The Samsung may indeed ship late this month. I was in compUSA last weekend and they had the pre-order for the Sammy unit on the front page. Who knows how many will actually be available.
Sony is delayed to Aug 15th and Pioneer has said some time in Sept. The good news is the players don't seem that buggy from what some people testing beta units have stated.
As the battle between DVD+RW and DVD-RW writers simply resulted in hybrid writers, the same is likely to take place with the next generation DVD market with BenQ already having plans to introduce a hybrid writer capable of handling both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. They also plan to offer a hybrid set-top HD recorder which can also read from or record HD broadcasts to either format.
That's great news. If BenQ and LG can spur the Universal Player market then many people will just buy one player and ensure they can play all discs.
The Samsung may indeed ship late this month. I was in compUSA last weekend and they had the pre-order for the Sammy unit on the front page. Who knows how many will actually be available.
Ya, and I can go pre-order the Sony player, which isn't coming out until August. Pre-order means nothing for the actually shipping date. While the Samsung player might ship this month, the fact you can pre-order it doesn't mean much of anything. We will see when it does in deed start shipping.
As far as hybrid drives go, I can't wait. But I wonder how that will or will not effect the studios that are making movies. If universal players become the norm, which format do you make your movie on?
Yep countdown begins alright. Lets see, T-Minus 56 days and counting until I can play these movies. Is that the countdown Sony was talking about? And this assumes there are no more delays (this is what, like the third one now?)
I had a feeling someone was going to pull out the Samsung link about the supposed delay; however, this is only for the UK and according to Sammy was the plan all along, sorry mates. Here is confirmation that Samsung will indeed release in the US on June 25th...
"Samsung hopes to avoid the drought of product that Toshiba experienced with its HD DVD player launch back in April. "We'll be in more than 2000 storefronts at launch, and we will have multiple units available at each of these locations," says Sanduski. "Will we sell out? I hope so. We are launching with more storefronts and more quanitity than Toshiba." Samsung plans to sell the BD-P1000 at Best Buy, Circuit City, select Sears stores, electronics specialty stores like Tweeter and Magnolia Audio Video, and other electronics specialty and consumer electronics regional stores nationwide."
And this is just Sammy, with Philips, Sony, Pioneer, and Sharp to follow. It is going to be an interesting summer!
Um, 2 of the links (Sony and Pioneer) were valid, and do show that their players are being delayed. The Samsung one was a rumor, and I guess I should have clearly stated that. I wasn't trying to spread FUD, I just stated 2 facts and a rumor. I know the way I was stating it did put a negative slant on Blu-Ray (only because you seem like you love to slam HD-DVD any and every chance you get). Good for Samsung if they get their player out in June. Competition is good.
HD-DVD being first to market isn't necessarily an advantage, Blu-ray could sweep in and become more popular.
There are working Sony Blu-ray players, I recently saw a demonstration at the Sony Style store on Madison Avenue in New York.
Playstation 2 is still outselling both the XBox and XBox 360. Part of that is likely price, but also the fact that Playstation has a strong brand name which is likely to continue with the Playstation 3.
HD-DVD being first to market isn't necessarily an advantage, Blu-ray could sweep in and become more popular.
There are working Sony Blu-ray players, I recently saw a demonstration at the Sony Style store on Madison Avenue in New York.
Playstation 2 is still outselling both the XBox and XBox 360. Part of that is likely price, but also the fact that Playstation has a strong brand name which is likely to continue with the Playstation 3.
First to market is a slight advantage but in addition to "FtM" Toshiba has a pricing advantage as well. I'm interested in how many people out there perceive Samsung as a brand worth of spending a grand on. We'll soon see if they ship this month.
I know I'm looking forward to the launch. The pending BD launch seems to have had an effect on Universal which is lowering its pricing. Amazon has most BD movies at $20 and at that price I'm going to be owning a lot of movies. I think it'll force the HD DVD movie pricing down as well.
I'm beginning to get the feeling that Toshiba is basically going to go it alone until the xmas buying season and I expect more HD DVD players from other vendors to be announced for next 2007's year-long push. I could be wrong but I'd expect to see something else announced by sept if they plan to make it for xmas.
2nd gen hardware is going to be easier to make a profit off of for both platforms as lower pricing. Now I just need an AV Receiver with 3-1 HDMI inputs.
There is a mantra about being the first one to do something.
You allow competitors to see your mistakes then come behind you and execute what you attempted to do better.
