Who WOULDN'T pick Blu-Ray??? (1 Viewer)

[Glenn Overholt]

Ed, could that Toshiba rep meant to say "1080p ONLY?"

When I first saw that I thought it was a question of the downressing for those of us that don't have HDMI compliant equipment.

With most current displays having 1080i as a maximum, could they stamp out disks at 1080i now, and later, when displays having 1080p are the norm, double-dip us for a new 1080p res. Ouch!

Glenn

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

From the Toshiba press release:
How is offering incorrect information and telling people to talk to someone else over the phone for details "delivering the product information [their] customers want"? We're hearing that they're actually refuting HD DVD's 1080p capability. So in effect, they're actually talking down their products. I guess this is the result of having one company releasing product, with only two or three partners, rather than the vast majority of the CE industry providing support.

Of course, I don't really have a problem with that. If they don't want to inform potential customers about competitive features, I'm not going to complain about it.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Hello Glen,
No, he did not confuse 1080i with 1080p (unfortunately).
He said the content providers determined that "ALL" disc would be 1080i. I then asked: All discs will only be 1080i?, and he answered yes.
Our only hope is that he "meant to say" the players would only be 1080i. This would be a long shot, because second gen HD-DVD players will most likely be 1080p & the HD-DVD forum allows for 1080p.
The guy would have to be completely losing it, to confuse players with discs (twice, even). I did attend the last demo of the day and the guy was dog tired (6pm PST). I'm still not going to just let this go, as some have suggested because Tosh Reps no nothing about anything, and hope someone asks him today in Sunnyvale, CA. or another Tosh Rep on the tour.

Nils,
How did you get from "The Live Music Capitol of the World" to Concord, CA.? Wish you could have heard his response as well. I was the last attendee to leave, no one else except two employees. Did that Tosh display crush blacks or what!!!
Pathetic sound system, as well. Did you get anything out of the demo?
Corpse Bride looks ultra real!
Did you get a chance to stop by BB in Pleasant Hill, just down the road off of 680 from Fry's, to catch the XA1 with the Pioneer plasma? It's the first system as you walk into the Magnolia part of the store.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Ed,

he might just be mis-informed. He may very well *think* that HD DVD discs will be encoded as 1080I. He's just wrong!

And as I've said even if those discs *were* encoded as 1080I it would make no difference to a 2nd or 3rd gen HD DVD player that applied 3-2 pulldown to output as real 1080P.



EXACTLY.

What is Toshiba thinking. I mean, WHO are the people WHO CARE about driving out to a "demo" of HD DVD? Why...techy-early-adoptors of course. So what better sales-reps to pick than some who can't answer their questions with any accuracy!

Yes...the non-tech question about release dates etc. I'm sure they can answer. But that's not the meat of what a tech-saavy early adoptor is driving miles to talk about.

 

[JediFonger]

george, i wholeheartedly agree. i wish a group of consumers could start the "Buy Once!" initiative and make it the supreme law of the universe! =). i also just wanna add that in addition those capabilities you describe, i'd have to have high quality too, not just practical =). i expect to pay once for a title that may be 480p initially, but as it goes to 2k, 4k i can download the same total in diff resolutions.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

DaViD,
It's worse than even you think, which is pretty bad, they could not even give "release dates"!

You must stop with this 1080i is OK thing! OK?

To me, and maybe one or two others, HD is now;
1080p source, 1080p player, 1080p display.
It's a beautiful thing!

From day one of the seventeen resolutions that helped make HD the nightmare it is today, I have been a 1080p fan (while waiting patiently for the magical day of 1080p in the home, I rooted for 720p being the sports fan that I am). How did I know 1080p was the key to eternal happiness? Professional digital cameras where 1080p (and you thought it was just because I'm smart) and I wanted the same quality the film was being shot with in my home way back in 1998. We are this close... and you keep talking up 1080i. A pox on you I say (by the way, what's a "pox")!

