Samsung Blu Ray first impressions

[Skrying]

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.

You read him wrong. He is saying that all players do support those codecs. The movie has to be coded in them though, and that's where the issue is. Sony is basically saying no to using anything but the inferior mpeg2 at this point.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Toshiba heavily subsidizing their HD player?

 

[Skrying]

Toshiba heavily subsidizing their HD player?

Its amazing that its costing so much to build.

Any word on how much the Sammy Blu-Ray cost?

 

[Geo]

For the record, tho I admit it's not a substantive comment as to technical merits, I really feel the need to add that Tosh is SO BUTT UGLY IT MUST HAVE BEEN BEAT WITH AN UGLY STICK BY AN UGLY-FU MASTER.

Thank you for your forebearance. That one just had to come out.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

For the record, tho I admit it's not a substantive comment as to technical merits, I really feel the need to add that Tosh is SO BUTT UGLY IT MUST HAVE BEEN BEAT WITH AN UGLY STICK BY AN UGLY-FU MASTER.

Thank you for your forebearance. That one just had to come out.

It looks like a pre-production engineering sample. Like those first VCRs with the top-loading and big levers on the front. Early adopter geeks with a stack of separate AV gear might go for it, but for most people it's too ugly to go under the nice new HDTV plasma screen. They'll have to do better if they want to convince people to spend a lot of money when they are quite happy with their (relatively new) plasmas screens and DVD collections.

It's like in the LG research museum where they show you the first HDTV equipment (looks like two under-desk drawer units. Every year it shrinks down to a fraction of it's size until after a few years it's a couple of small chips. The Tosh unit looks like it's still a generation out from being a mainstream product.