Do you think Sony will kill Blu-ray?

[Mercutio]

I have two LG HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drives.

I have three at the moment. One is a spare and the other two are attached to PCs attached to large LCDs. I've ripped all my HDDVDs but I still buy new ones on Ebay when the mood strikes me. They're easier to deal with than BDs.

 

[Stereodude]

I've basically been getting my Blu-Ray discs from Netflix. I have mostly stopped buying media.

 

[Mercutio]

I buy movies to support the people who make them, even though I'm an unrepentant pirate. I bought "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" even though it was made available free on the internet first.

There's still not all that much I want to see on Blu-Ray but for example Iron Man is absolutely spectacular.

I'm actually giving some serious thought to getting rid of all my purchased DVDs. They're all ripped now. I don't technically NEED to keep them.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm actually giving some serious thought to getting rid of all my purchased DVDs. They're all ripped now. I don't technically NEED to keep them.

All mine are ripped as well (as are my music CDs), but keeping the disks as backup is cheaper than backing it up some other way.

 

[Stereodude]

All mine are ripped as well (as are my music CDs), but keeping the disks as backup is cheaper than backing it up some other way.

All my music is ripped, but I don't watch my DVDs enough to make it remotely worth the effort or the space. That is the primary reason why I quit buying them. I rarely rewatch 'em.

 

[udaman]

How about a max post length limit to keep Udaman in check? :evil:

Wouldn't work, I'd just get around the 140 char limit, do a bunch of SD style completely useless and uninformative> link

post a bunch of pictures instead.

Isn't that anti-Obama/Democratic party anyway? Exclude the poor, down trodden, the weak, the unprivileged, and the 'twitterspeak challenged' :skepo::cursin::cursin::cursin:



By 'ripped' I assume you're all copying to TB hard disks? What happens when your WD drives fail, and you have no BU optical? Same will be a problem if flash storage replaces optical as a distribution model. Still need BR for important long-term archival purposes.

 

[Stereodude]

Are you really trying to make sure that no one reads any of your posts? I only ask because it sure seems like you are.

 

[sechs]

I have no Blu-ray, and yes I have a HD TV. It is possible to live ones life without.

That's baloney. I have only one TV, and it's a ten year old CRT. Frankly, I don't know what I'll do when it bites the dust.

My combo DVD/VHS player has started to get a little wonky with cheap DVDs, but I can't find a suitable replacement. I'll be gosh darned if anyone makes a DVD player these days with coax output, let alone an analog tuner.

 

[Fushigi]

I've the LG HD/BD combo drive in my main PC but I haven't used it to watch any BD discs so far. As noted in another thread we bought an LCD TV & Samsung BD player last November. We currently buy movies on either DVD or BD, depending on pricing and how much we feel the movie experience would be enhanced by BD. IOW action/SF-type movies will tend to be BD while dramas and comedies will tend to be DVD.

We don't rent discs; I prefer to just buy them. But we have slowed down greatly and now only buy 1-3 movies a month. That's a product of both tightening our standards and the relative decrease in quality releases from Hollywood.

..

sechs, I've picked up this a couple of times for my in laws, whose old TVs lacked line in connectors & only had coax & antenna jacks. Works reasonably well, although it doesn't have a tuner.

That said, I'm not sure how much sense it makes to keep throwing money at an SD environment. As an early mothers day present we bought the in laws a 32" refurb 720p HDTV for $400 including a 2 year extended warranty. Not a great set by my personal standards but for the money and for their needs it makes a great upgrade. And it has all the usual suspects when it comes to inputs: SD & HD tuners, 2 or 3 HDMIs, and component/S-video/composite. Heck, it even draws 25% less power than the 20", 20-year old CRT it replaced.

 

[sechs]

I have an RF modulator. That's what allows me to run my cable box into my DVD player. It doesn't have a coax output, which is ridiculous. The boxes they hand out for U-Verse have that.

 

[Fushigi]

I'm trying to visuallize your set up. Is it (Cable box) --Line Out-- (Modulator) --Coax-- (DVD/VHS) --Coax-- (TV)? The DVD/VHS box doesn't do Line In?

