Rumor: Microsoft Will NOT Release Blu-Ray Player for 360

This is sooo true.

VHS-to-DVD was a huge leap, because it meant no more rewinding, chapter skipping, special features, less bulky/lighter, and no more annoying "tracking adjustments."

Blu-Ray IS nicer, but I myself was not at all convinced it was worth my while before I finally saw a Blu-Ray movie for myself. The only really tangible difference is in picture and sound quality... there aren't any other noticable differences. Just using me as an example, Sony has a bit of an uphill climb as far as generating demand for Blu-Ray players, especially if they stay anywhere near this pricey.

I do think DD is the future, and it's a good long-term strategy for Microsoft... but I also wonder a little how long it will be before they can expect a majority of the market has the kind of bandwidth to make it attractive.

 

Blu Ray is a substantial leap over DVD, but upconversion narrows that gap in a very big way. Had I not recieved a BR player for XMas, I'd still be sticking it out with upconverting, and be completely happy doing so.

I don't know how well high def movie downloading will do. Maybe on a rental basis if the cost is low, but when I buy a movie, I want it to be a physical disc.

Evan

 

A lot of people said the same thing about LP's, 8-tracks, cassettes, and then CD's... now, they're all gone and nobody is complaining (while everybody is benefiting).

 

Indeed.

Don't get me wrong, I like physical discs for movies too... but I also used to buy CDs. It's been years and years since I did that.

I'm sure my attachment to physical copies of movies will go away eventually. The only question about that in my mind isn't IF it will happen, but exactly how long it will take.

 

Best part of this news is Microsoft will be a huge partner against speed/downlaod caping by ISP's - just a compressed HD movie is about 7 GB right?

 

I'm dearly hoping that's the way it goes, because I could almost seeing it going the other way: ISP caps keep this kind of service from taking off quickly, and/or ISPs take this as an opportunity to jack up their prices. That would be lame.

 

I see all this High Def DVD's and TV's as just a way to get people to pay for upgrades that just are not worth it.

Ive seen all this hid def stuff myself and its just not impressive. When it comes down to it....its just TV and video.

 

your right if you have a ton of money to blow its nice. why not have a awesome tv and sound.

but when you get down to it a movie is a freaking movie. im happy with average stuff. and with the hard earned money i do have i go on trips out the country.

personally for me traveling or going kayaking is more memorable then spending that $5000 on a tv.

 

Yup.

And despite what RC Cola said in the other thread, if you have a 360 hooked through HDMI and a good HD tv, you will be hard pressed to tell the diff b/w a DD-HD movie and a BR movie.

It's just that you have to wait - in my case about 30 minutes - for a movie to download & you don't get to keep it yet. The keeping part will change as time passes and youll keep the files on larger & cheaper removable HD's.

I don't mind waiting 30 minutes for a $3 HD movie to download. I can hit the gym, run errands, etc, etc in the time that takes. Hell, I can downloadthe damn thing in the background as I play COD4.

The diff b/w an upscaled DVD and BR is noticeable but not so much that a normal person would leap at the chance of buying a BR player & replacing their entire library.

BR prices REALLY need to come down soon for it to catch on en masse.

DD is in no way something for the masses yet. Either is BR.

In about 5 years both probably will be. BR for those who want to have hard copies of their media, DD for those who don't.

Hmmmmm... What happens if in a few years you can dload DD and then burn that onto blank BR discs? Might that be feasible down the road?

 

Definitely agreed that neither BR nor DD is something that's prepared to take off as completely mainstream in the here and now.

However, I tend to think BR has the advantage in the short-term (short-term meaning the next 2, 3, 4 years maybe). I find the idea of way cheaper BR players coming out due to manufacturer competition an extremely likely scenario in the next two years, or even one year. I can't say I believe the same thing about DD being able to go mainstream that soon with the way ISPs have been acting. What if you really like movies, and the downloads are 10GB a pop? I see that problem taking longer to go away than the high cost of a BR player.


But probably the most interesting thing in all of this to me will be how Sony responds to Microsoft's increased support of DD. As the article says:
"Xbox Live is already the No. 1 source of downloadable high-def content."

If I'm Sony, I'm a little worried about that. Notsomuch in the next few years or for this generation of consoles, really... because like I said, I think short-term, BR wins. But look at what Apple did with digital audio. They established the iPod as the accepted "standard" of digital audio players; ditto on the iTunes store. It's not that the iPod is really much better than any other audio players out there, it's just the most established product.

So what if, while Sony is busy taking advantage of BR, Microsoft is busy establishing themselves as the #1 place to go for DD movie service? If Sony ignores DD right now, they might be digging themselves a big hole. After all, who wants a portable CD player when they can have an mp3 player?

 

Yeah, but do you imagine how big of a hard drive you would need to have a library of high def movies?

 

This is what's so crazy to me. Seems like yesterday I was happy with my HUUUUGE 3GB hard drive I had in my desktop computer at home.

Now, you can buy a 2 TB external HD for $500, and by 2010, we'll see 300 TB hard drives.

It sounds crazy to me too, but I'd say bandwidth is more the limiting factor for DD than storage space.

 

I'm actually blown away watching 1080p movies in 60fps.

Yesterday, I watched the Laker-Suns game in HD with my digital tuner. Now, I'm relegated to a 386 kps sopcast feed to get my Rockets fix. Not quite the same as regular TV.

So I guess the argument is sensible, but for some people who are spoiled with HD, it is worth it.

 

I believe this is a narrow vision from Microsoft.

It is games that sell gaming consoles. But if that's what Xbox wants to settle for, they'll lose to the Wii, which is a true gaming console and nothing more.

But that's NOT what xbox is trying to do. They're trying to compete as a media device, which does games, movies, and much more.

And, because of the HD DVD fiasco, they're now going to lose that battle to the PS3.

They'd better get their act in gear and rebuild their strategy or they're gonna find themselves in a very bad predicament.

 

some of the high def issues is blamed on the networks and the content providers. lots of artifacts and compression on some broadcasts.

plus you have to setup your system correctly. you can make
anything look bad.

 

I don't think MS tied themselves anywhere near as strongly to HD-DVD as this article suggests.

It seems they care more about DD and content through Live.

Yeah, the had the add-on...but it was an add-on. I just didn't see them really banging the HD media drum (at least not in disc form).

I could be wrong about this, but I don't think any movies are in 60fps.

And while I agree about the differences (once you see a movie in HD, you can't unsee it. ) I don't think the masses are really going to care much for the differences once you get to the 'HD' level.

Hell...look at SD on a HDTV. Just seeing that and the 'upconverted', compressed stuff on Comcast's HD channels is a hell of an improvement

 

are you talking about 1080p/24fps

the more advanced TVs accept the 1080p/24fps signals frm bluray/hddvd. 24fps is the standard for hollywood movies.
if you set the fps to 24fps, on a tv that cannot accept it, you will get error messages and no picture.

i think you might be talking about the 1080p movies with the TVs that have the 120hz technology that smooths out the motion.

 

Yeah...movies look sick on it.