Sony fakes Blu-ray playback [ Update]
In this rather embarassing episode, Sony was showing off high definition movies on their new Blu-ray equipped Vaio laptop when some troublemaker presed the eject button to reveal...a quite bootleg looking DVD R? Ouch. Sony's movies are still scheduled to hit in June with the Samsung Blu-ray player, no word on if they will also feature handwritten titles.Update: Notebook review mentioned Sony was showing a regular DVD version on one laptop, unfortunately no one has "confirmed" which laptop this picture is from. If anyone who was there has pictures of the Blu-ray disc Sony was playing, we'd love to confirm this story as true or not. A quick explanation of why Sony bootlegged their own movie on a Verbatim recordable disc would also be illuminating and entertaining.
Filed under: Sony
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kraig @ May 16th 2006 5:28PM
What's the big deal here? The content on that DVD-R could well have still been high def, it just wouldn't hold nearly as much as a Blu-Ray disc at this point. The demonstration remains the same, but instead of a fully blown 2 hour movie with extras on a Blu-Ray DVD, you get 20 minutes of HD footage on a DVD-R. Sony still get's their point across.
EdwardA @ May 16th 2006 6:19PM
Yes, they get their point accross regarding High Def, but HD-DVD is also High Def, so why would I pick Blu-Ray?
The biggest benefits to Blu-Ray are technical, so even if the display quality of the content is not the same the use of other technology doesn't prove or support the product in question.
Anyone can make a DVD-R with High Def content that will play on a PC. Both of the new specifications also support Red-Laser extensions that allow creating DVD-9 with High Def content on them. That may have been what was on the disc, but the point is, this isn't evidence of the ability of the Blue-Laser technology.
Both of these technologies, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, are pushing more storage and new laser technologies as well as High Definition; if you're demonstrating that, then show me the new disc, I can see High Defintion on a DVD-R at home.
kevin @ May 16th 2006 6:58PM
Come on, at least use a Sony DVD+R.
pete @ May 16th 2006 7:52PM
the big deal is that Sony has been talking a lot of smoke and keeps delaying their stuff. Plus, how low can you go when you can't even put a real dvd, maybe a movie made by sony? Theres got to be a Target or Best Buy near the show where they can buy something.
MILT R. SMITH @ May 16th 2006 9:48PM
It may all be academic. Recent proffesional tech reviews, including the LA TIMES, have decried the relatively small improvements in image quality in HD-DVD. So, at current price points, it's highly questionable whether either of the hi-def optical disk formats will ever become a mass-market consumer medium. D-VHS revisited? At $500-plus for the players, and $25-plus for the disks, my guess is that's all it'll be.Studio insiders have allegedly said they're looking at BIG reductions in hi-def disk prices to spur consumers along.
hemmy @ May 17th 2006 12:36AM
It helps to get things straight before posting things like this.
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2939
There was a side by side demonstration on the AR150G Vaio laptops of House of Flying Daggers, clearly indicated by a placard. One was running a Blu-ray version, the other was a DVD sample.
quote:
"The premium model comes bundled with one of the first Blu-ray Disc (BD) movies, House of Flying Daggers, which Sony showed side-by-side tonight, along with the DVD version."
Dave @ May 17th 2006 1:03AM
Uh-oh! Forget the fact that they were faking Blu-Ray--they bootlegged a DVD! Where's the MPAA when you need them?
anthonysimilion @ May 17th 2006 7:39AM
They are Sony - I'm sure they can get the permission for these things, you know, Dave.
Kevin @ May 17th 2006 12:43PM
it looks like they used dvd shrink to take a normal movie and compress it to fit onto a regular single layer dvd to make the high-def blue-ray movie look even better compared to a "standard" dvd.
hemmy @ May 17th 2006 6:51PM
Sony could dupe it's own movies all day and it wouldn't be "pirating" as THEY OWN THE RIGHTS to House of Flying Daggers.
Lame gearlog (Lance is a Wiitard) followup:
http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archive/2006/05/17/11993.aspx
Sony PR man responds, confirms it was DVD/BD comparison:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=185953&cid=15348016
NBR reviewer who was there, Malia.Zee, confirms there was a DVD/BD comparison there:
"The laptop on the right was playing a BD, the laptop on the left (the one pictured) was playing a DVD. I feel bad for Sony, since if it wasn't for me, this guy would never have taken the picture - and now it's been picked up by all sorts of sources."
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=54374
A retraction/apology is in order.
BlueRayRocksForEverLOL! @ May 23rd 2006 5:31PM
Come on, at least use a Sony DVD+R.