People also seem to forget that the Sony Betamax was the first home videocassette recorder on the market in 1975. A lot of good that did for Sony. And closer to home, Apple beat IBM to market with personal computers by several years, not to mention predating Microsoft with mice and the point & click GUI. (I told friends in 1983 that the mouse was going to be the next BIG thing, but nobody would listen to me.)
The other thing is that Toshiba isn't a brand folks seem particularly loyal to...
Vinea
I've known plenty of people loyal to Toshiba TVs. However Sony probably the mindshare with the avg joe sixpack. I can't count how many times I've heard "Sony's the best". You automatically know this person has seen too many Sony and Bose commercials LOL.
First to market is an advantage albeit a small one. Where Blu-Ray is going to hurt is price unless they can get price parity within a generation or two. I think they can but Chinese HD DVD players are going to set the pricing trend by end of 2007 from what I read.
Titles available at retail June 20 from SPHE include...Luc Besson's visually stunning "The Fifth Element" ..."Ultraviolet," the first day-and-date BD title from SPHE will debut one week later on June 27..."Resident Evil Apocalypse" will debut on Blu-ray Disc July 25th.
Is Milla Jovovich one of the major investors in Blu-ray or something?
Digitals sterile tag only comes about because its TOO good at sound reproduction.
Not really. Digital is just a representation of the original analog source. If it was recorded digitally it was probably done at 24bit/92KHz originally and then dithered down to 16bit/44.1KHz for the CD format. It's clean but flat sounding. Too much information is lost. That is why it is sterile sounding. The CD is a rather poor format for reproducing digital music accurately. It will always be a compromise as that was the best they could do when the format was first introduced without splitting albums into two discs.
Most of my LPs sound better overall than my CDs of the same recordings. On the other hand comparing them to a DVD-A or SACD of the same recording can have different results. They are closer to the original recording and sound far better than the CD format. Of course it depends heavily on what type of music you listen to. It's too bad these formats are languishing in the marketplace as they can actually make digital sound good. Most people are not concerned with sound quality though. With so much distorted and over processed junk being produced these days it often doesn't matter.
What were we talking about? Oh yeah. HD Video formats. Both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray groups have screwed up their launches in different ways. I'm on the side of Blu-Ray but honestly I want to strangle them sometimes.
So I'm interested, now that the titles in both HD-DVD and BD are out/coming out, what does MMC mean practically speaking? Do the cases advertise that you can make a legal copy of the movie for your personal use (I doubt it)? Is it a full quality (1080p) copy? or a DVD quality one (480p)? Or an iPod quality one? Or can you choose? Or does anyone even know, considering these next-gen drives aren't available for computers yet?
I'm guessing that Apple has the opportunity here to really set the standard for how to handle this MMC stuff. It seems so chaotic and unorganized: a perfect opprtunity for Apple to come in, clean up the mess, and start the ball rolling: an iTunes for your video collection.
Sorry to kind of change the tide of the recent discussion, but I just had a thought/question.
HD-DVD has the backing of the DVD forum, correct? So if it were to flop, and go under, the DVD forum would basically do the same (as Blu-Ray took off, and it outpaced sales of DVDs over time). Would the DVD forum allow this? Wouldn't they want to keep there group together, and have the winning next gen format? Aren't there over 200 members in the group, with many getting royalties off the name?
I don't know, just something I started thinking about.
Correct HD DVD has the "backing" of the DVD forum, but it is pretty much a baseless backing. This is due to the fact that most of the companies that are a part (I mean a really good part) of the DVD forum joined the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) and a good portion of them decided to be Blu-ray exclusively. Why? I think it had something to do with the way (like changing the way absentee votes were counted) HD DVD when about championing their format within the forum, thus a mass move to the BDA. So, in general, when you hear HD DVD has the "backing of the DVD Forum comprised of over 200 industry leaders, etc. etc" it is a misleading statement to say the least since one, not all 200 members actually support HD DVD, and two, there really aren't that many, 200 companies, that supoort it. So, to answer your question, I don't think the DVD Forum will have much say or clout in terms of not allowing Blu-ray to succeed seeing how much of its support has left to the BDA.
In addition, there are indeed 170+ companies comprising the BDA and yes, many of the companies will be getting royalties.
So I'm interested, now that the titles in both HD-DVD and BD are out/coming out, what does MMC mean practically speaking? Do the cases advertise that you can make a legal copy of the movie for your personal use (I doubt it)? Is it a full quality (1080p) copy? or a DVD quality one (480p)? Or an iPod quality one? Or can you choose? Or does anyone even know, considering these next-gen drives aren't available for computers yet?