I want nothing less and nothing you can say will change my mind. You can go ahead with 1080i, I am not going to say anything butt...
DROP THAT 1080P SOLUTION BANNER, NOW!
Makes you look like a hypocrite. ;-)

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Oh...no one is as fanatical about 1080P as me. It's one reason I view first-gen HD DVD players as a disgusting effort on the part of Toshiba...no 1080P output.

But keep in mind that in the digital realm, with images captured from "frames" of film...the image is inherently progressive even if it's temporarily split into "fields" for packing on a disc or transmitting through the air or cable...just as long as those fields are zipped back together on your 1080P display!

So, as I said before, the ONLY things that matter are:

1. We get HD players that output real 1080P for all film-source material regardless of I/P encoding method.
2. We get displays that accept and disply those native 1080P signals
3. The studios take care NOT to apply pre-filtering to reduce the effective resolution below what 1080P could deliver (like they do now with regular DVD).

As long as those 3 things happen, then it doesn't matter if there's an "I" or a "P" on your HD disc packaging.

 

[JediFonger]

halo Ed,

if you shot film, then for our purposes of comparison the resolution isn't just "1080p" (or 2k), it's infinity x infinity limited only by the grain size.

david,

AFAIK, isn't it true that only HDMI (HDCP) spec 1.3 passes 1080p signals? thus, if a device (input or output) doesn't have 1.3 firmware then they can't do 1080p?

having said that, are there any HDMI spec 1.3 products on the market RIGHT NOW?

 

[Rob_Walton]

No HDMI 1.0 can pass 1080p24 signals, it's just left as optional in the specs. That hasn't stopped some MS fella from trying to claim HDMI 1.3 will be needed, though it was fun to see him shot down by the HDMI guys...

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Saw the Canadian film C.R.A.Z.Y. last night at the Canadian Embassy in D.C.

What an incredible 35mm print. Loaded with such detail, color-space, and resolution it just blew my mind. I kept trying to compare it to what I've seen with "1080" HD and it was vastly better. Of course I've yet to see full blown 1080P properly mastered and projected on a 1080P projector.

I hope it can compete with the film print that I saw last night!

dave

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Oops!
The "movie" was/would be shot in 1080p and I wanted a 1080p presentation at home. I was using the generic word 'film' meaning movie, not the medium it was shot on. Good catch, YiFeng.

 

[Juan C]

Except for maybe 90% of all modern films, which are transferred to a 2K or 4K (if you're lucky) digital intermediate.

 

[JediFonger]

oh you know what i mean

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Also keep in mind that in the near future all "1080 24P" digitally filmed 2.35:1 movies will use the full vertical resolution of 1080 and not "letterbox" the 2.35:1 the way we get stuck with in "consumer" 1080 HD which is only 16x9.

Theaters will use an HD format that's 1080 vertical but has more horizontal resolution so it can show native 2.35:1 movies with full resolution.

I had hoped that they'd incorporate some sort of "anamorphic" feature like this in Blu-ray for 2.35:1 but they didn't.

 

[JediFonger]

david, do you mean they'll do away with non-square pixels? meaning all pixels will be squared with full res?

 

[DaViD Boulet]

They still have square pixels for the theater...they literally add *more* pixels to the left/right of the 1920 x 1080 frame to extend the width to 2.35:1...if I understand correctly (2538 x 1080).

 

[Greg T]

According to Sony, theres a Blu Ray player for everyone
http://news.com.com/1606-2-6052878.html?tag-cnetfd.sd

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Thanks for the link, Greg.
Did you see the video link was "Sponsored by Microsoft"?

 

[Steve Tannehill]

To answer the original question at-hand, "Who WOULDN'T pick Blu-Ray???" that would be me.

I'll be watching HD-DVD next week. When will BD finally make it to market? This year?

- Steve

 

[PeterTHX]

Can't wait more 2 months, eh? (Of course HD DVD is RIGHT ON TIME, right?)

Let me know when you'll be watching your Fox, Disney, Lions Gate, MGM, & Columbia titles in HD. Hint: it won't be next week.