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Blu-Ray Launch Expected Next Week
grammar fascist writes "According to a Reuters article, two Blu-ray players and 'various titles' are expected in stores next week, June 20th. From the article: 'Blu-ray, one of two much-hyped high-definition DVD formats, debuts next week, but the launch is expected to be muted amid device delays and consumer confusion, industry analysts said on Thursday.' On the 20th, Samsung, not Sony, is launching a set-top player (Sony's is due this fall), and Sony is launching a Blu-ray compatible VAIO PC. Sony's fall set-top player will probably cost $1500. No word on the cost of Samsung's player yet, but I wouldn't expect it to be cheap."
There was an article a couple days ago on TGDaily that stated the Samsung's first blu-ray player to be a grand.
I don't know why an article on Slashdot is reporting Sony's to be $1500 when Best Buy is already taking pre-orders for both the Sony BDP-S1 & Samsung BD-P1000 models each equally priced at a thousand dollars. Even the Froogle search for it seems to come out on the one grand consensus.
It seems a lot of articles have been against Sony while this fear of Sony's set top player being overpriced is relatively unfounded. As we all know, this shall prove interesting if the PS3s offer the same functionality for much less.
If both players debut at $1,000, perhaps this will be a war one in quality instead of price? Ah, who am I kidding--whoever licenses pr0n easiest/fastest will come out on top (no pun intended).
I don't intend to run out and buy one because the only movie I've seen advertised for blu-ray is the second Underworld movie. And I don't even know which kind of blu-ray player it's for (customer confusion indeed)!
Just a side note, the same Reuters article is in The Washington Post and I've linked the print format to avoid having to click through pages and view less ads.
My work here is dung.
I don't know about you, but I am not at all excited by this. When DVD came out I couldn't wait for writers to come out so I could get one, but if we're going to be in the middle of a format war I don't even want a player. I think sales are going to be somewhat less than satisfactory.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
$999.99
The Toshiba HD-DVD player premiered to some pretty scating reviews, with issues like a terrible remote control, a 30 second bootup time, and terrible response time when you pressed play, fast forward, etc.. Not to mention the thing was a behemoth. What can we expect from Sony's offering? A side by side review of the two products (Sony, Toshiba) would be nice as well..
I see the sales of these being very slow just as I do HD-DVD...at least until more people get TV's capable of HD and until the prices drop more. Ultimately, regardless of what others say about sony this and that, I feel blueray will win.
I'm personally waiting for a dual-format play before I buy a next-gen format. Unlike with VHS/Beta both formats are the exact same dimensions so I think it is just a matter of time untill we get a player that can play both.
I guess this is technically not a dup, since there are some differences in the details. But it's still much too similar to yesterday's story. Zonk really needs to find a new line of work.
I'm not going to be using it anytime soon, but I noticed the other day that Netflix is starting to roll out their support for blu-ray.
I just want someone to win fast.
Pure 1080i or 1080p content on a TV with the full 1080i/p resolution (Sony SXRD TVs and some of the new DLPs) is absolutely amazing.
Despite many claims on here, the jump from a normal DVD on a 1080p television to a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc is more significant than VHS to DVD. A full 1080p picture has around 10 times more pixels per square inch than a normal DVD (which is 480p).
It seems to me that the "format war" Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD will remind the ATM vs Gigabit Ethernet as couple of years ago. People will stay with things they know (Ethernet, DVD) as long as they are seen as reliable (unlike e.g. floppies), and the technologies seeking to supplant (rather than upgrade) them will seek refuge in the server rooms next to SCSI and Fiber Channel.
Bless you, members of the home-video bleeding edge, who will muddy your hands during the legendary Format Wars so that we mere home-video mortals can finally decide how to best replace our DVD players in 2009. Thank you.
Please do be sure to post your blow by blow accounts of how you will be beaten within an inch of hope by this process, so that we may make snide comments while we secretly are grateful for your courage to wander into this firestorm of global-scale corporate tiddlywinks.
Winner takes all. "Begun, the Format War has."
I am from a small, grease-loving country in the north called Ca-na-da.
But will it ship before Duke Nukem Forever? Or perhaps, DNF will be redesigned from scratch to take full advantage of this format?
I have been working on BD-J stuff for BluRay movies.
M HP for a quick overview
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globally_Executable_
First of all, once you have gotten use to watching BluRay 1080p movies, anything less feels like an eyesore. You will probably be able to pickup a 1080p TV by the holidays this year for just under a grand. The TV manufactures all know that the market is about to be flooded with millions of cheap BluRay players, 499 component and 599 HDMI PS3s, and are all moving to put sets out that target that huge Playstation demographic.
