Sony now shipping Internal Blu-ray Drive

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WarlordBB

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 10, 2004
Messages
390
Look what the Fedex guy just dropped off for me to play with:

bd01.jpg


I already have my HDCP compliant ATI 1600Pro with HDMI out but I don't think they'll appreciate me playing movies while I'm supposed to be coding right now so results to come later :)

(I go by techstyled more than warlordbb now)
 
Looks nice. How much did it set you back if you don't mind my asking?

Now they just need to fix all of the PQ problems with BluRay movies and you'll be set.
 
i was interested. just looked that up.. 800usd. omg :O i think i 'll wait.. a few years. lol
 
Yea, it was $800 and change with shipping/tax and such.

I don't have high expectations because all I've heard abou the BD PQ but I've still got my XA1 HD DVD so I'm not gonna worry there.

I just wanted to be able to buy whatever titles are available in HD. Now I can.

:)
 
800usd, lol, sony is so retarded, how do they ever expect to win this war. Mini disc #2 comin up!
 
I'm very interested in getting one of these so I can take advantage of my monitor's full 1900x1200. Any updates on how well the drive has been working out for you?
 
There are always a few who will pay any amount to be the first to have anything that most don't need.
 
rblews said:
There are always a few who will pay any amount to be the first to have anything that most don't need.
Click to expand...

Just as there will always be the few that concern themselves with what others choose to do with their money.

I work _extremely_ hard so I indulge myself in my recreations.

@Hvatum - I'm just now geting an OS installed on my HTPC (because of aforementioned hard work). But you can be sure I'll post an update here very soon. I hope to soon be watching one of the BD titles I picked up today.

@nickanderson - I was _very_ aware of those type of reviews before I pre-ordered about a month ago. In fact, I've read _many_ very detailed reviews over at AVS. I don't expect this drive to outshine my HD DVD player but at least I'm now that much closer to having all my sources coming from my one HTPC.

I'll also be picking up the very first HD DVD internal drive as soon as it is available. Heck, I'll probably also be one of the first to purchase a hybrid HD/BD drive if they do make those too.
 
For a good BD title I'd recommend Stealth or Training Day. Both are some of the best transfers right now.

When you get an interal HD DVD drive will you be selling the XA1? Keeping it for it's upscaling, Dolby True HD, etc.?
 
PCMusicGuy said:
For a good BD title I'd recommend Stealth or Training Day. Both are some of the best transfers right now.

When you get an interal HD DVD drive will you be selling the XA1? Keeping it for it's upscaling, Dolby True HD, etc.?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip on the titles. I'll get Stealth cause Training Day was too brutal at the movies. It is one of only a handful of HD DVD titles I don't own.

I'll be selling the XA1 because my goal is to be 100% HTPC. I might just give it to one of my siblings or such to spread the HD love.

By the way, currently I can _NOT_ play Blu-ray titles with this drive. The software that ships with the drive can do everything except Blu-ray movie playback (which is _extremely_ confounding because you know Sony knows that's 95% of the reason someone would buy this drive).

Official word from Cyberlink who makes the OEM software:

"Blu-ray support will be in our current version 'very soon' and we are not at liberty to give you the OEM software that will allow playback".

Official word from Sony:

"At this time, we do not have software that will allow that. You also need a patch from Microsoft that allows for COP (is what I think she said). We are working diligently to have some software updates available that will support this soon."

Someone out there has the Japanese version of WinDVD 8 that allows this but he is too busy watching Blu-ray movies to PM me back.

Guess it's back to watching my HD-DVD for a while longer.
 
I thought it had been determined that PQ issues with Blu-Ray were due to a faulty hardware design?
 
Keetha said:
I thought it had been determined that PQ issues with Blu-Ray were due to a faulty hardware design?
Click to expand...

Nope, just that the only available player may have noise filtering (I think) correction stuck on instead of kicking in when necessary. Making the movies look softer than normal maybe?

Anyway, not enough of an issue to explain away all the problems by anyone's count, from what I've heard.

Which is _exactly_ why I'm so interested to get my player running. It could answer some of the "it's the player" claims.