I'm guessing that Apple has the opportunity here to really set the standard for how to handle this MMC stuff. It seems so chaotic and unorganized: a perfect opprtunity for Apple to come in, clean up the mess, and start the ball rolling: an iTunes for your video collection.
MMC stands for Mandatory Managed Copy. I don't think anything specific has come out regarding this capability since most 1st gen drives don't come with this capability to my knowledge. I believe the copies will be full quality which will be nice in that we can put the copies through every day use and keep the original as a master.
Both next-gen drives are available for computers and laptops. They just don't have the MMC technology to come along with it. The Blu-ray drives are even capable of BD-R and BD-RW along with your typical playback of DVDs, CDs, etc.
Also, I agree, Apple has a wonderful opportunity here to really shine.
There is a review of the Samsung Blu-Ray player over at the AVS forums. It looks like it is designed as an actual disc player and takes just 15 seconds to load a disc. The Toshiba HD-DVD player on the other hand is actually a PC with long booting times. This was probably done to save costs and hit the market early.
5 seconds from power on to accepting a disc and 15 seconds to start playing the disc. So about 20 seconds to play a move compared to about a minute and a half to do the same thing on Toshiba's HD-DVD player.
There is a review of the Samsung Blu-Ray player over at the AVS forums. It looks like it is designed as an actual disc player and takes just 15 seconds to load a disc. The Toshiba HD-DVD player on the other hand is actually a PC with long booting times. This was probably done to save costs and hit the market early.
5 seconds from power on to accepting a disc and 15 seconds to start playing the disc. So about 20 seconds to play a move compared to about a minute and a half to do the same thing on Toshiba's HD-DVD player.
Does that result in a picture quality advantage? I hear the Toshiba Qosmio plays a disc much faster as well. If that's an issue with customers (which I doubt it will be) then there are ways around it.
Comments
Sony is delayed to Aug 15th and Pioneer has said some time in Sept. The good news is the players don't seem that buggy from what some people testing beta units have stated.
Other good news
Hybrid player/recorders will be coming
As the battle between DVD+RW and DVD-RW writers simply resulted in hybrid writers, the same is likely to take place with the next generation DVD market with BenQ already having plans to introduce a hybrid writer capable of handling both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. They also plan to offer a hybrid set-top HD recorder which can also read from or record HD broadcasts to either format.
That's great news. If BenQ and LG can spur the Universal Player market then many people will just buy one player and ensure they can play all discs.
Originally posted by hmurchison
The Samsung may indeed ship late this month. I was in compUSA last weekend and they had the pre-order for the Sammy unit on the front page. Who knows how many will actually be available.
Ya, and I can go pre-order the Sony player, which isn't coming out until August. Pre-order means nothing for the actually shipping date. While the Samsung player might ship this month, the fact you can pre-order it doesn't mean much of anything. We will see when it does in deed start shipping.
As far as hybrid drives go, I can't wait. But I wonder how that will or will not effect the studios that are making movies. If universal players become the norm, which format do you make your movie on?
Thats a good question. I imagine this scenario for Universal Players.
Smaller Studios would go HD DVD to save on production costs.
Larger studios with long running titles would choose DL BD-ROM
Look at the coverage we'd have.
15GB SL HD DVD
25GB- SL BD-ROM
30GB DL HD DVD
50GB- DL BD-ROM
That gives a content provider the ability to match their titles to a format. Thus we could see
short term shows on SL discs either format
Feature Length Films on DL HD DVD or SL BD-ROM
Premium Feature Length Films on DL BD-ROM (these would have copious extras and mandated Lossless 7.1 audio)
Univ Players would have to become the defacto standard though and this would take a few years.
Originally posted by kupan787
Yep countdown begins alright. Lets see, T-Minus 56 days and counting until I can play these movies. Is that the countdown Sony was talking about? And this assumes there are no more delays (this is what, like the third one now?)
Sony Delaying Blu-Ray player until Late August (and in case you want it from the horses mouth)
Looks like Pioneer is as well
...and Samsung
(Edit: to add additional links)
I had a feeling someone was going to pull out the Samsung link about the supposed delay; however, this is only for the UK and according to Sammy was the plan all along, sorry mates. Here is confirmation that Samsung will indeed release in the US on June 25th...
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/002257.html
Nice try with the FUD though there kupan787.
