Live from Toshiba's CES press conference
By Richard Lawler 
posted January 6th 2008 1:30PM
posted January 6th 2008 1:30PM
10:00 - a.m. - We're here, the HD DVD players and TVs under covers are on stage.
10:07 - Ladies and gentlemen please take your seats
10:10 - Director of Corporate Communications just took the stage - Next up: Jodi Sally to "address" their HD DVD business, but first, President & CEO Mr. Ozaka
10:12 - Great success for Regza LCDs and HD DVD, strong Q4 sales for HD DVD - Really, it says so on the slide.
10:13 - "Very surprised by Warner announcement about HD DVD...etc", basically the same as the press release issued earlier.
10:15 - Jodi Sally is on stage "It's been a tough day for me (laughs)".
10:16 - "Only HD DVD has deliver on its commitments to the market, bringing advanced functionality and affordability"
"We've been declared dead before...unit sales in Q4 were the best to date. Nearly 1 million dedicated HD DVD players are in the market" "HD DVD has always put the interests of consumers ahead of companies"
10:18 - "Thanks for your continued support", a slide of all the awards HD DVD has gotten in the past year -- and that's it.
10:20 - On to the HDTVs - a slide of Regza's awards from the past year.
10:21 - The death of the RPTV, as presented by bar graph. "Flat panel TV is 81% of the TV business and growing fast"
10:24 - Targeting 10% market share in LCD 32-inch and above in 2008.
10:25 - 1. Black is the new black, 2. 1080p is the new 720p. 3. 120Hz is the new 1080p. 4. No value over $3k --- The HDTV facts according to Toshiba
10:27 - All new models with DynaLight - adjustable from 7 - 10 times the panel's contrast level, up from 5x last year
10:28 - AV500 series - 19 - 42-inch LCDs, all shipping in spring. Pixel Pure fourth-gen system provides 16,384 levels of gradation with 10 bit displays
10:31 - New Video Bypass circutiry on all Regza models improves by 48ms response time on 120hz models - no gaming mode necessary. Bezels slimmed to 1.5-inch at the most. 1080p available as small as 32-inch in the RV530 series. Replaces HL167
10:34 - Motion Vector 120Hz. New feature - 5:5 film pulldown mode. split screen 60/120Hz processing for comparison.
10:34 - New XV540 flagship model 42-, 46-, 52 -inch models get new color processing, 108% of NTSC color. Hits in spring
10:35 - XF550 Cinema Series in 42- 46- and 52-inch models with DynaLight Super Contrast for superior black levels.
10:35 moving to fall/spring product introductions
10:37 - Talking about the power of Cell chip to do super SD2HD upconversion. Claims it makes SD look like HD. ( Somehow we doubt that)
10:42 - Annnnd we're out, no Q&A (We had some interesting questions to ask about HD DVD)
You are so full of yourself, claiming to be able to "ear" the difference. I doubt in the blind test, that you would be able to pin point the difference between uncompressed audio and DTS-HD or TrueHD.
The uncompressed audio used by Blu-ray is a waste of space at little to no gain.
While I like less compression, compression is not always a bad thing. If it wasn't for compression we wouldn't have 1080 video on the media we have currently. Compression is a necessary evil, but when done right (like DD, DTS, TrueHD and DTS-HD) is just fine and delivers us high quality audio.
This whole chest pounding, mine is bigger than yours you people talk about it nothing more than just that... spec whoring.
I also will gladly take your Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on off your hands if you don't want it since it is so bad, I will even pay shipping!
I am a Blu-ray supporter and even I have to laugh at your post. You can't even spell simple words correctly! I would never take the advice of someone who can't even spell. I have a PS3 and have had one since it came out and I am happy that this might finally bring an end to the war so that I can buy a standalone player.
Yeah, congrats and oh by the way, since you're an early adopter, I sure hope your player is upgradeable to 1.1, and if it is, then also upgradeable to 2.0. When you get there some time next year, you're player will be as feature rich as my HD-DVD player was last summer.
Blu-Ray, the technically superior media with the hardware which is "still evolving" when it comes to consumer experience. Pick a profile, noooo, that won't confuse the average walmart shopper.
"Congratulations to the early adopters of BLUE-RAY. Was a risky choice but we won!"
No, only the head of some giant company will ever win in this war. "We" (the consumers) have all lost, unfortunately.
