Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems BR Is the King OF HD.

You might check out this thread.

They seem pretty neck and neck to me.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=757137

I've been reading the AVS forum on blu-ray fairly regularly and these guys are pretty critical and I have not seen anything about dissatisfied PS3 users.

If you know Stacey Spears who is an authority on Home Theater and Video moved his Play Station into his "main theater". If it's good enough for Stacey (who has one of everything as a reviewer/tester) it's good enough for me.

As far as ripping discs. I think it's too funny. They ripped them but they can't play them. How do they even know they ripped them correctly if they can't play them. I hope it doesn't happen for BOTH formats would be at risk. Studios would get nervous.

If people think that the PS3 was going to help win the format war, could it be that the unexpected success of the Nintendo Wii might be the thing that decides it? i.e. less BRDs beind sold then originally predicted.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116588983025547206-E7NTlTuNUdpI5ZCgQGMwjOb3lrA_20071211.html

Tom

The week the Xbox 360`s HD DVD drive launched they managed to hack it, get it connected to a PC and rip the ISO of King Kong. As with the PS3 rips however, the copy protection still prevented them playing it back or even being able to tell if they;d even ripped uncorrupted data.

The Wii is brilliant. For any avid gamer it`s just a breath of fresh air whilst the big boys fight it out over delivering what is often more of the same, merely as lot prettier to look at. That said, the PS3 remains desirable. Though certainly many gamers are angered by its price, they will want one knowing certain games will only surface on the console. It`s just the way it works really. When the good games surface, I know that`s when I`ll be buying one, and many millions will follow suit if they`re not already clamouring for the machine already. It only took one role playing game exclusive to the Xbox 360 to suddenly see a huge surge in sales of the console in Japan recently. Even in the west you can shift a console in vast numbers on the basis of one game alone (Grand Theft Auto III did it for the PS2, Halo did it for the Xbox and Gears of War helped Microsoft sell half a million Xbox 360 units this November in America alone). Will Sony lose market share in the East to the Wii? Probably. Will they lose it in North America and Europe to the 360? It`s quite possible. Will the PS3 be a colossal failure? Absolutely not.

My belief is that the PS3 might initially see a reprise of a similar situation seen with the Sony`s PSP. Both were released as desirable and expensive gaming devices with no real appealing launch titles. In fact it took a number of moths for any decent software to appear on the PSP (it`s still struggling now), and the outlook for good games on the PS3 looks just as shaky in the West until next summer. With the PSP, what happened was to justify the expensive purchase made despite lack of any good games, a lot of people started buying those silly UMD movie discs. Sales were strong, studios leapt on board to provide content, but then the gimmick wore off, what people wanted (good games) started surfacing, and UMD movie sales plummeted.

Now unlike UMD, Bluray is of course not a proprietary format exclusive to Sony and playable on one single device. For this reason it`s difficult to assume Bluray would suffer a similar fate, however certainly it might be acceptable to think that lack of PS3 software will see a surge in Bluray movie sales unless PS3 owners want to admit to spending $500 or $600 on a brick with nothing good to play on it. This of course is dictated however by how many with PS3s might actually be hooking the console up to an HDTV. It might not be many. We don`t know, but Bluray disc sales were the highest they`d been during week of the PS3 launch so there must be some appeal.

So, whilst the above might prove the situation to be unpredictable as far as the PS3 helping movie sales in any great capacity is concerned, the PS3 can still do quite a lot to help Bluray. Firstly, mass production of the console will only drive down the price of components, which will lead to cheaper standalone Bluray players in 2007. This is good for other manufacturers, as they might feel threatened by the PS3 given it is the only Bluray player on the market under $600 at the moment. It already has HDMI 1.3 and advance codec support, and is - in reference to George`s point about Stacey`s feelings on the PS3 as a movie player - thought of as a superior player to the dedicated offerings from Panasonic and Samsung which retail for twice the price. So just the fact the console will exist in vast numbers will help Bluray, regardless of whether the console boosts software sales.

Software replication too though, will benefit. All PS3 games are on BD-Roms, so again, discs will be replicated in huge, huge numbers which will drive the cost down of manufacturing BD-Roms for game, movie and recordable media use.
Bottom line is really, gamers want a games console first when looking to buy a PS3, and the PS3 is unlikely to decide the outcome of the format war. It can however most certainly steer Bluray toward long term success if supply can meet demand quickly enough before demand suddenly begins to diminish.

Interesting poll.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=768087

Wow- Daniel- enjoyable reading. I have some thoughts but I have time constraints so I can't share now. Just to say thanks for the enjoyable and educational reading.

Btw- I also think the Wii is brilliant because they are offering something that I feel is lacking in the current game consoles: Joy. The sheer joy of the game experience. (and I am not a gamer, I like the "classics" of pac-man and missile command)

Interesting articles on some early Wii teething problems:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/12/14/wii.danger.ap/index.html

http://www.wiihaveaproblem.com/

best regards,
Jerry

You got to love the recent Wii fix with the wrist straps that are parting company with the controller.
Can you imagine, you have just bought yourself a new HD plasma or LCD only for a missile to put a nice hole in it !!

Regards........Ian

Enough with the hyperbole Stacey doesn't have one of everything. He has a lot of gear that comes and goes, but he doesn't have that much stuff

Oops, I deleted your ripping comment. Once the appropriate software is available you should be able to rip HD-DVD to disc. MMC (Mandatory managed copy) allows you to rip and playback.

Now, the question becomes is it really wise to do so, when the discs are 25-30GB a pop.

Geeze, I would chew up about 500GB if I went that route.

Cheers,

I give up.I am going back to Laser Disc.

Hi Vision laserdisc?

I'm not sure why the comment regarding Stacey. All things are realative and he owns, borrows or is loaned a lot of stuff and he know a heck of lot about video and I trust his judgement as well as a lot of others. Just like I trust your judgement on a lot of things as well.

That Variety article says "among gamers" BRD leads. I'd like to know overall who leads.

best regards,
Jerry