he was referring to dead formats only lar. the remaining two is still alive - but by the rate that PS3 is going, Sony will be announcing PS4 without the BD drive very soon

Well, the UMD format already dead leh ........ nowadays new movies are not released on the UMD format anymore and PSP owners rather convert their dvd movies to MPEG-4 AVC format and watch it from the MSPD.

As for Blu-Ray, if you think it will win the HD war format just because the PS3 plays it, then you'll be disappointed to know that the PS3's sales are not as good as Sony has predicted and it's no indicator that people will buy a gaming console to watch movies. Even for our current PS2 and the original XBOX, how many people are using them to watch movies, right?

Sony is taking a big gamble now and honestly, I don't think there'll be a PS4 in the future, PS3 might be the last console from Sony as they have suffered losses amounting to USD200 plus for each PS3 sold and the software to harware sales were also disappointing, at least XBOX 360 and Wii sold more softwares than the PS3. In the video game business, softwares means profits, not the console. It's the same as printers, they make money from consumables. If Ken Kutargi, the father of 'Playstation' has been kicked out, this could only mean that the top management is disappointed with the current PS3's sales. If they lowered it to RM999 and comes with 5 Blu-Ray movies of our choice, I bet it will take the top spot being held by Wii currently within a few days.

Another annoying thingy about Blu-Ray is even though the 50GB dual layered Blu-Ray discs are available commercially, there are still movie studios still using MPEG-2 compression codec and some movies only come with the normal Dolby Digital soundtrack and most movies lack of special features despite of the huge space offered by dual layered Blu-Ray discs. Hopefully, we'll see some changes in the near future, I'm still not very happy with the way movie studios are releasing their HD movies on Blu-Ray.

the problem with BD is its new. It takes far more cost to build a BD disk manufacturing facility and you can only product BDs or replicate BDs with. And with BD Association announcing that that BD Studios sold less than 2mil BD movies in its first year, who in the right mind would want to make such investment? The only manifacturer of BD50 is Sony. HD DVD plants on the other is 2x cheaper than BD. One can convert the regular DVD line to product HD DVD. Anything happen to HD DVD, the line can be converted back to produccing DVD.

50GB capacities of BD was hyped to death and many with less critical mind bought it. BD50 is more expensive and bear no significant to consumer. Consumer do not have the equipment to enjoy the lossless PCM sound. They cant see the differences between 720p or 1080i or 1080p on their 32 and 37in LCD TVs. Come to think of it, the HD DVD version with only 30gb of space have much more content/feature than BD

and on the PS3 sales, that is no longer a secret. Kutaragi was fired. Hundreds of Sony Computer staffs in USA were also fired recently. Hell the BlockBuster CEO who made the decision to publicly announced that they will have BD is <>1700 rental stores and only 250 stores for HD DVD was also fired and they are announcing the closure of <>300 stores too .. everything is not good in BD land

HD land avthing is good?

lol but nope -

atleast there genuine positive news from HD DVD land. web feature, their already talk of the town interactive feature is now put on steroid with the release of Freedom Fighter, 300 and the upcoming Blood Diamond. BD is still finalizing their BD-J feature (what else can i say ) Their current players do not even support PiP and yet cost 2x more than HD DVD players.

and another good news, the Amazon n Microsoft's 1000 Indie HD DVD project for example. Where the two will offer 1000 independence titles to be released in HD DVD for free. The titles would then be sold through Amazon's video on demand, Customflix and the producers of the indie titles will get royalties from the sales of the titles.

the bad news on HD DVD land is mostly generated by BD's media hype (with not substance). YOu know when they get FOX and MGM to AGAIN announce exclusive support for BD but never bother to release titles .. Or get BlockBuster to announce that they will have BD titles in <>1700 rental stores in North America only to disclose that they are closing 300 stores in North America. And oh, for those who didnt know, Blockbuster USED to be big but now they are a dying dinosour eaten up by other rental such as NETflix whom support both format equally.