From a Blu-Ray owner / supporter, you are not helping our cause at all because you are woefully uninformed. HD-DVD also supports lossless compression. There is absolutely NO difference in the output of lossless compression vs uncompressed. Lossy compression maximizes compression by throwing out some detail, like when uncompressed CD/WAV audio is converted to MP3. An MP3 is a fraction of the size of an uncompressed WAV file or CD audio track. Lossless compression does not sacrifice ANY detail and requires much more storage than with lossy compression because nothing is "thrown away". With lossless compression, the data that comes out is EXACTLY what went in. Bit-for-bit identical. I can't stress this enough. Lossless compression reduces the amount of storage required vs uncompressed audio, but the storage requirements are not reduced nearly as far as lossy compression. Lossless compression is kind of like a ZIP file on your PC. You can convert a file or group of files into a compressed "zip" file for storage or transmitting across the Internet. The files inside can then be extracted/uncompressed to get an exact bit-for-bit reproduction of what went in. Just as MP3 is an example of "lossy" audio compression, lossless audio specs can be compared with ZIP; but optimized for patterns found in audio data and designed for decoding as a continuous multi-channel stream. While uncompressed audio has the disadvantage of requiring ridiculous amounts of storage, the only conceivable advantage over lossless compression is that a poorly-made receiver might not decode lossless compression fast enough; causing a slight delay. Any receiver with the HDMI 1.3 spec will automatically adjust audio / video latencies to compensate. Lossless compression is *BETTER* than uncompressed because it leaves more room for video and additional content while not sacrificing a single, solitary digital bit of audio quality.
The Porno Industries is with de HD DVD format...blu ray is DEAD...
see you
ps3 is not a standalone player so you can count the xbox360 hddvd add ons
They should have answered some questions. By no doing so they look helpless.
No Q&A? They obviously don't know how to handle the death of HD DVD and don't want to face the obvious barrage of questions. No Q&A means they have no confidence in the format at this point.
this is exactly what sony wanted, everyone arguing about what should really be the future of Hi-Def media disc standards. just like BUSH & the war on iraq. rather than keeping you focused on the true facts / real reasons of the WHOLE story & who really benefits from it all. of course to each their own & opinions are like ____holes & everyone has one, including myself. with that said, if i was a media mogul group, i would be very concerned on my future profits & my contents copy right security. in a nut shell, what kind of guarantee can be given to this cause? not to mention all the PS3's out there already (but like all these kids are buying Blu-ray DVDs after getting a PS3? did Sony add Blu-ray because their online gaming SUCKS so bad? & if you disagree, then you never play onine. LMAO) not to mention that ever since the DVD addition to the PlayStation gaming console, it's a known fact, the drives suck & break down. just look at all the replacements on ebay or is this your first PlayStation? figures, everyone on the Blu-ray tip is outside looking in. wait, that's what a consumer does, then the consumer shops. further more, if sony really cared about the consumer it would sell appropriately priced players. not just pushing & selling their PS3's. why wouldn't anyone want an open format? what are we trash compacters & feel free to shovel in anything you expect me to believe & or buy? don't get me wrong, as soon as this mix up on the future of Hi-Def media clears up, i won't have a choice but to follow. and with out a gripe. if you ask me, which i'm sure you wouldn't, why are we buying anything for a format that might not be a standard. looks like the $H!TS in your pocket. whether or not you pre-bought the future standard. why should the consumer pay for these HUGE $$$ companies to figure out what's next. if it was up to me, we would still have had BETA tapes, screw VHS. but if that's not enough for you & you are still reading my meaningless rant on this topic, what are you going to watch you current DVD collection on? not on Blu-ray.
P.S. no offense to those in or involved in the war on iraq, USA, the land i love... :)
*sigh
Please stop talking.
Well looks like blu-ray seems to have won. The only problem i have is trying to update the the player cause of all the security Bullish. I mean profile 1.1 then so on and so on. I mean sucks cause every time i come from best buys or what not, i would be all excited trying to watch the newest blu-ray disk when i see not compatible, please update the newest firmware or whatever. I mean whatever happened to just putting it in and watching it rather then waiting a extra 5 to 50 minutes, i say that just cause some people out there are a little slow, just to watch your fav movie. They need to get all there stuff ready for who knows how long were gonna be doing this for?
You all do realize that its not the video/movie geeks/nerds that will win this format, but the minorities, lower class joes whom will ultimately decide the victor! I truely believe that Sony will lose due to their arrogance and continous burning of cash flow to push Blu-Ray, but then again anything can happen...