[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by amirm

First a bit about me, and a bit about Talk.

I manage our HD DVD development at Microsoft which includes our VC-1 video compression among other things. I usually hang out in AVS Forum with the same alias.

Amir left out a few points in his bio, such as his prolific use of lies of omission and misleading statements to suggest a reality different than can be supported by facts, or that many of his posts were discredited once a Blu-ray insider appeared at AVS to refute his false claims.

"Talk" is Bill Sheppard from Sun Microsystems whose primary and only interest is the BD-J (Java) subsystem in BD format. To best of my knowledge, he has no knowledge of video compression or really video technology.

Says Amir. I've not disclosed my identity because I have no interest in filtering my posts based on what I'm comfortable having attributed to my employer. My name is "Bill"; anything else about my identity is Amir's conjecture and can't be substantiated. And while it's not my primary area of expertise, I have more-than-sufficient knowledge of video technology to add value to this discussion.

Originally Posted by Amir

True. But I don't know why you would volunteer saying that the BD-J subsystem is not used in BD format, when its competition, iHD is used in every disc from major studios in US for HD DVD.

Because Felix claimed the Samsung's menu response was due to BD-J. It isn't. And the fact iHD is used on every HD-DVD disc is something of a red herring, because it's the only way to author HD-DVD content. Blu-ray gives you two platform options, HDMV and BD-J. BD-J is more advanced, and hence the initial titles don't make use of its capabilities, just as the initial HD-DVD titles didn't offer any advanced features beyond the menuing system. No one "told" the studios not to use it, as you're well aware.

You know you have no expertise whatsoever in matters of compression formats. So repeating talking points like this doesn't advance the topic. H.264 with HP profile is in use on HD DVD titles in Japan. Yet they universally underperform VC-1 used in US.

Readers, here's a great example of AmirTactics. First of all, Amir doesn't know my background or level of video compression expertise. Secondly, the point I posted was correct (the codec tests didn't include the H.264 High Profile, which is capable of substantially better picture quality at a given bandwidth than Main Profile), which he didn't refute. So even if I had no expertise in the subject, the information I provided was correct and clearly added value to the topic.

The HP profile does improve the quality of AVC/H.264 and that is why it was hastily added to AVC after it lost out VC-1. Indeed, one of its techniques, adaptive block size, was taken from VC-1.

None of which is relevant to the fact that H.264/AVC is capable of better picture quality than what was tested against VC-1.

As I have posted extensively in AVS Forum, the softening effect of the AVC "loop filter" causes it to have lower effective resolution on HD encode than VC-1. This is the reason all three US studios, after extensive testing, chose VC-1 for their primary codec in HD DVD.

Of course, the fact that Microsoft was willing to provide substantial assistance in doing so, while there is no equivalent "sponsor" for H.264, may also have had an impact on these decisions. And there's no evidence that any of the BD-only studios plan to use VC-1, while at least one is known to have selected H.264/AVC.

Perhaps you can tell us why H.264/AVC has been adopted by DirecTV and many other broadcasters worldwide, while VC-1 has seen little if any consumer electronics adoption outside of HD-DVD?

Interesting that BD companies seem to think they have “incentives” to enter that market, when there is a game console with BD playback at $500 but you somehow think that having a player only at that price, is more of an issue in HD DVD.

Of course. Few early adopters will be willing to put a game console in their HT rack, especially just to save a few hundred dollars, and it's likely that as a pure BD player most of the standalones will be more convenient to use.

And what are the losses for Sony again here on PS3?

This has never been in dispute, but the PS3 (along with the PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360) all have well-known business models which allow the player to be subsidized due to the royalties earned on games. Unless you've been woefully incorrect on the size of the eventual HD-DVD patent pool, Toshiba can't hope to earn back in movie royalties what Sony (and Microsoft) make from game sales.

Besides, no one really know if Toshiba is losing money or not. That is not a factual statement but a guess form some company with no insight into what the real component costs may be to Toshiba.

