I don't understand the whole hype thing.. to master a movie in HD doesn't necessarily mean mastering it for Blu-Ray.

They might be making HD versions of these movies for multiple purposes from cable and VOD in HD to digital downloads and Blu-Ray.

Essentially everything is in the MAKING but usually will show up on a specific medium only when that medium has proven lucrative which Blu-Ray is very far from.

but then again, a ton of people supported an unfinished and 3 times more expensive technology over something that was already mainstream ready and more backwards compatible without any real quality loss.

So go figure with the whole logic thing.

Ben,

I'm glad that I amuse you.. if you guys actually researched this technology you would realize that SpursEngine can be applied to HD footage as well since the same functionality principle.

The reality is that I will buy immediately this player as soon as it comes out because it will allow me to enjoy a ton of movies in a much better quality then just simple upscaling while I get Blu-Ray versions of them for cheap. It's a very normal and reasonable way of looking at things.

When technology eventually progresses in displays and we have 4k displays and similar this Toshiba's new technology will also be applied to HD sources as well and double up their resolution with the same engine.

If you don't find any of this worthy then there's no reason really to discuss this with you or anyone else spitting against it because it simply goes against anything logical from a consumer point of view.

It's really sad how some people just have no sense of being objective. It's so hard to say, oh my that technology can actually be cool and good for all of us when it goes against your fanboy preference.

It just shows hypocrisy at it's worst.

They obviously didn't.

What bugs me about this podcast is the whole "I can't believe they are doing this" type of attitude from both of them.

Seriously guys.. I expected more from you. I know you are rabid Blu-Ray fans but come on. This is an extension of DVD and is in EVERY way good.

For someone who was taunting how we need superiority in everything both picture and sound, I'm surprised that you guys are now criticizing the fact that we can get much much better quality out of regular DVDs thanks to this technology. Basically you are saying, let's have same old crap upscaling of existing DVDs instead of having close to or almost equal footage to HD>

What's exactly bad about that? Oh I know, it complicates things for Blu-Ray. God forbid we have a free and competitive market. What fun would that be when we can pay high prices to BDA and everything that stands in their way is automatically insane. This technology is not even competing with Blu-Ray, granted it complicates things for them as it will further dampen the desire for regular schmo to upgrade to Blu-Ray but hey, that's BDAs problem and will force to them to lower the prices much quicker to the benefit of all of us.

Seriously, let's at least have some objectivity and reason here instead of an hour or so of a podcast filled with rabid fanboyism. Give me a break please.

I told myself that I would listen it again and give you the benefit of the doubt as true technology aficionados but you guys give it such a pro Blu spin on it that's it absolutely ridiculous. You are so tainted that you can't see a good thing when it smacks you in the face.

Really sad on so many levels.

Add to this the arrival of super-upscaling and those 6% of customers planning to purchase a Blu-Ray player will at least think twice.

As I said before I think this is great in many ways not because it will make Blu-Ray adoption trickier but because it will force BDA to land down to Earth and drop prices to normal levels.

At that point, I will definitely say that people should buy Blu-Ray.

If Cloverfield BD release at $20 is a sign of things to come, I'm all for it.

nah.. you can get GBW-H20L for $250 on NewEgg

So I'm guessing this is slightly better Onkyo 805 with 4 HDMI ports?

I'm torn between 805 or 875.. the price difference is around $400 but 875 has Reon chip and 4 HDMI ports. The only thing is that 875 gets pipin' hot.

This integra seems like a good solution between 805 and 875. And the price is just there.

805 - around $600
Integra 5.9 - $800
875 - $1000

Even though I'm somewhat glad that we are getting more and more movies on BD, I still think that $20 for a older catalog title is pretty expensive. Cloverfield at $20 is DEAD on. They should offer all BD movies at that price and $15 for older titles is justified. Cloverfield pricing is definitely a good move.

Out of these though I'll probably get Cloverfield as I enjoyed the movie quite a bit and Mr. E's wife is 100% right. The movie is about people first, the monster is just an initiator of tragedy. It was never meant to compete with Godzilla IMO.

I think that there are really some gems here.

Dirty Harry is definitely a must for any movie lover. I'm curious how the transfer is. Bee movie is good family type movie and Cloverfield and There will be Blood are definitely good buys and good movies.

I'm curious to see how NPD numbers look like this week

TT is right.. the no China Blu-Ray were very real comments from BDA.

Well anyway you look at this, should be positive.

As I said, I'm not against Blu-Ray as a technology as I am against ripping people off and making consumer suck up the costs of adoption.

Obviously the BDA is aware that the initial plan of keeping high prices has failed. With SpursEngine from Toshiba and economic recession it became clear to everyone that licensing to Chinese is not really a bad thing.

But yes, they (BDA) are definitely changing their strategy.

Well as I said, there's no doubt that this technology isn't really supposed to be targeted to compete with BD but to extend and improve DVD as much as it can.

I think that it just puts an incredible pressure on Blu-Ray to lower the prices and lower the movie prices because with this technology the picture quality difference will get much smaller between 1080p Blu-Ray and Spursed 960p dvd.

I think it's great because it gives BDA a kick in the nuts to come out with sub $200 players FAST and I can already see that the Blu-Ray releases will most likely have to be at DVD prices or a buck or two only higher to compete for mainstream.

If this technology proves really great as it looks like it can be, the best case scenario for all of us would be Blu-Ray SA player with this super-upscaling technology for under $200. What an amazing machine would that be.

All your DVDs upscaled to HD (as close as it can get) and real HD on one machine and HD movies at $19.99 for new releases.

Now that would be superb if you ask me. Not to mention the possibility of TVs actually having this embedded in them. So you don't even have to change anything on Blu-Ray player or any DVD player. But it automatically works with any footage from DVD or Blu-Ray.

That would be heaven.