JsARCLIGHT

I'm JsARCLIGHT everywhere... and I have been known to "get around".

Folks might have seen me on AR15.com, Glocktalk, Uzitalk, HKPro.com, etc. etc. etc.

"You're only cool if you bought a Ps3 for it to be a blu-ray player, waaaaa, waaaaa" Grow up. The act of being a snob doesn't make you better than anyone else, it just makes you a snob.

Actually for the longest time, and in many cases still, the PS3 is the premier Blu Ray player value on the market. To call someone a "snob" for purchasing it simply for the Blu Ray player function is a tad narrow, don't you think?

And this is me being a mod here guys... please... tone it down. The next "dickhead" crack I read gets someone a time out. Personal insults are not really SOP here guys so let's rise above the fray... Debate the issues, not the person posting. If you can't argue your point without bashing the person you are arguing with please just don't post. It's not that the mods don't want debate, we don't want name calling and fights.

Well, it's best to buy for what you primarily do, TV wise. My intent is to see 1080p/24 movies via Blu Ray, so my upcoming TV purchase is putting emphasis on maximum stats. I really want to get my Xbox to output 1080p for HD DVDs as well but I don't know if it can until I try my VGA cable on my new set when I get it. "Gaming" comes second to me and to be honest I don't care much if my Xbox (or PS3) is upscaling itself to meet my monitor's resolution. Seeing as how most "next gen" games are only made to run at 720p or 540px1080i I figure I'm always going to be seeing something that is upscaled... except for the PS3... it seems to output native resolutions. When using my PS3 and playing a demo of a game that is in 720p my plasma shifts itself to 720, telling me it's receiving a 720 signal, but when the game is over and it goes back to the menu system it pops back to 1080i.

Optical is optical... it's a pure digital signal. Very, very little chance of signal degradation.

Will you get better sound? No. Will your receiver receive better data? Yes. It doesn't sound like it can do anything with that data though.

And then you have the whole questions of speaker power, cable they are hooked up with, distance and elevation relative to the listener, etc. etc. etc... but it all boils down to: Dolby 2.1 at best.

Is that minidisc optical a TOSlink? If it is then that is still optical to optical and should work. From what I understand of minidisc optical they are supposed to be regular TOSlink optical, just they named it "minidisc". Kind of like how my receiver has presets for VIDEO, DVD and MP3. I could plug whatever the heck I wanted into those slots as long as the connections were right.

Well, certain encodes of audio cannot travel over "lesser" connections like RCA jacks. They need a pure digital connection like optical or HDMI. HDMI is basically a "one stop shop" in that it carries full range digital video and audio, so if you have a setup like mine at home it goes PS3 HDMI -> AV Receiver -> Plasma. One cable going out of the PS3 and one cable going out of the Receiver, no muss no fuss. My freaking Xbox on the other hand is stuck with a VGA cable running straight to the TV and an optical cable going straight to the receiver.

When "watching Blu Ray" all I have to do is press the "video" button on my remote and the receiver sets itself for the PS3 to the TV and bing, good to go. Whereas with the Xbox I have to change the TV setting and then change the receiver setting (which is a bunch of 'flip flip flip flip'-ing on two different remotes). I've been meaning to get a new Xbox with HDMI so I can route it through my receiver as well and have one button swiching for it as well... but alas my priority is getting this old 42" 1080i plasma out and a newer 50" 1080p set in it's place before I even think about getting new Xboxes.

The throughput in the television will not translate the audio right. He's talking about using the TV as a jumper between the source and the receiver.

Edit: and Mike is right, the pecking order for modern HD electronics is source -> receiver -> TV... and usually your TV is only used as a monitor with it's own inboard sound disabled. In your situation Dave I'd just run an optical cable to the receiver and not even worry about throughput through the TV.

Edit Edit: HD monitors have digital outs so you can string a bunch of them together running off of one source. My office has three LCD sets in our lobby all running off of one player. They are all just linked to each other, the output goes Nitris -> AV receiver -> TV1 -> TV2 -> TV3.

No smiley, me takey seriously.

Back on topic, I'm also kind of interested to see where they take the Shia angle... his character shows the signs of being a greaser and I wonder if he is a "young Indy" like River Phoenix was, rebellious but smart, or if he's just a bratty "rebel" punk kid who "learns to respect his pop" in the movie.

LOL, "Beat generation? You mean like Run DMC and all those 80's rappers?"

