Archived: Insiders Thread

[WickyWoo]

I read on other forums that in 2002 Sony and Panasonic (co-creators of Blu-ray) approached Toshiba and Warner outside of the DVD Forum asking them if they would support bringing Blu-Ray into the DVD Forum for standardization as no other HD media disc format existed at the time.

Would any of the insiders confirm/deny this and provide more insight into why BR was not submitted/evaluated/considered by DVD Forum.

As I understand it, and I doubt any of the insiders can talk officially, Toshiba stacked the deck with things like "must be able to be replicated on existing lines), and other items to protect their own company royalty structure (Toshiba owns the biggest piece of the DVD royalty pie)

While there were negotiations, hardcore negotiations, Toshiba was unwilling to take a lesser piece of the pie, potentially due to outside influence (Microsoft), and refused to settle.

This is bolstered by the fact that the entire consumer electronics industry except Toshiba is in the Blu camp

[Josh]

Insiders:

Home Media Magazine lists Superbad as a two-disc release. Is that true? If so, what will the second disc be used for?

[radagast]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

As I understand it, and I doubt any of the insiders can talk officially, Toshiba stacked the deck with things like "must be able to be replicated on existing lines), and other items to protect their own company royalty structure (Toshiba owns the biggest piece of the DVD royalty pie)

While there were negotiations, hardcore negotiations, Toshiba was unwilling to take a lesser piece of the pie, potentially due to outside influence (Microsoft), and refused to settle.

This is bolstered by the fact that the entire consumer electronics industry except Toshiba is in the Blu camp

Translation: Toshiba had already beat Sony in the SD DVD format war and was reaping huge profits from DVD royalties. So they decided that rather than give the consumer a high quality format for high-def, instead to quickly come up with a format of their own before Sony and Philips could bring Blu-ray to market. So that once again they could keep Sony from getting more profits like Toshiba did with SD DVD. TOSHIBA'S GREED. That's why we have a format war.

[phloyd]

Originally Posted by kjack

As shown at CEATEC, firmware on our chip is getting nicely optimized now, with BD-J menus and games now running about as smooth as the PS3.

kjack, are these improvements expected be updated to the Panasonic player?

[SkantDragon]

(I've been following Blu-ray.com forums for a long time, but this is my first post)

Paidgeek, concerning the new 40Gb PS3. This seems to be a stripped down economy PS3 model. The loss of PS2 backward compatibility is a surprising element to strip out, as it seems important to the task of coaxing current PS2 customers to the new platform. It could well blunt most of the effect of the lower price point in reaching these customers.

Presumably, this was caused by the deletion of the remaining PS2 support hardware from the unit. Therefore, the current PS2 software emulation support in the 80Gb model won't work because it still relies on a portion of the PS2 hardware still being present.

Is it possible that we will see software emulation replace the remaining PS2 hardware elements and thereby bring PS2 compabitility to this 40Gb model at a later date?

Can you comment on (or find out about) whether this is the plan? Whether it's already underway and how close it may be to release?

Also, the press release for the 40Gb model referred specifically to PS2 compatibility. Is PS1 compatibility also affected? Or is PS1 emulation already pure software and therefore not affected by the deletion of PS2 hardware elements?

<speculation>It seems likely to me that Sony never wanted to put PS2 hardware into the PS3 in the first place and only did so because effective pure software emulation could not be developed fast enough. I believe Sony is moving toward pure software emulation of the PS2 as fast as possible so that it can delete the expense of including those hardware elements. I would theorize that the economically priced 40Gb is being released before the remaining software emulation support is ready because the market pressures necessitated it. (And I think it's a good move)

And that may mean that customers who buy the 40Gb PS3 model may only have to go without backward compability for a limited time.</speculation>

PS: On a side note, the insider thread has become rather diluted with fans having side discussions and misleading conversations stemming from rumor and misunderstanding. I find myself having to skip whole pages of fan discussions to get to the real content. Would it be possible to display posts from legitimate sources in a different color so that the signal is more easily discerned from the noise?

[patrick99]

To any insiders who might be in contact with the people at Fox who were responsible for the new Fantastic Four disc, please thank them for doing an outstanding job with the PQ.

[WickyWoo]

Please keep the OT chatter to a minimum

As I understand it, PS2 compatibility is affected because they only have emulation for the Emotion Engine and not all the chips, and honestly they stripped it out because it's a desireable feature people will pay for and they want you to buy the more expensive one. Since PS1 is pure software, apparently it's unaffected.

