CompUSA pushing BR

[mike123abc]

The whole problem with BR is the PS3. Everyone made $1000 players because the "$400-$500 PS3" was supposed to come earlier this year and dominate the scene. Why make a $500 player when the consumer would be inclined to pick up a PS3 with a free player built in? Of course the PS3 was delayed and is turning out more expensive than first thought.

BR was going to have cheap HD for the masses of PS3 owners.

HDDVD was forced to do more with less space and fewer studios so they went the quality route. They invested the money in the better codec, because they were forced to do so.

 

[vurbano]

BR is in a delimma IMO. They need 50 Gb disks for Mpeg2 apparently, it aint cuttin it with 25 Gb. Or they need VC-1, But Sony will never go that route and pay Bil gates. meanwhile they are trying to push a 1000 dollar machine with inferior PQ to a 500 dollar HDDVD machine . All the while the PS3 is poised to undercut the 1000 dollar price. Prospective Blu ray buyers must really be scratching their heads.


The other perplexing point for consumers is doesnt Mpeg4 (VC-1) require a more powerful computer to decode than Mpeg2??? But yet the HD-a1 is 500 dollars less than Blu ray.

 

[mike123abc]

BR is in a delimma IMO. They need 50 Gb disks for Mpeg2 apparently, it aint cuttin it with 25 Gb. Or they need VC-1, But Sony will never go that route and pay Bil gates. meanwhile they are trying to push a 1000 dollar machine with inferior PQ to a 500 dollar HDDVD machine . All the while the PS3 is poised to undercut the 1000 dollar price. Prospective Blu ray buyers must really be scratching their heads.


The other perplexing point for consumers is doesnt Mpeg4 (VC-1) require a more powerful computer to decode than Mpeg2??? But yet the HD-a1 is 500 dollars less than Blu ray.

BR players of course decode VC-1 just fine. The whole point of BR to the movie studios is $$. The BR group obviously have a way for the studios to produce movies cheaper on BR than HDDVD, otherwise why would all these studios go for BR over HDDVD. They do not care about video quality, it is good enough for HD in their eyes. Using old MPEG-2 and single layer discs save money. That is what the majority of studios will want to go with, 2 layer discs are not going to be attractive because of the price.

Sony learned from Betamax that it is content not quality that sells. No matter how much they improved Betamax, VHS won because all the movies were on it. This time Sony is getting all the movies and not worrying about the quality. Sure, you as a studio can decide to use VC-1 on a 50 GB BR disc at 72 Mbit/sec data rate... But why would a studio do so if they cannot charge more for it? Perhaps we will eventually see the "Superbit" of the BR movies come out.

Sony is working it both ways, promoting the huge quality advantage that BR can have over DVD to the consumer, and how to make discs as cheap as possible to the studios.

 

[vurbano]

Of course Blu Ray can technically play VC-1, but not until SOny writes Bill gates a check to do so. Thats the problem. And since Billy boy has an interest in HD DVD format, then maybe he might not be willing to license it to them? Maybe he might just give VMD a license for VC-1 and watch SONY die. But that too would hurt HD DVD. Its a mess. All I know is at this moment Blu Ray isnt ready in price or video performance.

 

[mike123abc]

Of course Blu Ray can technically play VC-1, but not until SOny writes Bill gates a check to do so. Thats the problem. And since Billy boy has an interest in HD DVD format, then maybe he might not be willing to license it to them? Maybe he might just give VMD a license for VC-1 and watch SONY die. But that too would hurt HD DVD. Its a mess. All I know is at this moment Blu Ray isnt ready in price or video performance.

I do not know where you have been getting your information but VC-1 is a required format for all the BR players to support. VC-1 licensing is not controlled by Microsoft. Microsoft turned over VC-1 to a patent pool, they receive the royalties due to them, but companies license VC-1 the same way they do MPEG-2/4. Sony may not want to use VC-1 since they know MS will get royalties, but it is not like they have to go make a deal with MS.

 

[teamerickson]

BR players of course decode VC-1 just fine. The whole point of BR to the movie studios is $$. The BR group obviously have a way for the studios to produce movies cheaper on BR than HDDVD, otherwise why would all these studios go for BR over HDDVD.

Maybe because Sony is blowing smoke. Maybe they sold them on more space. Well it appears they need more space if they continue to use the MPEG2. MPEG2 will hold about 2 hours of HD content on their single layer disc. I think Sony convienced studios this is better technology, but there using the old technology MPEG2. It's not as efficient as VC-1 (MPEG 4 hybrid?) and doesn't look as good as reviewed so far. Isn't VC-1 adpoted by the MPEG forum? So either way they get royalities. The start up cost to transforms a DVD line to a BD cabable is being quoted around 2 million more then tranforming the DVD line to HD DVD. I don't think BD is saving the studios money. I just think that Sony tauted this as better and they seem to have come out inferiour. It's still early, but it getting intresting.

 

[seandudley]

BR players of course decode VC-1 just fine. The whole point of BR to the movie studios is $$. The BR group obviously have a way for the studios to produce movies cheaper on BR than HDDVD, otherwise why would all these studios go for BR over HDDVD. They do not care about video quality, it is good enough for HD in their eyes. Using old MPEG-2 and single layer discs save money. That is what the majority of studios will want to go with, 2 layer discs are not going to be attractive because of the price.

Sony learned from Betamax that it is content not quality that sells. No matter how much they improved Betamax, VHS won because all the movies were on it. This time Sony is getting all the movies and not worrying about the quality. Sure, you as a studio can decide to use VC-1 on a 50 GB BR disc at 72 Mbit/sec data rate... But why would a studio do so if they cannot charge more for it? Perhaps we will eventually see the "Superbit" of the BR movies come out.

Sony is working it both ways, promoting the huge quality advantage that BR can have over DVD to the consumer, and how to make discs as cheap as possible to the studios.

I think there is a big difference, though. The people who have HDTVs and would buy a high-def player are the ones who care about quality. With beta vs. VHS, it was the general population of which many don't care about quality.

 

[ChrisPC]

CompUSA has a close connection with Sony; that's why theyre pushing BD. Most stores have a Sony Style section with a Sony rep. They also have a huge PS2/PSP section, but barely anything on the XBox or Nintendo side.

The local store here doesn't even have a BD player, and is running a BD demo on SD DVD! I asked the rep about it, and she pretty much admitted it's a joke.

However, they are also carrying a few HD DVDs at a really low price. Maybe they're hedging their bets.

 

[jgantert]

CompUSA has a close connection with Sony; that's why theyre pushing BD. Most stores have a Sony Style section with a Sony rep. They also have a huge PS2/PSP section, but barely anything on the XBox or Nintendo side.

The local store here doesn't even have a BD player, and is running a BD demo on SD DVD! I asked the rep about it, and she pretty much admitted it's a joke.

However, they are also carrying a few HD DVDs at a really low price. Maybe they're hedging their bets.

Ah, that must have been the guy I was talking to. The Sony rep. haha.

The BR demo had much more artifcating and pixelation than an SD DVD. I don't know the source at my local CompUSA (Columbia, MD), but it did not look good. Based on the initial reports of the Samsung player and initial BR titles, they don't seem much better.

I wish they carried more HD-DVDs, as the three they do carry are only $20 each.

-John

 

[vurbano]

Sony may not want to use VC-1 since they know MS will get royalties, but it is not like they have to go make a deal with MS.

Like I said, they dont want to pay Bill Gates. Because most of that money will go to him.