CES 2006 News & Announcements

[Ginko]

what a load of shite, i guess you never watched Hero, the best martial art epic of all time but i guess you know jack about Chinese history to appreciate the story telliing.

Hero was good, House of Flying Daggers was better.

 

[Carl B]

It's strange that one format would support 1080p and not the other, especially when the BR movies seem to be using MPeg2 meaning there's no real space advantage even for 2layer BR discs.

The samsung player only support MPEG2, how can that be considered a true player? Will it only work with some movies? Will all movies use mpg2? Is it a typo?

I think it's partly a space issue, partly consensus among the two camps. HD-DVD doesn't have *as much* storage, and probably views/viewed 1080p as a 'frill,' so have been targetting 720p. Any word on what the predominant compression scheme on the HD-DVD camp will be at the moment, while we're here?

For blu-ray though, it offers enough space that studios can go the cheaper route of MPEG-2 while having enough room on disc such that the levels of compression make the image-quality competetive with one of the other schemes.

I guess Blu-ray went 1080p because, among other things, Sony's in charge and they want to start differentiating themselves from their competitors in terms of what their TVs can do, and a lot of their new announcements are for 1080p HD sets.

(on the film debate, I prefer Hero to Daggers)

 

[wco81]

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...

Well if you buy a 720p panel now, how much is it going to cost if you want to replace it with a 1080p panel because the former looked poor in comparison?

An industry guy posted on AVS (he works for Sigma Designs) that he saw a 1080p BD player play on both a 1366x768 panel and a 1080p LCD panel and the picture on the first one looked like VHS in comparison. Said he was surprised at the difference, even though he knew of course that the 1080p panel had roughly double the number of pixels.

These 720p or slightly greater panels aren't cheap either.

 

[MasaC]

It's strange that one format would support 1080p and not the other, especially when the BR movies seem to be using MPeg2 meaning there's no real space advantage even for 2layer BR discs.

MPEG4-AVC is included in the BD standard aswell. You might want to read up on the BD technical white papers.

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/Section-13470/Section-13628/Index.html

(check the pdf on the bottom - Audio Visual Application Format Specifications, page 17)

 

["Nerve-Damage"]

Video: Kaz Hirai and Howard Stringer

Video: Kaz Hirai and Howard Stringer talk about the PlayStation 3 in this portion of the CES 2006 Keynote address (Now Playing).

 

[ihamoitc2005]

1080p Tv

Well if you buy a 720p panel now, how much is it going to cost if you want to replace it with a 1080p panel because the former looked poor in comparison?

An industry guy posted on AVS (he works for Sigma Designs) that he saw a 1080p BD player play on both a 1366x768 panel and a 1080p LCD panel and the picture on the first one looked like VHS in comparison. Said he was surprised at the difference, even though he knew of course that the 1080p panel had roughly double the number of pixels.

These 720p or slightly greater panels aren't cheap either.

1080P monitor price will drop. In 2 years no one will want 720P and 480P is forgotten.

 

[drpepper]

1080P monitor price will drop. In 2 years no one will want 720P and 480P is forgotten.

In 2 years, I'll be looking for my first 720p TV then.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I think it's partly a space issue, partly consensus among the two camps. HD-DVD doesn't have *as much* storage, and probably views/viewed 1080p as a 'frill,' so have been targetting 720p. Any word on what the predominant compression scheme on the HD-DVD camp will be at the moment, while we're here?

For blu-ray though, it offers enough space that studios can go the cheaper route of MPEG-2 while having enough room on disc such that the levels of compression make the image-quality competetive with one of the other schemes.

I guess Blu-ray went 1080p because, among other things, Sony's in charge and they want to start differentiating themselves from their competitors in terms of what their TVs can do, and a lot of their new announcements are for 1080p HD sets.

(on the film debate, I prefer Hero to Daggers)

HD-DVD is supporting 1080i as well as 720p, so I wonder why no 1080p.

MasaC - why does the samsung player only support mpg2?

 

[ihamoitc2005]

2 Years

In 2 years, I'll be looking for my first 720p TV then.

Maybe I have high hopes but maybe in 2 years only choice is 1080P since before only choice is NTCS or PAL. I wonder what is after 1080P. Maybe 3D!

 

[drpepper]

Maybe I have high hopes but maybe in 2 years only choice is 1080P since before only choice is NTCS or PAL. I wonder what is after 1080P. Maybe 3D!

LOL, I'm waiting for this "resolution".

 

[MasaC]

MasaC - why does the samsung player only support mpg2?

