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Sony Vaio Blu-ray Media Center

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by WilHarris, 19 Oct 2006.

  1. WilHarris

    WilHarris Just another nobody Moderator

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  2. M4RTIN

    M4RTIN What's a Dremel?

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    what a waste of money ,and it makes the ps3 look cheap lol. i like the amount of connections on it tho..

    also btw on page 3 you have the same piece of text above the first 2 pictures
     
  3. Cthippo

    Cthippo Can't mod my way out of a paper bag

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    So basically, HDCP is a mess like we all thought it would be. woo hoo Sony :sigh:
     
  4. Bursar

    Bursar What's a Dremel?

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    Page 4 appeared all in bold for me.
     
  5. DougEdey

    DougEdey I pwn all your storage

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    Don't know if I missed it, but what does that sticker say just under the drive?

    ANd I thought BD didn't use MPEG-2 anymore?
     
  6. Buzzons

    Buzzons Minimodder

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    could be the laser warning?

    and yea it does still use MPEG2 :(

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc

     
  7. Lazlow

    Lazlow I have a dremel.

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    £800? For a media centre, with BD, that's not too bad. And for a first generation piece of equipment - it looks like they've got most aspects of it right...
     
  8. mclean007

    mclean007 Officious Bystander

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    Nah mate, £800 EXTRA over the non-BD version of the same HTPC. The all-up price is a shade under £1800 inc VAT.
     
  9. Lazlow

    Lazlow I have a dremel.

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    Oooooooooooh, then in that case it's too pricey for most to even consider. I was going by the £800 comment on the last page of the article.
     
  10. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Yep, most BR disks are mpeg2 but in a higher bitrate to compensate for the larger image, but you loose quality simply because even though the picture is bigger it needs more data to fill it and mpeg2 is like a 10 year old compression technology. Very few BR titles are encoded in h264 which provides more info for the same data rate. In contrast more HDDVD titles are encoded in VC1 rather than mpeg2 as well.
     
  11. DougEdey

    DougEdey I pwn all your storage

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    Ah right, my bad, I remember reading one of the direct HD/BD comparisons linked from this forum. And the main complaint was BD was lower quality, and the guy commented that he was corrected by someone saying MPEG-2 wasn't BD.
     
  12. Veles

    Veles DUR HUR

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    Yes but this is brand new technology, it's not for the mass market yet, it's for the enthusiast market who would pay stupid amounts of money to buy inferior early models just so they had the latest, greatest kit.

    I thought not having HDCP was just meant to downscale your picture? I also thought, since HDCP TVs, GFX cards, etc. have only recently come out, they wern't actually activating it or something for a while.

    This would mean that the cheap PS3's BR player would be completely useless (I think they've decided to put in HDCP in the cheaper one now though?)
     
  13. mclean007

    mclean007 Officious Bystander

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    It's pretty poor form that Vista may only support Blu-Ray within its media center component by launching some kind of third party player. You'd think native support would be the obvious way to go, or at least some kind of add-on that integrates into media center for a seamless experience?! If it natively supports HD-DVD but not Blu-Ray, that would be a pretty significant factor for a lot of people.

    Personally, I think this is a let-down all round - MPEG2 has no place on any next gen disc, and you'd think the early discs would be packed with all the next-gen features to differentiate the format. Maybe S.W.A.T. is just a poor example of the early discs, but I'd be pretty disappointed if I shelled out that kind of money for an early player and couldn't show it off to my mates to the best of its abilities.

    I will keep waiting for region free 1080p players with DHCP circumvented, and for prices to drop below bleeding-edge early adoption prices.
     
  14. JADS

    JADS Et arma et verba vulnerant

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    I think ignoring both formats until the manufacturers come up with one better standard would be good idea :)

    Just need the papers to throw in some hysteria about the formats, present it to the general populace and you have two completely dead formats :)

    Maybe that both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray give off harmful levels of Theta radiation that will slowly kill kids as they watch their movies? Remember it doesn't matter if it is true if it makes a good story :D
     
  15. mclean007

    mclean007 Officious Bystander

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    I like it!

    I should add also that I will not be joining the HD movie brigade until my mass market price 1080p region-free HDCP-less wonder-player also plays both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray (as well as, obviously, standard DVD). No way I'm getting lumbered with several hundred pounds worth of the 'losing' technology (a la Betamax!)
     
  16. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Then Microsoft would have to pay a lisence to Dolby and those who hold the patents to the MPEG compression technology. They didn't in XP either, it can't play DVDs without 3rd party software.
     
  17. Firehed

    Firehed Why not? I own a domain to match.

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    My thought exactly. I'm not buying into any of the next-gen tech until this stuff is completely dead. And VHS is still hanging in there, so I think I'll have quite a while before it's an issue.
     
  18. M4RTIN

    M4RTIN What's a Dremel?

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    is hdcp going to be on all bd players? if so thats going to kill them surely.. unless they support analog outs i suppose which is a nice get around.

    the argument for me buying a hd-dvd player for the 360 is stronger everyday
     
  19. Breach

    Breach Modding in Exile

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    Sweet, I can get one and watch....Click
     
  20. Sord_Fish

    Sord_Fish What's a Dremel?

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    Is it just me or does slot load seem a bad idea?
     
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