Archived: Ask the Insiders: Judgment Day Edition

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Razzy

Wait, you're not allowed to have a private personal life until this war is over dammit!!

That would clealy make Mr. Happy..........unhappy.

[Tulsa]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

That would clealy make Mr. Happy..........unhappy.

While we love the information you provide, this may have been just a bit too much..

[monkyman]

Originally Posted by patrick99

It's not just a question of space. The retailers also have to spend more simply buying copies on both formats. The studios don't give the discs to the retailers for free.

I guess it might be safe to say that without selling the software, there is no point to continue selling the hardware.

[patrick99]

Would any insiders care to comment on reports that the latest New Line release, Shoot 'Em Up, has BD level bitrates?

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=29104

[jason_grumpy]

Originally Posted by patrick99

It's not just a question of space. The retailers also have to spend more simply buying copies on both formats. The studios don't give the discs to the retailers for free.

It also leads to more sales outside HDM with expensive additions. I bet CC and Best Buy would love to confidently have you buy brand spanking new HDMI receivers for that Lossless Audio or bitstream PCM/TrueHD/DTS MA, or push people in favor of 1080i (price) to 1080p (future planning for Blu) as well. I bet they could even squeeze in a few additional purchases with a speaker system that can handle the appropriate frequency ranges for Lossless instead of compressed with a good salesman.

Definitely has a lot more to do than just shelve space, think of all the extra's involved with your Home Theater. Right now, there really isn't any reason to upgrade to 1080p TV's or HDMI receivers without a solid format backing it. Think of receivers with optical/coaxal in the early DVD years and TV's without component video for progressive playing.

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by jason_grumpy

It also leads to more sales outside HDM with expensive additions. I bet CC and Best Buy would love to confidently have you buy brand spanking new HDMI receivers for that Lossless Audio or bitstream PCM/TrueHD/DTS MA, or push people in favor of 1080i (price) to 1080p (future planning for Blu) as well. I bet they could even squeeze in a few additional purchases with a speaker system that can handle the appropriate frequency ranges for Lossless instead of compressed with a good salesman.

Definitely has a lot more to do than just shelve space, think of all the extra's involved with your Home Theater. Right now, there really isn't any reason to upgrade to 1080p TV's or HDMI receivers without a solid format backing it. Think of receivers with optical/coaxal in the early DVD years and TV's without component video for progressive playing.

Excellent points.

[SpartanJohnson]

Originally Posted by OokieSpookie

You are correct, my bad I was thinking the wrong rumor.

Haha it's fine, I just didn't want to be misquoted.

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Don’t tempt me, I like challenges.

Well, then, let's make it an official "challenge" then. Or, was that the hint above?

[doctorD]

Originally Posted by kurtlingle

Penton/Paidgeek/Insiders,

I'd like to give a compliment to our wonderful insiders on this forum. I've been following this format war since 05 (on that other forum) and have read many, many posts by Amir, RDJam, Lee, etc.

What an enornmous difference between our insiders and theirs. What comes to mind is that sometimes Paidgeek gives a short answer, maybe even saying he's not sure... etc. But look at all of Amir's answers.... usually 98% spin... always (and long winded). Such a difference.

What I appreciate about Penton, Paid, maxpower, Kjack, etc.... is how honest you all are.... never spinning... just letting us know what's going on.

That reason is enough for me to see the difference bewteen Blu-ray and HD-DVD .... besides all the other great reasons...

Anyway, I just wanted to thank all the insiders for such a classy act (and thanks to blu-ray.com mods for making this a wonderful forum to be part of).

I'm now officially blu with my PS3 (and a few Warner titles).

Sincerely,
Kurt

+1...I too appreciate the insiders here as well. I stopped venturing in the AVS HDM Forum last year when the craziness started getting out of hand. I found this forum in just before Christmas 2006 and joined in June of this year after a long evaluation process. I really enjoy this site for its info and its insiders and always recommend it to family, friends and people I meet that show interest in HDM.

I am currently working on a friend who is a M$ employee just getting into HDM. We've had our conversations about Blu ray vs. HD DVD and he has sent me threads from AVSForum (you guessed it, Amir quotes...he doesn't know him personally...they were sent to him from a co-worker). Long story short...I had him and some other friends over for some gaming on my PS3 (COD4...gaming at his place was met twice with his XBOX 360 crashing on many occasions he was so embarrased), and then showed off some Blu ray movies. Anyways, he asked to borrow some movies (he has a dual combo PC drive).

Thanks Insiders! Keep up the great work!

[JasonS]

Can an Insider or anyone else with knowledge about the releases comment on the Warner exclusives that Blu-ray does not have yet? I would say that The Matrix films, Batman Begins, V for Vendetta, and Constantine are some of my favorite films of all time. Have these not been released because Warner is under contract with HD DVD and CANT release them on Blu-ray or where they just waiting until Profile 1.1 to port them over?

Is there any *hope* that we could see one or all of these released / announced in 2008?