UPDATE: Sony is actually trying to help (I think). An escalated tech just called me and said he's headed out to purchase my same video card (one of only 2 retail cards that I know of that fully support HDCP) so he can further test the situation in house and then he's going to call me back.

Could it be something as stupid as the product team for this drive didn't have video cards available to test/develop playback support?
 
WarlordBB said:
Just as there will always be the few that concern themselves with what others choose to do with their money.
Click to expand...


Quote of the thread right there. Excellent comeback...

Blu-ray or any other HD format is not for me at the moment ($), but more power to those who wanna test 'em for the rest of us!
 
Is that a read only drive or a R/RW? Also, single or dual layer?

I would be willing to shell out the cash for something like that just to have a solution I could back up my entire system onto with only several discs. With DVDs it is just too much of a pain anymore.
 
NulloModo said:
Is that a read only drive or a R/RW? Also, single or dual layer?

I would be willing to shell out the cash for something like that just to have a solution I could back up my entire system onto with only several discs. With DVDs it is just too much of a pain anymore.
Click to expand...

It's a RW drive, and it looks like it should support DL BR, plus all the usual DVD/CD RW formats:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GPLVOI
 
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JBark said:
It's a RW drive, and it looks like it should support DL BR, plus all the usual DVD/CD RW formats:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GPLVOI
Click to expand...

Nice, I am getting tempted. I might wait a bit to see if they manage to get Blu-Ray movie support going on WinXP (since Sony is dropping HDMI as a mandatory thing for the PS3 who knows). I mean, I could buy an external firewire drive for that price, but getting blu-ray support on my computer would be good.
 
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Keetha said:
I thought it had been determined that PQ issues with Blu-Ray were due to a faulty hardware design?
Click to expand...

Not really, it's the simple fact they're using MPEG2 compression on single layer discs. 25GB just isn't enough space for a full movie in 1080p MPEG2, plus all the extras (those are probably in 1080p MPEG2 as well?). So they have to compromise and lower the bitrate. If they'd used H.264 or VC-1 (which are supported), they would have been fine. If dual layer discs weren't delayed, they also would have been fine using MPEG2.

It basically comes down to the money. Sony has all sorts of patents for MPEG2, so they'd like to use that. If they use the others, they'd have to pay royalties. Hell, if they use VC-1, they'd pay royalties to Microsoft. Somehow I don't think they'd like that too much. :)

Also, most movies are probably already archived digitally in HD resolution using MPEG2 (along with uncompressed, I'm sure), so it's probably fairly simple to just reencode the MPEG2 copy using a lower bitrate.
 
JBark said:
(snip)
Hell, if they use VC-1, they'd pay royalties to Microsoft. Somehow I don't think they'd like that too much. :)
(snip)
Click to expand...

Actually, a guy inside Microsoft that they would not have to pay anything to use the VC-1. I'll just chaulk this MPEG2 blunder to Sony's stupidity.
 
Here's an article confirming what Warlord is seeing:
http://www.cnet.com.au/desktops/dvdburners/0,39029405,40091720,00.htm

Vincent Bautista, Sony's product manager for data storage, told CNET.com.au that due to copy protection issues and lagging software development, the drive will only play user-recorded high-definition content from a digital camcorder, and not commercial movies released under the BD format.
Click to expand...
But, there's hope yet:
Bautista is optimistic that both issues will be resolved "soon", and says that despite not being able to play commercial content, the drive is still useful as a "storage device", particularly for those looking to create and distribute their own high-definition home movies on BD-R and BD-RE discs.
Click to expand...

Hopefully by resolved soon, they mean that this drive will be able to play commercial BR discs in the near future, not that a future product will work like we expect.
 
I wanted to post back to this thread just to let everyone know that, no thanks to Sony, I've been watching Blu Ray movies on HTPC for several months now and I LOVE it.

If I could get my hacked XBox 360 HD DVD drive to work in full res in my HTPC my HD quest would be complete, for now.

BTW, some of those earlier titles look like crap compared to some of the newer ones so I think the PQ deal is not entirely hardware (or rather player) related.

Just watched the Blu Ray version of Ice Age 2 with my son last night and it was crystal clear.
 
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