Second, the Java layer, that Microsoft seems to hate so much, on BluRay discs is letting us do all sorts of very cool stuff far beyond the simple menu systems that current DVDs have.
Start watching for BluRay releases and make sure to check what cool additions the Java stuff we are doing are implemented on the new discs.
The Blu-Ray devices have been selling for at least several years.
Anyone care to comment on how much better this is than DVD? The problem with any new technology in terms of adoption is that it has to be much, much better than anything else and the old alternatives. I just can't see getting this. True, HD televisions are starting to come out and people have gotten used to a higher resolution, but I just wonder.
Why? I have a big HDTV, and some money, but no plans to buy either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. Ordinary DVDs are still almost good enough. What I'm not doing, though, is investing another dime in any of the content lockdown schemes that come along with these new formats.
I'm not a criminal, I'm not a pirate, and I'm not a consumer of pirated movies. And I shouldn't be treated like one. So I will be god-damned if I'm going to help them get their HDCP development money back by buying one cent of this sh!t. I think the rest of you need to quit drooling over HD-DVD and Blu-Ray and tell the suck-up hardware companies like Toshiba that you're not going to buy this crap, either. If we vote with our dollars, they may eventually get the picture, clearer than HD.
John
VHS tapes are still on the shelves at most, if not all, video rental stores. Most people are just getting comfortable with DVD's. It's normal to find them in your average household, my parents finally bought one 2-3 years ago. Why do we need a new format, much less, two incompatible formats? I hope this fails as much as the MiniDisc did, and I was a buyer of the MiniDisc. Yes, I know there's a niche market for MiniDiscs. I hope at best, that this is relegated to such a market.
are we going to have to go through all that crap again just to get it to play on freebsd?
This has all been said before here on slashdot, but the fact remains, there is no killer app for blueray/HD-DVD that justifies the huge expense to convert one's current DVD collection. I just don't get it.
Also, why the hell are they so expensive anyway? It's a higher density format, with more data to decode faster and with a new type of laser, and granted economies of scale haven't kicked in yet. But considering a good quality DVD player is about 15% or less the cost of these new players, what is driving such a rediculous price? For $1000 to $1500 just about anyone can put together a computer system to record TV, including hi-def content, and store and distribute on-demand their personal DVD collection throughout their house with that sytem. Plus it will likely be a nice enough gaming rig to boot. Let's see, full home streaming video system vs higher res movies that don't even exist yet. Gee, tough call. [/cynicism]
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
This Blue-ray/HD-DVD talk has been raging for a while now. What suprises me is why we've not heard of any "standards" zealots. I do not spare the Open Source Software zealots either. They've been silent too. Should we think that their silence means something is cooking and should be out soon? The OGG folks showed us something instead of just keeping silent.
How many times will Sony need to push forth a predominantly vendor specific (although a couple other blu-ray vendors exist, we all know this is mostly a Sony standard) format for something before learning better? Or is Sony trying to corner the market on niche markets?
1. Betamax
2. Memory sticks
3. Minidisc
4. UMD
How many times? How many other Sony formats am I missing? I know I have to be missing at least one.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Step one: Consumer buys HD-TV ...time passes...
Step two: Consumer buys a few HD-DVD discs to try it out.
Step three: These new "DVD" discs fail to play in consumers DVD player.
Step four: Return counter:
Step five: Person buys Blu-Ray disc because they have a PS3 and Blu-Ray has been heavily marketed recently, knows that Blu-Ray disc does not work in DVD player...
There you have the entire lifecycle of the format war.
If you had plugged in a gigabit capable computer into a 10/100 swicth and not had it work, would gigabit really have taken off as well?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I saw a demo system at our local Future Shop. It was set up a Toshiba display so I don't think anybody at FS was allowed to mess with it. I presume the quality was as good as it should be. The screen was about 32" so pretty small compared to what the typical buyer would use. Overall the picture quality was only slightly better than a good up-sampled DVD. There was a little less blocking but overall I didn't find the colour, detail or sharpness any better. If the discs and players were the same price as with DVD then it would be worth considering but at this point I think it's going to be a really tough sell.
East River, NYC
... ummm ... I mean, working on it. But, hey, now Sony can run Ooo-Ray for Blu-Ray stunts, assuming they're the ones who make that format. I forget, I really don't keep up with technology."
Dr. Thaddeus Venture presents the first demonstration of the "Oooo"-Ray.
