Digital TV - are we being ripped off?

Idiophreak

I'd suggest the chances of someone fudging one together at some point might be quite high though....

superscaper

Idiophreak wrote: »

I'd suggest the chances of someone fudging one together at some point might be quite high though....

I'm sure some bright spark will hack together the LG hybrid player to have an all-in-one or something.

jt2k6

HD and Blu Ray are not gaming mediums, IMHO sony have shot themselves in the foot by having a Blu ray drive as standard, apparently next, next generation systems, (PS4 and XBOX 720 anyone) will still not get near the limits imposed by current DVD capacities.

Blu ray is not just a sony product, so I don't think they would have final say over who used it, (but saying that if Blu ray does take off they would want as many people to have it as possible, they would not want the millions of 360 owners who will not buy a new system just to watch blu ray to miss out.

and microsoft are the same they want to make money if buying an add on for the 360 at say £200 would stop them buying a PS3 then they would do it, if you used that logic you could say why don't microsoft stop making their OS's support CD's and DVD drives, I would have thought that microsoft make no money from these, and graphics cards, and motherboards etc...

BTW i'm not a microsoft fanboy, iactually own a 360 and PS3

superscaper

jt2k6 wrote: »

Blu ray is not just a sony product, so I don't think they would have final say over who used it, (but saying that if Blu ray does take off they would want as many people to have it as possible, they would not want the millions of 360 owners who will not buy a new system just to watch blu ray to miss out.

Blu Ray was developed by Sony. They had to make it standard because they are the most invested in that standard because it IS their product. They needed to subsidise the PS3 to get the greatest market share as soon as possible. But it's all going to be moot when more hybrid players come out and the hybrid discs are made commercially available.

Osakan

superscaper wrote: »

Blu Ray was developed by Sony. They had to make it standard because they are the most invested in that standard because it IS their product. They needed to subsidise the PS3 to get the greatest market share as soon as possible. But it's all going to be moot when more hybrid players come out and the hybrid discs are made commercially available.

I keep on hearing this "Sony developed Blu-ray" line, when as far as I know it is like all other similar technologies that have essential technology developed by 10s of companies around the world. The Blu-ray consortium reads like a who's who of the consumer electronics world with a selection of computing firms (Sony, Panasonic, Apple, Dell, HP, Hitachi, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Sun Microsystems, TDK, Thomson, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros., etc.). Against this on the HD-DVD side of the fence there is a PC bias (Toshiba, NEC, Sanyo, Microsoft, RCA, Kenwood, Intel, ...)

Can somebody point me towards some evidence that shows Sony developing all the Blu-ray technology?

Cheers

Woby_Tide

rmg1 wrote: »

Just to go off at a slight tangent, but still on digital TV, what are the "powers that be" going to do about the breakup of the signal due to weather, obstructions, etc?

Analogue signals don't seem to be affected as much as the new digital stuff (pixelation, freezing, complete loss of sound/picture/both, etc).

Because they have to transmit the signals side by side, currently digital isn't operating at it's full power, once they switch analogue of by region they can then ramp up all the transmitters as they are digital only. Until then it does sound more like cheap aerial/cabling, most of it has been masked by the quality of analogue signals so people always just put up with it...!

superscaper

Osakan wrote: »

Can somebody point me towards some evidence that shows Sony developing all the Blu-ray technology?

Cheers

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/sonyhistory-l.html

http://reviews.cnet.com/video-players-and-recorders/sony-bdp-s1/4505-6463_7-31799184.html

http://www.ps3focus.com/comment/173/2732

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press_Archive/200409/04-050E/

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5760&Itemid=2

Osakan

superscaper wrote: »

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/sonyhistory-l.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/video-players-and-recorders/sony-bdp-s1/4505-6463_7-31799184.html
http://www.ps3focus.com/comment/173/2732
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press_Archive/200409/04-050E/
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5760&Itemid=2

Thanks very much for providing those links. Reading through them however they do reinforce what I am thinking. None of them provide a definitive, 3rd party timeline or history that credits Sony. For example it was Panasonic that were first to market with a dual-layer recorder, how could they do that if this is all Sony technology?

I have been looking for a while now, and all of the more credible sources that I have seen refer to the Blu-Ray Disc Association breaking away from the DVD Forum to jointly develop Blu-ray.

For instance many articles are similar to this one and refer to the "Blu-ray optical disc format was jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, a group of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers".

For me the definitive link I have found is this one that says that as of February 21 this year there were 18 companies whose technology must be licensed to be able to produce Blu-ray!

mdean

ollyk wrote: »

Has anyone else heard that the current generation of STB's will be useless before too long? I think they are switching from MEPG2 to MPEG 4 which means digital tuners will become useless! Not sure about the facts though so it may not be happening for some time to come yet...

I know one thing, all this is a nice little revenue earner for someone!

Not sure it will work out like that. The battle on digital terrestrial is between the freeview off on MPEG2 and $kys desire to offer more pay tv using MPEG4

When the analogue signal is switched off there should be plenty of space for both- and no govt is going to turn off freeview.

I think we should be arguing for no pay tv on terrestrial digital

superscaper

Osakan wrote: »

Thanks very much for providing those links. Reading through them however they do reinforce what I am thinking. None of them provide a definitive, 3rd party timeline or history that credits Sony. For example it was Panasonic that were first to market with a dual-layer recorder, how could they do that if this is all Sony technology?

I have been looking for a while now, and all of the more credible sources that I have seen refer to the Blu-Ray Disc Association breaking away from the DVD Forum to jointly develop Blu-ray.

For instance many articles are similar to this one and refer to the "Blu-ray optical disc format was jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, a group of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers".

For me the definitive link I have found is this one that says that as of February 21 this year there were 18 companies whose technology must be licensed to be able to produce Blu-ray!

I agree everything "Blu Ray" is officially licensed by the Blu Ray association but I think Sony were the main proponents of the technology but who can say who invented what. I remember bringing up blue laser optical recording discs in my Cambridge interview because I was reading about it in research stage, and that was in 1998! BTW I didn't get accepted, considering how far ahead of my time I was, more fool them