http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/ Engadget HD Comments for Blu-ray fencesitters: five free movies sound good? http://www.engadgethd.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadgethd.com en-us Copyright 2009 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
No, I'm not dissing any HD format in and of itself. I have no problems with either BR or HD-DVD. But when I can go out and buy a progressive scan player for less than $100 that will still look good and sound good, I can't justify an additional $400 not only to gain some extra resolution but also to start re-purchasing my favorite movies *again*!! I'm starting to feel like the DVD industry is taking after George Lucas. ;)]]>Jun 29th 2007 11:33AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
and just to make sure that i'm on the same page as everyone, as far as the final spec for blu ray which is to be finalized this october, the only thing that's really changing is the interactivity right? i mean, the menus and special features, internet connectivity and a form of onboard memory...
if some people like myself only buy dvds to watch the movie, but dont really care about playing online games with it and dumb stuff like that...isn't the current spec, along w/ the current players more than enough?]]>Jun 29th 2007 3:45PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 30th 2007 10:43AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
Too bad Spider-Man 1 & 2 aren't out on BluRay yet.

NO WAY! Hart's war!]]>Jun 29th 2007 11:46AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 29th 2007 12:34PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 29th 2007 2:28PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
(BTW -- Dave, does this mean that Blu-Ray is near death since they're giving away free movies? That's what you said when HD DVD players offered free movies).]]>Jun 29th 2007 12:29PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 29th 2007 12:33PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
1) The finished the spec and implemented it.
2) The price of the players matched the Toshiba prices, for the same basic feature sets
3) The free movies included something I care to watch.

The last is really ironic. After hearing OVER AND OVER how much vaster the choice is for BD content, you would think that they could offer a better selection than HD DVD did 150 releases ago.]]>Jun 29th 2007 5:15PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 29th 2007 1:04PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
Props to HD-DVD for having better free movies that weren't selling.
]]>Jun 29th 2007 1:06PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 29th 2007 1:17PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
What's also important to note is that Sony said expanded interactivity was overrated and cut down HDi at every chance they had, and yet they were simultaneously developing their own insanely belated interactivity offerings, BDJ and BD Live.

Is anyone else starting to notice a trend? ]]>Jun 29th 2007 1:18PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
No, fanboy-of-another-ilk, it's the BDA, not just "Sony". If you don't like Sony you can buy Samsung, Philips, Pioneer, Panasonic to get in on the deal. Those movies? They aren't subsidized by Sony and they aren't all by Sony pictures, either. It's the BDA collectively working to get that deal to consumers.


"What's also important to note is that Sony said expanded interactivity was overrated and cut down HDi at every chance they had, and yet they were simultaneously developing their own insanely belated interactivity offerings, BDJ and BD Live."

Wrong again, fantard. You can identify the dumbass fantards because they always bring up (blame) "Sony" when they should be talking about the BDA. Sony aren't developing BDJ/L. It's being licensed from existing technology:

BD-J is based on a packaged media profile of Globally Executable MHP, or GEM. GEM, in turn, forms the basis of most global digital television application standards, including Multimedia Home Platform ("DVB-MHP") for broadcast, satellite, and cable worldwide, OpenCable Application Platform ("OCAP") for North American cable, and Advanced Common Application Platform ("ACAP") for US broadcast. GEM is an ETSI standard; DVB-MHP is a DVB standard. All GEM-based standards are built on top of Java technology, invented by Sun Microsystems. Because BD-J, MHP, OCAP, and ACAP are all based on the Java platform, there is a high degree of content interoperability between these standards, making it easier, for example, for Blu-ray Disc content features to be made available on cable Video on Demand, or for interactive television content originally aired on broadcast television to be repackaged and made available on Blu-ray Disc.
]]>Jun 29th 2007 3:09PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 29th 2007 2:22PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
So you're pretty good at over analyzing what I said, but ultimately you don't have anything to offer as far as a legitimate response goes.

Obviously Sony is a key player in the BDA, and obviously they're not the masterminds of Blu-ray, but my point still stands regardless of your attempts to divert attention from what I said.

