Slashdot Mirror
Sony Fakes Blu-Ray Demo?
twasserman writes "Lance Ulanoff of PC Magazine reported on Sony's recent event showing the new VAIO AR desktop with a Blu-Ray drive, observing that Sony faked the high-def demo by using a plain old DVD+R of House of Flying Daggers. Even before the rootkit fiasco, Sony has seemed increasingly desperate, but the general consensus seems to be that Sony is looking pretty sad and pathetic." Update 03:07 GMT by SM: Many users are calling shenanigans on this one since there were two laptops side by side, one with the Blu-Ray demo and another for comparison. Independent confirmation or negation has yet to surface, so take with the requisite grain of salt required when reading any news.
A company faked a demo? I'm shocked....SHOCKED, I tell you!
They are like M$, they can't do anything anymore without bad press.
Perhaps we should start using $ony when having a whinge about them.
You get what you give though.
The last real demo of a new product was Windows 98 at COMDEX on April 20, 1998.
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060 512
Thib ;-)
How dare you get in the way of some Sony bashing?
Even if the reporting of the "faked" Blu-ray is a complete load of hogwash, it doesn't excuse the fact that Sony bootlegged a movie. Would the MPAA like to find out about that? If that much is true, and if there was no proof of an original DVD of the film anywhere to be found, then what's to say that Sony haven't image tweaked the burnt DVD+R to a lower encoded video quality, in order to help with their performance? Did anyone see the original blu-ray disc of the movie?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
In other news, the Motion Picture Association of America takes on a legal battle against Sony. Sony allegedly made unauthorized copies of one of its own movies, House of Flying Daggers. Sony also allowed an unlicensed public performance of said film.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
I'm even more shocked! Press journalists are known to be corrupt and inept, but a blogger screwing up.... well that really makes you spill your cup of tea!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
But, then, I'm female and we're used to faking it realistically.
So, wait a second. We've got some guy on some site that has pictures of a DVD in a drive, and this is somehow proof that Sony faked the whole thing? Aren't there just a few holes here?
Come on, to prove he was on the level, he enlarged the photos!What more do you want?
But seriously, I could go either way on this one. You raise good points, but let me play devil's advocate point by point:
1) The whole idea was that working tech or not, there are so few Blu-ray discs to be had that it's hard to get one, even for an official demo.
2) Even the biggest corporations come down to a couple of guys low on the totem pole sooner or later. When the job is "Take this cake and a couple laptops to a night club" there's no telling who they're going to send. A couple of guys with a deadline, an iso file, and blank media laying around isn't that big of a stretch.
3) Again, it's a couple of guys. Maybe a couple of guys who heard Verbatim's don't make as many coasters.
4) I doubt they'd want to do that. Can you really tell the difference on a notebook screen? And if both machines had the discs they were officially supposed to, I'd expect a standard commercial DVD. A DVD+R of a commercial movie is generally not legal.
5) Okay, you got me. I might make a comparison to "How do you know it's not a government conspiracy" but anti-Sony sentiments are too widespread and getting faked photos onto a blog "expose" are too in vogue not to give that a pass.
6) Like who? The mainstream press? They barely covered the rootkit, and that allowed undetectable arbitrary code on your home PC. Besides, the CIA director just left on bad terms, Bush is proposing to throw out the tradition of civilian leadership in replacing him, the NSA knows who calls your house (thanks in part to the new proposed CIA director), we're militarizing the Mexican border but cutting existing illegal aliens a yet-to-be determined amount of slack, and nobody knows how close Iran is to getting the bomb, and Britney Spears is pregnant again. It's not an easy time to break into the news cycle when there are no celebrities involved.
Finally modding someone offtopic when they rant about what "Begging the Question" means: priceless.
Click On the Aditional Photos
scroll down the comments posted by the Original Poster of the artice, i quote
"We're sorry!
Posted by: Jennifer DeLeo
Tuesday, May 16, 2006 5:41 PM
Ok. We admit it. We were trying to come up with ways to get hits to our website. We knew if we somehow could make it look like Sony was caught in a wb of lies, every gaming and electronics site would link to us. We would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
"
i rest my case
I agree the demo probably wasn't a complete phony like the original blog insists, but why a burned copy?
So they could go "Nah NahNah NaNAH Na! We can copy DVD's without legal repercussions!"
Blu-Ray? They were doomed to fail when the abandoned the much cooler acronym style of naming such as... HD-DVD. Didn't they learn their lesson with Betamax vs. VHS? What video store is going to advertise, "Rent Blu-Rays Here!"
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Could Slashbots BE any more eager to make up bullshit to trash Sony with? Good to see /.'s editorial integrity is keeping to its... high... standards.
I agree the story is a fake, but I think I missed something... Lance Ulanoff did not write that article. Nor can I find and article from Lance Ulanoff reporting on this. The only article linked is from a two-bit reporter Jennifer DeLeo who claims this is what Lance Ulanoff said. Moreover, read the post made by the ACTUAL AUTHOR in the comments section of Gearlog, several posts down:
"We're sorry!
Posted by: Jennifer DeLeo
Tuesday, May 16, 2006 5:41 PM
Ok. We admit it. We were trying to come up with ways to get hits to our website. We knew if we somehow could make it look like Sony was caught in a wb of lies, every gaming and electronics site would link to us. We would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"
Link
There are countless other reasons it is obviouosly faked too; shame on all of you gullible idiots.
That's not an evil laugh, that's the Katamari Damacy theme song!
You gotta find first gear in your giant robot car