Sensing a tie-in, Venture Industries is said to be attempting negotiations with Sony to give them a DEADLY edge in the Format Wars. "Just melt the other guy's blank media plants," he joked, "then see who gets the early adopters!" He paused to take his medication after a moment of awkward laughter. "But seriously, those U.N. guys hated my new Oooo-Ray. I spent months reverse-engineering Dad's
---
"I have purchased this collectible Home-Boy figurine from the machine in your sitting room!!!"
crappy triceratops
The first DVD players came out in 1996 (and only in the Japanese market--they hit the US in 1997). What's this 80s stuff? Are you sure you don't mean LDs?
"100% of the people back in the 80's technically could have bought a DVD player"
Since the first DVD players were released in 1996, they would have "technically" needed time-travel to buy one in the 80's.
The samsung player is listed on dabs.com for 600 pounds sterling.
872835240
For what its worth, I think Sony and the DVD Consortium are merely fighting over the next laserdisc. Most people I know don't own an HDTV, and its easy to see why. As stated about, the standards are confusing, compatibility uncertain, and prices are still too high for the average consumer.
I'm in the market for an HDTV myself, however, like most Americans, I'm on a budget, and am looking for something no higher than around $500 for a 30". After doing some shopping, the best I've found are a couple of CRT models from Philips and Sanyo, both being brands that I've had problems with in the past.
At the same time, I can get a high quality SDTV for around $300. With the current lack of content for HD, combined with the high cost of entry and competing standards, this will probably be the route I take. Bear in mind that your Average Joe has little knowledge of what HD is, or what is has to offer. More to the point, the Average Joe doesn't really care. When it comes to a television purchase, a bigger screen and price will be on top of his wish list. You'd be surprised how many people still have no concept of A/V cables, and still connect everything to their television through coaxial!
Additionally, most of the people I know have massive DVD collections that they have spent small fortunes on. They have no interest in upgrading these collections any time soon. Sure, these new players are backwards compatible, but anyone who forks out the money for one is going to feel foolish playing only standard definition DVDs on it. If they don't, then they once again have no understanding of what HD is.
My prediction? Those who DO own HDTVs and understand the technology will decide the winner, most likely on technical merits. The winner will become a niche market, as prices on HDTVs drop over the next few years. By the time HDTV becomes the standard, will be time for a new disc format.
However, there is one thing that HD-DVD has going for it. I can go to Wal-Mart right now and pick up the discs and player for a reasonable price. Blu-Ray might have distinct technical advantages, but HD-DVD is first to market.
vi ~/.emacs
I've heard all of this stuff before when DVDs were trying to be adopted. Classics are:
- LD and VHS work great.
- There isn't that much improvement over LDs.
- No one knows if DVD will take off...
- I am not interested in buying new equipment again.
So on and so fort, lots of teeth nashing and woe. But hey we lived through it and few will say we are worse off. HDTV is the biggest change to NTSC since the modification to handle color. On the two HDTV displays I have I already see the quality problems with DVD even when the player upscales. I'm already hungry for devices that generate true high definition content. I'm not sure why people are saying they need to wait because I've heard all of this before and it was just fine.
As for Sony, they design devices that have to meet certain requirements. They needed a "next gen DVD" system and this is what they came up with. Why are they evil for trying such a thing? Or why aren't the HD-DVD group evil as well? Sony is far from perfect often where they often "miss" instead of "hit" but that is the name of the game of innovation.
what we'll fight wars over. Analog is soon giving way to HD by force of law leading to a war about how people without $12k to drop on an HD system will be able to watch TV anymore. Now we're fighting over which DVD format is better.
Meanwhile, kids and adults all around the world go without basic necessities.
Bread and circuses, folks. Bread and circuses.
J & R in New York City has the Sony BDP-S1 Blu-Ray for pre-order at US$999. See http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=40 92871 /not associated with J&R
Smells like a troll to me, but quoth the parent:
"First of all, once you have gotten use to watching BluRay 1080p movies, anything less feels like an eyesore. You will probably be able to pickup a 1080p TV by the holidays this year for just under a grand."
You know what? I don't care. Do the marketers seriously think we're all going to rush out and buy yet another TV? I recognize that it looks a lot better, but not $1k worth, and certianly not even vaguely worth the replacement cost of my $40 DVD and 240GB hacked TiVo (six years old, still running strong). Forget it, not gonna happen. Until HD timeshifting is available, reliable, and cheap, I'm not even listening.