So how do you explain the quote from Mr. Fujii of Toshiba who acknowledges at http://www.asahi.com/business/topics...605170087.html that Toshiba would need to sell 600-700K units to break even? If you don't trust the translation which has been provided at AVS Forum, you can access the Google translation and see:

- - In North America for the mass sales store the re-gray fabric was held down approximately 500 dollars (approximately 55,000 Yen), but is profit agreeable?

　“While rivaling with BD, it is the strategic price which adds the price of existence DVD. If loss occurs but, this year in the world 600,000 ~ 700,000 unit can sell with present time, can recover the deficit at 1 year half,”

Of course, I expect you'll refute both the human translation and Google's translation as being ambiguous or open to interpretation.

Of course, the Toshiba has far more advanced signal processing at half the price of Samsung. Its cluster of 4 DSPs for example, lets it decode advanced audio codecs such as TrueHD, and DD+ in addition to full base management as compared to very limited version in Samsung BD player. So once again, you pay more for BD and get less in return.

Hence the benefit of an actual competitive market, a prospect which would appear to be woefully distant in the HD-DVD camp. With Philips, Pioneer, Sony, and Panasonic players all coming to market in the next few months, consumers will have lots of choices.

If you want to add to people’s understanding of the situation here, you could volunteer some data on yields and cycle time of BD-50. Since you agree this is key technology for the, your silence here is very telling.

What silence? I'm confident BD50 discs will be available this year. I'm not particularly well-versed in disc manufacturability, but I trust what my BD colleagues who are tell me. It's no secret BD50 isn't on the market yet.

As I have noted, the highest volume players this year by far will be the Toshiba, PS3 and Xbox 360. The other players will be at noise level due to their high cost and currently poor performance.

Oh, you've used the non-Samsung players and already proclaim them to have poor performance? Interesting. Besides which, what is the importance of your naming the top three players by volume? None of the BD manufacturers expects their first generation player to sell large volumes, that's the nature of pioneering a new market. Regardless, consumers will see Blu-ray coming from most of the top-tier CE vendors, while they'll see HD-DVD coming from one CE vendor. Which do you think will yield more impressions?

With 75% of people on AVS Forum returning their Samsung and 90% happy with their Toshiba player, there is very good data that my predictions are right so far.

Oh, so every BD purchaser on AVS Forum participated in the poll, and no HD-DVD supporters voted in that poll in order to make Blu-ray look worse? You're either incredibly gullible or have a very poor handle on polling science and the concept of "self-selection". If you show me a report from Best Buy that 75% of all BD players have been returned you might have some credibility. Regardless, I have never claimed the Samsung player demonstrates all that Blu-ray is capable of.

How much do you think these companies will advertise for an expensive player that sells a few thousand units, versus a Plasma/LCD TV that has sales up to 100X higher? Economics will play a strong role here eventually.

Yes, the economics of each of those vendors having spent tens of millions of dollars to build their players. You actually think that they're not going to advertise them? Advertising now is an investment in future sales and brand prestige and equity.

BTW, we just demoed our 360 playing HD DVD content at DVD Forum meeting. To my knowledge, no PS3 has been shown to play actual BD commercial titles. Isn’t that amazing after so much talk about PS3 and BD capability?

The PS3 has been demonstrated very sparingly, and the people most interested in seeing what it is capable of care about seeing game titles, not movies. If you're suggesting the PS3 won't actually be able to play Blu-ray discs come out and say so. If not, what's your point?

While all three US HD DVD studios are humming, producing HD DVD titles, BD studios like Fox and Disney are MIA.

Considering Paramount has no more releases scheduled this year, I wouldn't call that "humming".

HD DVD titles are far more mainstream titles with Academy Award Winners such as The Million Dollar Baby.

Hmm, I guess neither Crash nor Good Night and Good Luck had any Academy Awards.

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by amirm

First a bit about me, and a bit about Talk.

I manage our HD DVD development at Microsoft which includes our VC-1 video compression among other things. I usually hang out in AVS Forum with the same alias.

Amir left out a few points in his bio, such as his prolific use of lies of omission and misleading statements to suggest a reality different than can be supported by facts, or that many of his posts were discredited once a Blu-ray insider appeared at AVS to refute his false claims.

