Author Topic: The War Begins... (Read 107250 times)

Munskie · « **Reply #450 on:** Nov 26, 2006 at 08:51 PM »

Saw some PS3 games in Datablitz in Park Square 1..being sold for P3600.......then saw a PS3 60gb unit in Rustans (glorietta)....price? a whopping P80k

nels76 · « **Reply #451 on:** Nov 26, 2006 at 08:58 PM »

Whoa. mas-mahal pa sila sa Toy Kingdom ha.
Sabagay, it's Rustans.

Meron sa Avant Abensons naka-display out of the box.
It is a 20GB Jap Version. 45k.

aldrinpsx · « **Reply #452 on:** Nov 26, 2006 at 09:16 PM »

Quote from: indie boi on Nov 26, 2006 at 11:46 AM

bro aldrin why do you need two PS3s?

Sold the 1st one..(profit

)..this time.. i haved this mad angry look from my son...

peace and blessing!!!!

striderhiryu1 · « **Reply #453 on:** Nov 26, 2006 at 09:43 PM »

The PS3 is now getting closer to being an HTPC replacement. You can now access your music,movies (those allowed by PS3) from your network using Redkawa file server. I tried this myseld and the system worked perfectly. You need to attach a FAT32 formatted USB drive to one of the USB ports in PS3 to save your file and then view afterwards. You can do this with the built in PS3 web browser. Below is website for fileserver

http://www.redkawa.com/fileserver/

They have a PS3/Wii videoconverted as well but will try those later.

http://www.redkawa.com/videoconverters/

I have stopped messing with Linux for now but I am sure the files can be accessed and saved as well if you're using Linux.

alvinthx2 · « **Reply #454 on:** Nov 28, 2006 at 09:59 AM »

bought it at 55k with 1 controller and 2 games at shoppesville, greenhills

Munskie · « **Reply #455 on:** Nov 28, 2006 at 10:03 AM »

Quote from: alvinthx2 on Nov 28, 2006 at 09:59 AM

bought it at 55k with 1 controller and 2 games at shoppesville, greenhills

55k sir yun bang 60gb version na?

alvinthx2 · « **Reply #456 on:** Nov 28, 2006 at 11:50 AM »

Yap, its the 60g version. difference between the 20g and 60g model are, memory card slot, wifi and the storage capacity of the harddisk

Kratos · « **Reply #457 on:** Nov 28, 2006 at 01:12 PM »

PS3's getting cheaper everyday, probably because of its weekly shipment. I've heard nagnormalise na daw yung price sa Ebay. Sana by Dec. consistent na yung price nila and i would definitely get one.

striderhiryu1 · « **Reply #458 on:** Nov 28, 2006 at 10:00 PM »

System update 1.11 is now up. Don't know exactly what they fixed but supposedly has:

Fixed some HDMI issues
Added an Account management tab in the XMB
Web browsing is faster (maybe)
Fixed the text entry freezing the PS3 issue (maybe)

Also see this video of PS3 Linux running divx files

http://video.stage6.com/246437/1042281.divx

alvinthx2 · « **Reply #459 on:** Nov 29, 2006 at 07:15 AM »

will update tonight, firmware is still at 1.02. Tnx

alvinthx2 · « **Reply #460 on:** Nov 29, 2006 at 07:35 AM »

The Ps3 is quite heavy. 100 dollar shipping might be in order. Sales tax is approx 40 dollars. The cheapest that you can get would be around 37000 pesos, if you are very lucky. Now here's the tricky part, PS3 is a hot commodity and will surely be slapped a duty. I had 4 low value packages from the US stopped at the customs and I paid 7300 pesos to get them out. At 740 dollars, The tax for this item might be around 8 thousand to 10 ,000 pesos

. Maybe by January, the price will come down a little bit.

