Blu Ray Players Outdated by October

[Muttley69]

Posted this in the news section, but was suggested I post here also: -

http://www.videobusiness.com/index.a...leid=CA6427147

Essentially this means any Blu Ray player you buy from now until October 31st doesn't need to be compatible with the new and advanced interactive features found on new Blu Ray disks. There are no current or announced players (including the new players from Pioneer, Panasonic, Sony and Samsung) that will be able to use these features (this is the reason BD isn't getting The Matrix anytime this year). The PS3 should be OK with a firmware upgrade, but this isn't guaranteed as yet.

Real nice if you've just dropped £1000 on a BD player...

[Funkstar]

Skimmed through that article and i now don't think we will be seeing real budget players for a long long time. Players are mandated to have 256MB memory and 1GB if they have an internet connection for interactive features.

There goes the £50 supermarket players that would kickstart the market.

[dangel]

Does the PS3 have same problem then? Is it RAM that's required or will HD space do?

[shaithis]

All players should be compliant with a firmware upgrade (inc PS3 if it isn't already compliant) to some extent - these are mainly fluff features that the majority of users don't care about anyway.

What the article doesn't tell you is WHY they are implementing BD-J now......It isn;t for functionality, its for the added copy-protection that can be added to the discs, this is why ALL BluRay releases are currently on hold since the protection was cracked which forced Sony to play the BD-J card they hoped they could keep up their sleeve for a year or 2......

As for the "£50 supermarket players" comment.....these features do not change a thing, they are all incredibly cheap features to implement....the only thing stopping cheap BR (and HD-DVD) players is the prohibitive cost of the blue laser diodes. They cost a ton to make and have rather low yields. It was the production of these laser diodes that made the PS3 both late to market and so expensive.

[Muttley69]

Does the PS3 have same problem then? Is it RAM that's required or will HD space do?

The PS3 is definitely not currently compliant, but should be OK with a firmware update, although Sony will not confirm 100% as yet. Obviously you can't add a network port or persistant RAM to the Panasonic with a firmware upgrade

These "fluff" features are a big part of the next-gen formats, and obviously Warner think it's a big enough deal not to release The Matrix collection on BD because of it (unlike the fully functional HD-DVD release which is shipping in April).

[Muttley69]

Here's another one for you: -

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.p...95#post1043595

No mention of BD-J 1.1/BD Live compatibilty or ugradeability

[Sinizter]

Blu-Ray group just seems to want to screw their customers.

[GrahamGarside]

Are people even bothered about these features? I mean surely you go for BR/HD because you want the hi-res cinematic experience in your home. Surely all consumers really want is the movie and maybe a few bonus features.

Picture in picture? How many people are going to be watching a movie and want the disruption of playing other content at the same time. It's not like when DVD came out, every ones got the internet these days, especially BR/HD player owners, so who really wants to have limitted extra features played through a movie player when you can use a real computer.

When I buy an audio cd it goes in my player and gets played. I don't want stills from the recording session, artist commentary or bloopers. Surely the same is true of film buffs, they just want to stick a film in and watch it. All the other content can be catered for on a proper internet browsing device.

Bonus features have always been one of my pet peeves about dvd's. When I get a dvd, I get a divx copy as well and the disc in case goes on a shelf, I might watch the bonus content if it's a comedy or standup show for example the Ricky Gervais one that has Carl Pilkington on it, it's almost as funny as the main content. But How many times do you want to see Peter Kay laugh before he finishes a line? And do I really care how long it took the CGI crew to ruin Star Wars?

[Muttley69]

I don't disagree with what your saying - I've hardly ever watched a bonus feature on a DVD. Doesn't mean I want to shell out £1000 on a player in June that I know won't play the features come October though.

Sounds like your a perfect candidate for a new £1000 player - buy one now and you won't get any bonus/interactive features because your player won't support them come October

[Muttley69]

This gets even better - turns out that the compliance with the Blu Ray disk profiles is only mandatory for new players introduced after October 31st i.e. as long as a player is on sale before that date, it can quite happily be sold as a compliant Blu Ray player for as long as they want to.

Also, the BD-Live (2.0) specification doesn't currently have a date for mandatory compliance - but is expected in 2008. Nice one.

[Sinizter]

Seems like they are being lax on other players so that the PS3 which can have firmware updates to enable new features looks like a better deal that it might otherwise be.

[Lourdes]

HD-DVD isn't free of guilt either. The full specs aren't fully support by all players or even most.

[Muttley69]

HD-DVD isn't free of guilt either. The full specs aren't fully support by all players or even most.

Such as???

Yes both formats have optional features - no one's saying otherwise. But would you be happy shelling out £1000-£1500 this summer/xmas on a player that won't play all features of all Blu Ray disks by Xmas? I certainly wouldn't.