Where I've used the RadioShack box, the setup has been:
(DVD) --Line Out-- (Modulator) --Coax-- (TV)
(Antenna/Cable) --Coax--^
The modulator auto-switches from Coax Cable/Antenna to Line In when the Line In source goes active.

 

[mollyjack]

License costs are the largest overhead after the Blu ray engine - thats what drives the price sky high

 

[sechs]

The DVD/VHS box doesn't do Line In?

It might, but would have to be full on to pass the line-in. It passively passes the coax-in to coax-out.

 

[LOST6200]

mollyjack ?

 

[Santilli]

I'm trying to figure out why the player/burners are still stuck at 80 plus dollars....

 

[ddrueding]

Because there is very little barrier to buying one at $80? Price fixing?

 

[Mercutio]

Because that's very close to the cost of the components.
The units that are cheaper are probably Chinese companies trying to skip out on some licensing fees they should be paying.

 

[ddrueding]

Because that's very close to the cost of the components.
The units that are cheaper are probably Chinese companies trying to skip out on some licensing fees they should be paying.

...or screws to hold the thing together. The number of times screws are being replaced with snap-in, snap-off plastic clips is sickening. It makes some things irreparable.

 

[udaman]

Vaporware @present:

http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/05/12/jvc-debuts-8k-4k-prototype-camcorders-moviemakers-drool/

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/12/jvc-introduces-8k-projector/

Because of the growing number of consumer-level cameras with 100-megapixel sensors and camcorders shooting at 4240p, JVC has come out with a new 8K (that’s 8000 horizontal pixels) projector with 10,000 lumens of brightness and a 5500:1 contrast ratio. Finally, an ultra-high-def projector the whole family can enjoy!

@300+ lbs & 6 figures for the projector; think like SSD's, I'll wait for commodity pricing . Probably the 25lb gen 6 version in 2020.


Now this is interesting, one wonders if/how this tech could benefit from Blu-Ray capacity:

http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/04/2...-room-of-videophiles-with-4k-red-ray-footage/

 

[snowhiker]

Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO = Retard

First paragraph.

http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashi...yn-bad-internet-classic-martha-2136751?page=2

“I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet"
- Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO

/facepalm

Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO = Retard.

 

[Mercutio]

Sony's management is clearly out of touch with the realities of the world as it exists today. They keep trying to market technologies that they want to keep in walled gardens, and they get pissed off every time someone breaks the walls down and allows content out into the world.

In Sony's vision, they release a new format and everyone trips over themselves to buy the same thing over again.

Is it any wonder they don't like the internet?

 

[Stereodude]

Sony has too many irons in too many fires and they're not complementary irons. This has crippled them. Their content creation side (music labels and movie studios) have prevented the release of or crippled their electronic products. Sony could have been the dominant company for personal music players instead of Apple, but they were too busy screwing around with proprietary formats and making sure no one could play pirate.

 

[MaxBurn]

Sony has too many irons in too many fires and they're not complementary irons. This has crippled them. Their content creation side (music labels and movie studios) have prevented the release of or crippled their electronic products. Sony could have been the dominant company for personal music players instead of Apple, but they were too busy screwing around with proprietary formats and making sure no one could play pirate.

Yep, sony sure had the pole position with the sony walkman before apple came along.

I have always had a love hate relationship with sony over their sheer range of products as well, take stereo receivers, they fill that market segment bottom to top with crap all the way up to a decent set and that just takes all meaning out of the brand name.

 

[Santilli]

Sony has a rep for being a big, slow dinosaur in Japan, with Panasonic being THE electronics company.

I'm with Merc, in that I really wish Sony would take themselves out of the entertainment business, and go back to Japan.

 

[Pradeep]

Sony has too many irons in too many fires and they're not complementary irons. This has crippled them. Their content creation side (music labels and movie studios) have prevented the release of or crippled their electronic products. Sony could have been the dominant company for personal music players instead of Apple, but they were too busy screwing around with proprietary formats and making sure no one could play pirate.

Current Sony mp3 players support USB drag and drop for transfers, which neither the ipod or zune provide. When you buy a game on the playstation network, that game can be shared with up to four other people.

 

[Mercutio]

Creative, Cowan and iRiver players also support drag and drop, and have the distinct advantage of not being made by S*ny.