"Talk" is Bill Sheppard from Sun Microsystems whose primary and only interest is the BD-J (Java) subsystem in BD format. To best of my knowledge, he has no knowledge of video compression or really video technology.

Says Amir. I've not disclosed my identity because I have no interest in filtering my posts based on what I'm comfortable having attributed to my employer. My name is "Bill"; anything else about my identity is Amir's conjecture and can't be substantiated. And while it's not my primary area of expertise, I have more-than-sufficient knowledge of video technology to add value to this discussion.

Originally Posted by Amir

True. But I don't know why you would volunteer saying that the BD-J subsystem is not used in BD format, when its competition, iHD is used in every disc from major studios in US for HD DVD.

Because Felix claimed the Samsung's menu response was due to BD-J. It isn't. And the fact iHD is used on every HD-DVD disc is something of a red herring, because it's the only way to author HD-DVD content. Blu-ray gives you two platform options, HDMV and BD-J. BD-J is more advanced, and hence the initial titles don't make use of its capabilities, just as the initial HD-DVD titles didn't offer any advanced features beyond the menuing system. No one "told" the studios not to use it, as you're well aware.

You know you have no expertise whatsoever in matters of compression formats. So repeating talking points like this doesn't advance the topic. H.264 with HP profile is in use on HD DVD titles in Japan. Yet they universally underperform VC-1 used in US.

Readers, here's a great example of AmirTactics. First of all, Amir doesn't know my background or level of video compression expertise. Secondly, the point I posted was correct (the codec tests didn't include the H.264 High Profile, which is capable of substantially better picture quality at a given bandwidth than Main Profile), which he didn't refute. So even if I had no expertise in the subject, the information I provided was correct and clearly added value to the topic.

The HP profile does improve the quality of AVC/H.264 and that is why it was hastily added to AVC after it lost out VC-1. Indeed, one of its techniques, adaptive block size, was taken from VC-1.

None of which is relevant to the fact that H.264/AVC is capable of better picture quality than what was tested against VC-1.

As I have posted extensively in AVS Forum, the softening effect of the AVC "loop filter" causes it to have lower effective resolution on HD encode than VC-1. This is the reason all three US studios, after extensive testing, chose VC-1 for their primary codec in HD DVD.

Of course, the fact that Microsoft was willing to provide substantial assistance in doing so, while there is no equivalent "sponsor" for H.264, may also have had an impact on these decisions. And there's no evidence that any of the BD-only studios plan to use VC-1, while at least one is known to have selected H.264/AVC.

Perhaps you can tell us why H.264/AVC has been adopted by DirecTV and many other broadcasters worldwide, while VC-1 has seen little if any consumer electronics adoption outside of HD-DVD?

Interesting that BD companies seem to think they have “incentives” to enter that market, when there is a game console with BD playback at $500 but you somehow think that having a player only at that price, is more of an issue in HD DVD.

Of course. Few early adopters will be willing to put a game console in their HT rack, especially just to save a few hundred dollars, and it's likely that as a pure BD player most of the standalones will be more convenient to use.

And what are the losses for Sony again here on PS3?

This has never been in dispute, but the PS3 (along with the PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360) all have well-known business models which allow the player to be subsidized due to the royalties earned on games. Unless you've been woefully incorrect on the size of the eventual HD-DVD patent pool, Toshiba can't hope to earn back in movie royalties what Sony (and Microsoft) make from game sales.

Besides, no one really know if Toshiba is losing money or not. That is not a factual statement but a guess form some company with no insight into what the real component costs may be to Toshiba.

So how do you explain the quote from Mr. Fujii of Toshiba who acknowledges at http://www.asahi.com/business/topics...605170087.html that Toshiba would need to sell 600-700K units to break even? If you don't trust the translation which has been provided at AVS Forum, you can access the Google translation and see:

- - In North America for the mass sales store the re-gray fabric was held down approximately 500 dollars (approximately 55,000 Yen), but is profit agreeable?

　“While rivaling with BD, it is the strategic price which adds the price of existence DVD. If loss occurs but, this year in the world 600,000 ~ 700,000 unit can sell with present time, can recover the deficit at 1 year half,”

Of course, I expect you'll refute both the human translation and Google's translation as being ambiguous or open to interpretation.

