Interview (and podcast) with Pioneer's Andy Parsons at HDBeat (1 Viewer)

[Jesse Blacklow]

Coming back from a bit of a vacation from the board to post this interesting interview and podcast. If what he's saying is true, then a lot of the accusations about BDA licensing, BD+, and managed copy are just plain false. And yes, he does make the tired cheer for MPEG-2 (give it up already!), among other things, but he also makes a lot of good points about the business side that a lot of people ignore.

ETA: The podcast contains significantly more discussion, such as Parsons tipping his hat to HD DVD's run out of the gate, as well as the mention of a Philips Blu-ray player, presumably by the end of 2006.
Here's a couple of excerpts:

On title quality and the first side-by-side comparisons:

 

[RobertR]

I find that interview annoying and arrogant. Basically, he says that people will pay a lot more for BR players because they have no choice if they want the content. No mention of "because the quality is that much better". If content is the argument for expensive BR players (instead of quality), they lose, because DVD content is far FAR greater. He says:

Does that mean that using a quality codec or improperly cropping a title just doesn't mean much to them???

It's also really bothersome to see the Sony fixation with MPEG2 extend to Pioneer. It makes the whole "just wait for BD50" strategy silly. Since MPEG2 is so inefficient, the extra space would just be used to get where people are in the first place with VC-1 and HD30. That means they WON'T have all the extra content they keep jabbering about. Ugh.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

It's a mess.