At Ebay, they are still selling for 1050US plus shipping with Taladega nights as the free movie title. At 49000 (titles excluded from the price.) its a reasonable offer considering all the risk. At least if you buy it here, you have a 7 day replacement and 6 month service warranty and you get it when you pay for it. Less sleepless nights

barrister · « **Reply #461 on:** Dec 02, 2006 at 03:46 PM »

Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray Disc Player Released

http://news.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/10381/297264.html

alvinthx2 · « **Reply #462 on:** Dec 03, 2006 at 07:37 AM »

Apparently the Sony stand alone player can output LPCM but it does not specify that it can decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD. I believe the earlier Panasonic and Samsung players cannot do this also. It will not play your CD, SACD and has no support for HDMI 1.3 as well as support for 1080p via component. And the PS3 is 40% cheaper

alvinthx2 · « **Reply #463 on:** Dec 03, 2006 at 09:05 AM »

From my observations(very subjective) Blu-ray is a tad sharper than HD DVD, maybe 1 to 2%sharper. I have been an early adopter of the 2 formats, and I must say I cannot be more happy kahit hindi ako mag Enervon

av_phile1 · « **Reply #464 on:** Dec 03, 2006 at 08:02 PM »

Now that's quite rare. Most early adopters at various avforums who own players on both formats, especially at www.avforums.com, are thrashng Blu ray for its soft artifact laden mpeg2 encoding prevalent in many of their eaarly releases, especially Sony releases that are nowhere near VC1 of HD-DVD. Warner releases are an improvement because they use VC1. And if you look at this site, Blu ray is performing poorly eversince it launched.

http://www.thedvdwars.com/index.cfm

Interesting to see that the HD-DVD of Superman Returns, costing more, outranks its Blu ray counterpart in terms of sales/pre-orders at amazon. And it's odd, considering many are saying the release of the PS3 will cause BD sales to immediately shoot up. It hasn't happend more than a week after its release in the US and Japan.

Personally, I might not really care which format wins, both will most likely carve their high definition niche market just like SACD/DVD-A did. I wouldn't root for a winner. But I might root for a loser. And my vote goes to Blu ray. I know the format is backed by a consortium. But knowing that Sony will win or lose the most by it, and with my sentiments against that company, I prefer to see it eat the same dust it ate with the betamax fiasco.

But that's just me ofcourse.

alvinthx2 · « **Reply #465 on:** Dec 05, 2006 at 09:07 AM »

Here's my equipment list first:

Anthem Avm50
Elac 600 series(front stage)
Monitor audio GR series(side and back)
Classe Amplification
Balanced cabling
Panasonic Ptae900 (soon replaced)
Draper 106 inch m2500 screen
Ps3
Hd-A1
EAD Thetervision P
Pioneer 969 DVD
All HDMI cabling
HTPC

Testing equipment:
Terrasonde Audio toolbox
Audio control 3050 Rta
Datacolor Colorfacts 6.0 Color Analyzer.

Software:
22 HD dvd's
7 Blu-ray disc

The comments that I gave are subjective but based on good objective equipments that I have. It is based on my personal equipments and views.

The comments made at AVS were based mostly before the PS3 came about (November 17). It was based on the 2 BD players available at that time namely the Samsung 1000 and the Panasonic BD10. Samsung admitted that their player has a problem with their sharpness control on 1 of their chip which resulted in a very soft picture. In the case of the Panasonic unit, it performed much better than the Samsung but with a 30% premium on its price. Now comes the PS3 with firmware 1.11 which has better specs than the 2 full pledged BD players.

To be fair with this observation, I use the gennum video scaler/processor with my Anthem AVM50 which down-convert the 1080p output of the PS3 to the native 720p resolution of my Panny 900. As I have stated before, the subjective picture quality advantage of the PS3 might just be 2% with a margin of error 3:

. It might just be that I am in Awe and still feeling good about my purchase of the PS3 or I was dead tired when I was evaluating the HD dvd version of King Kong.

Tears of the Sun is a very good transfer for the BD camp and I would recommend it highly. Its another Bruce Willis reference material

Clondalkin · « **Reply #466 on:** Dec 05, 2006 at 10:22 AM »

How do you qualify 1 to 2% difference? Thanks.

av_phile1 · « **Reply #467 on:** Dec 05, 2006 at 11:54 AM »

Quote from: alvinthx2 on Dec 05, 2006 at 09:07 AM

Here's my equipment list first:

Anthem Avm50
Elac 600 series(front stage)
Monitor audio GR series(side and back)
Classe Amplification
Balanced cabling
Panasonic Ptae900 (soon replaced)
Draper 106 inch m2500 screen
Ps3
Hd-A1
EAD Thetervision P
Pioneer 969 DVD
All HDMI cabling
HTPC

Testing equipment:
Terrasonde Audio toolbox
Audio control 3050 Rta
Datacolor Colorfacts 6.0 Color Analyzer.