Of course, the Toshiba has far more advanced signal processing at half the price of Samsung. Its cluster of 4 DSPs for example, lets it decode advanced audio codecs such as TrueHD, and DD+ in addition to full base management as compared to very limited version in Samsung BD player. So once again, you pay more for BD and get less in return.

Hence the benefit of an actual competitive market, a prospect which would appear to be woefully distant in the HD-DVD camp. With Philips, Pioneer, Sony, and Panasonic players all coming to market in the next few months, consumers will have lots of choices.

If you want to add to people’s understanding of the situation here, you could volunteer some data on yields and cycle time of BD-50. Since you agree this is key technology for the, your silence here is very telling.

What silence? I'm confident BD50 discs will be available this year. I'm not particularly well-versed in disc manufacturability, but I trust what my BD colleagues who are tell me. It's no secret BD50 isn't on the market yet.

As I have noted, the highest volume players this year by far will be the Toshiba, PS3 and Xbox 360. The other players will be at noise level due to their high cost and currently poor performance.

Oh, you've used the non-Samsung players and already proclaim them to have poor performance? Interesting. Besides which, what is the importance of your naming the top three players by volume? None of the BD manufacturers expects their first generation player to sell large volumes, that's the nature of pioneering a new market. Regardless, consumers will see Blu-ray coming from most of the top-tier CE vendors, while they'll see HD-DVD coming from one CE vendor. Which do you think will yield more impressions?

With 75% of people on AVS Forum returning their Samsung and 90% happy with their Toshiba player, there is very good data that my predictions are right so far.

Oh, so every BD purchaser on AVS Forum participated in the poll, and no HD-DVD supporters voted in that poll in order to make Blu-ray look worse? You're either incredibly gullible or have a very poor handle on polling science and the concept of "self-selection". If you show me a report from Best Buy that 75% of all BD players have been returned you might have some credibility. Regardless, I have never claimed the Samsung player demonstrates all that Blu-ray is capable of.

How much do you think these companies will advertise for an expensive player that sells a few thousand units, versus a Plasma/LCD TV that has sales up to 100X higher? Economics will play a strong role here eventually.

Yes, the economics of each of those vendors having spent tens of millions of dollars to build their players. You actually think that they're not going to advertise them? Advertising now is an investment in future sales and brand prestige and equity.

BTW, we just demoed our 360 playing HD DVD content at DVD Forum meeting. To my knowledge, no PS3 has been shown to play actual BD commercial titles. Isn’t that amazing after so much talk about PS3 and BD capability?

The PS3 has been demonstrated very sparingly, and the people most interested in seeing what it is capable of care about seeing game titles, not movies. If you're suggesting the PS3 won't actually be able to play Blu-ray discs come out and say so. If not, what's your point?

While all three US HD DVD studios are humming, producing HD DVD titles, BD studios like Fox and Disney are MIA.

Considering Paramount has no more releases scheduled this year, I wouldn't call that "humming".

HD DVD titles are far more mainstream titles with Academy Award Winners such as The Million Dollar Baby.

Hmm, I guess neither Crash nor Good Night and Good Luck had any Academy Awards.

[The_Real_rdjam]

Originally Posted by rdjam

Just so everyone knows when the HD-DVD promo tour starts they are going to be giving away FREE Xbox HD-DVD drive and Toshiba players. There is a guy over on slashdot that some relatives in the PR business and that the tip they gave him...

Let the good times roll !!

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.p...74935#15882162

Now this is just the sort of underhanded behaviour I would expect from Blurray supporters.

How typical that when they are losing the "war" so badly to HD DVD they resort to this sort of personal attack on the more vocal supporters of the competing format.

Needless to say folks - the post captioned above is not from me, who most of you know as rdjam on the AVS FORUM.

I've reported the post, so we'll see what happens - but I'm sure this type of behaviour breaks the forum rules...