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Added on July 6, 2007, 10:41 amand oh - the official $100 the MSRP of Toshiba players ofcourse. Their players can be obtained at <>$230 in the USA

and to be fair, BD's five free BD title offer that mirrors HD DVD's soon to expire FIVE FREE HD DVD titles per player purchase is also a good news

This post has been edited by g5sim: Jul 6 2007, 10:41 AM

i will be fair for them if the priced their players at the same price at HD DVD and offer the same advance intractivity as HD DVD . Till then, i will always back HD DVD, because consumer wise, its value for money

wow, is tat the way u see things? players must be price the same?
communism is it?

i am against people who shoved a 2x more expensive players that perform less and refuse to better themselves and only depend to press release to drive marketing. Toshiba player selling at <>$230. Cheapest blu-ray player selling at $500. the $230 has much more feature that consumers can enjoy. So why do we need the $500 player? Without it, consumers can get all the contents in HD DVD

Do you own any HDDVD then?

g5sim no HDDVD materials?

well, for me willing buyer willing seller, same issue slike cars, a wira can bring u to a destination, and so is a BMW, both price differs

sorry but in HD DVD vs BD - the Proton is priced at the BMW while the BMW is priced at proton's price. So how?

hahhahahahah
role reversal eh?

so how? u HD DVD user?

But same issues here,
Even though how lousy Proton is,
and how expensive it is,
no one will force u to go and buy it.
As a user/buyer,
when the cash is still in our own hand,
we hold the final decision,
So,why should we be a hardcore supporter for HD DVD or Blue-ray then?
Come on,man,just enjoy wat u hav now.
And the others,just let it be lor.

Just got the HD-E1 HD-DVD player, as a primary HD-DVD player at my KL home, while the HD-XA2 is already in my future abode in CA. Short impression after setting it up today, excellent value fo money. Got it for cheaps while was at work in Zurich, the stores there are on winter clearance sale, with prices slashed down up to 70%. Perhaps Toshiba Europe is gearing up for the European equivalent of HD-A20 in the US......

This little workhorse goes up to 1080i only, and no analog ports to channel higher audio bitrate codecs like TrueHD, but with the currrent setup i left here (most of the heavy-duty stuff already moving to LA), it will do. Did the firmware update, and it's chugging along nicely.

Speaking of chugging, yes, the HD-E1 still chugs compared to the 360 addon, but i can confirm a image quality disparity between the addon and this standalone. Worth the wait, IMO.

Got Serenity disc for free , together with this player, for CHF300 (that's 300 Swiss Francs). Had to carry this past customs, and a little wink,wink.....and got past them unscathed.

Looking at my collection of BD/HDDVD titles, they are pretty much equal now. Already ordered "300", both in Bluray and HDDVD format from Amazon for comparative purposes. Also booked Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, both on HD-DVD, as well as Blood Diamond on HD-DVD, im skipping the Bluray version, due to the gimped features as well as the reported online component of the movie (really excited about this). Also queued Mel Gibson's Apocalypto Bluray version," Smokin' Aces" HD-DVD version, and last but not least, my "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" HDDVD has already shipped from Amazon UK, should be arriving here just shy of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book release here. (not sure if im up to camping outside Kinokuniya KLCC like i did last time for the Half-Blood Prince)

How's everybody doing?

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Jul 8 2007, 03:03 AM

the problem with this senario is if you buy Perodua or Hyundai, you can still access all the roads and petro stations. In the BD case is - if you dont buy the more expensive and less feature BD, you would have access to all the Shell and Petronas stations, you can use only BP and Mobil. You also cannot use the KL-Seremban highway. Where as if you buy a Proton, you will have access to all of that. so is that considered 'force'?

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Added on July 8, 2007, 4:45 amsee this guy is enjoying hidef in the full

This post has been edited by g5sim: Jul 8 2007, 04:45 AM

long time no hear from u string

is this cheap player available avwhere in zurich? or need to go search for it?

It is available everywhere there, some reported getting better deals in Germany and UK. I havent any flights to Germany, so i couldnt confirm this.

Once im in US this Sept., the Sony BDP-S300 is possibly gonna join the XA2 under the entertainment cabinet, pretty cheap at USD499.

Might as well buy a PS3 at that price.