Samsung Blu Ray first impressions
- Thread starter ims
- Start date
I wont be touching anything until its decided what will become the standard. I think alot of people feel the same way. A great many dont care at all due to DVD being fine for their tastes. After all the hype about Blu Ray though this is pretty pathetic. Especially at those premiums. Whats a player cost $800 or more?
I bough my DVD player when there were < 10 discs available, I have a library of almost 1000 DVD's. I'd really like a HD DVD format but I won't buy until the whole format war is decided.
General concensus AFAICS seems to be that Sony's reluctance to use anything but MPeg 2 is really hurting the existing BluRay disks. Although some seem to be pointing fingers at the Samsung player.
General concensus AFAICS seems to be that Sony's reluctance to use anything but MPeg 2 is really hurting the existing BluRay disks. Although some seem to be pointing fingers at the Samsung player.
thatdude90210
Regular
Humm... he says "Sure, that Tosh HD-DVD player was a lemon until the firmware upgrade, but it's worked like a charm since." Yet in the conclusion he said "Don't even bother with Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD for at least a year, because there are significant bugs to be worked out yet."
I guess when your fav is losing, you play for a tie.
I guess when your fav is losing, you play for a tie.
thatdude90210 said:
What are you talking about?
He's notes a player, that I assume has been out longer, has had a firmware upgrade and is now better. Nothing surprising there. Then he goes on to say, in a general remark, that both formats still have issues to work out, and I'm assuming that from what I've read this is pretty much true.
He played very even through the whole thing, noting specific issues and saying what was good and what wasnt. He also gave the HD-DVD player a mark up on this Blu-Ray player, while admiting that he believes Blu-Ray will win the format war in the end.
He played it very even from my eyes.
thatdude90210
Regular
He said the Toshiba is now "working like a charm" since the firmware upgrade and giving great PQ, so what's the "significant bugs to be worked out yet?" And why aren't these bugs preventing it from "working like a charm."
I can understand if he had said wait for next generation Hd-dvd players because they will have more features like hdmi 1.3, 1080p... but that's not what he said.
I can understand if he had said wait for next generation Hd-dvd players because they will have more features like hdmi 1.3, 1080p... but that's not what he said.
thatdude90210 said:
I think you're reading way to much into what he said. The review, if you can call it that, was very informally written.
He first of all states he is expectinb Blu-Ray to win the format wars, therefore the idea that he is a fan of HD-DVD out the window. Secondly, I think he was talking about the issues of that specific player and not its features, which are different all together.
Very general comments, I wouldnt draw to much from them.
thatdude90210
Regular
Check out the 6/21 update: "Dual-layered HD-DVDs and Blu-ray Discs are still in the testing phase (that is to say, a title hasn't yet been released on dual-layered media to our knowledge - the combo format HD-DVD yes, but not dual-layered on either format)"
I expect that to be corrected tomorrow when his mailbox is full, but it's been quoted many places already.
Again he's lumping both formats together as not being ready. But even I, who only follow Blu-ray & HD-dvd mildly, know that dual-layer HD-dvd are already available in most, if not all, current HD-DVD releases.
I expect that to be corrected tomorrow when his mailbox is full, but it's been quoted many places already.
Again he's lumping both formats together as not being ready. But even I, who only follow Blu-ray & HD-dvd mildly, know that dual-layer HD-dvd are already available in most, if not all, current HD-DVD releases.
I think his advice was spot on.. if you want to be a beta tester for one of the new disc technologies then be prepared and be patient.
For the rest of us wait a year until more titles are out, both formats are maturing on the hardware front and there is extra content on movies to justify going to either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.
I would wait more than a year in fact.. 18 months until the 2nd generation players have been updated...
For the rest of us wait a year until more titles are out, both formats are maturing on the hardware front and there is extra content on movies to justify going to either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.
I would wait more than a year in fact.. 18 months until the 2nd generation players have been updated...
quest55720
Regular
Add me to the camp that is waiting untill the format war is over before any purchase.
RobertR1 said:
I know it must be REALLY difficult for some people to resist temptation, but this is a Samsung Bluray player thread, not a thread where someone can list what's good about the Toshiba HDDVD player to try and compensate the attention Bluray is getting now.
The Sammy can upscale DVDs just as well as the Toshiba HDDVD player, i think the issues here are different.
I think one of the problems Bluray will have at the beginning is that Sony aren't exactly quick. What i mean is that it takes them a while to get to the top of new businesses and technology, but when they do, they do it big time. Look at their LCD TV business. Until little more than a year ago, they were no one, then they made the Bravia range and now they're at the top once again, simply because the Bravia's are such great sets. Now it's a bit of a generalisation to say that just because their Bravia sets are great, then everything else they do will be great, but i think that if we wait a little bit, we'll see very good things.
geo said:
Arrogance and royalties. In the BD and HD DVD spec, all players MUST support Mpeg2, VC1 and Mpeg4. After that they can support whatever. VC1 is Microsoft's codec. Read up on mpeg-la to see how the royalties work but basically Sony get the biggest chunk in royalties when Mpeg2 is used by studios. Putting that aside, Sony has gone of record repeatedly about how Mpeg2 is the best format for High Def and they believe in it all the way. It would be quite the change for them to not only backtrack but then have to go infront of MS and ask them for help in implementing VC1.
VC1 is approximately 2x + more effeceint than mpeg2 which is requires much higher rates to display the same picture as VC1 with it's much lower raters.
The longer the movies, the more space it needs and using Mpeg2, 25GB is not enough, thus the quality suffers. 50GB would be fine because now you don't have to lower the rate on mpeg2 and it can be shown in maximum quality but it's still using 2x more space than if VC1 was being used which negates the 50gb space advantage for movies. 50GB discs are no where in sight and have strong rumors of production delays.
The current crop of Sony releases are not as good as HD DVD because they're running out of space on 25gb discs using Mpeg2. Sony refuses to work with MS to try and implement VC1 and keep saying they believe in Mpeg2 over and over. The could go Mpeg4 to preserve their arrogance. The problem with Mpeg4 is that for high resolution content, it's really no better than Mpeg2. Mpeg4's advantage comes when the res. is kept down. All Blu Ray titles currently goto Sony for mastering so it'll be interesting if they actually use VC1 for other studios at some point.
In summary:
A movie that takes us 20GB using VC1 will require 40GB using Mpeg2 to display the same picutre. Lowering the rate on Mpeg2 causes artifacts, soft picture, noise and macroblocking.
To produce a better picture, Sony varies the rates depending on the scene and how much they can get away with using a lower rate to produce an acceptable picture.
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london-boy said:
This is painfully wrong. The Samsung unit upconverts no better than a cheap $100 player where as people are selling their Denon 3910's due to the Toshiba's upconverting ability.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=690069
RobertR1 said:
Do we know that the Sony player doesn't support Mpeg4 and VC1? The description at Amazon says it does.
The Tosh HD-DVD player specs at Amazon are silent on the issue.
My concern is that first gen players buyers not get stuck with players that won't play new discs a couple years from now, on the assumption that the long-fabled transition to h.264 is still on the books.
