Print

[fbfrost]

QUOTE(Grumbledock @ Jul 23 2009, 07:15 AM)

Well, since I've got 100Mbit/s I would have no problems?
Streaming is so much smoother, and easier, even though you can get better quality on a harddrive or a disc, with more space to store the movies, hell, 1080p is not the best you can get and blu-ray will get replaced given time. Streaming maybe only gives 2.1 or 5.1 sound, but it smooth, fast (no 30sec-2min before you can watch your blu-ray disc), it's cheaper than buying and it takes less space in your living room.

I'll probably buy a blu-ray later on, when they are cheap, have all their standards worked out (internet, hdmi 1,3 etc.) and they have a decent quality on all the movies (still too many crappy blu-ray releases). An addon to the 360 with blu-ray support would be to late, to expensive, and of course stupid (license money to sony). I think I'll go with streming from the net or getting a cheap media extender (like twixer or something) tyo watch all  those movies in "full quality" XD
Everything better than dvd is av victory according to me

What ISP do you have?? lol

Anyways, Streaming HD Content isn't a good idea IMO, it takes too much bandwith and it pretty much has to be the only thing going on while watching that movie, meaning I can't watch a movie while my roomate plays Counter Strike or something. Plus not to mention I'll bet only 15-20% (If that) of the XBL users actually have the capability of streaming TRUE 1080P video, as others have said.

I honestly think blu ray wouldn't be that expensive to have as an addon for the 360. The only thing that they need to really sell is a Blu Ray drive, with a SATA to USB Converter internally, which you could build for ~$130. They would just have to take the time and incorporate the Xbox to read the format (Obviously). I personally think that if they added blu ray then there would be no specific reason for me to get a PS3, cause that's the only reason I would get one.

I understand that a standalone isn't that expensive nowdays, but I don't like having 10 devices around my television. I like having an all in one type thing, hence I use the Xbox 360's Media Center addition as an HTPC as opposed to having a dedicated HTPC. Sure it has it's pro's and cons, but I want as few devices as possible.

[SpIdErXeN]

What I wouldnt give for mkv support on 360.  *drool*

[HotKnife420]

QUOTE(viperware @ Jul 23 2009, 05:50 AM)

"Xbox LIVE will launch digital movies with instant on 1080p HD streaming so you can experience the best video quality with no disc, no download and no delay."

I don't know who they are fooling with this statement, but the best video quality comes from the least compressed source, where capacity does not hinder the bitrate of the video. Unless they are going to stream you 20GB+ of data, the video quality absolutely will not be higher than that on an HD-DVD or a BluRay Disc. This is fact.

 Unfortunately, the vast majority of people.

QUOTE(fatvince @ Jul 23 2009, 02:17 PM)

Blu Ray is the most non-wow piece of technology ever. It's boring. It's inadequate. It's DRM laden to the teeth. It's from Sony, who brought us Minidiscs and the wonderful software that came with them.

Toshiba should just make the next generation player/recorder.. 250 gigs per layer.. blow Sony right out of the water.

And yes, I have a PS3 and a huge-ass HD TV. And most DVD9's look just as good when upscaled as the Blu Ray counterpart.

Like I said, a very boring piece of technology.  

 Well, boring as it may be, there's a few things you need to accept. First, Blu-ray technology is credited to Matsushita, Pioneer, Philips, Thomson, LG Electronics, Hitachi, Sharp, and Samsung, with Sony "spearheading" everything. Secondly, there's already proof-in-concepts of a TB BD, so you'll need more than 400GB discs to "blow it out the water".

 Lastly, if you've got a PS3 and a "huge-ass HDTV" and you can't see a difference (or much of one) between an image upscaled from 480i and a 1080p one, then either your eyes suck, or your TV does (many of them do, actually). I'd recommend going to the Best Buy wall and checking out different image qualities, and go from there.

[fbfrost]

Yeah, I have a 1080P Projector in one of my rooms and I used to have a PS3 hooked up to it. I owned Constantine on Blu-Ray and DVD and there's a huge difference in quality. Blu-Ray blows DVD's out of the water, even when upscaled. DVD is actually extremely blurry on my projector and I honestly don't even like watching them even more. With that said, Planet Earth on Blu-Ray and a 100'' screen is absolutely amazing.

[jerrspud]

all the replies have been focused on movies and so was the M$ statement, but what about the data storage for games? Are we just going to have to rip multiple DVD disks to our hard drive?

[fbfrost]

QUOTE(jerrspud @ Jul 23 2009, 10:11 AM)

all the replies have been focused on movies and so was the M$ statement, but what about the data storage for games? Are we just going to have to rip multiple DVD disks to our hard drive?

Well, the thing is, IF M$ did decide to add blu ray to the xbox, it would be an addon (Most Likely). It would more than likely be just like the HD-DVD addon that only allowed you to use it as a movie player and connects via USB. I don't really see M$ adding blu-ray to the internal of the 360 and allow games to be played on it, because then you're talking about cutting the 360 market in half. Just like Sony talked about with adding the second joystick to the new PSP, it just isn't worth it half way through the product's life.

[sinister slipknot]

QUOTE(K1LLERHORNET @ Jul 23 2009, 03:42 PM)

& that's one of the reasons i would not switch to Virgin Media.

I'm currently with Sky Broadband Max - £10/month for 16mbit (actually get 13mbit) & true Unlimited - i sometimes download over 80GB+/month & Sky don't do anything.
If Sky had a Fiber Optic 20+mbit option, i wouldn't hesitate to sign up for it.

