Posted by Mark Burns on 11/18/06 01:54

tekki wrote:
> sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but just received communication from
> Toshiba today of delay in UK launch of HDE1... Toshiba engineers identified
> a component issue, and although relatively minor this could have affected
> playback of certain hd dvd titles. The players will not be available now
> until late Dec.
> for full story see dvdlibrary uk website!

Not to worry, both of the over-hyped, over-priced, and over-drm'd
BluRay and HD players have had their over-whelming demand delayed in
the US, maybe indefinately. There should be plenty of manufacturing
capacity for whoever wants these under-whelming gadgets now.

I was in a Sears store looking at a Blu-Ray movie playing on a 1080p
42" next to a 42" 720p playing an upconverted dvd movie, one at each
end of the aisle. They were different films, but I was hard pressed to
see the the advantage of the 1080p on a set of this size. One thing
that I noticed was that just plain optical depth-of-field negates many
of the advantages of the 1080p, with close items being in focus and
background being out-of-focus. I suspect that 1080p will look much
better on a projector showing a 70" or larger image, but I know of none
that are now available.

I have little doubt that the future is in 1080p, but at current prices
in a player that plays all formats like a 33, 45, 72 rpm turntable for
about $200, or the price of my Oppo.

Cheers...

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