BD/HD DVD lacking 25p? Welll, not really!

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Chris Hull

we should find out[from sony] why vaio burnt blue ray discs may only play on pcs and ps3s,i see little point as a long term storage ,just temporary play maybe.

I think this is an overstatement, Chris. The "Click to DVD-BD" utility that comes with the Vaio (if equipped with a BD writer) can burn 3 types of disks:

-regular DVD
-BDMV
-HD

The HD disk (not to be confused with HD DVD) is sth proprietary to Sony, and it's said in the documentation it only plays on the Vaio. The BDMV on the other hand is the general format, and if it doesn't play on some stand-alone players, you can't blame Sony for this. As an example I can tell you that one of the newer Pioneer players does not even have BD-R (not to mention BD-RE) in its specs, and when I asked Pioneer support they told me they cannot gurantee a user-made BD-R disk will be recognized. And this is a high-end model, with 24p DirectCinema output etc.

But of course I agree the marketing of HD delievery technologies is very confusing, and a more technically prepared /demanding user lacks the first-hand information on what can /cannot be done, and why.

[Chris Hull]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

I think this is an overstatement, Chris. The "Click to DVD-BD" utility that comes with the Vaio (if equipped with a BD writer) can burn 3 types of disks:

-regular DVD
-BDMV
-HD

The HD disk (not to be confused with HD DVD) is sth proprietary to Sony, and it's said in the documentation it only plays on the Vaio. The BDMV on the other hand is the general format, and if it doesn't play on some stand-alone players, you can't blame Sony for this. As an example I can tell you that one of the newer Pioneer players does not even have BD-R (not to mention BD-RE) in its specs, and when I asked Pioneer support they told me they cannot gurantee a user-made BD-R disk will be recognized. And this is a high-end model, with 24p DirectCinema output etc.

i am a bit confused piotr why does sony make vaio blue ray burning pcs if the discs only play on pcs,i believe blue ray cams discs will not play on standaone players either,as a recording format i am not optimistic.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Chris Hull

...,as a recording format i am not optimistic.

While I'm sure BD will eventually win -- it really seems Sony TODAY sees BD as two devices: big data discs for PC and a means of distributing Hollywood movies.

Now Toshiba isn't that much better, but because their spec includes red-laser burned HD content and they are one company and they support their own spec -- it is safer IMHO to wait for BD to be ready and buy a cheap HD DVD player now. (They upconvert VERY well.)

[Stephan Stryhanyn]

Alas indeed, there's every incentive for mainstream stand-alone players to be purposely incompatible with self-made BD-R or BD-RE, and keep these locked in the PC realm. Sony has a movie production business to care for and protect against 'backup copies', so why rush history.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

OK - so I have finally bought a HDTV - the 50" Panasonic plasma. It's capable of both 50 Hz (as it's a PAL Viera model), and 100 Hz where each frame is displayed twice, to avoid flicker.

You can imagine how thrilled I was when first connecting and configuring it with my desktop's regular, X1600XT ATI card. The EDID info in Catalyst software offered the 100Hz refresh; so far so good...

Not having a BD player other than the one in my Vaio laptop (accessible through the draft N wi-fi from my desktop at some 130 Mbps), I inserted the first BD disk burnt from Vegas timeline and authored with Ulead MF HD to the Vaio drive. In another room (being my "studio" with the 50" HDTV hung above the 24" LCD. PC monitor), I launched Nero Showtime, navigated to the remote Vaio's BD drive, and clicked "Play"...
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Gosh, I have never saw a video as good as what I saw, ever in my whole life!
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Stunning resolution. Deep blacks, true colours. Motion? Even though it was a wedding party, shot in 1080/25p with 1/25th shutter - just natural!

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So yes, by all means, it can be done. And frankly, while watching the film I shot last year with the V1E, I was thinking how anything from my EX1 could be better - so good it was!