This is very different to the BD ROM production issues being discussed on AVS. The BD ROM mass production issues are very separate to any issues experienced with the recordables.

Any distortions present after the manufacture of the recordable media equally affects the laser when it is recording or playing, and is therefore a lesser issue. The only main problem that has been talked about with recordable media has been getting a recordable disc burned on one BD drive, to reliably play on another.

With the BD ROM media, however, there is little or no tolerance for distortion of the surface, as the data layer is "pre-stamped". The shipping of recordable media does not speak to the issues being discussed with SL and DL BD ROM media.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Now here is a post with which I am in agreement.

You won’t, however see me posting as a HD-DVD supporter any more than you would as a Blu-Ray supporter. There are two reasons: one, I’ve seen neither and I am therefore in no position to make any comparisons (though I really expect that both will deliver outstanding video and audio) and two, (per one of the points in your post) I believe in each format pushing the other to deliver superior quality.

Why one would have a preferred format at this early stage, is something that continues to puzzle me (though I do acknowledge a few of the superior technical advantages of Blu-Ray). It is not yet proven that those superior specifications will result in a perceivable difference to most viewers (not everyone has large to very large displays, for example). It is also not clear that the 50GB storage will be a market advantage (personally, as long as I don’t have to change disks for a single movie, I really don’t care if extras are on a different disk—or if I can get a whole season (or seasons) of a TV series on a single disk. After all, I need to get up for a bathroom and drink break now and again—and even if I could sit for longer than 25GB provides, my cats will want something after a while)

The only things that are certain, are that one can watch HD on HD-DVD now (per Walter’s points) and that Blu-Ray demos look great. Pretty much everything else is speculation.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I too would have to agee with that post as well. I admit that at first I did not give HD-DVD a chance. And after seeing HD-DVD I was impressed with the picture. So much so that I was close to pulling the trigger and buying a player. But after hearing about the problems I went back to doing research on both formats. I then made the discission to buy a Blu-ray HD player and not buy the HD-DVD player.

Does this mean I feel that HD-DVD should do us a favor and disapear, no consumers will chose what format stays and what one goes. How ever the news that BB is switching there HD-DVD displays for Blu-ray. Does not send any good vibes about HD-DVD and its stability in the market place. At least at my local BB HD-DVD movies are off a side isle and the HD-DVD display is gone.

I agree that these formats should duke it out so we can see what one is the superior format. I have no problem if studios release titles in both formats. There may however be a problem if retailers decide to care one format over the other once titles get around 100 titles each. They may not be willing to spare the space on shelves while a format war is going on. Especially if sales on one or both format weak.

I would prefere that we have a format with extra storage space so that there is room for new extras and features. But in the end as long as there is no two disc HD releases and 15Gig/30 Gig disc are more than enough for HD movies, then I have no problem with which format wins. Just give me a great HD picture and awsum sound and I will buy it!

I am planing on buying Blu-ray HD but if things change or if Blu-ray looses. I will be back in the store buying a HD-DVD player and movies. At least by that time there may be a better brand making HD-DVD players.

 

[RobertR]

I agree with Rob's post as well. I've thought for awhile that the competition from the format war is good, as it makes both of them cheaper, better, etc. We know for sure that support for advanced codecs would never have been in the BD spec without the presence of HD, for example.

I'll say again what I've said before. I have no problem with BD winning, AS LONG AS IT EARNS THE VICTORY. I strongly disagree with the expressed desire (as indicated by the "the end is near" thread) for a preemptive victory even before both formats are available!

 

[Edwin-S]

Everybody likes to keep bringing that up. If it hadn't been for Sony pushing a blue laser based format to begin with, everybody would be stuck with a high compression, red laser based "HD" format which was what Toshiba and Warner Bros. really wanted to jam down everybody's throat. Would any of those compression algorithms have been efficient enough for a red laser based HD format?

Maybe some of the Sony bashing HD DVD supporters rubbing their hands in glee every time they hear of an "alleged" problem with the Blu-ray format should get on their knees and thank Sony for HD DVD. If it hadn't been for Sony they certainly wouldn't be enjoying the high quality picture and sound that they presently have, because Toshiba never intended to put out a high capacity blue laser based HD format to begin with.

Edit: I should add that I'm not including RobertR in that group, even though I used a quote from him.

 

[RobertR]

I agree, which means that competition is good on BOTH sides (I wanted NEITHER format to preemptively fail).

 

[PeterTHX]

Yo, Rob.

Just want you to comment on the fact that Samsung's players have begun shipping.

Nice industry "insider" that it was delayed.
Any way to spin this to make Blu-ray look bad?

 

[Edwin-S]

Don't tempt the man. I can think of several ways that he could create negative spin for Blu-ray with the Samsung release, and I am not even a supporter of HD DVD.