Oh - and by the way - now that you've gotten me to register here (whoever you are) I'll be a happy and regular contributor to the format discussions here also Congratulations

[The_Real_rdjam]

Originally Posted by Talkstr8t

Amir left out a few points in his bio, such as his prolific use of lies of omission and misleading statements to suggest a reality different than can be supported by facts, or that many of his posts were discredited once a Blu-ray insider appeared at AVS to refute his false claims.

Bill - Amir does not lie. He is a very respected contributor on AVS and is very open about who he is and what his agenda is. You on the other hand prefer not to be open about your identity and spend loads of time attacking other contributors and their credibilty

Says Amir. I've not disclosed my identity because I have no interest in filtering my posts based on what I'm comfortable having attributed to my employer. My name is "Bill"; anything else about my identity is Amir's conjecture and can't be substantiated. And while it's not my primary area of expertise, I have more-than-sufficient knowledge of video technology to add value to this discussion.

Bill - you have been going up against some pretty big encoding experts lately and claim to know better than them. I think it would be only fair that people know who you are and your "qualifications" in the area. You seem much better at going after the posts and posters than the specific info

Because Felix claimed the Samsung's menu response was due to BD-J. It isn't. And the fact iHD is used on every HD-DVD disc is something of a red herring, because it's the only way to author HD-DVD content. Blu-ray gives you two platform options, HDMV and BD-J. BD-J is more advanced, and hence the initial titles don't make use of its capabilities, just as the initial HD-DVD titles didn't offer any advanced features beyond the menuing system. No one "told" the studios not to use it, as you're well aware.

Readers, here's a great example of AmirTactics. First of all, Amir doesn't know my background or level of video compression expertise.

Forget Amir for a second - how about YOU enlighten US?

Secondly, the point I posted was correct (the codec tests didn't include the H.264 High Profile, which is capable of substantially better picture quality at a given bandwidth than Main Profile), which he didn't refute. So even if I had no expertise in the subject, the information I provided was correct and clearly added value to the topic.

Semantics - the fact is that the Japanese releases are using said same "High Profile" and are universally acknowledged to fall short on PQ in comparison to VC1

None of which is relevant to the fact that H.264/AVC is capable of better picture quality than what was tested against VC-1.

Of course, the fact that Microsoft was willing to provide substantial assistance in doing so, while there is no equivalent "sponsor" for H.264, may also have had an impact on these decisions. And there's no evidence that any of the BD-only studios plan to use VC-1, while at least one is known to have selected H.264/AVC.

As you know (since I'm assuming you read the first page of this thread carefully, since it recaps the same information outlined in other forums) Sony assumed that Mpeg2 would be sufficient, since they thought that they would have Dual Layer BR. In fact, Sony never developed the tools to author VC1 on Blurray, and also ensured that all studios had to depend on the Sony tools for the launch, hence deepening their own problem.

Perhaps you can tell us why H.264/AVC has been adopted by DirecTV and many other broadcasters worldwide, while VC-1 has seen little if any consumer electronics adoption outside of HD-DVD?

I'll leave this to AMir, as it's his area - but the way I understood it is that VC1 wasn't in play at the time those decisions were made.

Of course. Few early adopters will be willing to put a game console in their HT rack, especially just to save a few hundred dollars, and it's likely that as a pure BD player most of the standalones will be more convenient to use.

This has never been in dispute, but the PS3 (along with the PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360) all have well-known business models which allow the player to be subsidized due to the royalties earned on games. Unless you've been woefully incorrect on the size of the eventual HD-DVD patent pool, Toshiba can't hope to earn back in movie royalties what Sony (and Microsoft) make from game sales.

So how do you explain the quote from Mr. Fujii of Toshiba who acknowledges at http://www.asahi.com/business/topics...605170087.html that Toshiba would need to sell 600-700K units to break even? If you don't trust the translation which has been provided at AVS Forum, you can access the Google translation and see:

- - In North America for the mass sales store the re-gray fabric was held down approximately 500 dollars (approximately 55,000 Yen), but is profit agreeable?

　“While rivaling with BD, it is the strategic price which adds the price of existence DVD. If loss occurs but, this year in the world 600,000 ~ 700,000 unit can sell with present time, can recover the deficit at 1 year half,”

Of course, I expect you'll refute both the human translation and Google's translation as being ambiguous or open to interpretation.

