McPhee Posted January 13, 2008 Posted January 13, 2008 Very unfair and untrue comments. Do i really have to go through my history and dig up sources for every point i made there? I'll tell you what, if you highlight which bits you think are untrue i'll go find the source. Sony arent really at fault here. Early adopters knew this thats why most have a PS3. Its the highest quality player anyway. The upgradeable stuff is extra, so some people went with non upgradeable players knowingly. most players can be upgraded since they are linux boxes with blu ray drives really(ps3 aside). Its not really an issue can certainly not as bad as dvd players that couldnt read the second layer. Lets not get started with VHS. Bull. Shit. The difference between Blu-Ray and DVD/VHS etc is that Blu-Ray 2.0 was the original Blu-Ray spec. The BDA kept certain features out due to time/cost restraints so that they could compete with HD-DVD. The added bonus of this is that all current players are obsolete before they leave the shelves. With DVD it was years before dual layer DVDs came out, years before DTS and years before HDMI. It wasn't technologically possible to implement these changes when DVD first came out (1997). Same goes for VHS with stereo sound etc. They were all upgrades, they improved the format and were quite a few years apart. And as for consumers being told, how exactly? A little bit of writing in the back on the manual, some small print on the underside of the box or a line of text on a web page aren't enough to excuse the manufacturers of blame. If they truly wanted consumers to know what they were buying then they would have put a nice big sticker on the front. Don't get me wrong, im not surprised they didn't put a sticker on the front. After all, that would have lost them sales and quite possibly some market share to HD-DVD. Much easier to manipulate consumer stupidity and then blame it on those very same consumers. I really take you're opinion with a pinch of salt anyway. If you did some research for a change i might start to take you seriously, at the moment though you just come across as a fanboy. If you'd actually taken 5 minutes to read up on the matter you'd know that 1.0 players cannot be upgraded to 1.1 because of the hardware requirement. Blu Ray 1.1 requires a minimum of 256MB local video storage, a secondary video decoder and a secondary audio decoder. On top of that 2.0 requires 1GB of local video storage and an Ethernet port. These are all hardware components, they cannot be added in at a later stage.
Jasper Posted January 13, 2008 Posted January 13, 2008 Apart from the fact that all music and video from the ITMS is covered in DRM... True. Problem with Microsofts idea is that they're selling something the public doesn't want: subscription. In the past, you payed a subscription to listen to music. What was the advantage of iTMS? You could end your account and still own the music. The moment you stoped paying to Microsoft, the user lost it's data. People don't like that (certainly not with music). And it does offer DRM free, although at a higher price. I'm not fanboyish, but this is where I see the media industry going: Digita Downloads. Up untill now, Microsoft hasn't offered anything usefull of that matter. But Apple has proven itself in the music marketplace. W'll see, but neither BluRay or HD DVD will get widespread addoption before everyone streams their media - but that's as good as my guess goes.
McPhee Posted January 14, 2008 Posted January 14, 2008 Apple definitely have the best store, yes. Hardware-wise though can you really see Apple TV taking off? Apple like a world of Apple, something which i can see hurting the company as it expands. I suppose it depends what else is out there really. With the price of computer hardware tumbling all the time and advances in wireless networking i can see Windows Media Centre becoming a good consumer product over the next few years. Then theres BT Vision, Virgin Media and whatever BSkyB pull out of the hat...
Jasper Posted January 14, 2008 Posted January 14, 2008 I doubt the revelation will come from Apple TV. But any PC can run iTunes, so maybe we'll see some saviour from there. You never know. BUt even if Apple doesn't do it, it's digital downloads before BluRay or HD DVD even saw the sun really rising.
Sheikah Posted January 14, 2008 Posted January 14, 2008 This is why i dislike Blu Ray, it's very design is to screw consumers over. Hardware manufacturers love it because of the constantly evolving spec. Changes to BD-J mean that BD 1.0 and 1.1 players won't be able to play certain disks without skips/judders or possibly even at all! This means that all current Blu-Ray owners (apart from those with a PS3) will have to buy a new player in 12 months time, more lovely money for Panasonic, Samsung et all! Studios love it because of the DRM. Heck, theres even patents to lock disks to the first player it's used in (killing the 2nd hand market) and another to disable the player if it's tampered with in any way (by means of BD Live). No more region free and no more import market. It's all about Sony and they're partners grabbing as much cash as they can from idiot consumers who don't look at what they're buying. How many businesses are they going to kill by removing the 2nd hand and import markets? And how much free money have they gained from selling unfinished Blu-Ray players to unwary consumers? You say this, but as a contradictory example out of the current 3 consoles only the PS3 is mainly region free, at least with the games (while I realise you are referring to video media you are also stating Sony as a whole are trying to remove import markets, so I think that's a pretty valid counter-comment). Region locking is nothing new, and yes it is of course to stop people getting them cheap imported. That's what businesses want to do, to make money. The pound gets you practically 2 dollars, so you could easily get them cheaper from USA, so they're bound to want to lock some stuff. Great tactic to boost the popularity of the PS3 though.