Also, PS3s have ugly chassisy and seem to have poor graphics despite all the CPU horsepower they're supposed to have. And they're expensive. And they're made by S*ny. And they smell funny.

 

[Pradeep]

Also, PS3s have ugly chassisy and seem to have poor graphics despite all the CPU horsepower they're supposed to have. And they're expensive. And they're made by S*ny. And they smell funny.

Have you actually played a PS3 game? It has quite a few games that are completely beyond what the geforce 7800 era graphics chip can do in a PC.

What blu-ray player are you using for your hdtv?

 

[Mercutio]

I played some driving game that my ex's partner likes. I went "meh." But I don't like console games. I have, however, looked at comparisons between Xbox and PS3 in screenshots from the same title (and in the case of Fallout 3, both of those with PC), and there's not a single case where the PS3 actually looks better than the other console, let alone a PC.

I use an LG HD/BD drive in my HTPC. I believe I could buy six of them for what a PS3 costs.

 

[Mercutio]

Oh hey, S*ny Pictures Entertainment's CEO said more thing that are stupid. How shocking!

" 'Internet users have become used to getting things when they want it and how they want it, and those of us in the entertainment business want to meet that kind of demand as efficiently and effectively as possible. But what has happened online is that if it is 'beyond store hours' and the shop is closed, a lot of people just smash the window and steal what they want. Freedom without restraint is chaos, and if we don't figure out some way to prevent online chaos, the quantity, quality and availability of the kinds of entertainment, literature, art and scholarship we need to have a healthy, vibrant culture will suffer.'""

 

[Pradeep]

I played some driving game that my ex's partner likes. I went "meh." But I don't like console games. I have, however, looked at comparisons between Xbox and PS3 in screenshots from the same title (and in the case of Fallout 3, both of those with PC), and there's not a single case where the PS3 actually looks better than the other console, let alone a PC.

I use an LG HD/BD drive in my HTPC. I believe I could buy six of them for what a PS3 costs.

Multiplatform games are best played on PC. I'm talking about exclusive games optimized for the PS3. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, Metal Gear Solid 4, etc.

I take it you aren't listening to the lossless soundtracks then?

 

[Pradeep]

Oh hey, S*ny Pictures Entertainment's CEO said more thing that are stupid. How shocking!

" 'Internet users have become used to getting things when they want it and how they want it, and those of us in the entertainment business want to meet that kind of demand as efficiently and effectively as possible. But what has happened online is that if it is 'beyond store hours' and the shop is closed, a lot of people just smash the window and steal what they want. Freedom without restraint is chaos, and if we don't figure out some way to prevent online chaos, the quantity, quality and availability of the kinds of entertainment, literature, art and scholarship we need to have a healthy, vibrant culture will suffer.'""

I'm pretty sure Sony Pictures loses several billion a year in revenue due to torrents etc.

That doesn't mean other Sony divisions don't produce products that work well over the Internet (PSP-PS3 global media sharing etc).

 

[Stereodude]

I'm pretty sure Sony Pictures loses several billion a year in revenue due to torrents etc.

I'm pretty sure they don't. Every download is not a lost sale. irate:

 

[Mercutio]

I take it you aren't listening to the lossless soundtracks then?

On a game? A game that presumably has explosions, engine rumble or any number of other qualities that are going to detract from and prevent critical listening to the lossless quality of the purported soundtrack?

Can't say I noticed or cared.

I'm talking about exclusive games optimized for the PS3. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, Metal Gear Solid 4.

So the only time a game can look good is when it's not available on any other platform? Got it. OK.

I'm pretty sure Sony Pictures loses several billion a year in revenue due to torrents etc.

Sony pictures doesn't lose several billion a year because it doesn't MAKE "several" billion a year. A big studio, barring something like Dark Knight or Titanic, isn't bringing in more than one or two billion in annual sales worldwide. They're not losing that to piracy, either, because most of the people who are pirating movies are people who would not have purchased a DVD or movie ticket anyway.

Wolverine, despite being a crap-fest in a way that was entirely obvious and in no way corrected from its leaked version, still managed to set a sales record for a spring opening. It outsold Star Trek and Terminator on their opening weekends, too. The pirates didn't prevent Fox from making its money.