Blu-Con 2009

[Jimmy Smith]

Be sure to read

Bill Hunts highlights from Blu-Con

Most interesting tidbits

1. Blu-Ray growing faster then any other electronics catagory

2. Stand-alone Blu-Ray player sales surpassed the sales of Playstation 3s in 2009 for the first time

3. Lots on the upcoming 3D spec. It will be display format agnoistic meaning the same 3D signal from a Blu-Ray disc can work on LCD or Plasma and use both passive and active 3D glasses depending on the display. There is no 3D format war and the entire indistry is coperating.

4. Full backwards compatibility with 2D Blu-Ray players but I guess that was a given

5. The 3D standard is likely to be formally announced in December with hardware announcements at CES in January.

6. Possibly most interesting of all is the unconfirmed claim that the Playstation 3 can be firmware upgraded to the 3D spec. Color me skeptical of this but I hope Im wrong.

[Blu Titan]

Great information by BH.. like this one

CEA: 2.7 million stand-alone Blu-ray players were sold in the U.S. last year. 3.7 have been sold so far this year, and 40-50% of all sales for the year happen in the 4th quarter, so CEA believes we could easily see the final total of BD stand-alone players sold in 2009 hit 6 or 7 million units. The number could go as high as 10 million, depending on supply and retailer aggressiveness.

[Jeff Kleist]

6. Possibly most interesting of all is the unconfirmed claim that the Playstation 3 can be firmware upgraded to the 3D spec. Color me skeptical of this but I hope Im wrong.

PS3 is all software based, instead of using specialized hardware thata dedicated Blu-ray player would. As long as it's got horsepower to make it happen (and it should, I believe they had it decoding 4 simultaneous 1080p streams at once in a demo) there shouldn't be an issue.

[Jimmy Smith]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

PS3 is all software based, instead of using specialized hardware thata dedicated Blu-ray player would. As long as it's got horsepower to make it happen (and it should, I believe they had it decoding 4 simultaneous 1080p streams at once in a demo) there shouldn't be an issue.

The reason I am skeptical is because most Playstation 3 games run at 720p. Even many big titles with lots of devolopment often forgoe 1080p support to make the game run smoother. If the Playstation 3 has difficulty running a single 1080p signal for gaming running two simotaniously seems alittle farfetched. Avatar the game will have 3D support on the Playstation 3 but no word on whether it will support full 1080p. Maybe they mean the Playstation 3 can render 3D Blu-Ray at a lower resolution. Again hope Im wrong.

[Anthony P]

well he did say "As long as it's got horsepower to make it happen" but there can be other factors for games (i.e. multiplatform so need to work on systems that work with DVD, extra time o make 1080p level textures....) also my guess is that 3 would not be extremely demanding after all the video is there to begin with, it would require decoding of the equivalent of two sources but PIP does that already. On the other hand I like the idea of dual HDMI and that would not be FW upgradeable.

[Jeff Kleist]

Playing back 1080p video is nothing compared to rendering an entire world in 1080p complete with textures, shadows, light reflections, AI, the two tasks aren't even comperable

You don't see very many 1080p games on the current consoles because you either have high resolution, or you have a light of pretty filtering and effects that in the end will make the game look much better anyway. There's plenty of games like Call of Duty that run sub-720p and still look great thanks to good filtering.

Decoding 2 1080p streams at once should not be an issue in the slightest for the PS3. This is the kind of thing the CELL is very good at

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith

Most interesting tidbits

3. Lots on the upcoming 3D spec. It will be display format agnoistic meaning the same 3D signal from a Blu-Ray disc can work on LCD or Plasma and use both passive and active 3D glasses depending on the display. There is no 3D format war and the entire indistry is coperating.

4. Full backwards compatibility with 2D Blu-Ray players but I guess that was a given

5. The 3D standard is likely to be formally announced in December with hardware announcements at CES in January.

6. Possibly most interesting of all is the unconfirmed claim that the Playstation 3 can be firmware upgraded to the 3D spec. Color me skeptical of this but I hope Im wrong.

I have bolded the most important information to come out. 3-D really only has a chance as a consumer home format if the PS3 or another videogame console can act as a trojan horse for it. It is crucial, because much of the public is very skeptical about the practicability of 3-D technology and will not blindly buy a player based on its ability to play 3-D. But millions already own a PS3 and a free firmware update might increase mass awareness and critical acceptance.

[doctorD]

Some interviews during Blu-con from a Best Buy representative and Adams Media Research representative on the current and future state of Blu-ray. They also talk about Blu-ray vs. download. The interviews are right near the beginning of the video starting at the 2 minute mark. Enjoy!

http://revision3.com/hdnation/blucon

[Anthony P]

thanks doctord

[doctorD]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

thanks doctord

You are welcome!

The entire video is pretty interesting...especially getting to hear what Scorsese has to say about Blu-ray.

[blu2]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

I have bolded the most important information to come out. 3-D really only has a chance as a consumer home format if the PS3 or another videogame console can act as a trojan horse for it. It is crucial, because much of the public is very skeptical about the practicability of 3-D technology and will not blindly buy a player based on its ability to play 3-D. But millions already own a PS3 and a free firmware update might increase mass awareness and critical acceptance.

One question would be which PS3 models might be firmware upgradeable. It might not be a suprise to find only the slims are upgradeable (say due to dependencies on the HDMI chipsets used).