Recent Comments:
BDA granting 11 China-based manufacturers with Blu-ray licenses? {Engadget HD}
Jun 2nd 2008 4:19AM Let's hope that the ad-nauseum rant about the influx of cheap players from china would cause mass adoption over night was more that a fantasy. Just because it didn't happen for HD DVD doesn't mean it can't happen for Blu-Ray, yes?
Blu-Ray players in my area aren't that expensive anymore -- sure, they aren't giving them away wit $100 losses, but they are NOT expensive compared to the other components you will need to assemble a HD/high-def setup.
And Blu-Ray disks I can get at below $10 a pup and up -- granted that Blu IS more expensive that DVD, but not by THAT much any more. it's not like I'm forking out LaserDisk prices or anything.
Lowering the initial price point for the player might be exactly what is needed to speed up the format adoption rate in a slowing economy. Over here, the economy is doing very well right now, and Bly-Ray sales are doing just as weel as they did during x-mas season. This past X-mas, both HD DVD and Blu-Ray sold more than half of their volume for the year during those short weeks. But HD DVD where still less than 10% of Blu-Ray sales. Now Blu-Ray sells x-mas volumes each months, in spite of us having the warmest spring in 100 years.
Blu-ray getting larger chunk of floor space in Borders, Target {Engadget HD}
May 30th 2008 5:07AM Just what you would expect happen when a format is dying. Not?
Transformers 2-disc Blu-ray edition coming September 2? {Engadget HD}
May 26th 2008 9:11PM Oh dear TT,
your continued attempt to misrepresent my statement in stead of answering my direct question concerning your claim about reduced image quality at high bitrates (an absurd statement) is telling. You have no facts, only vile abuse. No help in a discussion, I'm afraid.
And to comment on another ignorant statement in your most recent posting, there is no factual basis for claiming MPEG2 at sufficiently high bitrates produces inferior images compared to VC-1/AVC. Again, you reveal your lack of understanding. Noe that Black Hawk Down still is reference quality in MPEG2, and as you yourself have stressed the meaning of "refecence quality", I should not need to explain the fallacy of your claims any further.
As for HD DVD having all the space it needed, my only reply is two words. American Gangster. ...And HD DVD never "had the 51 GB disk". But who's counting wild misrepresentation of facts?
Transformers 2-disc Blu-ray edition coming September 2? {Engadget HD}
May 26th 2008 6:56PM Yeah, i'm an ignorant fool for extrapolating your incorrect statement about how higher bitrates can't compare to the limitation of your beloved dead format.
Incapable of providing any backing to your completely false argument, you resort to childish name-calling. What a high grade moronic argumentation.
Can it be you don't understand that bitrates relates to compression, and higher bitrates equates to lower compression? Instead you twist my statement to mean that I think Blu-Ray has zero compression, which is MILES away what I was saying. Pathetic.
What magic function degrades image quality at high bandwidth as you have stated? What compression algorithm produces worse quality after an arbitrary bandwidth (let me guess, right around the level of HD DVD's capability?) is exceeded?
You are so full off the purest cr*p :-)
Transformers 2-disc Blu-ray edition coming September 2? {Engadget HD}
May 26th 2008 3:57AM Truth Teller @ May 25th 2008 9:04PM
Above a certain level 'higher bitrate' does not guarantee anything positive
(and if you go too far with it you just get 'noise', which is not a plus at all).
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That was news to me -- when compression approaches zero, artifacts will appear? By what law is that dictated? In what compression algorithm is quality deterioration a function at high bitrates?
This is absolute rubbish, and TT must have known it to be so when he wrote it!
Nielsen VideoScan High-Def market share for week ending May 11th, 2008 {Engadget HD}
May 17th 2008 4:55AM i own Ratatouille on Blu-Ray, and the difference between this edtion vs. the DVD is amazing, even in 720p. Now the detail level in this movie is higher than most cartoons i've seen, but still - just the crispness of the picture compared to DVD is enough to win anyone over.
i's hard to give just one reason why Blu isn't selling any better, but with the economy tanking and consumer confidence at an all time low, it's the worst time imaginable to sell in a new format. Maybe people prefer media-less distribution of lower resolution movies over another disk-based medium. But then we are talking pirating, because the legal movie download services are selling even less than Blu.
I think adoption of Blu-Ray will go slowly, and that DVD will continue to exist for as long as the disk-format is a contender. But with all the studios aboard the Blu-Ray train, and with impressive sales numbers compared to DVD on the recent titles, I see no way Blu-Ray can go away. And the studios have the power to make Blu-Ray even more attractive then DVD to consumers, mostly through releasing the titles on Blu-Ray weeks or months before the DVD edition. Now THAT would increade the adoption rate a few notches.
Electric Think City car sets sights on North American launch {Engadget}
Apr 28th 2008 5:35AM I live in Norway where this car was developed, and i would like to support Norwegian el-car industry, but given my length, i could never fit into a Think City. I would rather import a Tesla from the US.
Tesla has it right, you have to make el-cars look sexy!
Nielsen VideoScan High-Def market share for week ending March 16th, 2008 {Engadget HD}
Mar 24th 2008 5:40PM I miss the days I could make snide remarks and make far reaching predictions based on these numbers...
Canon dumps rear projection development, focused on SED {Engadget HD}
Mar 19th 2008 5:08PM i want to believe in SED, as much as i believe in OLED. But i need to see some physical evidence of it real soon. After all, I'm an atheist, and i don't make decisions based on beliefs, but on hard facts.
From what i understand of the manufacturing process, SED should be able to be relatively inexpensive to mass produce, given an acceptably low DOA rate.
Warner's Michael Clayton reviewed on Blu-ray and HD DVD {Engadget HD}
Mar 1st 2008 1:02PM What better reason to bye a movie than that it's good? Michael Clayton is a superb movie, and as i understand, the quality of the movie is very good on these disks. I for one will buy a copy. I won't *not* buy a good movie because the extras are sub par. I'm a MOVIE junkie, not an extras junkie :-)
However, i do look forward to when Blu Ray gets its own HD-masters, and not just the "made for the limitations of HD DVD"-masters like this title. Why not make it as good as it can be? Disney Blu Rays are coherently better than Warner Blu Rays because of Warner using HD DVD masters on Blu Ray editions of the same movie.
