CES 2006 News & Announcements

[hongcho]

What I am curious about is...

So, Samsung has a $1000 BD player and Pioneer has a $1800 BD player. Well, Sony has one, but the price is not "announced" (suspected to be mid-$1000).

So, if PS3 sells for $400 (well, even $500) AND plays BD movies (well 12 MPEG-2 HD streams at once!), what is Sony doing to its BD player manufacturing partners (including itself)?

Hong.

 

[RobertR1]

A lot of households have more than one DVD player nowadays. People aren't going to buy 3 PS3's. The price for stand alone DVD players will be quite important in determining which ones consumers back. If either player hits the $299-$399 mark, they'll sell a ton of them.

 

[Titanio]

How? With an on-board decoder? What do they output to?

I thought there was a whole discussion around secured output and Windows XP certainly has no knowledge of Blu-ray or HD-DVD, so I'm confused about this point.

.Sis

EDIT: Are you talking about the Pioneer player? That's the link I see. I'm referring to a Blu-ray PC drive...

I'm referring to the writer for PCs. As far as I recollect, the press release said it can read BD-Roms. Decoding etc. would be up to software on your PC, of course (as to when THAT is available, I cannot say). I'll double check for you to make sure..

edit - it does read BD-Roms. Obviously you'll need software for playback.

Regardless of the PC drives, Samsung's player I'd guess will be out in March/April. They're keen to be the first out in the US, and that's what early Spring suggests to me at least.

 

[Sis]

I'm referring to the writer for PCs. As far as I recollect, the press release said it can read BD-Roms. Decoding etc. would be up to software on your PC, of course (as to when THAT is available, I cannot say). I'll double check for you to make sure..

Sorry--I see the information now. Still fuzzy on details so if you turn up anything, I'd be interested.

.Sis

 

[Carl B]

A lot of households have more than one DVD player nowadays. People aren't going to buy 3 PS3's. The price for stand alone DVD players will be quite important in determining which ones consumers back. If either player hits the $299-$399 mark, they'll sell a ton of them.

Well... but why wouldn't they buy 3 PS3's?

(I agree it's ridiculous)

But they'll have held their value better for eBay three years down the road!

These $1000+ players are going to depreciate like rocks falling from a plane, not that electronics resale is a big factor in people purchasing decisions.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm not sure they do - I haven't seen much about HD-DVD resolution - but that $499 player certainly won't give you the same image quality (it's output is 720p/1080i).

Why not get a PS3 - likely no more than that HD-DVD drives price? It'll give you 1080p output, and the wider choice and variety of the Blu-ray lineup.

I've a friend looking at buying an HDTV. He's got his eye on a £2000 Pioneer that he's seen in the flesh and has received top reiews in UK mags. We were talking about it today. It has a native res of something like 1024x768, support 1080p input and looks very good. It can't show 1920x1080 pixels at that resolution though. So it can't show 1080i or 1080p footage at the quality they are transmitted in. Should he get a 1920x1080 native resolution display then? A brief look around shows these are upward of £5000. That's a no. So, HDDVD only supports 720p and 1080i, and not 1080p. How much is that going to matter though? For the next couple of years at least nothing's going to be viewable in resolutions beyond 1280x720 for the average HD TV owner. And very little is going to be filmed in 1080p either, unless the movie industry finally switches over to 60 fps, and broadcasters gobble up 2x as much airwaves transmitting 1080p broadcasts.

Linking this in to my own personal experience, I saw an LG HDTV a few weeks ago. It was showing a 1080i image and looked great. And now I think about it, it was actually showing 1280x720 pixels. Though 1920x1080 would look even better, especially for larger screens (this was 42" I think) I don't think the improvement would be that noticeable. Either way 1280x720 pixels is enough. the advantage of 1080p in BluRay seems to me to be redundant. I don't know when it'll ever get used. Unless they use some offline tweening to interpolate movies and generate 60 fps from 30/24 fps material, it'll be years before that matters, by which time 1080p sets might be affordable. The only potential benefit is if you buy BluRay now, you won't have to buy it later when 1080p is a reality. But then if you buy a $500 HDDVD player now, when 1080p is a reality a BRD player should only cost a couple hundred bucks.

The whole things a mess really...