"Second, the Java layer, that Microsoft seems to hate so much, on BluRay discs is letting us do all sorts of very cool stuff far beyond the simple menu systems that current DVDs have."
Oh, good, because I didn't hate the menus for current DVDs nearly enough. Please, by all means, let the wanna be game programmers run loose on the menu system. Just be sure to call me when the movie starts.
TV and film, like radio before them, are reaching a point at which future technical improvements are borderline pointless. I, at least, don't hear much about DVD-Audio any more, because 90% of what 90% of the people want to do with their music can be handled capably by mp3. So, $2500 for a reasonable HD/HD-DVD/HD-Gaming system, or torrent it for nothing? Ethical/Legal/IDon'tWantToStartTHISArgumentAgain considerations aside, I'll bet more people pick the latter.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Jeez, I keep seeing this on Slashdot. What happened here? Did slashdot become full of middle-managers who believe anything if it is repeated enough times? I expect better from people who are SUPPOSED to understand technology.
c tion-14009/Index.html and look to see which names you recognise. Just about every brand except Toshiba is here.
Go here http://www.blu-raydisc.com/general_information/Se
Samsung will be first (oh but it's still a Sony standard). And Philips, and Sharp, and Panasonic, and Pioneer, and Mitsibushi, and LG, and Zenith
Who else?: Hitachi, JVC, Yamaha, Zenith, and that's without even starting on the RECORDABLE PC drives...
- Paul
I was wondering if Sony had shills on Slashdot.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
Yep, they already have the discs ready to ship.
Aside from Blu-Ray & DVD what else do they support?
I don't have an HDTV (I'd like to get once but it just isn't happening right now) so neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray really intrest me cause I will get the same picture as my dvd's right now, big woop there.
I have two DVD players right now that can play DVD, AVI (DivX & Xvid), pictures and MP3's. I don't see it listed for either player that it can play these formats.
also the reason they cost a grand each is because they play in 1080p mode and upconvert to 1080p (why you would want to see a 720p video upconverted to 1080 I dunno but it can), HD-DVD players don't do that yet (atleast not the $500 models they go to 1080i).
That's the thing I look for when buying a player though is how many formats it can play. If it's a recordable kind I make sure it supports both + & - formats so I don't have to go to a store and try to remember which ones my drive can take, I look for whatever is on sale (since you can usually get 100 discs for the price of 50 at staples every other week). It's nice to know that when I have a home theater system I can use one player to do all the work, I can pop in an MP3 CD and it will play, pop in stuff I have downloaded and it will play, pop in a DVD and it will play, all without having to hook up another player.
Every Blu-Ray player runs a copy of Java ME.
If you have a good HDTV at home now, like a 50" Sony SXRD as I do, and a progressive capable DVD player (or even one of the newer upconverting DVD players) the difference with HD is going to be completely underwhelming. I was wandering around Futureshop and happened to catch The Last Samurai playing on a widescreen TV. I watched for a few minutes before I noticed the size of the DVD player was huge. I asked a salesman what DVD player that was and was surprised to learn it was the new Toshiba HD-DVD playing the HD version of The Last Samurai. The picture wasn't that much better than what I get at home and even up close though the details were a bit sharper it wasn't the huge difference I was expecting. Sitting on your couch at home I sincerely doubt you would notice much of a difference.
HD-DVD/Blu-ray looks like a complete waste of time and money.
Exactly. People seem to have forgotten that prices for DVD players in 1997 were even higher: $1000 and up ! Sure a grand for a DVD/Blu-ray/Whatever player is expensive but it is NOT overpriced. It is perfectly normal for new formats to be sold at a high price when first introduced.
That said, I am also impressed by the HD-DVD guys who have found a nice way to leverage the existing DVD technology to be able to introduce HD-DVD players at "only" $400.
The Samsung Blu-ray drives have been on the shop shelves for days, check www.avsforum.com for reports from those who already have bought one.
Any word on whether or not it will make people good actors, or the movies actually interesting?
This thing will be out of date before it hits the shelves...
And with Seagates new Parallel Writing Hard Drives, starting at 750 GB,
and increasing flash RAM memory stick storage too, the idea of disks is soo 1990s.
Wont buy one. Don't Need it. Don't need their DRM crap either.
I forgot Sony a long time back,
right when those Sony CD's deployed their DRM software world wide...
