Current Blu-ray players obsolete by October?
Posted: March 27th, 2007 | Author: Justin Nolan | Filed under: Blu-ray, PS3 | 11 Comments »
Here’s the deal. Blu-ray was rushed out the door in order to stay competitive with HD DVD. The Blu-ray Disc Association has only recently finalized the formats specifications, which most current players do not conform to. This includes the Playstation 3, and all of Sony’s own Blu-ray players. The lacking features include PIP support, part of BD-Java technology. Many players that even support BD-Java, do not support picture in picture.
What I find most humorous is that Crank and The Descent placed two versions of the film on the disc, one with and one without PIP, to get around the limitations. Although a creative workaround, it hinders the bit rate and space for bonus features.
After October 31, 2007, picture-in-picture (via BD-J) will be mandatory for players to carry the Blu-ray logo. New specification requirements also include 256MB of persistent memory storage, and a required 1GB for players with an internet connection. This new memory requirement is also part of the BD-J picture-in-picture spec.
So what does this mean for your current Blu-ray player? A simple firmware update, right? Well, a firmware update obviously won’t give you memory that isn’t already there. Andy Parsons, senior VP of advanced product development at Pioneer Electronics, believes picture-in-picture is too complicated to be fixed with an update.
Given the nature of the PS3s hardware, it’s reasonable to assume PIP will eventually be supported. Other players wont be so lucky. What is likely to affect all Blu-ray users is the content. With such diverse hardware, it will be very tricky for content providers to provide a common user experience from one player to the next. PIP and other premium content may be skipped since it wont be usable for all customers.
Even if your Blu-ray player isn’t up to spec, it is promised you will be able to watch all Blu-ray discs in the most basic form. But come on, half of this HD marketing mumbo-jumbo is not just the superb picture quality, but the next-gen viewing experience.
There is always a price to pay for being an early adopter, but is this going a little too far? It’s not a matter of the specification changing, but it was clearly never finalized when the first players shipped. Many are now left with gimped players that won’t benefit from all of Blu-ray’s features.
I’m not trying to feed the flames, but I feel it’s worth noting that even though HD DVD shipped first, their spec was finalized. Picture-in-picture and all.
Sources: High-Def Digest & Video Business
The real reason that they are already dead, is because on the blue ray player you can’t watch porn as here of now. Sony doesn’t want porn on there machine and wont allow it.
Now a side note – what happen to you justin. You made this site. No warrning that 360insider would be no more. Just wondering why.
Hey Dr Dmoney. I decided to do this site rather hastily. I did post a message on 360 Insider, but it was only up maybe a day before I forwarded the URL.
YEah, I understand. IT lets you post about more things, not just xbox 360. And please tell me that you are not going to have a party for while and ditch this site as well. I hope this will be more of a longer term commitment.
[...] gamerawr.com:[QUOTE]Here’s the deal. Blu-ray was rushed out the door in order to stay competitive with HD [...]
When I interviewed David Foster on next week’s Dragon’s Lair Blu-ray release, he mentioned the new firmware would be out by Fall 2007. He shares his experience on what it was like developing in BD-J. Check it out here: http://www.gamingbits.com/content/view/1915/2/
I really hope my PS3 will support this. This is just sad. Unlike the draft-N routers, the real N will not conflict with it… now the old Blu-ray owners won’t even have the PIP, which i think is a really basic feature.
More fool you!
Shouldn’t jump onto bleeding edge hardware.
I prefer reading this kind of information when I’m alone in the room, so no one would see an expression on my face. It’s disgusting! I don’t believe a single grose word about it!
Very good article. Thanks for the good information!.
wow !!
its very interesting article.
Good post.
realy good post
thank you
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