Bliss

I am in complete and utter bliss!

As many of you know, I've been wanting a Playstation 3 for, oh, since before they came out. Well, I've been saving and saving, and it always seemed like something always came up and I had to spend my saved money on other, more important, things.

Well, I picked up some extra work, and it paid for my PS3, and a couple games! My boy and I have been in 7th heaven!

I've played it and even watched a movie or 2. The upconverting from it to my HD TV is incredible. I can't wait till I get a Blu-Ray movie to watch!

While talking to my wife about some details on setting it up. She commented that whatever I did, she didn't want any more remote controls. I guess needing 3 remotes just to watch TV was a bit much. Anyway, I did some looking and found the Harmony 550 remote control at Amazon for about $50. Harmony remotes are great. You can set them up to run just about any IR device, and if it doesn't have the device in it's database, if you have the remote, it will learn from it. Harmony's can get very pricey, but the 550 looked like it would do everything I wanted, and $50 wasn't too bad. Especially if it makes my wife happy.

Well, the remote came in the mail today, and I finally got it all set up. The TV, Satellite and Surround Sound are now all working off of one remote. One of the coolest features is I can turn on ALL the devices with the press of a button (well 2, the activate button and then "watch TV").
And all the devices turn off with the press of the power button.

Needless to say, I'm a very happy camper right now.

Format Wars Over!

It truly may be the end of the format wars.

I've already talked about Best Buy and Netflix, but last week Walmart was added to the Blu-Ray only stores.

Then today, Toshiba announces that it is to quit producing HD DVD's!!!

Stick a fork in it, it's done.

Blu-Ray v HD-DVD update

I heard some great news today. It appears that Netflix is phasing out it's HD-DVD and going to only carry Blu-Ray.

This is great news on many fronts. Mainly cause I think think will help bring the end of this format war to a close. Format wars are not good for anyone, especially us consumers.

More studios are going Blu-Ray only than HD-DVD. Blu-Ray sales are also out pacing HD-DVD. I've said all along I hope Blu-Ray wins this war. But I'll not count my disks till they are burned so to speak. I've read specs and articles till I'm blue in the face (no pun intended). I've seen and heard the pro's and con's of both formats, and I've still chosen Blu-Ray.

Hopefully this event will help.

HD DVD and Blu-ray Compared Again

While reading Gizmodo.com today, I found a very interesting article.

HD DVD and Blu-ray Compared Using Identical Source Material - Gizmodo

The movies Training Day, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Rumor Has It have all be released in both HD DVD and Blu-Ray formats. Finally, a head to head comparison of the new formats.

The article compares them, and ranks HD DVD as the superior product. However, upon further inspections, this is not a complete apples to apples comparison. It appears that the codecs used to encode the movies were not the same. The movies on Blu-ray used MPEG-2 while the movies for HD DVD used VC-1. And the VC-1 codec is a superior codec.

Since both Blu-ray and HD DVD can use the VC-1 codec, there is much speculation as to why they did not use it.

So, though this first comparison of the 2 new formats clearly had HD DVD as the winner, but there are several factors that leaves that conclusion to be doubted.

I personally believe that the Blu-ray will be the superior product when it is all said and done. However, as we learned in the VHS/Beta-max wars, the superior product does not always win.

Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: What You Need to Know

While doing some reading on the Net, I found this article on PC Magazine's web page. Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: What You Need to Know

It's a good read even for the non-technical people out there.

As many comments I've read have said, "wait". I tend to agree. Don't go buy one of these players until you either

a. Know who is going to win this battle
b. Don't care, and are willing to throw your money into the format (and possibly be wrong).

Of course, if you do not have a High Def TV, then this doesn't matter, not yet anyway.

As for me? I think the Blu-Ray will eventually win, but that is my gut feeling and not supported by any evidence.