I was at CES this past week and thoroughly attended all the demos and presentations on Blu ray and HD -DVD as well as the players. Thought I'd share the info I came across.
1. Blu Ray is using their extra disk space to introduce certain features. a. Educational- so ina ovie the dec of independence appears- you have the option of clicking a button on the declaration and getting history of the declaration of independence. ( this was in the demo). You can stop Sin City and join in in the killing spree as a game participant. ( an almost exact quote and was on the demo). You can have alive discourse with the director during the film ( also a direct example- the interpreation here is that the internet plays a role.) This for me is all a big waste. Obviously thats an opnion. Players- lots of blu ray players are being introduced by MANY manufacturers- all the players I saw started at 1800 but perhaps there is one at 1000. Blu Ray titles will be released starting in June or so. About 60 titles to be released. Price points for the disks are likely to be higher than current DVDs, but no one is going into specifics.
2. HD-DVD- Will release first with both players and titles in March. Two players will be 499 and 799. Two other manufacturers are releasing players as well. 30 titles to be released in March with 200 by JAnuary 1, 2007 was what I wastold. Cost of HD-DVD disk is one dollar over the current DVD price. The two sided disks with standard def DVD on one side and hd-dvd on the other will be about three dollars higher or so. That is an extrapolation of read betwwen the line info I got. NOT an exact quote.
3. PS3 is freaky. It is so unbeleivably real. Fraky to watch. Fortunately I am not into that stuff. But wow.
4. Problems- 1080P 1920 x 1080 displays are being released this year both in larger LCD sizes and Plasmas as well. These are new. However, current cable and satellite signal resolution is NOT true HD and is pegged by DISH at 1240 x 1080 to save bandwidth. Therefore the true value of a 1080P display goes unrealized for that type of viewing. Only hi def DVDs can truely make use of the displays fully. In fact, sub standard resolution HD signals may actually look worse on a 1080P display relative to a 720P display. There is hope in that some displays, and recently demoed cble type set top boxes will auto detect the resolution being fed to it from the source and auto adjust for best picture. This will likely be a key feature as we see divergence between hi def DVDs and lower def "HD" signals from Comcast and dish etc. Also, there are significant HDMI transmission/handshake issues related to the ability of the DVD player/receiever/ and display to accurately decode color etc. Early adoption of 1080P displays could be problematic. I also attended both DTS-HD demo as well as Dolby-HD demo. It is unclear to me that ANY receivers available at this time can fully decode the hi res audio codec as well. The feeds I saw at CES for the 1080P were mostly hard drive loops and an occasional blu ray feed.
The studio backing is about 50/50 movie titles and blu rays features as displayed to me arent important or desitable. Their pricing is higher than HD-DVDs options. The format war is a loser for the industry as a whole as it devalues the 1080 displays greatly.
1. Blu Ray is using their extra disk space to introduce certain features. a. Educational- so ina ovie the dec of independence appears- you have the option of clicking a button on the declaration and getting history of the declaration of independence. ( this was in the demo). You can stop Sin City and join in in the killing spree as a game participant. ( an almost exact quote and was on the demo). You can have alive discourse with the director during the film ( also a direct example- the interpreation here is that the internet plays a role.) This for me is all a big waste. Obviously thats an opnion. Players- lots of blu ray players are being introduced by MANY manufacturers- all the players I saw started at 1800 but perhaps there is one at 1000. Blu Ray titles will be released starting in June or so. About 60 titles to be released. Price points for the disks are likely to be higher than current DVDs, but no one is going into specifics.
2. HD-DVD- Will release first with both players and titles in March. Two players will be 499 and 799. Two other manufacturers are releasing players as well. 30 titles to be released in March with 200 by JAnuary 1, 2007 was what I wastold. Cost of HD-DVD disk is one dollar over the current DVD price. The two sided disks with standard def DVD on one side and hd-dvd on the other will be about three dollars higher or so. That is an extrapolation of read betwwen the line info I got. NOT an exact quote.
3. PS3 is freaky. It is so unbeleivably real. Fraky to watch. Fortunately I am not into that stuff. But wow.
4. Problems- 1080P 1920 x 1080 displays are being released this year both in larger LCD sizes and Plasmas as well. These are new. However, current cable and satellite signal resolution is NOT true HD and is pegged by DISH at 1240 x 1080 to save bandwidth. Therefore the true value of a 1080P display goes unrealized for that type of viewing. Only hi def DVDs can truely make use of the displays fully. In fact, sub standard resolution HD signals may actually look worse on a 1080P display relative to a 720P display. There is hope in that some displays, and recently demoed cble type set top boxes will auto detect the resolution being fed to it from the source and auto adjust for best picture. This will likely be a key feature as we see divergence between hi def DVDs and lower def "HD" signals from Comcast and dish etc. Also, there are significant HDMI transmission/handshake issues related to the ability of the DVD player/receiever/ and display to accurately decode color etc. Early adoption of 1080P displays could be problematic. I also attended both DTS-HD demo as well as Dolby-HD demo. It is unclear to me that ANY receivers available at this time can fully decode the hi res audio codec as well. The feeds I saw at CES for the 1080P were mostly hard drive loops and an occasional blu ray feed.
The studio backing is about 50/50 movie titles and blu rays features as displayed to me arent important or desitable. Their pricing is higher than HD-DVDs options. The format war is a loser for the industry as a whole as it devalues the 1080 displays greatly.