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Public statements they've maid at EC3 have contradicted that. Their belief in the abilty of the Cell chips they jointly developed with IBM indicate they feel the PS3 can process HD video in excellent quality, including 7.1 surround.. without compromises. They view the PS3 as much more than a game system. Maybe with the issues that have come up with trying to develop HD games for the PS3 have toned down the rhetoric. Interesting info from Sony, only time will tell what they actually deliver. |
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As for BD video playback, the Cell chips and graphics capabilities are well beyond what is needed. The PS3 does have 7.1 audio output, just not the discrete connections for those who want them, nor discrete linear PCM over HDMI. If you want 7.1 connectivity, you will have to use the optical audio connection or HDMI. Perhaps I'm in the minority, but for a player that's to be my main HD movie player, I would want to run discrete audio connections from each of the 8 connectors right into the 7.1 inputs of my AV receiver. Much more functionality and control that way. Where the PS3 will falter for BD playback is the software player. And like I've said, I've had more than one Sony rep tell me the same thing on different occasions, so they're either being coached as to what to say or they're speaking the truth. The only reason I can think for them to downplay the PS3's BD capabilities is so that people don't pass on the BDP-S1. OTOH, if what they say is correct, then the potential silver lining is that a software player can be upgraded and there's a good bet that they will since the PS3's own software is supposed to be upgradable. So I guess we'll see what happens when the system arrives... Personally, I probably won't buy a PS3 as I don't have time to play many games anymore and my XBOX 360 is perfectly fine. I did buy the Samsung BD player on an impulse and returned it because, well, it sucked and I thought it was unacceptable for the price. I doubt I'd buy a Sony BDP-S1 as I can probably fight the impulse now. I think I'll wait a while and see what happens. I'm not real pleased with my Toshiba HD-A1 either. It's a complete POS. Decent HD image quality, but the 1080i output limitation is somewhat disappointing after Toshiba was initially supposed to have 1080p capability. Upconverted DVD quality (that so many people rave over on this player for some reason) is no better than my $250 Sony CX995V DVD changer with HDMI. But it is better than the Samsung upconverting players or that Oppo 1080p piece of crap. |
I was basing my statements on the E3 DVDs I purchased at GameSpot which had the full Sony presentation at the event. I always take promotional stuff with a grain of salt. But it was a lot of senior execs from both Sony and Nividia talking it up. Going to be a lot of egg on the face if they can't deliver.
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...Nintendo used to be just as bad, but they cleaned up their act with the gamecube and all their releases following. But I think the whole claim of "real time radiosity/GI rendering" for the N64 was a bit much. I'm not really involved anymore, but I used to work in the games industry. Done my share of development work. I worked on the Dreamcast, PS2 Atari Jaguar, PSX and Sega Saturn. Nobody hypes a system and makes false claims the way Sony does. ;-) And they have enough fanboys and market presence to make the sales happen regardless. And when it all comes down to it, even though it may not come close to the claims, PS3 will still be the most powerful system out there come launch day. Even if it lacks raw CPU power vs. the XBOX360 (which there is tangible evidence showing that it will), the new nVidia chip is killer and the PS3 will have a serious edge for graphics vs the 360. And like the original XBOX, there will be about a few months before we see a superior nVidia chip hit desktop computer systems. |
Toshiba said to be losing $200 on each HD-DVD player sold
WOW this was an old post, but I thought I would respond seeing as I have
now purchased four of these suckers. They now make two versions one for progressive scan and one for high definition. I bought one of each the other day. - The progressive scan model was I think $49.00 and the high def model was $79.00 at Costco. Don’t bother with the high definition model if you don’t have a HDMI port in the back of your T.V. You can really see the difference between the Panasonic/Toshiba setup’s with and without the HDMI port especially with title overlays. |
I can't imagine the cost dropped from $500 to $79. Are you sure you didn't get the model that can take movies that are SD, but were mastered (or re-mastered) in HD, and make them look better in SD? There's an actualy SD DVD player that claims something like that.
heath |
He's got to be talking about the upconverting players, not the HD-DVD ones.
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Toshiba said to be losing $200 on each HD-DVD player sold
You are correct Sean, I was talking about the Progressive scan model with
and without HDMI port. Just checked the true HD model out on newegg and it is running something like $409.00; I guess things are moving along faster than I thought - I was under the false impression that true High Definition wasn’t available on rented DVD's only through TIVO or channels that broadcasted it. Are you telling me that I can go down to Blockbuster or Hollywood video and rent a full length HD DVD now? The word High Definition has been seriously abused/ thrown around to much in my opinion. |
Indeed. I've been enjoying my Toshiba A1 HD-DVD player since july. They just released their 2nd gen A2 player.
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Netflix has a pretty nice HD DVD selection.
If you have an XBOX 360 you can get a USB HD DVD External drive for $199. Comes with the remote and King Kong too. There's already hacks out on the net to make the USB drive work on a PC too. Wonder how much MS loses on those USB drives. They sell the XBOX 360's at a loss. |
Toshiba said to be losing $200 on each HD-DVD player sold
Do any of you guys subscribe to the theory that in some cases HD
looks to real for certain movies? The only taste of true HD I have had the opportunity to view was at the Good Guys here in Reno before they closed shop. They had this mini theater room set up for displaying their projector units. The lights were all set perfect by light meters for each unit according to the lumens and so forth. They demonstrated this movie I guess it would be the equivalent of Space Station 9 or something. My first impression was that the lady looked more like someone wearing a costume, goofy almost with that much clarity. Maybe it wasn’t shot or edited to 24p, I doubt it was shot on film to begin with? My other experience is with my progressive scan Toshiba connected to my LCD Panasonic via HDMI port. When I watched the latest Star Wars move the battle scene in the beginning was so crisp that it made R2D2 look more like a toy. What so you guys think and thoughts on this? |
I have the XBox HD-DVD player.
So far, I've watched about a half dozen movies in the HD-DVD format. Probably the best was "The Searchers," a 1956 John Wayne movie. That's the really cool thing about HD-DVD...it may revive interest in some older, beautifully shot films. As far as the new Star Wars goes.... I do think that HD-DVD exposes the flaws of CGI. But I felt that some of the Star Wars CGI was flawed upon first viewing the films in the theater. CGI can be a useful storytelling tool, but it's a poor substitute for reality. I'll take real snow over CGI snow every time... |
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But you still seem to be talking about standard definition progressive scan DVD's and not HD DVD's... |
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Hi Boyd, I was not speeking of SD inside the Good Guys, my reference to progressive scan one more time I know, was only to indicate that -even in SD-progressive scan R2 looks like a toy - I would hate to see how bad he looks in HD. |
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