Software:
22 HD dvd's
7 Blu-ray disc

The comments that I gave are subjective but based on good objective equipments that I have. It is based on my personal equipments and views.

The comments made at AVS were based mostly before the PS3 came about (November 17). It was based on the 2 BD players available at that time namely the Samsung 1000 and the Panasonic BD10. Samsung admitted that their player has a problem with their sharpness control on 1 of their chip which resulted in a very soft picture. In the case of the Panasonic unit, it performed much better than the Samsung but with a 30% premium on its price. Now comes the PS3 with firmware 1.11 which has better specs than the 2 full pledged BD players.

To be fair with this observation, I use the gennum video scaler/processor with my Anthem AVM50 which down-convert the 1080p output of the PS3 to the native 720p resolution of my Panny 900. As I have stated before, the subjective picture quality advantage of the PS3 might just be 2% with a margin of error 3: . It might just be that I am in Awe and still feeling good about my purchase of the PS3 or I was dead tired when I was evaluating the HD dvd version of King Kong.

Tears of the Sun is a very good transfer for the BD camp and I would recommend it highly. Its another Bruce Willis reference material

Nice set-up you have there. It does compare with a lot of reviewers on the net with reference grade gears. But it seems to me a waste to use a game console for High Def viewing, wouldn't you say? For testing, maybe. A lot of serious HT enthusiasts on many AV forums have opined they wouldn't be caught dead using a game console for their HT viewing. That's often reserved for their kids or in the game room.

Rather snobbish I must say. But that's really the least of the sins in this hobby.

At any rate, if you noticed a 2% difference in your comparison

, good for you. I don't know what titles you have used in your comparison, but I think it would interesting and more fair if you compared some warner titles released in both formats, like Superman Returns, whose BD version is way below the HD-DVD version at Amazon in terms of sales and preorder ranking, (I wonder why?)

And yes you are right, early adopters have compared the BD and HD-DVD using stand-alone players, as it should be. The PS3 is a game console that SONY is needlessly attempting to position as a media center that can play virtually all video formats (except HD-DVD). Don't know if that will succeed. And I am not entirely convinced, with all the write ups and reviews and posts on forums I've visited and read, that a game console would be better than a dedicated stand-alone player for either HD-DVD or BD. The PS3 may use the most powerful and advanced cell technology for home use, but that's more for the games. But that's just me ofcourse.

alvinthx2 · « **Reply #468 on:** Dec 05, 2006 at 12:35 PM »

Quote from: Clondalkin on Dec 05, 2006 at 10:22 AM

How do you qualify 1 to 2% difference? Thanks.

Color saturation
Accuracy of color
Perceived sharpness
Overall Sound Quality

Even if I state that there is a 10% difference it will be subject to debate. To my eyes and ears, a 1 to 2% difference is negligible because it will be mostly the software that will determine the overall quality of the experience. I just cannot say that they are exactly the same because they are not. Its not like judging a VCD and a DVD player because the DVD player will come out the winner everytime. Both BD and HD DVD are up there in terms of quality and I believe any judgment on who will win is just wishful thinking.

I want them both to win, it would be a shame if just 1 camp will win. Sayang naman ang collection ko

alvinthx2 · « **Reply #469 on:** Dec 05, 2006 at 12:48 PM »

Quote from: av_phile1 on Dec 05, 2006 at 11:54 AM

Nice set-up you have there. It does compare with a lot of reviewers on the net with reference grade gears. But it seems to me a waste to use a game console for High Def viewing, wouldn't you say? For testing, maybe. A lot of serious HT enthusiasts on many AV forums have opined they wouldn't be caught dead using a game console for their HT viewing. That's often reserved for their kids or in the game room. Rather snobbish I must say. But that's really the least of the sins in this hobby.

At any rate, if you noticed a 2% difference in your comparison , good for you. I don't know what titles you have used in your comparison, but I think it would interesting and more fair if you compared some warner titles released in both formats, like Superman Returns, whose BD version is way below the HD-DVD version at Amazon in terms of sales and preorder ranking, (I wonder why?)