Are you sure it only supports mpg2? Would you mind providing me a link to this information? To carry the BD logo a BD-player must be compliant to the white papers AFAIK.

 

[typoEDR]

Video: Kaz Hirai and Howard Stringer talk about the PlayStation 3 in this portion of the CES 2006 Keynote address (Now Playing).

Sony is really starting to stab me in the eyes. February better blow my fucking mind.

 

[ihamoitc2005]

Resolution

LOL, I'm waiting for this "resolution".

3D is not "resolution" but display type so can be any resolution. 3D LCD is available from Sharp for 3D viewing with no glasses. 3D games is easy but 3D video and broadcast is not easy because of very high frame-rate and bandwidth need.

 

[Carl B]

HD-DVD is supporting 1080i as well as 720p, so I wonder why no 1080p.

Well, 720p is the same roughly as 1080i in terms of output pixels per frame, so though the resolutions seem similar, 1080p is really much more demanding in terms of storage and decoding relative to 1080i.

 

[expletive]

Does anyone have a firm grasp of what is missing from the 'entry level' BR and HD-DVD players as opposed to the 'premium' models?

I'm going to do some digging now but wondered if anyone had already figured it out...

 

[Nicked]

Sony is really starting to stab me in the eyes. February better blow my fucking mind.

Hey don't sweat. Everyone went through this with PS2, including the "omg no playable games bit".

For PS2, they showed it at PlayStation festival in February, first time with playable games, released it a fortnight later in March

Edit; Oh yeah, and at TGS'99, there wasn't even demo reels for PS2 games. Nothing, just a sign saying "Sony won't be showing its next-gen system". Sony is ahead by that measure

 

[Hardknock]

Does anyone have a firm grasp of what is missing from the 'entry level' BR and HD-DVD players as opposed to the 'premium' models?

I'm going to do some digging now but wondered if anyone had already figured it out...

Well the HD-DVD players are supposed to be fully featured. But reports are now saying the entry level Blu-Ray players are omitting tons of features. They won't have the interactive layer in order to lower price and come out on time. So $1000 for a player that won't be able to access the special features on a Blu-Ray disc. Check it out:

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/01/06/1g_blu-ray_may_omit_features/

 

[Carl B]

Well the HD-DVD players are supposed to be fully featured. But reports are now saying the entry level Blu-Ray players are omitting tons of features. They won't have the interactive layer in order to lower price and come out on time. So $1000 for a player that won't be able to access the special features on a Blu-Ray disc. Check it out:

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/01/06/1g_blu-ray_may_omit_features/

Hardknock, good find. That article is *quite* interesting. Hmmm... I'm sure PS3 will be able to circumvent the 'interactive' layer issues due to Cell and a firmware upgrade, but it doesn't bode well for the purchasers of first gen blu-ray players otherwise.

Truly, PS3 is the way to go blu-ray early adopter.

Ack, but this Ethernet connection talk is back again. That's really not my style... I mean those features sound cool, don't get me wrong. Seemless movies and menus? Cool. Downloadable content and commonplace burning? Cool. But I don't know about *needing* it connected to the Internet to unlock that; that's a little aggravating.

 

[Nicked]

Well the HD-DVD players are supposed to be fully featured. But reports are now saying the entry level Blu-Ray players are omitting tons of features. They won't have the interactive layer in order to lower price and come out on time. So $1000 for a player that won't be able to access the special features on a Blu-Ray disc. Check it out:

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/01/06/1g_blu-ray_may_omit_features/

Reports are saying that according to unspecified sources it MAY happen. A bit sensationalist on your behalf?

The first players are scheduled to be released after BD-J is finalised. So ? at this article. Drives are being released earlier but they will rely on software installed to PC anyway so yeah...once again ?

 

[Hardknock]

Hardknock, good find. That article is *quite* interesting. Hmmm... I'm sure PS3 will be able to circumvent the 'interactive' layer issues due to Cell and a firmware upgrade, but it doesn't bode well for the purchasers of first gen blu-ray players otherwise.

Truly, PS3 is the way to go blu-ray early adopter.

Ack, but this Ethernet connection talk is back again. That's really not my style... I mean those features sound cool, don't get me wrong. Seemless movies and menus? Cool. Downloadable content and commonplace burning? Cool. But I don't know about *needing* it connected to the Internet to unlock that; that's a little aggravating.

Yeah it does seem overly intrusive. I really hope this is not mandatory like you must have it hooked to the internet in-order to play your movies??? Wasn't DVD like this when it first started?

Movie studios are taking this copy protection too far IMO. They're actually going to start pushing people to get pirated stuff if they have to go through all this trouble.