Why in the world would any credible journalist endorse either format over the other as he did without evaluating both personally. Word of mouth the limited knowledge of salespersons, or the excited feeling you get after getting a new toy are not qualified foundations for an article offering any kind of integrity to your reader. Even first hand experience, if you don't understand the technologies well enough (which he obviousl doesn't) and don't spend enough time evaluating both, can be seriously faulted.
The guys response is about as completely erroneous as the original article too. 3-400 more for HD? Only if you buy HD's cheapest player and one of BDs more expensive units. 10 layers? BD might be able to do 8 max (4 per side), but I'm not sure that was ever intended for pre-recorded media. 4, with 2 per side should be easily doable when fabrication volume has improved and there are more facilities doing the work. Though, I suspect that BD would follow DVD in that respect and do more 2-disc sets than the equivalent of a DVD-18. As people not only like labels, there's the appearance of more value from 2 discs over one, even when it holds the same content. HD might be able to do 2 per side too at some point. But, I'm not holding my breath waiting on them to do 3 on one side. Just about everything about HD's reported triple layer to date has been very fishy, including the fact that here we are in June and they apparently haven't made any more progress. The possibility of them doing 6 layers, assuming triple layer isn't complete smoke and mirrors and should they be able not only to get it to work , but get it approved, seems far less likely.
If BD can do 4 layers per side, it still wouldn't be too much space, as he says. If extras are ever to go high def too, it'll take more than 50GBs if they hope to retain the formats interactivity as well - that or we'll see a cycle to lower bitrate video.
2k and 4k film transfers are already being done. I'm guessing Knowles must not have upgraded from VHS to DVD until a couple years ago either, based on how "up" on things he apparently stays. Just what did this guy do and when to be considered some kind of authority anyway?
No wonder I'd never heard of him before. He's obviously not as tuned in as he wants to pretend. He's right in one thing, if dual format players become the norm, both formats can survive, as every studio could then just release on the one they preferred with no worries whether or not it'll play on the gear. But, it isn't likely that dual format players will become as cheap or cheaper than standalones anytime in the near future, if ever. The war should be decided long before then. But, if the seeming impossible did happen, the format that's selling higher would still likely be the format that the studios decide to support exclusively - which at present would be Blu. And I expect Universal to be supporting BD before something like that could happen too. Though, if they don't do something about QC, who needs them. I was just working on the third Universal HD review I've done in the past month. The first stopped playing halfway through the film and I couldn't get it to go past that point on the player. The second had mild lip synch issues. And the one I'm currently working on has lip synch error worse than any disc I've ever reviewed - approx 120ms.
Last edited by Chad Varnadore; 06-09-2007 at 07:00 AM.
|
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
Linear Mode