And yes you are right, early adopters have compared the BD and HD-DVD using stand-alone players, as it should be. The PS3 is a game console that SONY is needlessly attempting to position as a media center that can play virtually all video formats (except HD-DVD). Don't know if that will succeed. And I am not entirely convinced, with all the write ups and reviews and posts on forums I've visited and read, that a game console would be better than a dedicated stand-alone player for either HD-DVD or BD. The PS3 may use the most powerful and advanced cell technology for home use, but that's more for the games. But that's just me ofcourse.

I know that the best comparison would be using the same title under both formats. I am not a reviewer but a plain hobbyist. It would be expensive if I have both formats.

I have been an audio/videophile for a long time now. I agree that it seems futile to use a game console as a dedicated Blu-ray player. But the way stand alone players were crafted need a lot to be desired. My PS3 is just the unit that will bridge me through until a REAL honest to goodness stand alone player comes by. I don't see this in the next 6 months. With none of the present and upcoming dedicated players on the horizon having hdmi 1.3, no lossless surround decoding as well as SACD output via HDMI, I think I will stick it out with the PS3 as my Blu-ray player. After 6 months, I will just give it to my son

akyatbundok · « **Reply #470 on:** Dec 05, 2006 at 01:18 PM »

i don't see how a game console can't be better, its more demanding on processor & graphics.

as far as corporate greed is concerned, i actually prefer $ony over micro$oft (just me)..... but there's only so much that a company or brand can do for you, its the experience of using the product that matters.

i'm in neutral territory in this format "war"..... i much rather get 720p DivX movies on double-sided DVD media right now at near-DVD prices, and play them on inexpensive DVD/DivX players..... i don't see 1080p TV's or PJ's being anywhere near affordable in the next 6 mos.

just lurking to see who's winning on 1080p.

Clondalkin · « **Reply #471 on:** Dec 05, 2006 at 02:16 PM »

Well I imagine if I were in Alvinthx2's place, I would certainly buy 1 common title for BD and HD-DVD out of extreme curiosity and unbearable technical itch and give it an extensive video in 1- 2 test using the same monitors (my CRT HDTV and LCD). And as I've always done in all previous electronic purchases, my family would help in assessing which one looks better than the other, especially my wife who is really a pain when it comes to color saturation and accuracy. I think that would help me decide on future purchases of titles that are available in both formats. Of course, that would be assuming the quality of transfers are reasonably high for both formats.

At the moment, I really don't care if a device is first and foremost a gaming console or a powerful PC. I'm extremely pleased with the performance of the HD-DVD add on drive for the Xbox360 and it's even significantly faster than the first gen stand-alone Toshiba, albeit the absence of HDMI support (yet). If ever I find the need to purchase a BD player right now, I would not hesitate to get a PS3

By the way, I am starting to feel the power and advantage of having so many studios backing-up one format over the other, but it's not that serious yet. Whatever, I will not be making any double dips anyway, and, I have been watching and enjoying my current HD-DVD titles like more than 3x each.

av_phile1 · « **Reply #472 on:** Dec 05, 2006 at 02:21 PM »

Quote from: akyatbundok on Dec 05, 2006 at 01:18 PM

as far as corporate greed is concerned, i actually prefer $ony over micro$oft (just me)..... but there's only so much that a company or brand can do for you, its the experience of using the product that matters.

$ony and Micro$oft belong in the same category of greedy companies. It's not really the abundance of greed that peeves me. All companies have them in varying measures. But between the two, I find $ony's greed the most arrogant as it takes its customers for fools. Not only that, it attempts to do a Micro$oft in the entertainment business not just to win market shares but to control its constomers with prioprietary formats that essentially have no value whatsoever. My take on this is better explained in the thread: "What I think of Sony" in the Display section I think.

Quote

i'm in neutral territory in this format "war"..... i much rather get 720p DivX movies on double-sided DVD media right now at near-DVD prices, and play them on inexpensive DVD/DivX players..... i don't see 1080p TV's or PJ's being anywhere near affordable in the next 6 mos.