Regardless of who is behind the decisions, I just think it's incredibly hypocritical to knock HD DVD for offering these enhanced features and then simply turn around and employ them on your own format. More than anyone it's the Blu-ray fanboys who claim the features are useless, but clearly there is a demand for these enhanced features and therefore the BDJ and BD Live are in existence. That's not hypocritical?

And allow me to restate my other previous point. Every one under the sun was calling the end of the format war when HD DVD players were being sold at a highly discounted price and bundling free HD DVD's along with them. Here we are, with Blu-ray taking a page right out of the HD DVD play book, one that everyone criticized to death, so how can you not find that remotely hypocritical?

Oh and please refrain from regurgitating useless information that has nothing to do with a legitimate response. My apologies for not clarifying in my previous post. I didn't know someone would take such personal offense to it as you have.

]]>Jun 29th 2007 4:51PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 29th 2007 3:31PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
lmfao. Perfectly stated. Those 21 BR movies are just about the 21 best BR movies out

...and they're still worse than the 21 worst HD-DVD movies.]]>Jun 29th 2007 11:41PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jul 1st 2007 2:54AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 29th 2007 4:09PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
http://www.dvdtown.com/news/dontgettheblues-saynotoblu-ray/4407]]>Jun 29th 2007 4:11PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 29th 2007 4:46PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
You never offered any legitimate query, except whine, whine and more whine about Sony.


"but my point still stands regardless of your attempts to divert attention from what I said."

Your entire response is a veiled attempt at diversion.


"Regardless of who is behind the decisions, I just think it's incredibly hypocritical to knock HD DVD"

Hypocritical is a matter of opinion, you're entitled to that, I never had a problem with it. Your insecure Xbot-like ramblings of falsehoods is what I take issue with. I don't see it as hypocritical - Toshiba is taking a bath on the hardware (whilst alienating other manufacturers - why should other manufacturers bother competing for no profit?), the Blu-ray guys are pricing for profit. They also account for two thirds of ALL hi-def movie sales (http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom061707/index.php). With the higher prices. With less incentives. And yet-to-be-ratified features. How long have the HDDVD movie give-aways been going on? MONTHS. The BDA just pulls this *now* and you're up in arms? The BDA is making money, other manufacturers are happy to offer their players to the market. There is competition, there is room to profit. Toshiba is the lone wolf damaging the market by alienating competition while subsidising the losses, being forced to slash their unit sales by 44% (1.8 million units to 1 million http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2007-06-12T084401Z_01_T162501_RTRUKOC_0_US-TOSHIBA-HD-DVD.xml). That's not a good sign.


"Oh and please refrain from regurgitating useless information that has nothing to do with a legitimate response"

Oh, that's rich. That's indicative of some psychological problem; you're confronted with facts and proven wrong about your erroneous claims about Sony (Sony this, Sony that, whaaa whaaa whaaa) developing BDJ, and your only response is "regurgitating useless information". Buddy, you've got more problems than the HDDVD camp currently has.]]>Jun 29th 2007 7:30PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 29th 2007 7:04PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
Having said that, I think there are people who will buy this kind of thing and this market segment of people who tend to blow their minimum wages on these kind of trinkets will likely be more interested when the pricepoint gets down to $299 and is bundled with some free movies and a McDonalds free meal voucher.

]]>Jun 29th 2007 5:26PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
Oh noes! The dreaded 1 year warranty!! No other piece of electronics has a ONE YEAR WARRANTY!!! Call the Better Business Bureau! hah. Track record of reliability pretty poor? Oh please post me some relevant numbers. Key word = relevant. I'd love to see them.

haha, good entertaining (but mostly worthless) post.]]>Jun 29th 2007 8:16PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 29th 2007 8:24PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
They are all firmware upgradeable. It's just FUD being spread around. The thing is you'll likely have to get an upgrade disc in the mail (if you're lucky, be able to download a firmware and burn it to DVD for the upgrade, the way many DVD players can be upgraded), and the worst case scenario is you'll have to send in a player for an upgrade, but I've seen no data supporting or suggesting this with any current players.]]>Jun 30th 2007 1:53AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/"Oh, wait a second, to all the "Current BD players will be OBSOLETE BLAHBLAHBLAH" people. These things aren't firmware upgradeable? Are you sure about it?"

