Re: The latest on Blu-ray

Interesting, lots of Blu-ray sarcasm there as well.

I know perfectly well that we have our share of Blu-ray haters at this site, some of whom are connected to the site, but please don't misquote me. I said "mostly from Fox." Sony was NOT evasive and they did not blow smoke up anyone's pitute. If you have an axe to grind against Sony, you won't find any fodder in this story. All of the execs from Sony answered ALL of my questions directly. The only other evasiveness came when studio execs were asked about forthcoming release titles and dates, and they played it understandably cagey.

It was my impression that about half the journalists there covered both HD-DVD and Blu-ray and tried to be unbiased, while the other half were Blu-ray supporters or fans. But by the end of this thing, given what we all saw, most of the journalists were impressed by everything except those testy exchanges at Fox studios.

But I understand that this format war is like religion or abortion. Those of you who've already made up your minds to hate one format or the other will see the mere mention of the "evil" word and take up the same refrain you always do, as if you never bothered to read the article. Lies? What lies? Be specific, people. What I saw and the numbers we were given didn't seem like lies to me. The 200+ supporters for Blu-ray versus the relative handful of supporters for HD-DVD is certainly a fact. Just to play devil's advocate here, what's wrong with channeling energies into replicating the master video and audio on titles? Shouldn't Hi-Def have High Definition as it's first objective? What sense does it make to release a title that was transferred to disc at a lower bit-rate than the theatrical release, just so you can add a making-of feature? Again, just playing devil's advocate here.

I wrote this article based on my impressions and tried to be open-minded and honest with you, as I attempt in my reviews. Certainly it's possible to read my article and see things that I haven't. I admit that, and understand that we have message boards and comments features exactly so others can articulate their own positions. In this case, though, I just wanted to make sure that you knew that Sony was completely honest and open with me. If you want to think otherwise, that's certainly your right. I'm just asking that you don't misquote me and use what I've said as "evidence" of what you perceive as Sony's sins against the gaming and video community. That simply wasn't the case.

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[Post edited by jamesplath on Nov 2, 2007]

Well I can't seem to find the article now because it seems to have been removed. But anyway, when I read the pros that Sony was providing about BD in the article, I felt it was misleading and not entirely the truth.

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Well I can't seem to find the article now because it seems to have been removed. But anyway, when I read the pros that Sony was providing about BD in the article, I felt it was misleading and not entirely the truth.

Spoken like a true fanboy!

Rob must have been right. It looks almost like HD DVD has won the war with the price drop of HD DVD players in many major vendors. Consider it this way: will most non-gaming consumers spend 400$ on a blu-ray player where they can spend 100$ for essentially the same picture quality at Walmart? PS3 for 400 is a good deal, tho.

That's fanMAN to you, sir (boys go for Disney), but thanks for all the fanmail!

"The 200+ supporters for Blu-ray versus the relative handful of supporters for HD-DVD is certainly a fact."

I can't see any objectivity in this statement. Although BD may have more supporters (number-wise, not necessarily strength-wise), the support received by both BD and HD DVD should be comparable at least.

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[Post edited by KemVader on Nov 3, 2007]

In the case of a format war, numbers are strength.

Yeah, Paramount can't outweigh the semi-sided BlockBuster

The statement of 200+ supporters for BD and a "handful" for HD is a tall tale indeed. I know BD has more movie companies backing them right now, but don't make it sound like HD doesn't have any. That's what I was referring to when I was talking about deception.

If BD really does have 200+ supporters and HD only has a handful (5? 7? I have no clue what a handful is) then why is it that on the release calendars there is only a couple more BD being released each week as opposed to HD? There should be 200+ releases every week to the supposed "handful" of HD DVDs .