[Jamh]

Any Insiders want to comment on Amir leaving his position managing HD-DVD to work on "Connected Entertainment"? Has M$ given up on HD-DVD or do they feel they've caused enough damage that now is the time to press forward with HD downloads?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=918902

[iceman]

Back to topic everyone!

[mfinochio]

Originally Posted by Jamh

Any Insiders want to comment on Amir leaving his position managing HD-DVD to work on "Connected Entertainment"? Has M$ given up on HD-DVD or do they feel they've caused enough damage that now is the time to press forward with HD downloads?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=918902

Damn, I can not explain how sad I am at having that plethora of "mis"-information to be gone. As soon as I am done dancing I promise I will cry.
Michael

[PaulGo]

Originally Posted by Jamh

Any Insiders want to comment on Amir leaving his position managing HD-DVD to work on "Connected Entertainment"? Has M$ given up on HD-DVD or do they feel they've caused enough damage that now is the time to press forward with HD downloads?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=918902

My immediate thought is - A rat leaving a sinking ship!

[BillCable]

Question for the resident Sony insider:

We know we'll be getting a "big announcement" from Sony on October 12. The rumor all around is it's official confirmation of the 40-Gig PS3. They just confirmed the 40-Gig PS3 for the UK. It seems to me the UK announcement would make a 10/12 revelation of the 40-Gig US PS3 a non-event. It'd become a big "Duh!" moment. That leads to my question... should be expect anything more from the big announcement?

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by PaulGo

My immediate thought is - A rat leaving a sinking ship!

That is by far the best analogy I've heard yet. Hat's off to you.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by PaulGo

My immediate thought is - A rat leaving a sinking ship!

Well maybe he was made to leave a sinking ship. Or just made to leave a cruise liner for non-performance. Regardless, I care not.

Penton & paidgeek: According to HiDefDigest, a HD-DVD presentation recently showed a slide full of Steven Spielberg's Universal films. Any idea why the Japanese presentation did that? This is in regards to the past objection from the Spielberg camp himself.


fuad

[Jamh]

I see it as a sign of Universal going neutral as that's currently the only way those films will see the light of day on HD-DVD.

[FourToedStatue]

Originally Posted by JackBauer24

Insiders:

Sorry to beat this long dead horse and sorry to be a broken record but Warner's delay on releasing the missing blu rays is getting a bit silly. Lack of PiP didn't stop them from releasing 300 and Blood Diamond so why are Batman, Matrix, Constantine, etc still in limbo?

In case it was missed in all the OT talk.

[Rio]

Originally Posted by WriteSimply

Well maybe he was made to leave a sinking ship. Or just made to leave a cruise liner for non-performance. Regardless, I care not.

Penton & paidgeek: According to HiDefDigest, a HD-DVD presentation recently showed a slide full of Steven Spielberg's Universal films. Any idea why the Japanese presentation did that? This is in regards to the past objection from the Spielberg camp himself.

As an attendee of the presentation, it more like sounded "we have those sort of powerful titles, we hope we could deliver those titles", and did not sound "those titles will be released on HD DVD sooner or later".

I strongly suspect that this presentation would be cancelled later, same as the one happened at last CES.

[shamus]

Wanted to thank whoever was responsible for the amazing AQ on the Dave Mathews release. Any chance we will see(or hear) a movie with 96/24 audio?

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by Rio

As an attendee of the presentation, it more like sounded "we have those sort of powerful titles, we hope we could deliver those titles", and did not sound "those titles will be released on HD DVD sooner or later".

I strongly suspect that this presentation would be cancelled later, same as the one happened at last CES.

Thanks for the input, Rio. As you can guess, HDD's forum was abuzz when they saw that picture. If only you could set them straight.


fuad

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by PaulGo

My immediate thought is - A rat leaving a sinking ship!

I actually think it is more like somebody being forced to walk the plank and afterwards saying that they decided that they were tired of being on the ship and although they were only halfway to their destination, they decided to take a swim. And then his supporters believe that the person actually chose to take a swim. I know, doesn't have quite the ring to it, but probably closer to the truth IMO. I get the feeling that many of Amir's supporters believe that he chose to go from managing ~1000 people to managing ~350 people (last August or so), to what looks like zero or close to zero, but maybe some are just trying to make him feel better during a difficult time.

--Darin