Posted by ninphan on 09/20/07 20:39

On Sep 19, 4:45 pm, Derek Janssen <ejan...@nospam.verizon.net> wrote:
> Lloyd Parsons wrote:
> >>Believe me, a few months with Blu-Boy, and a PS3 was the LAST thing on
> >>this good green earth I was interested in getting as a player... >_<
>
> >>But FWIH, you're not the only one who threw Sony out with the bathwater
> >>over the first/second-gen S300 mistake--
> >>Me, I was keeping an eye on Samsung, but after their hoped-for third-gen
> >>hadn't gotten their Profile yet, I had to face the tech-player advice
> >>that the PS3 really *was* the only good current '07 Sony standalone out
> >>there for firmware upgrade ability.
>
> > But Sony is damn mum about how far they will go to upgrade the PS3.
> > There is no assurance it will happen. FWIW, I think it will be.
>
> > So I'll just wait a bit before buying any new BD player.
>
> Not as mum as Sharp is about specs on their mysterious Q4 Aquos player--
> Which's why I'm also keeping an eye on the "third player" before
> *officially* going PS3...After CES'08 at the earliest.
> (To bring us back to topic.)
>
> But the issue on PS3 was over whether the chips COULD upgrade to
> firmware updates, which seems to have been the stumbling block so far
> with the S300 and other early standalones--
> The chips on the home-theater models proved to be so unadaptable to
> other uses, they haven't responded well to upgrades as well as the
> all-purpose models.
>
> (And y'see, here we're back to that little "It'll still work tomorrow"
> thing that frustrates the "Already available" HD fans who can't
> understand why Blu fans have patience about "what isn't out yet":
> Always have to buy your clothes with growing room.)
>
> Derek Janssen
> eja...@comcast.net

Blu-ray fans probably have patience because they don't care about PIP
getting in the way of watching the main movie.
It's all about picture quality and the Blu-ray players have it and the
HD DVD players with the exception of the XA2 do not.
1080p/24 on a set that accepts and displays at either 72Hz or 120Hz is
always going to be a more accurate picture than a 1080i/60 source.
Just look at Gary Merson's numerous tests done on sets with that input
signal - disastrous, over 50% failure on deinterlacing and worse on
3:2 pulldown on 1080i/60 sources like the A2.

I keep hearing a lot about price and Toshiba has had players at the
$200 mark often this year, yet HD DVD still cannot win a single week's
worth of sales, not one week, this whole entire year!!! It's Q4 in 10
days and HD DVD looks like HD DUD I'm afraid. Call it fanboyism if you
wish, I call it reality. I call it a desire to see an end to the war
with the best format on the market and that is Blu-ray.

I also keep hearing a lot about how HD DVD has a finished spec, yet
now I hear a lot about HD51 discs! I guess the spec isn't finished at
all is it?

Sharp have released their specs. It supports TrueHD decoding,
bitstream audio out through HDMI of DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD,
DTS-HD, Dolby Digital Plus and is profile 1.0 compliant as it is being
released before October 31st, 2007. Their all in one BD-MPC70 Blu-ray
Home Cinema System is a different story. It will be released in Spring
2008 and will be at least profile 1.1 compliant, much like the
upcoming Denon DVD-3800BD player.

As for Blu-ray players starting at $500 for this Christmas...where do
people come up with this crap? Do they not bother researching before
typing?

The new Samsung BD-P1400 with DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD
support through HDMI bitstream 1.3a and 1080p/24 output is $429.90
The BDP-S300 is $439

This is with another three months to go before the holidays! Prices
will not be a factor when people bother to look at what's
available...and they will. Fox, Disney and Sony will all have either
endcaps or big signs in stores with Die Hard 4, Silver Surfer, Spider-
man 3, Ratatouille and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 all being solely
available on Blu-ray and Warner will have similar cutouts to the ones
they had for "300" where both HD DVD and Blu-ray are prominently
advertised. Transformers and Bourne just won't cut it against all this
exposure people will be getting to Blu-ray.

Aside from that, this Christmas is when J6P will be picking up an
HDTV, not picking up a high definition player.

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