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by JasonS

Can an Insider or anyone else with knowledge about the releases comment on the Warner exclusives that Blu-ray does not have yet? I would say that The Matrix films, Batman Begins, V for Vendetta, and Constantine are some of my favorite films of all time. Have these not been released because Warner is under contract with HD DVD and CANT release them on Blu-ray or where they just waiting until Profile 1.1 to port them over?

Is there any *hope* that we could see one or all of these released / announced in 2008?

Im not an insider, but I dont think anyone would deny that these films are very likely to be announced at CES if Warner goes bluray exclusive.

[Frode]

Originally Posted by reider

Since you have that hat on, maybe you can also answer my question... I am not talking about any specific movie, but in general: would it be possible to write a downloadable BD-J program packaged with tiny (seconds, split seconds) audio and video fragments to provide seamless brunching that will do the rating upgrade/downgrade/"un-grade" to the movie?

The content provider can do that, yes, but we can't. All downloadable content has to be signed by the respective studios for it to work. If the disc isn't online enabled to begin with, the download also has to be activated by another disc from the same studio.

That's the idea at least - there aren't any 2.0 discs out yet so it remains to see how the studios decide to use it. There may be unforeseen technical obstacles and limitations that come into play and prevent such a scenario from working in practice. All we consumers can do right now is provide feedback and suggestions to the studios on features we want to see it used for.

PS. For insiders reading this, I would very much like to see this level of protection lessened so that it would be possible for users to do this level of change on their own. By that I mean adding your own subtitles to a disc and support for http://www.rifftrax.com/. I think the true "killer app" for downloads is user created content. Extras cost a lot to make with variable returns, but with user created content you really just need to provide the infrastructure and other people will do the rest. Go the social networking route, have people vote on the best subs/dubs/edit whatever. You could do it using micropayments, subscription, give rewards to the most rated/downloaded etc. There's a lot of ways you can profit off of it.

[jayd]

I see Amir is doing a Q+A on HDD. I asked one of my own, and got the response I thought I would, but this post got me:

http://forums.highdefdigest.com/show...&postcount=569

Is this basically calling our insiders, opportunists for news, ha ha, I think I believe Pentonman, over this guy first.

[Blu-heaven]

What did he mean by HD DVD better for you o_0 ???

[gandley]

i think i prefer it when theres a feed frenzy going.

[doctorD]

Originally Posted by Blu-heaven

What did he mean by HD DVD better for you o_0 ???

It meant nothing...same old Amir crap trying to confuse people. Same reason I left AMSForum. Now he and rdjam is on a different forum doing the same stuff. Only thing he said that is worth while is:

"And please, don’t read anything into this paragraph either."

[zMadMonk]

Originally Posted by Blu-heaven

What did he mean by HD DVD better for you o_0 ???

Hopefully that HD DVD guys will be able to pick up their movies and new players for pennies on the dollar, when they all go on ultimate clearance.

C'mon, guys! It's just a guy spreading rumors to whip everyone into a frenzy. Take everything you read elsewhere with a grain of salt. That guy's predictions are about as reliable as Ms. Cleo's..... funny, you don't see commercials for her anymore. Coincidence?

[JasonS]

Originally Posted by zMadMonk

Hopefully that HD DVD guys will be able to pick up their movies and new players for pennies on the dollar, when they all go on ultimate clearance.

C'mon, guys! It's just a guy spreading rumors to whip everyone into a frenzy. Take everything you read elsewhere with a grain of salt. That guy's predictions are about as reliable as Ms. Cleo's..... funny, you don't see commercials for her anymore. Coincidence?

I used to follow HDD.com a whole lot more than this site. Earlier this year the members were nearly 50/50 split on the format so there would be some good discussions. Now with AVS shut down, all those red ants flooded to HDD.com and post non-stop there so I stopped reading. That site has become the new AVS because the mods there let almost anything go.

[doctorD]

Originally Posted by JasonS

I used to follow HDD.com a whole lot more than this site. Earlier this year the members were nearly 50/50 split on the format so there would be some good discussions. Now with AVS shut down, all those red ants flooded to HDD.com and post non-stop there so I stopped reading. That site has become the new AVS because the mods there let almost anything go.

Exactly! I stopped going to AVS HDM Forum last year and now my visits to HDD is starting to slow down as well.

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by jayd

I see Amir is doing a Q+A on HDD. I asked one of my own, and got the response I thought I would, but this post got me:

http://forums.highdefdigest.com/show...&postcount=569

Is this basically calling our insiders, opportunists for news, ha ha, I think I believe Pentonman, over this guy first.

No, he's doing the usual, taking potshots because the BD Insiders post under aliases vs him posting using his real name. He doesn't "get it", and he never will. The fact is that it doesn't matter what name someone posts under as long as the affiliation is clear (i.e. BD Insider, Sony Pictures Insider, etc). It's the track record and post history that counts, and that's where Amir loses out and has to resort to his little games which have tired us all out with incessant nonsense. Enough said.