Slashdot Mirror
Sony Decides Against Blu-Ray Downsampling
Paul Slocum writes "According to Ars Technica, Sony is now saying they will not use the Image Constraint Token and so movies will play on analog HDTV sets at full resolution. If HD-DVD does implement the analog downsampling, it's going to give Blu-ray a nice market advantage." From the article: "Sony's decision to not use the Image Constraint Token for the time being is meant to encourage the adoption of Blu-ray players. Launching a new product that would leave the thousands of analog HDTV owners out in the standard-definition cold could have proven to be a nightmare for Sony and the Blu-ray spec in general. Reports that 'Blu-ray discs don't look right on my HDTV' could result in consumers' switching allegiances to the competing HD DVD standard or postponing purchases of next-generation optical players altogether."
According to the article, use of the "Image Constraint Token" is up to the studios. This announcement is only that Sony movies won't force down-sampling "for the foreseeable future". Other studios' movies could, since the players will still support it.
Welcome to consumer confusion.
Let's hope that the other studios all follow suit for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
If not they will save me a bunch of money.
Sony Blu Ray Downsampling
HD-DVD Locks out old HDTVs
The thing is it's only Sony that's not going to use the flag. Other studios are free to do as they wish.
It's not a firmware issue -- it's an issue determined on a per-title basis. The player has the capability to force downsampling, but these titles will not activate that capability.
Any future titles (or rereleases of the same titles) could have this flag enabled, and they would be downsampled. However, this wouldn't change your ability to watch any previously purchased discs at the higher resolution over analog.
As far as your request goes, the Parents' Television Council has thoughtfully provided a clip of the scene in question! (A teenage orgy). How nice of them ;-)
/ content.htm
http://www.parentstv.org/ptc/action/withoutatrace
I haven't watched it, since I'm at work, so I don't know how long it is or if it's censored. Enjoy!
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
A great plot summary and video preview of the "offensive" part (wmv) is available from (I'm not kidding) the Parents Television Council:
Don't miss PTC's "explicit" and "EXTREMELY offensive" description of each controversial scene from that episode: For more laughs, check out their online FTC Complaint Form which probably contributed to the fine and ban.TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
it's only Sony that's not going to use the flag. Other studios are free to do as they wish.
Disney, Fox, and Paramount are apparently going along with Sony in not using the downsampling flag on BD-Video launch titles. Among MPAA member studios, this leaves Warner and Universal.
Region 1: North America, South America, Japan and East Asia (excluding China)
Region 2: Europe and Africa
Region 3: India, China, Russia, and all other countries.
Note how they put China and Russia, two countries with lax copyright controls, in the same region.
This means that PS3s, at least as Blu-Ray players, will be the same in Japan as they are in the US, making them much more inviting as imports if they were to launch earlier in Japan as opposed to everywhere else.
Ultimate AV magazine also got to see a preview of Blu-Ray. Here are the important points:
That is, they can always turn it on in the future on a per-title basis.)
The Blu-Ray group also summarized what they announced at CeBit in this PDF.
Highlights:
content. (This had been something that was supposed to be delayed in the hardware).
A source at a studio has said that current "Special Edition" content for Blu-Ray discs is being ported over to a High Def signal. It won't be only the movies that are in HD.
Netflix will be carrying both Blu-Ray and Hd-DVD discs at launch.
If you have a video card that says it will support HDCP, you may be disappointed. It looks like no current video cards on the market will really support HDCP. From Ars: "With regards to shipping cards, they are correct: no matter what a box's feature list may say, no video card supports HDCP fully at this time. Why? They have not been completely programmed. Until the specifications for the access control system are completely finished, implementing pro
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Higher resolutions do not immediately mean a massive increase in quality.
Most people think of resolutions in terms of 3D Polygonal games, where higher resolutions means less "jaggies" or blurry anti-aliased edges.
Everything on DVD is "Pre-blended" as such in a much more efficent way than polygons ever will be. I don't know if you've ever notived how even analog television can pull off much more convincing "edges" than any pre-render has done.
Higher resolutions mean it will be a little less blurred. But in practice, DVD is already high quality. There is a point for which resolutions become difficult for an untrained eye to distinguish. HD lies within that spectrum, but at the end of it.
On most TVs, it will be difficult to tell the resolution. On very large screen TVs, it most certainly is a benefit. But for most of us, it's a small performance increase as opposed to the relatively large one DVDs offered, and even that had it's critics.
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
I know the government is mandating that broadcasters switch to digital transmission over the air, and all HDTV broadcast in US is digital anyway (there are analog HDTV broadcast standards, but they aren't used in the US). Also, they now require TVs 36" and over to support digital signals without a digital to analog converter, but I don't think they require any DRM. The main initiative for mandatory DRM that I'm aware of was the Broadcast Flag, which was luckily struck down (but may not be gone for good).
The issue here is more with the connection between the recorder and the monitor. Although digital connections are becoming more common, AFAIK, analog component cables are currently the most common way to hook up DVD players and set top boxes to an HD Television. In order to close the analog hole, sending HD content over component cables or VGA cables would need to be banned. As far as I know, no legislation exists mandating this yet, but wouldn't be surprised if someone is trying.
How many times is this going to be misreported? This is Sony Pictures saying that they won't use the Image Constraint token. It is not Sony Consumer Electronics saying that the ICT won't exist in Blu-Ray. Other movie studios are welcome to use the ICT on Blu-ray, or even use it or not on disc-by-disc basis. Fox has made a similar announcement about HD-DVD: they won't use the ICT on their HD-DVD movies. Again: blu-ray still has the Image Constraint Token, and every movie studio is welcome to enable it or not on any disc they choose.