I'd love to be neutral as well, as I have neither formats as yet and would most likely sit it out until a winner emerges. My apparent rooting for HD-DVD is really more an academic exercise based on the pathetic half-baked launch of the BD that really took its customers as fools, anyway you look at it. And I love underdogs. HD-DVD is an underdog whom every pundit thought wouldn't last long in the presence of the BD studio and manufacturing juggernaut. But it launched its products ahead of BD and came out with near flying colors. And is now 2-3 mos ahead of BD in terms of sales of gears and titles. In fact, a number of Studios are expected to support both formats come early next year at CEDIA. OTH, $ony had a half-baked launch player and titles that was lambasted from day one for its lousy quality. $ony failed to match it promise. Toshiba didn't promise as much but came out winning the first rounds of the batte. BD is now on catch-up mode.

Quote

just lurking to see who's winning on 1080p.

If I can make a suggestion, there are plenty of British and US-based AV forums that are teeming with reviews, debates, impressions and discussions on the two formats. They have dozens of members who are early adopters and are video gurus to some extent. www.avforumscom is one. The other is www.avsforum.com. If you want to lurk to find out who's winning, they have a wealth of information.

av_phile1 · « **Reply #473 on:** Dec 05, 2006 at 02:34 PM »

Quote from: alvinthx2 on Dec 05, 2006 at 12:48 PM

I know that the best comparison would be using the same title under both formats. I am not a reviewer but a plain hobbyist. It would be expensive if I have both formats.

At least just one title. Though there are other differences apart from PQ. Like interactivity and audio quality. If I had the players on both format, I'd surely get at least one title on both just to satisfy my curiosity, wouldn't you?

barrister · « **Reply #474 on:** Dec 05, 2006 at 10:13 PM »

Magastos yata yun, a. Ako, babasa na lang ako ng review.

============================================================================

Round One - Same titles, same masters, same studio, different video codecs:

Training Day, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Rumor Has It... ---- HD DVD was released first, followed by Blu-ray about one month later. Both formats were released by the same company (Warner), using the same masters.

Winner: HD DVD, because its picture quality (VC-1 codec) was simply better than Blu-ray's (MPEG-2 codec). http://www.highdefdigest.com/feature_blurayvshddvd_firstcomparison.html

----------------------------------------

Round Two - Same titles, same masters, same studio, SAME VIDEO CODECS:

Firewall, Lethal Weapon, and Blazing Saddles --- HD DVD was released first, followed by Blu-ray; both formats were released by the same company (Warner), using the same masters. This time, however, Warner used the VC-1 video codec on the Blu-ray releases for the above titles.

Now that both formats used the same video codec, using the same masters in the same titles released by the same studio, who won?

Peter M. Bracke says it's a draw.

1. Firewall --- "I would say the Blu-ray and the HD DVD are like Xerox copies of each other." http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/firewall.html

2. Lethal Weapon --- "I would say the Blu-ray and the HD DVD are exact replicas of each other." http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/lethalweapon.html

3. Blazing Saddles --- "The result was that as I found with my Blu-ray reviews of 'Firewall' and 'Lethal Weapon,' any differences between the Blu-ray and the HD DVD are invisible." http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/blazingsaddles.html

========================================================================

Quote from: av_phile1 on Dec 05, 2006 at 02:21 PM

If I can make a suggestion, there are plenty of British and US-based AV forums that are teeming with reviews, debates, impressions and discussions on the two formats.

Related article: Bad Buzz for Blu-ray http://blogs.business2.com/utilitybelt/2006/12/report_bad_buzz.html

av_phile1 · « **Reply #475 on:** Dec 05, 2006 at 10:45 PM »

Very true, Barrister. Some avforums are saying that the format war has become a codec war with Sony foolishly insisting that mpeg2 is just as good or better than VC1 at higher bitrates. And it's so obivous that Sony needed a BD50 in order to bring up the mpeg2 bitrates to be close (not really close) to the PQ of the more efficient and artifact-free VC1. IOW, BD needed dual layer 50gb of storage just to match HD-DVD's 20GB single layer discs. Now, after a preponderance of reviewers bashing mpeg2, Sony is finally acknowledging that it will eventually go VC1 or MPEG4. What a waste of initial titles that really put BD at a disadvantage. I am sure these titles will be reissued in VC1 sooner or later.