I am happy with my DVD setup and although I would welcome an improvement I would not go out and pay 10 times as much for something that might be a door stop in 6 months if they lose the format war. In fact I would not pay 10 times as much regardless. It is not 10 times better, in fact it is not better. Yes, it has higher definition but there is not yet the choice of films to watch, so for the next couple of years it will just be a conversation piece. Maybe in a few years when the rest of you are discussing the next generation I will get round to buying one if they have won the format war. The only way Blu-Ray gets into my house earlier is when my son rushes out in a few months to grab a PS3... Maybe that will provide me with the convincing that I need but I doubt it. As was said elsewhere, we settle for MP3s when we have the equipement to play CDs... I am happy with DVD as after a few beers when I slouch down to watch a film, my eyes cannot appreaciate any improved quality.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Blu-ray, one of two much-hyped high-definition DVD formats
WRONG. There is only one high definition DVD format, HD-DVD. Blu-Ray discs are not DVDs.
I've heard all of this stuff before when SACDs were trying to be adopted. Classics are:
- CDs and MP3s work great.
- There isn't that much improvement over CDs.
- No one knows if SACD will take off...
- I am not interested in buying new equipment again.
So on and so fort, lots of teeth nashing and woe. But hey we lived through it and few will say we are worse off. DSD is the biggest change to recorded audio since the transition to digital. On the two HiFi systems I have I already hear the quality problems with CDs even when the player employs advanced noise-shaping. I'm already hungry for devices that generate true high fidelity content. I'm not sure why people are saying they need to wait because I've heard all of this before and it was just fine.
As for Sony, they design devices that have to meet certain requirements. They needed a "next gen CD" system and this is what they came up with. Why are they evil for trying such a thing? Or why aren't the DVD-Audio group evil as well? Sony is far from perfect often where they often "miss" instead of "hit" but that is the name of the game of innovation.
There's no 720i.
And 1080p TVs (full 1920x1080x60 output and input) can be had for very little now. Dell is selling one for $800 (24" 2407FPW), and a friend bought a Westinghouse 42" 1080P with 3 1080p inputs for $1500 last week. Two other friends have had 42" Sharp HDTVs with 1080p input for 6 months, and each paid only $3400 for them.
So please stop spreading the rumors that 1080p HDTVs cost $10,000.
It's not as complex as you make it out.
If you want to buy an HDTV, you have a choice. One that will display at about 1280x720 resolution. Most plasmas, smaller direct-view LCDs and rear projection LCDs and DLPs are this way. You can get one that displays at 1920x1080 resolution, but doesn't accept 1080p input. Many higher-end rear projection units and some direct-view LCDs are this way. Or, you can get one that does 1920x1080 resolution and accepts 1080p input. New high-end rear projectors and direct-view LCDs are this way.
It basically comes down to "how much do you want to spend?".
And next year, the middle tier won't even exist. The choice will be full 1080p or a cheaper unit.
Any of these have HDCP and will display digital and analog content with no problems.
It's not as compex as you make it out to be. Like choosing a DVD player was easy?
In the early days it was "do you need CD playback?" (early Panasonics didn't do it).
Then it was "some have good anamorphic unsqueeze and some have really bad unsqueeze"
Then it was "Do you want DTS capability?"
then it was " do you want deinterlacing/480p output?"
Now it's "do you want one that upscales?"
And yet DVD did great.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
D-VHS is here! 0wn4g3!!!!!!!!11
http://www.fatwallet.com/t/74/622042
It was only that price for 2 days.
But I expect it'll hit that price full-time in a month or so. We'll see.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Ah, who am I kidding--whoever licenses pr0n easiest/fastest will come out on top (no pun intended).
Are you sure you want your porn in 1080p? Sometimes fuzzy can be adventageous.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Nice. I'm hoping some studios will offer SD programming on BluRay as well as the HD stuff. I'd love to get a whole season of 24 on 1 disc, especially from Netflix.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I absolutely hate renting DVDs. On a rental, I'll take the loss in quality and get a format that has played 99% of the time I've rented a movie on it.
That's a fair point though I must point out that every VCR I've taken to the grave yard had been fouled by a crappy rental tape that caused the VCR to 'eat it'. I've had thousands of tapes, had one break but not get eaten and have had 3 VCR's die while playing rental tapes.
With Netflix I just mark the DVD as bad and get a new one. Oh, also if you have Netflix a motorized cleaner is essential. Every DVD gets the cleaning and 1 in 10 get the repair fluid. I know, not my job, but the interruption is 10 minutes instead of 3 days with getting a new disc.
Anyway, BluRay has some wonderful new Panasonic coating you can take steel wool to without affecting playability. That's probably worth the upgrade right there.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)