Actually, all I'M refuting is your opinion that this has ANYTHING at all to do with the topic being discussed on the first page. As usual, you are out here shovelling FUD around instead of allowing a balanced conversation about the relevant facts

Hence the benefit of an actual competitive market, a prospect which would appear to be woefully distant in the HD-DVD camp. With Philips, Pioneer, Sony, and Panasonic players all coming to market in the next few months, consumers will have lots of choices.

HUH? Given a chance, Sony et al would have ensured that there never was an HD DVD format in the first place. Sony was fully committed to giving the consumer Mpeg2 HD for the next 10 years, which would have been a tragedy. Not to mention they thought the minimum standard audio for the next-gen format of the future should be good ol' DD and DTS from the DVD era. The players you speak of are double the price and more of the HD DVD players, yet don't offer many of the standard features of HD DVD. Yes, competition is great, but for the BD camp to somehow attempt to take credit for it is rather funny.

What silence? I'm confident BD50 discs will be available this year. I'm not particularly well-versed in disc manufacturability, but I trust what my BD colleagues who are tell me. It's no secret BD50 isn't on the market yet.

Well at least that's one admission. Now perhaps you could consider admitting that you are not an encoding expert either?

Oh, you've used the non-Samsung players and already proclaim them to have poor performance? Interesting.

No he didn't say that - that's your "spin". The real problem that will hurt sales of BD players are the terrible quality of the releases - which will not change until next year

Besides which, what is the importance of your naming the top three players by volume? None of the BD manufacturers expects their first generation player to sell large volumes, that's the nature of pioneering a new market. Regardless, consumers will see Blu-ray coming from most of the top-tier CE vendors, while they'll see HD-DVD coming from one CE vendor. Which do you think will yield more impressions?

Well it's pretty obvious to most what's happening. An underdog is seeding the market with the better players to gain market dominance, at which point there will be a lot more manufacturers.

Oh, so every BD purchaser on AVS Forum participated in the poll, and no HD-DVD supporters voted in that poll in order to make Blu-ray look worse? You're either incredibly gullible or have a very poor handle on polling science and the concept of "self-selection". If you show me a report from Best Buy that 75% of all BD players have been returned you might have some credibility. Regardless, I have never claimed the Samsung player demonstrates all that Blu-ray is capable of.

How you could even bother to try to refute these is beyond me. While you can claim anything about either of the polls, they were both subject to the exact same errors. Apples to Apples, people have hated the first BD player. Whereas they have been ecstatic with the HD DVD player. This same pattern is repeated in all the objective and subjective discussion on AVS and other forums also, as it also is by the many reviewers.

Yes, the economics of each of those vendors having spent tens of millions of dollars to build their players. You actually think that they're not going to advertise them? Advertising now is an investment in future sales and brand prestige and equity.

The PS3 has been demonstrated very sparingly, and the people most interested in seeing what it is capable of care about seeing game titles, not movies. If you're suggesting the PS3 won't actually be able to play Blu-ray discs come out and say so. If not, what's your point?

"very sparingly" is an understatement of the highest order. Even at E3, so close before launch, there was very little in the way of game demos, let alone trying to do anything with Blurray. Instead of complaining when HD DVD companies tout their successes, perhaps Sony should get out and start demonstrating that their stuf actually works - if it really does... THIS is the way most companies with a winning story get the word out. There are scads of EX-Blurray supporters on the forums today who bought into the Blurray promises over the years, only to be let-down horribly - and who now own HD DVD. So far the PS3 has been the subject of LOTS of talk, yet no "walk"

Considering Paramount has no more releases scheduled this year, I wouldn't call that "humming".

Hmm, I guess neither Crash nor Good Night and Good Luck had any Academy Awards.

Crash was OK, but that's one. And is a "black and white-esque" movie REALLY taking maximum advantage of "beyond high definition" to the customers' satisfaction? Just thought I'd ask

[Talkstr8t]

Originally Posted by The_Real_rdjam

Amir does not lie. He is a very respected contributor on AVS and is very open about who he is and what his agenda is.