"Samsung hopes to avoid the drought of product that Toshiba experienced with its HD DVD player launch back in April. "We'll be in more than 2000 storefronts at launch, and we will have multiple units available at each of these locations," says Sanduski. "Will we sell out? I hope so. We are launching with more storefronts and more quanitity than Toshiba." Samsung plans to sell the BD-P1000 at Best Buy, Circuit City, select Sears stores, electronics specialty stores like Tweeter and Magnolia Audio Video, and other electronics specialty and consumer electronics regional stores nationwide."
And this is just Sammy, with Philips, Sony, Pioneer, and Sharp to follow. It is going to be an interesting summer!
Originally posted by marzetta7
Nice try with the FUD though there kupan787.
Um, 2 of the links (Sony and Pioneer) were valid, and do show that their players are being delayed. The Samsung one was a rumor, and I guess I should have clearly stated that. I wasn't trying to spread FUD, I just stated 2 facts and a rumor. I know the way I was stating it did put a negative slant on Blu-Ray (only because you seem like you love to slam HD-DVD any and every chance you get). Good for Samsung if they get their player out in June. Competition is good.
There are working Sony Blu-ray players, I recently saw a demonstration at the Sony Style store on Madison Avenue in New York.
Playstation 2 is still outselling both the XBox and XBox 360. Part of that is likely price, but also the fact that Playstation has a strong brand name which is likely to continue with the Playstation 3.
Originally posted by TenoBell
HD-DVD being first to market isn't necessarily an advantage, Blu-ray could sweep in and become more popular.
There are working Sony Blu-ray players, I recently saw a demonstration at the Sony Style store on Madison Avenue in New York.
Playstation 2 is still outselling both the XBox and XBox 360. Part of that is likely price, but also the fact that Playstation has a strong brand name which is likely to continue with the Playstation 3.
First to market is a slight advantage but in addition to "FtM" Toshiba has a pricing advantage as well. I'm interested in how many people out there perceive Samsung as a brand worth of spending a grand on. We'll soon see if they ship this month.
I know I'm looking forward to the launch. The pending BD launch seems to have had an effect on Universal which is lowering its pricing. Amazon has most BD movies at $20 and at that price I'm going to be owning a lot of movies. I think it'll force the HD DVD movie pricing down as well.
I'm beginning to get the feeling that Toshiba is basically going to go it alone until the xmas buying season and I expect more HD DVD players from other vendors to be announced for next 2007's year-long push. I could be wrong but I'd expect to see something else announced by sept if they plan to make it for xmas.
2nd gen hardware is going to be easier to make a profit off of for both platforms as lower pricing. Now I just need an AV Receiver with 3-1 HDMI inputs.
You allow competitors to see your mistakes then come behind you and execute what you attempted to do better.
Originally posted by TenoBell
There is a mantra about being the first one to do something.
You allow competitors to see your mistakes then come behind you and execute what you attempted to do better.
The other thing is that Toshiba isn't a brand folks seem particularly loyal to...
Vinea
Originally posted by TenoBell
There is a mantra about being the first one to do something.
You allow competitors to see your mistakes then come behind you and execute what you attempted to do better.
People also seem to forget that the Sony Betamax was the first home videocassette recorder on the market in 1975. A lot of good that did for Sony. And closer to home, Apple beat IBM to market with personal computers by several years, not to mention predating Microsoft with mice and the point & click GUI. (I told friends in 1983 that the mouse was going to be the next BIG thing, but nobody would listen to me.)
Originally posted by vinea
The other thing is that Toshiba isn't a brand folks seem particularly loyal to...
Vinea
I've known plenty of people loyal to Toshiba TVs. However Sony probably the mindshare with the avg joe sixpack. I can't count how many times I've heard "Sony's the best". You automatically know this person has seen too many Sony and Bose commercials LOL.
First to market is an advantage albeit a small one. Where Blu-Ray is going to hurt is price unless they can get price parity within a generation or two. I think they can but Chinese HD DVD players are going to set the pricing trend by end of 2007 from what I read.
Originally posted by marzetta7
Titles available at retail June 20 from SPHE include...Luc Besson's visually stunning "The Fifth Element" ..."Ultraviolet," the first day-and-date BD title from SPHE will debut one week later on June 27..."Resident Evil Apocalypse" will debut on Blu-ray Disc July 25th.
Is Milla Jovovich one of the major investors in Blu-ray or something?
Originally posted by Trendannoyer
Digitals sterile tag only comes about because its TOO good at sound reproduction.
Not really. Digital is just a representation of the original analog source. If it was recorded digitally it was probably done at 24bit/92KHz originally and then dithered down to 16bit/44.1KHz for the CD format. It's clean but flat sounding. Too much information is lost. That is why it is sterile sounding. The CD is a rather poor format for reproducing digital music accurately. It will always be a compromise as that was the best they could do when the format was first introduced without splitting albums into two discs.