I never actually joined Virgin Media, i was with Telewest Blueyonder when they were bought out, after going from various ADSL services to cable i'll never switch back, but Virgin's increasingly deteriorating services are convincing me otherwise. If there was another decent cable supplier in the UK i'd switch right now, but as for right now Virgin hold a monopoly on the UK's cable services.

QUOTE(K1LLERHORNET @ Jul 23 2009, 03:42 PM)

Stop drooling & buy a Western Digital Media Player if you want to play MKV on your TV: WDTV Amazon Link

If that had an ethernet connection that'd be awesome, i'd hate having to keep disconnecting and reconnecting an external hard drive between that and my PC to update files.

[Reaper527]

QUOTE

What happened to Toshiba? The Japanese corporation announced its exit of the HD DVD business and now, a year and half later, it is completely admitting the success of Blu-ray Disc by announcing plans to manufacture and sell Blu-ray Disc players. Toshiba plans to sell Blu-ray Disc players by the end of the year and will consider the production of Blu-ray Disc recorders.

did people expect them to not make optical drives for the next 10 years? i don't see why that would surprise anyone.

[chronno]

QUOTE(HotKnife420 @ Jul 23 2009, 03:36 PM)

Secondly, there's already proof-in-concepts of a TB BD,

QUOTE(K1LLERHORNET @ Jul 23 2009, 03:42 PM)

TeraDiscs look like they are the next optical media to come to market: TeraDisc

This is why Microsoft is going digital downloads.  The physical media is just going to shift far to quickly for any kind of reasonable marketing.  What are all those people with current gen Blu-Ray players going to do when the TBBD disks come out?  somehow I can't see a current player that supports a max of 75G playing a disk that now has 1,024G crammed onto it.  People aren't just going to jump up and buy another peace of expensive hardware.  Same with the TeraDisc.

As for the 1080p thing, I can see why a lot of people don't care.  Have you ever gone to Best Buy and looked at their Blu-Ray display with that clip from X-men?  It is so sharp that it looks like crap.  The human eye naturally blurs images for a reason (depth perception mostly, but there are other reasons).  If someone want's something that looks absolutely real than it's going to be a little blurry.

[erexx]

QUOTE

And coming this fall, Xbox LIVE will launch digital movies with instant on 1080p HD streaming so you can experience the best video quality with no disc, no download and no delay. "

Either that's just a really bad quote or M$ still cant lie that well.
"streaming... with no download and no delay."
Really?

[krawhitham]

Only reason I bought a PS3 was for the blu-ray feature,  and now I buy games for it sometimes instead of the 360.  And I picked up a second PS3 to have a blu-ray player in the bedroom.  MS is losing money by not releasing a blu-ray addon

[Martinchris23]

QUOTE(BoNg420 @ Jul 23 2009, 12:36 PM)

They are capping downloads to prevent people from downloading stuff they shouldn't.

That's what they want you to think. The downloads are being capped because Virgin are selling a service that their infrastructure cannot cope with. There's an ever increasing need for high bandwidth streaming from legitimate sites which XL owners will struggle with after a couple of hours. All the main broadcast channels now offer you the ability to watch/stream content from your PC.

Back OT, this is where MS will lose a shedload of customers. Failing to accept the growing need of a HD optical solution in favour of giving their customers the only option to rent their movies.

You're forgetting that MS DID have an optical strategy in place with HD-DVD. How committed they were for it to succeed is something only they know, but they poured millions of dollars into the R&D, Marketing and production. So it failed and now they're saying "We didn't want it in the first place"?

For me, Microsoft's strategy is less about streaming movies being a better solution and more about not wanting to adopt a rival's technology.

[sinister slipknot]

QUOTE(Martinchris23 @ Jul 24 2009, 08:51 AM)

Microsoft's strategy is less about streaming movies being a better solution and more about not wanting to adopt a rival's technology.

Hit the nail right on the head there. That's all this is about, MS unwilling to accept that for now at least Blu-ray is the way forward, yeah soon enough streaming and/or downloading movies and games will be standard, but right now many internet systems can't cope with it.

[HotKnife420]

QUOTE(chronno @ Jul 23 2009, 06:00 PM)

This is why Microsoft is going digital downloads.  The physical media is just going to shift far to quickly for any kind of reasonable marketing.  What are all those people with current gen Blu-Ray players going to do when the TBBD disks come out?  somehow I can't see a current player that supports a max of 75G playing a disk that now has 1,024G crammed onto it.  People aren't just going to jump up and buy another peace of expensive hardware.  Same with the TeraDisc.

As for the 1080p thing, I can see why a lot of people don't care.  Have you ever gone to Best Buy and looked at their Blu-Ray display with that clip from X-men?  It is so sharp that it looks like crap.  The human eye naturally blurs images for a reason (depth perception mostly, but there are other reasons).  If someone want's something that looks absolutely real than it's going to be a little blurry.

 The Terrabyte Blu-ray discs in development are said to only need a firmware update to work.

[Chancer]

QUOTE

As for the 1080p thing, I can see why a lot of people don't care. Have you ever gone to Best Buy and looked at their Blu-Ray display with that clip from X-men? It is so sharp that it looks like crap. The human eye naturally blurs images for a reason (depth perception mostly, but there are other reasons). If someone want's something that looks absolutely real than it's going to be a little blurry.

Real life doesn't look blurry to me. If the human eye naturally blurs images how come it doesn't blur the Xmen demo in 1080p, making it look "better"?
Who cares about a Blu-ray add on for the 360. MS missed the boat and will not want to admit it by now supporting BR. The lack of BR is hardly likely to dent sales. The sales figures have been that good that it is irrelevant at this stage. Standalones are now sub £99 anyway.