Recent Comments:
Hands-on with Sony's new BDP-S350 and other HD frivolities {Engadget}
Jul 17th 2008 11:08AM +1 and -1.
There are plenty of other companies making quality players. Pioneer, Panasonic, Samsung, but none at a price I would deem affordable.
IMHO the BDP-S350 only has two advantages over the PS3 and those are an infrared remote and bitstreaming lossless codecs over HDMI. I have a PS3, and would trade it for an upgraded version if they included bitstreaming lossless via HDMI.
I can see Sony dropping these to $299 for Black Friday and $349 for Christmas, but that's about it.
Sony's $400 BDP-S350 Profile 2.0 Blu-ray player now shipping {Engadget HD}
Jul 17th 2008 2:15AM $180 BD players THIS year? With a weak US dollar and inflation picking up steam, that is one hell of a reach.
In two years we might just think that $400 will seam like a reasonable price for a blu-ray player. (one that's even profile 2.0 right out of the box no less)
Now if Sony could just manage to put out a PS3 that bitstreams TrueHD and DTS-MA, I might be interested.
Blu-ray releases on July 15th, 2008 {Engadget HD}
Jul 14th 2008 6:11PM With only 1 out of 6 likely to sell in any quantity, The numbers aren't going to be all that hot for this week. Oh well, we can't get must buy releases every week.
Nielsen VideoScan High-Def market share for week ending July 7th, 2008 {Engadget HD}
Jul 13th 2008 9:18PM I think you hit the nail on the head, but I don't think you're going to get a whole lot of agreement on higher resolution being "a nice feature".
One thing is for sure, on new DVD releases benefit from the extra attention transfers are getting for their Hi-Def release. Are the studios passing all of that cost on to blu releases? Well they shouldn't be.
Ask Engadget HD: Which AV receiver has the best upscaling chip? {Engadget HD}
Jul 9th 2008 1:40PM Known issue with the DSPs in the Onkyo which is remedied via a firmware update.
Will Blu-ray audio discs take off, or flounder aimlessly à la DVD-A / SACD? {Engadget HD}
Jul 8th 2008 10:20AM No, Blu-Ray for audio is a no go. Blu-Ray for full concerts with jaw dropping picture and lossless audio has a chance. If you need proof, check out the Nine Inch Nails BD (or HD DVD) the sound is just AMAZING. Same goes for symphony.
Lossless audio makes it worth while, but BD for audio only is a tough sell when most digital music players support at least one lossless audio codec. Throw in the fact that while still larger than lossy files, downloading lossless audio isn't nearly as painful as doing so with high bit rate HD video with lossless soundtracks.
Singulus Blu-ray duplicator sales beat predictions {Engadget HD}
Jul 8th 2008 1:05AM It rained today. The ground got wet.
Blu-Ray wins the format war. Blu-Ray replication equipment sales increase.
Not much difference between the two, eh?
Pioneer's Blu-ray disc hits 400GB across 16-layers {Engadget HD}
Jul 7th 2008 10:22AM +1
For that matter, who is 1440p good for? People can start to see the difference between 720p and 1080p starting at 50", but at what size can the human eye detect the difference between 1080p and 1440p?
Anyway you slice it, 400GB is a LOT of room to work with. Lossless audio in every language and plenty of room for extras in HD (that I'm told no one really wants, but hey, the studios continue to pile them on anyway).
This does highlight one of the benefits of solid state which is so long as the form factor doesn't change, there isn't really a huge barrier (apart from cost) on size.
Affordable 400GB solid state devices are probably farther off than 400GB optical discs. If they can pull it off utilizing existing BD replication lines, maintain backwards compatibly with current players and keep prices in check, why not?
DVD Download DL logo sparks wonder over Toshiba's super-resolution DVD player {Engadget HD}
Jul 1st 2008 6:08PM It was referred to in the second sentence of the blog post. You DID read the post didn't you?
Sony's $400 BDP-S350 Blu-ray player shows July 15th ship date {Engadget HD}
Jul 1st 2008 4:40PM If the next rev PS3 runs cooler and has an updated hdmi chip which allows it to bitstream DTS-MA and TrueHD I'll opt for it instead.
I'll pass until we get some concrete info on the fall PS3 refresh.