For Sony to insists on using an inferior decades old codec when a better codec is available is a real disservice to its customers. They are foisting old codec technology on a supposedly NEXT GEN format. Just because the codec is made by Microsoft.

Good thing there's Warner that uses VC1 on both its HD DVD and BD releases.

Clondalkin · « **Reply #476 on:** Dec 06, 2006 at 08:46 AM »

I imagine that with my relatively small 32 and 37 inch HDTVS, I would probably have a hard time figuring out the difference in sharpness. Color saturation probably yes, but that supposition is based on my experience with various video cam makes and not based on codecs. The 3 HD-DVD titles I've watched so far are highly vivid. Color accuracy, that would be difficult because most likely, I have not seen the actual scene in life.

Still, I hope to find a chance to make actual comparisons of same titles for both formats. If only I have a PS3 right now...he he he

krazy · « **Reply #477 on:** Dec 06, 2006 at 01:49 PM »

Quote from: av_phile1 on Dec 05, 2006 at 10:45 PM

Very true, Barrister. Some avforums are saying that the format war has become a codec war with Sony foolishly insisting that mpeg2 is just as good or better than VC1 at higher bitrates. And it's so obivous that Sony needed a BD50 in order to bring up the mpeg2 bitrates to be close (not really close) to the PQ of the more efficient and artifact-free VC1. IOW, BD needed dual layer 50gb of storage just to match HD-DVD's 20GB single layer discs. Now, after a preponderance of reviewers bashing mpeg2, Sony is finally acknowledging that it will eventually go VC1 or MPEG4. What a waste of initial titles that really put BD at a disadvantage. I am sure these titles will be reissued in VC1 sooner or later. For Sony to insists on using an inferior decades old codec when a better codec is available is a real disservice to its customers. They are foisting old codec technology on a supposedly NEXT GEN format. Just because the codec is made by Microsoft. Good thing there's Warner that uses VC1 on both its HD DVD and BD releases.

The comparisons between VC-1 HD-DVD's and early MPEG2 BD releases are actually unfair because the early BD titles were in the BD25 format because BD50 discs were not yet ready at that time. Granted Sony made the mistake of using MPEG2 on BD25 discs, that does not mean that MPEG2 is inferior to AVC or VC-1 provided the correct bitrates for the respective codecs are used. Sure, fitting an MPEG2 encoded movie on a BD25 disc will make it look inferior to a VC-1 encoded HD-DVD15 because of the reduded MPEG2 bitrate to make it fit on the BD25 disc. However, now that BD50 disc production is available, there should be no difference between video quality on VC1 HD-DVD's and MPEG2 BD50 discs. In fact the reason why Sony is sticking with MPEG2 on BD50's is that MPEG2 is a simpler codec meaning there's less processing needed and results in less compression artefacts, albeit requiring more space which with BD50 discs is no longer an issue

nels76 · « **Reply #478 on:** Dec 06, 2006 at 02:27 PM »

This is gonna be a very interesting discussion.

I will sit here and watch these PinoyDVD gurus share their opinions on this "Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD" thing.

barrister · « **Reply #479 on:** Dec 06, 2006 at 02:45 PM »

Quote from: krazy on Dec 06, 2006 at 01:49 PM

However, now that BD50 disc production is available, there should be no difference between video quality on VC1 HD-DVD's and MPEG2 BD50 discs. In fact the reason why Sony is sticking with MPEG2 on BD50's is that MPEG2 is a simpler codec meaning there's less processing needed and results in less compression artefacts, albeit requiring more space which with BD50 discs is no longer an issue

We are talking about the same titles already released on both formats. Now, if you can discuss an existing single title on both formats, one on HD DVD in VC-1, and the other on BD-50 in MPEG-2, then let's hear it.

Quote from: krazy on Dec 06, 2006 at 01:49 PM

The comparisons between VC-1 HD-DVD's and early MPEG2 BD releases are actually unfair because the early BD titles were in the BD25 format because BD50 discs were not yet ready at that time.

Why would HD DVD-15 vs. BD-25 be unfair to Blu-ray when the latter already has 10 GB to its advantage?

You say that a fair comparison should be between HD DVD-15 vs. BD-50? How fair is that?