He certainly has his fans on AVS, but his habit of leaving out facts where convenient (lies of omission) are also well-documented, such as the fact that BD-J was ultimately overwhelmingly selected over iHD in the BDA.

You on the other hand prefer not to be open about your identity and spend loads of time attacking other contributors and their credibilty

The relevant part of my identity is I'm a Blu-ray insider, a point I've made abundantly clear. My employer will benefit from the success of Blu-ray. My name or who I work for isn't particularly relevant here; I stand by the quality of the information and opinions I post, not my reputation within the industry. I don't attack contributors credibility, I question the substance of the post or the tactics of the poster, as justified.

You have been going up against some pretty big encoding experts lately and claim to know better than them.

Please provide a single example of where I have posted incorrect or disputed information regarding encoding? Just because there are others with more expertise doesn't automatically invalidate what I've posted. I'd be happy to address any example you care to provide.

Semantics - the fact is that the Japanese releases are using said same "High Profile" and are universally acknowledged to fall short on PQ in comparison to VC1

Which is completely meaningless information. Do you not understand the distinction between the capability of an encoder and the quality of the encoding? The fact that the Japanese releases may fall short on PQ reflects on the encoding job, not the codec. My point stands. The original codec shootout compared VC-1 against a less capable form of AVC than is present in the BD and HD-DVD specs (another lie of omission from Amir, incidentally). Using that shootout to claim AVC is inherently incapable of providing the same PQ as VC1 is simply not valid. Do you disagree with this statement? If not, what's your point?

I'll leave this to AMir, as it's his area - but the way I understood it is that VC1 wasn't in play at the time those decisions were made.

You understand incorrectly. VC1 was absolutely an option for these providers (and in fact was selected two years ago by USDTV, then quietly abandoned).

Actually, all I'M refuting is your opinion that this has ANYTHING at all to do with the topic being discussed on the first page. As usual, you are out here shovelling FUD around instead of allowing a balanced conversation about the relevant facts

How so? Felix brought up pricing in his post:

Originally Posted by Felix Torres

So, as far as 2006-07 goes, the format war has in fact degenerated into an asymmetric race between a fully functioning system (HD-DVD) seeking to bring player prices down to the magic $300 before the competition can get their fundamental product manufacturing flaws fixed. And that doesn't even begin to address the player pricing issues BD faces.

Upon which Amir called into question the well-documented belief that Toshiba is losing money on the players. Precisely what FUD did I post? I documented my claim with a specific reference. I've not seen you or Amir do the same.

HUH? Given a chance, Sony et al would have ensured that there never was an HD DVD format in the first place.

Which is no different than Toshiba and Microsoft trying to ensure there's not Blu-ray. The difference is that the overwhelming majority of the CE, PC, and content community back Blu-ray, while HD-DVD has essentially devolved to a Toshiba/Microsoft niche product. So which camp has a competitive environment?

Well at least that's one admission. Now perhaps you could consider admitting that you are not an encoding expert either?

Absolutely. I'm not an encoding expert. Yet I'm well-versed in the technology and am fully capable of assimiliating information gleaned elsewhere and forming my own insights and opinions. I'm still waiting for you to show a single instance where I have posted something clearly wrong, misguided, or unsupportable conjecture.

The real problem that will hurt sales of BD players are the terrible quality of the releases - which will not change until next year

Can you provide a single piece of evidence to support your conclusion? It's been widely reported that more than one studio will release Blu-ray titles on advance codecs this year. The Samsung has been reported (by a Microsoft employee, no less) to provide identical PQ to the Toshiba player when provided an identical VC-1 clip. So how do you possibly conclude that "all releases this year will have terrible quality"?

How you could even bother to try to refute these is beyond me. While you can claim anything about either of the polls, they were both subject to the exact same errors.

My point is the numbers Amir quoted are scientificially meaningless. No one is claiming the Samsung has the same level of customer satisfaction as the Toshiba, but claiming a 75% Blu-ray return rate based on a fully non-scientific poll is absurd.