McPhee Posted January 14, 2008 Posted January 14, 2008 You say this, but as a contradictory example out of the current 3 consoles only the PS3 is mainly region free, at least with the games (while I realise you are referring to video media you are also stating Sony as a whole are trying to remove import markets, so I think that's a pretty valid counter-comment). Region locking is nothing new, and yes it is of course to stop people getting them cheap imported. That's what businesses want to do, to make money. The pound gets you practically 2 dollars, so you could easily get them cheaper from USA, so they're bound to want to lock some stuff. Great tactic to boost the popularity of the PS3 though. I was actually referring to the Blu-Ray disk association as a whole, decisions made with regard to Blu-Ray aren't just down to Sony. Fair point with the PS3 though, despite Sony's whole getting Lik-Sang shut down and putting the fear of god in to importers they've done good with the PS3. I'm no Sony hater, I just dislike what I see happening in this particular situation. I think the PS3 is easily the best bit of next-gen hardware, it's feature list is incredible and it's price is amazing! It just lacks the games to warrant a £300 spend at the moment. Sony and they're partners make some incredible kit, but that doesn't change how i feel about BD
RoadKill Posted January 14, 2008 Posted January 14, 2008 Don't forget Blu-ray is region coded (3 regions) and HD-DVD is region free
Mr_Odwin Posted January 14, 2008 Posted January 14, 2008 Bear in mind the copy protection has been broken already One part of it. BD+ (used on newer discs) remains non-breakable.
Jasper Posted January 16, 2008 Posted January 16, 2008 No one cares. The point is you put in the Blu ray disk and it will play. Also buy a PS3 if you want the best. Not tomention it does other things that are really good. Stop talking about the PS3. The PS3 isn't the only player on the market. Yes, it's superior, but still, people who didn't pay for the games machine want a little box on their TV's (or below). And those boxes are being screwed over. Just accept that it's not right what SOny is doing with the new standard. I'm not saying it's going to affect the market - the percentage of stand-alone players is pretty low and the market itself is pretty small at the moment, too - but it's still something that's crippled. Let's see how iTunes Movie Rentals work out before we define BluRay or HD-DVD the winner.
McPhee Posted January 17, 2008 Posted January 17, 2008 No one cares. The point is you put in the Blu ray disk and it will play. Is that you're idea of a retort? Im not talking about the mass market here. Most of them couldn't give a shit about BD, never mind how the players function. Within the current Blu Ray market though there is quite a lot of people who care. The enthusiast market on the other hand are not happy. Old players don't support new features, load really slowly and will only keep loading slower as BD-J is relied on more and more. Many of them would use a PS3, but it's a crappy option if you happen to use analogue sound equipment. Then there's the concerns over remote DRM, and disks requiring validation via the internet. There's also a high likely hood of another BD update (3.0?) that makes WiFi a requirement and further increases the minimum spec of the machines. The real battle begins now. Will Blu Ray's picture and sound quality outshine it's stupid load times (typical between 90 and 120 seconds) and DRM? Or will DVD continue to live on?
AshMat Posted January 18, 2008 Posted January 18, 2008 Jesus christ Choze you are a complete idiot. DRM Is a fucking pain in the ass, everyone who's ecnountered it knows it. AND LEARN HOW TO USE QUOTES!!!
McPhee Posted January 18, 2008 Posted January 18, 2008 Choze mate, the PS3 might be the best BD player but it aint perfect. There are reasons to buy other players Sure it loads fast and is updatable, but it lacks proper connection options (especially sound).
Domstercool Posted January 18, 2008 Posted January 18, 2008 Wow is this still going? Lol Still can't believe people think the PS3 has no good games yet, that's just fucking stupid. It probably has as many good ones as the Wii now, if not more. Just the Wii has Mario Galaxy, which is like awesome! I'm not much of an audiophile, so I'm not sure what you mean by connections? I mean I've heard some games are starting to do 7.1, surely the PS3 and Xbox 360 can still do those with the speakers on the market? O_o
McPhee Posted January 18, 2008 Posted January 18, 2008 Ignore it, some tit told me that the PS3 doesn't have Optical and as it turns out it does. Didn't check til just now cause i made that post from my mobile phone Anyhow, this is going round in circles a bit so i guess it's time to die *locked*
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