 

[Titanio]

*snip*

Does any of this really matter though? It's still technically a better player. And you'll be in the company of tens of millions in a fairly short period of time. With content from nearly all of hollywood. The alternative is to go with that HD-DVD player, have content from nearly half of hollywood (and a smaller proportion of that isn't available on the other format), in the company of many fewer than those owning Blu-ray, with a player that won't scale if you do end up buying that 1080p TV, and without the ability to play PS3 games

Personally, I think as things stand right now it's an absolute no-brainer as to which format is more attractive, by quite a large margin.

 

[Sis]

Does any of this really matter though? It's still technically a better player. And you'll be in the company of tens of millions in a fairly short period of time. With content from nearly all of hollywood. The alternative is to go with that HD-DVD player, have content from nearly half of hollywood (and a smaller proportion of that isn't available on the other format), in the company of many fewer than those owning Blu-ray, with a player that won't scale if you do end up buying that 1080p TV, and without the ability to play PS3 games

Personally, I think as things stand right now it's an absolute no-brainer as to which format is more attractive, by quite a large margin.

The support of studios will change based on the more popular format.

.Sis

 

[Titanio]

The support of studios will change based on the more popular format.

Which will be Blu-ray. See: PS3. You start seeing why all those formerly HD-DVD only studios switched to Blu-ray too. That's been the trend, and it'll continue eventually with Universal IMO. We're already at the brink of an effective standard for movie content, and that will be that.

And people will no doubt here about the much wider support Blu-ray is enjoying, in the meantime. Few will want to invest in it, knowing that virtually all its titles are available on another format, and many more besides.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Does any of this really matter though? It's still technically a better player. Personally, I think as things stand right now it's an absolute no-brainer as to which format is more attractive, by quite a large margin.

The attraction seems obvious, and is purely one of content and support. Technical abilities seem to be irrelevant. Both can supply movies in the HD format that people will actually be able to use for the next half a decade. The desire to have BluRay win as it's the technically superior format seems irrelevant, though that seems to be the way they got support. At the end of the day, if all the movie studios had backed HDDVD it'd give just as a good an experience as the technically superior BluRay format probably, so the reasons for backing it on technical superiority seem pointless. It would have been just as meaningful when HDDVD and BluRay were being conceived for Toshiba and Sony to sit down and flick a coin for who would win, which would resolve using complex chaos mathematics the decision making process. The outcome is just as arbitary. Unless BluRay lasts 10-20 years and 1080p eventually becomes a dominant format without holographic storage replacing discs, all the arguments up until now for and against both formats have been so much worthless posturing. Save perhaps cost for HDDVD (though of course BRD will scale very well) and storage for BRD (for PCs, as it's a writeable format).

 

[Sis]

Which will be Blu-ray. See: PS3. You start seeing why all those formerly HD-DVD only studios switched to Blu-ray too. That's been the trend, and it'll continue eventually with Universal IMO. We're already at the brink of an effective standard for movie content, and that will be that.

And people will no doubt here about the much wider support Blu-ray is enjoying, in the meantime. Few will want to invest in it, knowing that virtually all its titles are available on another format, and many more besides.

That's the whole "inevitable" reasoning that I don't put any stock into.

All it takes is for a single HD-DVD title to sell 100,000 copies and studios will add support for it. Given that I don't know when the PS3 will be released everywhere, I can only surmise that the HD-DVD camp will have the only reasonably priced HD player for the short term future (6 months/9 months?). Granted, even that price seems a bit high given the stakes of the format war.

.Sis

 

[Titanio]

The attraction seems obvious, and is purely one of content and support. Technical abilities seem to be irrelevant. Both can supply movies in the HD format that people will actually be able to use for the next half a decade. The desire to have BluRay win as it's the technically superior format seems irrelevant, though that seems to be the way they got support. At the end of the day, if all the movie studios had backed HDDVD it'd give just as a good an experience as the technically superior BluRay format probably, so the reasons for backing it on technical superiority seem pointless. It would have been just as meaningful when HDDVD and BluRay were being conceived for Toshiba and Sony to sit down and flick a coin for who would win, which would resolve using complex chaos mathematics the decision making process. The outcome is just as arbitary. Unless BluRay lasts 10-20 years and 1080p eventually becomes a dominant format without holographic storage replacing discs, all the arguments up until now for and against both formats have been so much worthless posturing. Save perhaps cost for HDDVD (though of course BRD will scale very well) and storage for BRD (for PCs, as it's a writeable format).

I agree that technical concerns are very very secondary now, at least as long as many HD-DVD titles come at 1080p as Blu-ray titles do. Blu-ray's real strengths lie elsewhere now.

