Posts by Ray

Remembering the Commodore SX-64

Brings back memories

I got one when i was 13 or 14, i remember it being on sale down from 2000 to 1200 guilders (545 euros). Man i was happy with that thing! carried it around everywhere i went, always being the geeky one at the Commodore club meetings ;-) modifying it myself making a reset button and a switch to use single sided floppies to be used both sides, installed a speeddos chip (the Power Cartridge used up the slot and speeddos could make a dump of anything in the memory, even inserted cartridges).

About 2 years back i started it up again but it would not boot, surprise surprise: the Commodore Club still existed (well, not the same club, but still a Commodore club) and i found an engineer there that replaced one of the rom chips.

Man, i had plenty of hours fun with that thing!

Cheap PS3 won't help Blu-ray, claim HD DVD backers

Not American? Better off with region free and superior codec using HD-DVD

[quote]Joerg • Monday 8th October 2007 10:25 GMT said:

... they don't know what to do at this point to force the adoption of the inferior HD-DVD optical disc format that the majority of users just don't want.[/quote]

You may think HD-DVD format is inferior simply because it holds less data, the movie 300 in full 1080p with dts sound untouched video was only 10.2GB.

HD-DVD is cheaper, has no region coding, has no mandatory encryption for movies (so documentary makers don't have to cough up 5000 usd for an encryption key per title but with BluRay they do) and is more stable since it lacks BD+.. The less DRM crap the more chance that scratched disc will still play (oh and since its a hot item: less DRM saves the envirement, 75% of the used cpu power when decoding HD streams is decryption ;-) ).

You want to help the world add more DRM crap (that YOU pay for) to the living room? Keep buying BluRay mate (they still use inferior MPG2 codec on their discs? looks that way watching 'The Last Starfighter'..)

I doubt the kids buying the PS3 have enough money to buy the games AND the movies anyway. The older people with more cash to spend will rather buy a standalone and unlike BluRay, HD-DVD standard is fully operational and working.

HD-DVD or Blu-ray?

Depends on wheter you live in the US or not

To me the answer i give is pretty simple:

Live in the US and you can use either format, it does not matter much. Quality is about the same on both formats (although i have my doubts about BluRay using MPG2..).

If you are NOT living in the US or Canada you are better of with HD-DVD:

No region encoding (btw: regions are shifted now, Japan is no longer Region 2.. why? because Americans could not import Anime dvd's.. so Hollywood decided to take Region 2 from the Europeans and add it to Region 1, there are now 3 regions for BluRay in total, HD-DVD has no region coding).

Don't let people fool ya saying BluRay is superior, it is a medium with higher storage capabillities (25-50 opposed to 15-30 and soon 3 layer 45GB for HD-DVD).

A decent 2 hour Full HD movie with mutiple audio is about 20GB with the new MPG4 AVC or VC1 or H.264 codec so they fit on either format.

They both support the same codecs for audio/video, support the same resolutions, HD-DVD is cheaper to produce as it is an upgrade to dvd technology and production lines need not be altered much (BluRay needs new production lines but who cares: Sony does not allow any BluRay being produced outside their own factories).

Value documentaries and old movies? HD-DVD does NOT have mandatory encryption, so productions for the public domain do not need to buy a (for BluRay mandatory) 5000 usd encryption key per title.

BlueRay uses too much drm crap.. is this important? Well, let's say i'd like to see what happens on a scratched disc when the stream gets interupted and the BD+ virtual machine kicks in to grace you with a 'unable to play this pirated disc' message ;-)

Side note:

If your new HD capable mediacenter in the near future plays this content 75% of the decoding capacity is used for the drm and 25% is used to actually decode the stream. That's why we will need better cpu's..

I will never buy Sony again and since i am a European my vote is for region free HD-DVD (WTO, free trade anyone?)