Most of my LPs sound better overall than my CDs of the same recordings. On the other hand comparing them to a DVD-A or SACD of the same recording can have different results. They are closer to the original recording and sound far better than the CD format. Of course it depends heavily on what type of music you listen to. It's too bad these formats are languishing in the marketplace as they can actually make digital sound good. Most people are not concerned with sound quality though. With so much distorted and over processed junk being produced these days it often doesn't matter.
What were we talking about? Oh yeah. HD Video formats. Both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray groups have screwed up their launches in different ways. I'm on the side of Blu-Ray but honestly I want to strangle them sometimes.
Originally posted by BrunoBruin
Is Milla Jovovich one of the major investors in Blu-ray or something?
No, but Milla Jovovich in HD is something worth investing in.
I'm guessing that Apple has the opportunity here to really set the standard for how to handle this MMC stuff. It seems so chaotic and unorganized: a perfect opprtunity for Apple to come in, clean up the mess, and start the ball rolling: an iTunes for your video collection.
Originally posted by kupan787
Sorry to kind of change the tide of the recent discussion, but I just had a thought/question.
HD-DVD has the backing of the DVD forum, correct? So if it were to flop, and go under, the DVD forum would basically do the same (as Blu-Ray took off, and it outpaced sales of DVDs over time). Would the DVD forum allow this? Wouldn't they want to keep there group together, and have the winning next gen format? Aren't there over 200 members in the group, with many getting royalties off the name?
I don't know, just something I started thinking about.
Correct HD DVD has the "backing" of the DVD forum, but it is pretty much a baseless backing. This is due to the fact that most of the companies that are a part (I mean a really good part) of the DVD forum joined the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) and a good portion of them decided to be Blu-ray exclusively. Why? I think it had something to do with the way (like changing the way absentee votes were counted) HD DVD when about championing their format within the forum, thus a mass move to the BDA. So, in general, when you hear HD DVD has the "backing of the DVD Forum comprised of over 200 industry leaders, etc. etc" it is a misleading statement to say the least since one, not all 200 members actually support HD DVD, and two, there really aren't that many, 200 companies, that supoort it. So, to answer your question, I don't think the DVD Forum will have much say or clout in terms of not allowing Blu-ray to succeed seeing how much of its support has left to the BDA.
In addition, there are indeed 170+ companies comprising the BDA and yes, many of the companies will be getting royalties.
Originally posted by DCQ
So I'm interested, now that the titles in both HD-DVD and BD are out/coming out, what does MMC mean practically speaking? Do the cases advertise that you can make a legal copy of the movie for your personal use (I doubt it)? Is it a full quality (1080p) copy? or a DVD quality one (480p)? Or an iPod quality one?
I'm guessing that Apple has the opportunity here to really set the standard for how to handle this MMC stuff. It seems so chaotic and unorganized: a perfect opprtunity for Apple to come in, clean up the mess, and start the ball rolling: an iTunes for your video collection.
MMC stands for Mandatory Managed Copy. I don't think anything specific has come out regarding this capability since most 1st gen drives don't come with this capability to my knowledge. I believe the copies will be full quality which will be nice in that we can put the copies through every day use and keep the original as a master.
Both next-gen drives are available for computers and laptops. They just don't have the MMC technology to come along with it. The Blu-ray drives are even capable of BD-R and BD-RW along with your typical playback of DVDs, CDs, etc.
Also, I agree, Apple has a wonderful opportunity here to really shine.
LINK
Lots of images on the second page!
EDIT: Specific times
5 seconds from power on to accepting a disc and 15 seconds to start playing the disc. So about 20 seconds to play a move compared to about a minute and a half to do the same thing on Toshiba's HD-DVD player.
Originally posted by 1984
There is a review of the Samsung Blu-Ray player over at the AVS forums. It looks like it is designed as an actual disc player and takes just 15 seconds to load a disc. The Toshiba HD-DVD player on the other hand is actually a PC with long booting times. This was probably done to save costs and hit the market early.
LINK
Lots of images on the second page!
EDIT: Specific times
5 seconds from power on to accepting a disc and 15 seconds to start playing the disc. So about 20 seconds to play a move compared to about a minute and a half to do the same thing on Toshiba's HD-DVD player.
Does that result in a picture quality advantage? I hear the Toshiba Qosmio plays a disc much faster as well. If that's an issue with customers (which I doubt it will be) then there are ways around it.