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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.

29 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. Faked Demo? by deanj · · Score: 5, Funny

    A company faked a demo? I'm shocked....SHOCKED, I tell you!

    1. Re:Faked Demo? by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, you know the old saying: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo".

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  2. It's probably NOT fake... by grub · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It sounds like Lance Ulanoff from PC Magazine is jumping the gun. According to notebookreview.com:
    The premium model comes bundled with one of the first Blu-ray Disc (BD) movies, House of Flying Daggers, which Sony showed side-by-side tonight, along with the DVD version. Contrary to what some have said, the difference in quality is instantly noticeable
    It sounds like Ulanoff was in too much of a rush for a scoop and didn't realize this when he ejected what was very likely the comparison DVD. Don't let the facts get in the way of a good Sony bashing, though.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:It's probably NOT fake... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In other words, Slashdot posted a faked story without checking the facts? Nothing new, but there should definitely be a warning on this site, "do not trust what you read here, we don't check our facts". BTW, I didn't check my facts, but I'm not a popular website.

    2. Re:It's probably NOT fake... by G-funk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I agree the demo probably wasn't a complete phony like the original blog insists, but why a burned copy? Could it be they used a re-compressed (via dvdshrink etc) dvd to make the blu-ray content look better than it is?

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money!
    3. Re:It's probably NOT fake... by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Funny

      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!"

    4. Re:It's probably NOT fake... by Mr_Escher · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The reason I'd do it that way is so I could just cut, say, a 20 minute segment without the usual menus and so forth making it easier to sync the 2 machines side by side for comparison.

    5. Re:It's probably NOT fake... by idlemachine · · Score: 4, Insightful
      If you don't want bluray, just don't buy it. If you don't want a PS3, ditto.

      Jesus wept. Every new tech launch. Every new console gen. Like clockwork. Same old bitching about price points, same old conspiracies about fraudulant demos, same old "this company isn't supporting the tech I want/like/own, so they're going to fail" rhetoric.

      Doesn't anyone else getting really fucking tired of this, or am I missing the point, is this what we do now?

    6. Re:It's probably NOT fake... by Zackbass · · Score: 4, Funny
      So they could go "Nah NahNah NaNAH Na! We can copy DVD's without legal repercussions!"


      That's not an evil laugh, that's the Katamari Damacy theme song!
      --
      You gotta find first gear in your giant robot car
  3. Too many holes... by DrEldarion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1) Sony has the tech, why on earth would they resort to a DVD?
    2) Why would they use a DVD+R with no label when they distribute the actual DVDs?
    3) Why would Sony use a Verbatim DVD+R?
    4) How do we know that machine wasn't supposed to be running a DVD to compare to a computer next to it running Blu-Ray. (Quite coincidentally, there are no pictures of the disc from that machine.)
    5) How do we know the picture wasn't staged by someone anti-Sony?
    6) Howcome nobody else is reporting on this?

    I know Sony's no saint, but this just doesn't make any sense at all.

    1. Re:Too many holes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      At CES, I know for a fact that the demos for Blu-ray were run off of hard drives, not off of blu-ray media. it was all smoke and mirrors. my company created content for one of the blu-ray demos, and it never showed on a real blu-ray player.

      But, I have to ask -- this is a surprise? this is something to be outraged at?

      Has the author never attended a trade show like NAB or CES? It's pretty much standard operating procedure for these shows to show off stuff that isn't yet finished - half the high end digital cinema cameras that are shown at NAB are wooden models, for crying out loud!

      If it's not shipping, it doesn't exist yet, as far as I'm concerned.

    2. Re:Too many holes... by Wdomburg · · Score: 4, Informative

      3) Why would Sony use a Verbatim DVD+R?

      The other points have some validity, but different divisions of a single company don't stick to using in-house products. Even years before IBM spun off the drive division most of the drives they shipping in machines came from other vendors.

    3. Re:Too many holes... by 4e617474 · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.
  4. Poor Sony. by Freaky+Spook · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Poor Sony. by Irish_Samurai · · Score: 5, Funny

      SON¥

  5. All of them are faked nowadays by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The last real demo of a new product was Windows 98 at COMDEX on April 20, 1998.