"very sparingly" is an understatement of the highest order. Even at E3, so close before launch, there was very little in the way of game demos, let alone trying to do anything with Blu-ray. Instead of complaining when HD DVD companies tout their successes, perhaps Sony should get out and start demonstrating that their stuf actually works - if it really does... THIS is the way most companies with a winning story get the word out.

And this is the exact same road to market the PS2 took, yet it has been perhaps the single most successful CE product ever released.

Crash was OK, but that's one. And is a "black and white-esque" movie REALLY taking maximum advantage of "beyond high definition" to the customers' satisfaction?

Then you clearly haven't seen it. The black and white cinematography adds an incredible 3D aspect to the image, and reviews have broadly noted that to be the case.

- Talk

[Phoenix]

Long live HD-DVD! :P

[The_Real_rdjam]

Originally Posted by Talkstr8t

I don't attack contributors credibility, I question the substance of the post or the tactics of the poster, as justified.

You mean like calling Amir a liar in each post?

Which is completely meaningless information... Using that shootout to claim AVC is inherently incapable of providing the same PQ as VC1 is simply not valid. Do you disagree with this statement? If not, what's your point?

My point was just as stated - in the HERE and NOW, AVC releases have not yet matched the quality of VC1 releases - nothing to do with the shootout you keep mentioning. So yes, I disagree.

How so? Felix brought up pricing in his post:

Upon which Amir called into question the well-documented belief that Toshiba is losing money on the players. Precisely what FUD did I post? I documented my claim with a specific reference. I've not seen you or Amir do the same.

Amir did not bring the irrelevant issue of "rumoured" player loss-selling into the discussion he merely replied to it. The shovelling of that FUD into the conversation was what I was referring to...

Which is no different than Toshiba and Microsoft trying to ensure there's not Blu-ray. The difference is that the overwhelming majority of the CE, PC, and content community back Blu-ray, while HD-DVD has essentially devolved to a Toshiba/Microsoft niche product. So which camp has a competitive environment?

There's a diference to killing in the womb versus killing on the battlefield...

Absolutely. I'm not an encoding expert. Yet I'm well-versed in the technology ..etc etc

Thank you.

Can you provide a single piece of evidence to support your conclusion? It's been widely reported that more than one studio will release Blu-ray titles on advance codecs this year. The Samsung has been reported (by a Microsoft employee, no less) to provide identical PQ to the Toshiba player when provided an identical VC-1 clip. So how do you possibly conclude that "all releases this year will have terrible quality"?

That's a surprising request - there are scores of "prior blur-aid supporters on AVS Forum whom I would "cite" as evidence that the awfull quality of Blur-aid releases is hurting player sales. Do you actually disagree with my stating that they have made those feelings eminently clear? Or will only an Arthur Anderson study fill that crack in your belly?

My point is the numbers Amir quoted are scientificially meaningless. No one is claiming the Samsung has the same level of customer satisfaction as the Toshiba, but claiming a 75% Blu-ray return rate based on a fully non-scientific poll is absurd.

to you... not to those on AVS who participated. But yes, the overall rate at storefronts may have been closer to 60%, who knows...

And this is the exact same road to market the PS2 took, yet it has been perhaps the single most successful CE product ever released.

The PS2 was half the price

Then you clearly haven't seen it. The black and white cinematography adds an incredible 3D aspect to the image, and reviews have broadly noted that to be the case.

- Talk

uh huh..

[Jason Dunn]

This has been a very interesting thread to read. In all my years of running forums, I've never seen a "war" like this transplant itself so quickly into another forum with established personalities "warping" over from another forum. Very fascinating from a sociological point of view. :-)

In terms of the actual discussion (it was a great read, though the overkill quoting was a bit much), my opinion is that HD-DVD is going to be the victor, hands down. In the past 30 days I've gone from being essentially a highly disgruntled agnostic who was refusing to buy EITHER format until the format war was over...to being a rather enthusiastic HD-DVD supporter that will likely buy a Toshiba player before the end of the year and start to build up an HD-DVD collection.

[The_Real_rdjam]

I agree Jason. It was a pleasure "warping over" for the chat

I'll subscribe to some of the threads over here and have a good read!

Best regards to all.