SONY SUCKS! They only developed SACD with a dual layer because their 25 year patent expired and they were getting royalties from every CD ever produced by any company (billions in revenue$$). Yes it is technologically superior, but they made the hardware so expensive and worse yet charged more per disk when the market wanted convenience and portability (MP3s yuk).
Sony Jumped into Blueray because Toshiba was making all the royalties on DVD's sold because they owned that patent, and therefore Sony want's their own format to gain all profits and copy protection since DVD protection was cracked. SONY has dragged blueray technology into the ground trying to protect their content with DRM and hence why we haven't seen this type of quality ages ago. Blueray is not leaps and bounds superior (Their marketing will tell you that..) They currently dont make anything even even comes close to their stats (200gig???100gig??, Dual layer?)
Blueray movie production is using Mpeg2 (just like DVD and filling up their extra space) still and barely looks better than standard DVD's on the first round of blueray products.
Blue ray's protective layer is 1/10th that of HD-DVD and is thinner than CDR's protective layer.. Talk about skipping when you rent!
Blueray hasn't made any dual layer media yet, and they are having laser production problems.
You can buy an Xbox HD-DVD drive to hookup to your computer for $200, but a Blueray reader doesn't exist? and a recorder is $800.
I owned a high end Sony Dat player years ago along with a Beta, but Sony killed DAT because they couldn't copyprotect it well enough, and SACD is dead (except for re-issues and classical music).
Blueray almost cost twice as much for the player so that will steer the market, but Sony is dumping tons of marketing money into why Blueray is better so it could still go either way... let's just hope that they don't kill both formats like SACD and DVDA and we all lose.
I voted buy buying HD-DVD and a stack of movies! It absolutely kills my Cable HD on my 103" projection screen, and it doesn't have all the artifacts that blueray has. I voted HD-DVD because It hurts being an early adopter and $500 for an excellent upscaling DVD player for existing collection versus $900 for a blueray player? that magical $1000 price point you can't just make a quick decision on...especially for a Beta Version (1.0)
Plus Sony refused US production firms from producing Blueray porn and this could really be killer.. the interesting thing was the porn industry wanted to go blueray for the enhanced (one more level) copy protection levels and had originally said they would go SONY. Now they have mentioned that only the big studio's can afford the Blueray production equipment (aka just like SACD where they couldn't produce albums because they were all busy rebuilding the Rolling Stones catalog??)
The other thing that sucks about both formats is that when a new movie is released the consumer can't pick it up on TUESDAY at walmart, bestbuy, circuitcity or any other mass store because they only have 2-3 rows of product and don't keep pace with new releases.... This is another marketing gimmick where if you want to watch it now, you have to buy a standard DVD and then wait till it gets released on HD-DVD or blueray and buy it again.. I WANT MY CONTENT on the same day and I want choices. Best Buy stores now have a larger selection.
A major gripe about HD-DVD are these stupid DUAL packs for $32-39 which have a DVD and an HD-DVD.. I don't care about a DVD..and I don't think the movie content is good enough to justify the cost... Sell just the HD-DVD!!! You are just making blueray look better with lower prices because you don't have to buy a bundle...
Oh yeah if you wonder why HDMI 1.1, HDMI 1.2, and Finally HDMI 1.3 all barely work??? DRM... The consumer screamed loud enough that they have enable the Component outputs on these new players till 2008, but the film studio's can flip a bit on new media and turn off your component output capabilities and force you to upgrade your HDTV ready TV so you can get a newer HDMI connection with HDCP copy protection.
Aggghhhhhh..sorry to go on a rant but when you have 100+ inch screens you really need the extra 1080(i)p resolution from a source any source...and meanwhile hollywood is more concerned with RIAA MPAA and suing their customers than bringing digital video technology to the home front!! Its not our fault that China and the Middle east don't pay for movies, music, or software... take that up with them and don't punish the consumer in the US! As with any copy protection scheme; it will be broken.. so instead get something out that costs under $20 for movies and under $10 for CD's and get some talent for artists instead of $$$$ marketing for one hit wonders...
Why must we buy NOS music? And one more
Remaster it right the first time! Quit compressing all the current recording to MAX volume across the freq range!!!
Peace
Chris