It's been well documented that the whole BD-J thing requires extra HARDWARE, and none of the current BD players (except maybe the PS3? I'm not sure about that one...) won't work with it. Therefore all current BD players WILL become obsolete at that time (and the typical BD Fanboy response is, "I don't care about extra features, I only care about the movie!" Of course if that were true, then why the hell do you need 50 gig disks, when you can easily fit a huge movie onto a 30 gig disk and have it look amazing - see King Kong on HD DVD).
]]>Jun 30th 2007 10:02AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/]]>Jun 29th 2007 11:39PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/Jun 30th 2007 10:44AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
Wow, your lovely attitude is really brightening the day up in here isn't it? I never realized how enraged fanboys of either side can get.

You really avoided the main question with a bunch of unrelated blah blah blah BDA BDA blah blah blah. Literally almost everyone supporting Blu-Ray said the free movie promotion (from the start I might add) showed the death of HD DVD. Now the BDA is doing the same thing. Does this mean the death of Blu-Ray or does it mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, just like HD DVD promotion.

Seriously, this stuff is getting dirtier than a political campaign. I think some (including me) are just trying to point out that both sides are continually copying each other to make it look like they are the best and ridiculous statements of the other side's demise is over exaggerated.

Hemmy, your posts look like that of a raving lunatic fanboy, maybe if you remove some of the obvious attempt to belittle fellow posters, you might actually start to change some minds and/or open a real dialog about the format "war."]]>Jun 30th 2007 10:57AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/i'm sorry, but i would hardly consider that a legitimate rebuttal to an argument. i mean, honestly...thats like saying "as newer and better technologies come about, people shouldn't be so displeased with the older outgoing technologies"...well, in a nutshell. look at it this way, why are people in such a hoot about dsl/cable/fios...56k works just fine doesn't it? still gets you that internet access. who cares about the quality of that compact disc, my 33s and 45s still chug along just fine.
i honestly have to ask whether or not you have an HD tv, and whether you have decent vision. i used to work in the electronics business, and 99.9% of the people that came in after buying a HD tv ALWAYS complained about the less than stellar picture quality of standard definition. So i'm guessing i'm part of the super majority in this case]]>Jul 1st 2007 4:11AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/I have SKY HD and it does not come close!
I must admit I dont know much about AV stuff (i'm a gamer) but my eyes and ears tells me BR is worth it. And i'm not alone either, everyone who has been round my house has been blown away by it too, even my neighbour who has sky HD. Some of them are now proud owners of a ps3 and the rest will follow i'm sure, mwaahahahaha (evil laugh).

I will be honest I have never seen a HD-DVD in action (cant rent them anyway here) so I cant comment on how good it is but i'm sure its the same as BR. What I am trying to say is its not special offers or hearsay on the web that will win ppl over, but seeing it in the flesh or being introduced to it by friends.

@ Segarsj's: What is your point exactly? If HD-DVD runs a special offer, naturally BR will too. If BR cuts its movie prices HD-DVD will Match them.
Its called 'Competition' so get with the times already!

@ BR becoming obsolete: So is the xbox360 if you want to play it like that. I mean its got no hdmi, no hdd, DVD9, no wifi, etc.....unless you want to spend $$$ on a lot of add-ons.
As you can see this argument is flawed and pointless really.
]]>Jul 1st 2007 11:27AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
I have been listening to DD5.1 and DTS for the last 4 years and didn't think digital audio could get much better but you've made me curious.

Upgrading to 1080 PDP and PS3 soon...]]>Jul 3rd 2007 6:17AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/06/29/blu-ray-fencesitters-five-free-movies-sound-good/
Can you link to some post or documentation that backs up what you say?

There may be players that were sold without a Java chip, but I know my computer doesn't need a Java chip to work just fine, though if there isn't enough room for a firmware update to include BR-Java I could see that being a problem.

So, though it may be possible that Some of the players aren't firmware upgradable, it's just as likely they are, and unless I see something more than some post on a blog to back it up, I'm not likely to believe that.

HD DVD just upgraded it's firmware, and it states in the blog post here that ONLY 2nd gen HD DVD players can be upgraded to it, so if it does require hardware for the blu-ray players, at least they won't have to cry alone, they can join the 1st gen HD DVD player owners.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/07/02/hd-dvds-latest-firmware-update-enables-web-features/

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