Blu-Ray Vs. HD DVD - The Polite Debate..

Quoted from CDFreaks

PS3 needs HDMI 1.3 enabled TVs for HD resolution?
Posted by Dan Bell on 27 March 2006 - 18:28 - Source: TG Daily


shimman used our news submit to tell us "Hmmm...PS3 + a newer HD TV set would really cost arms & legs; perhaps Sony should consider to enable analog HD outputs or even VGA."

Last week, TG Daily made the trek to the Game Developers Conference or (GDC) over in California, in order to get the latest on the delayed PS3. Sony Computer Entertainment President, Worldwide Studios, Phil Harrison would be there to give a keynote address entitled "PlayStation 3: Beyond the Box" In fact, he was there and Sony had some consoles to demonstrate, but not at 1080p.

Of course, we were interested in why Sony did not run the units with HDMI. There may be an obvious explanation, but we received some surprising answers from Sony"s staff.

First, we were told that it isn"t easy to get a hold of HDMI-equipped TVs. We found this to be very strange, because after all we were at the Sony booth and all the television sets had HDMI inputs. On the second try, we were told that the reason for not using HDMI was that Sony did not have any HDMI cables and that "they are difficult to find".

Matt Butrovich, a former intern with Tom"s Hardware and who walked the show floor with us, offered the staff to use one of the HDMI cables he actually had in his car and connect the PS3 with the TVs.

Sony officials turned down the offer and we were left without seeing the demos in HD. In the end, we do not know the real reason of avoiding HDMI in the GDC demonstrations. But it certainly highlighted that Sony has still work to do - not only to finalize the AACS spec, but also to accelerate the availability to HDMI 1.3 and to educate customers that they only can run HD video and audio if they have a HDMI 1.3 capable TV.


Most curious indeed. Of course, it would have been embarrassing if they hooked up the donated cable and there were glitches. Maybe they were playing it safe. But, it seems odd that even Sony cannot get the components necessary to use the PlayStation! Maybe they should try the Internet.

 

The reason a standard HDMI cable and TV would not work is probably because the current shipping HD TV's are not HDCP 1.3 compatible. Also the reason you will never see a composite or VGA out put on a PS3 is very simple. NO DRM. The whole purpose of HDMI is to keep people from copying the HD video stream with a composite or VGA video capture device.
Sony has so lost sight of what the market wants that I wouldn't be surprised if they suffer some major financial setbacks beyond what they are currently experiencing.
Also the idea that the Hollywood can dictate the future standards for video is rather myopic. They might get away with it, but only if we buy the product. They have to keep releasing new titles on DVD at least in the near term. If nobody buys BluRay or HD-DVD and only buys regular DVD then in a matter of months you will be reading articles about failed attempt at a new DVD replacement standard and the announcement of new potential DVD replacement products. Sony couldn't force Beta Max over VHS and they can't force Bluray over HD-DVD OR DVD unless we buy it.
The biggest marketing spin of all is the red herring that we have to choose between Bluray and HD-DVD.
What they are REALLY afraid of is that everyone will ignore the new standards because DVD is good enough.
The studios etc. are out to make money selling their movies and if the DVD's sell like hot cakes and noone buys HD-DVD or Bluray then guess what...they will keep shipping DVD's.

If a company comes out with a microwave that cooks food 20% faster, but requires you to get a dedicated internet connection for it to work and requires you to buy a new toaster that costs over $2000 for it to work is anybody going to buy that microwave????? ONLY if they can convince people that it is next big thing and that their old microwave isn't going to be compatible if with future food production.

Of course they will probably get away with it, because people can get really excited about "the next big thing" no matter how impractical it may be.