  6. Obligatory Ctrl+Alt+Del reference by thib_gc · · Score: 4, Funny
  7. Gotta love journalists by billcopc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Dumbass journalist alert!!!

    Repeat after me: DVD is not HD.

    Would Sony use a burnt DVD for display ? Possible (hey, there's idiot students everywhere), but unlikely. Would Sony use a regular DVD for comparison versus Blu-Ray ? Certainly!

    It's not like they have to fake it, they have the drive. They probably have demo content too. I'm pretty sure Blu-Ray video is encoded at a much higher resolution than boring old 720x480 Mpeg-2 DVD. Now maybe if our overzealous reporter had taken a moment to actually examine the demo and see the difference, maybe even chat with the Sony media monkey, perhaps he would have come up with a more valid article. Or maybe he did all that, but decided the notoriety of his lies would be a bigger hit.

    --
    -Billco, Fnarg.com
  8. Sony the bootlegger by Neo-Rio-101 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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
    1. Re:Sony the bootlegger by DragonWriter · · Score: 4, Informative

      The US DVD distributor for House of Flying Daggers is Sony Pictures Home Entertainment; the US theatrical distributor is Sony Pictures Classics.

      Somehow, I'm not sure "bootlegged" is the right word for Sony making a copy of this film.

  9. More than just a laser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, I work on Blu-Ray players(not for Sony), take that for what you will.

    Aside from the article submitter trolling, I would like to state that Blu-Ray is more than just a laser. It's an entire format complete with a software virtual machine.

    When we test content it comes on a DVD-R, we're testing layouts of files, VM access, decoding, video quality etc.

    Now I don't know what was at the booth, but it is certainly possible that they were showing off their software Blu-Ray player with the content burned onto a DVD.

  10. In other news... by atomic-penguin · · Score: 5, Funny

    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}$/
  11. A blogger faked a fake... by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:A blogger faked a fake... by Jim_Callahan · · Score: 5, Funny

      I agree, old chap. The GP surely owes me a new monocle.

      --
      ...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
  12. Faking it isn't a problem by skayell · · Score: 5, Funny
    Faking a demo isn't really a problem at all. You just have to be smart enough NOT TO GET CAUGHT. I've faked dozens of demos in my lifetime (and, yes, I still sleep okay).

    But, then, I'm female and we're used to faking it realistically.

    1. Re:Faking it isn't a problem by KingPrad · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's not that you women are good at faking. It's just that we men don't care!

      --
      Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
  13. This topic is complete troll bait. by Awptimus+Prime · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Okay, I don't know why our poster thinks engaget is the "general concensus", perhaps he finds their comments section mentally stimulating (click the link in the headline and scroll down).

    Regardless if this was faked or not, I don't trust all these band-wagoning fools here or there. All you have to do is read my previous posts that were modded as troll, flame, etc when I predicted a fiaso with Sony's Blu-ray and PS3 releases. People saw big numbers, wanted big numbers, and completely forgot about Sony's failures in the past.

    Kind of reminds me of the idiocy supporting support for multiple wars a couple of years ago. People like to believe things and completely turn off the part of their brain that comprehends history's lessons.

  14. Sony Responds - a comment FTFA by bi_boy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Found this as a comment on the site, who knows if its legit?


    Sony Responds
    Posted by: J Piazza, Sony Employee

    I would like to clarify this issue regarding the content that was shown last night at the Sony VAIO 10th anniversary event.

    The demonstration in question was a side-by-side comparison of Blu-ray Disc recorded content compared with a DVD recording of the same content. The identical notebooks were each playing the Sony Pictures release, "House of Flying Daggers"- one notebook showing the DVD format and the other showing the Blu-ray Disc format.

    The photograph taken by one of the reporters attending the event was of the DVD version used for demo. The Blu-ray Disc media had no label.

    I can attest that the disc in question was a Blu-ray Disc as I organized the event. The Blu-ray Disc media used, though not a final master, was encoded and displayed using Blu-ray Disc technology and rendered in true 1080p resolution. This resolution could not possibly have been duplicated using a DVD. I hope this clears up any confusion.

    --
    Chicken fried butter sticks? Do ... do you use a fork? - Black Mage, 8-Bit Theater