I was simply pointing out the video output difference because it seems to be the defining difference between cheaper and more expensive players on both sides. PS3 will offer the high end option, cheap, so to speak.

That's the whole "inevitable" reasoning that I don't put any stock into.

All it takes is for a single HD-DVD title to sell 100,000 copies and studios will add support for it. Given that I don't know when the PS3 will be released everywhere, I can only surmise that the HD-DVD camp will have the only reasonably priced HD player for the short term future (6 months/9 months?). Granted, even that price seems a bit high given the stakes of the format war.

.Sis

PS3 will be out in 06 in at least two markets, and I think that's what's most important. They won't miss the party by a long stretch.

About inevitability..a lot more seems inevitable about PS3 than anything the HD-DVD association has asked us to consider. If you had to bet right now, based on what you see right now, who would you bet on?

 

[Kabbage]

Nvidia Quad SLI

Yep Quad SLI

Four7800's

32x AA 16x AF
Resolutions 2560x1600

http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_28569.html

 

[dukmahsik]

Yep Quad SLI

Four7800's

32x AA 16x AF

http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_28569.html

omg! "celled" 7800s!

 

[Sis]

If you had to bet right now, based on what you see right now, who would you bet on?

Blu-ray based on the PS3 support, no doubt.

But that's the safe, predictable bet and the only reason I think HD-DVD has a chance is due to the fact that the predictable thing often doesn't happen.

.Sis

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I was simply pointing out the video output difference because it seems to be the defining difference between cheaper and more expensive players on both sides. PS3 will offer the high end option, cheap, so to speak.

Of course PS3 is the obvious choice for an HD movie player, because for the same(ish) price as the cheapest HDDVD player, you get a fancy doodle console too! It's a no brainer. Without the console aspect the choice between PS3 and $500 HDDVD player is one purely of content. The technical superiority contributes a 0.00001% advantage to PS3, unless you're rich enough to own a 1920x1080 progressive scan TV and somehow film you're own 1080p movies and burn them onto BluRay discs (can BluRay player read writeable BRDs? Will you need your own HDCP 'marker' to watch your own HD content?) I can't see how technical superiority can in any way be considered as a contributory factor.

 

[Kabbage]

omg! "celled" 7800s!

What :|

 

[Titanio]

Of course PS3 is the obvious choice for an HD movie player, because for the same(ish) price as the cheapest HDDVD player, you get a fancy doodle console too! It's a no brainer. Without the console aspect the choice between PS3 and $500 HDDVD player is one purely of content. The technical superiority contributes a 0.00001% advantage to PS3, unless you're rich enough to own a 1920x1080 progressive scan TV and somehow film you're own 1080p movies and burn them onto BluRay discs (can BluRay player read writeable BRDs? Will you need your own HDCP 'marker' to watch your own HD content?) I can't see how technical superiority can in any way be considered as a contributory factor.

Well again, it depends on how picky you are. What I'm saying is that in many cases, the only difference between one player at x dollars and another at twice that much is that the cheaper one only supports 720p/1080i, so it's become something of a differentiating factor. Like with Tosh's players, the big difference between the two models is the video out situation. To get the same option on HD-DVD you'd be paying the $800, not the $500. I know the average isn't going to notice the difference, at least till they upgrade their TV at some point in the future, but videophiles will make a big deal out of it, and for early adopter buzz, it's a nice mark for PS3.

 

[expletive]

Well again, it depends on how picky you are. What I'm saying is that in many cases, the only difference between one player at x dollars and another at twice that much is that the cheaper one only supports 720p/1080i, so it's become something of a differentiating factor. Like with Tosh's players, the big difference between the two models is the video out situation. To get the same option on HD-DVD you'd be paying the $800, not the $500. I know the average isn't going to notice the difference, at least till they upgrade their TV at some point in the future, but videophiles will make a big deal out of it, and for early adopter buzz, it's a nice mark for PS3.

Videophiles arent likely to use a console as their primary moie playback device either though, if that makes sense.

 

[Titanio]

Well now we've confirmation. First Blu-ray player will hit the states in April:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/05/samsung_blu-ray_first/

It's interesting to note that Samsung is not tied exclusively to either Blu-ray or HD-DVD, but listening to them, you'd think they were.

Videophiles arent likely to use a console as their primary moie playback device either though, if that makes sense.

They just might depending on when PS3 hits..

I wouldn't consider myself a massive videophile, to be honest, but if I can get 1080p support, I'll take it. I have a 720p now, but I can easily see a 1080p display coming into my house in the next 24 months anyway.