Hell, the modern movie going public probably wouldn't even know Run DMC.

I'm guessing the next gross-out swarm will be snakes again. Bring it all full-circle.

You don't know the beat generation? Beatniks? Jack Kerouac? On the Road? Damnation Peak? Some good reading if you ever want to get into it.

Run DMC would be the "Beat Box" generation.

IMHO it's also all about "buzz"... about that intangible popular flow. Right now everyone I know is talking Xbox this and Xbox that, no one is talking PS3. I see more and more PS3 TV commercials lately but they just fall flat for me... they don't make me want to go out and buy a PS3 (even though I already own one).

But the question is is it Sony's marketing machine that is failing? Are we all just too stupid to see the glory that is the PS3? Or is it just what it is, to expensive, too late to the fight with too much hype with too little payoff in an already crowded game market. This christmas will tell for sure. As it stands I see no Wiis in stock anywhere, Xboxes seem to be selling "briskly" and PS3's seem to be the same ones from the summer with that same covering of dust on them. And now that Samsung has broken the $300 Blu ray player mark the PS3's value as a Blu ray player is going to start to diminish as well.

As usual, don't get me wrong I love my PS3... it looks cool and it plays Blu rays, which are the only two things I bought it to do. As a consumer I'm satisfied. If I bought it to play games I'd be a little disappointed right about now... but I'm still going to wait for GT5. GT5 will probably be the only game I'm going to own for this system and yes I am setting myself up for an "all my eggs in one basket" sort of letdown.

Too soon.

It would be beatniks if anything, then again the modern movie going public public wouldn't know the "beat generation" from much else.

Personally I feel Temple of Doom is the cheesiest, hoakiest Indy movie. Short Round is to blame for that. At least Last Crusade had a ton of Nazi punching and even a little face melting. Plus Last Crusade is the most quotable of all the Indy movies.

They've got a tank... with a six pound gun... Don't worry dad we're well out of range.

A big question that I have for the new Indy movie is what does everyone think will be the big "gross out swarm" in this movie? Raiders had snakes, Temple had bugs, Crusade had rats... what else is there?

I'm still patiently awaiting Gran Turismo 5. Until then my PS3 is a wonderful Blu Ray player... but as far as being a "game console" it's gotten about as much use as a nuclear arsenal. It's neat to look at and the potential is still there but aside from the odd short lived test it's never really been deployed. It seems every game I want comes out on the Xbox... or if it's multi platform and I seriously consider getting it for the PS3 something conspires to make me get it for the Xbox instead.

Well it's no real secret that Monster Cables are pretty much blah. It's always been my assumption that the English word "Monster" must mean "sucker" in some language.

Not to sound like an ass but are they really cat2 certified? I've seen a lot of cheapie cheap cables online claim a lot of things and then have them wind up being regular off the shelf crap cables from China. Call me suspicious but $10 for a 1.3 cat2 cable sounds really deceptively cheap.

Are they Cat2 certified?

An interesting article on all the audio mumbo jumbo:

"Lossless" versus Uncompressed

Which kind of goes with what I've always heard, and what I've always heard being "there is no real difference" and that bitrate matters more than how the audio is actually encoded or what format it's on.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... some cartoons simply should not be made into movies.

I liked speed racer as a kid and I still like it today for it's campy goofiness but that trailer that I just saw gave me cancer. Seriously... it needs to be encased in concrete and pushed into the ocean for the sake of the children. I understand what they are trying to do but you just can't manufacture camp... camp just happens... and when you try too hard you get that trailer. It reminds me of that crap Thunderbirds movie they rolled out a while back and I have no doubt this one will go down in flames just the same.

That is another angle that bugs me... when people say that something that was released on one format "would be so much better" on the other format. We'll never know that and to say as much is opinion or a guess. It's like someone saying the Mustang would have been so much better if Chevy made it and then listing the technical reasons why the Chevy small block is "superior" as their proof. Specs are specs and they are all well and good if you are measuring to see who's boat is bigger... but at the end of the day it's what you do with that boat that counts. IMHO Michael Bay should be tracking down the studio stooge that encoded his movie rather than blasting the format it's on... if you ask me that is a sign of someone with an agenda to push and not a legitimate issue to air.

And my point was that technical superiority means nothing if the end result looks exactly the same. You can have a good driver in a four banger grocery getter outrun a crap driver in a Viper. Comparing the possibilities does not directly correlate to the reality of how the technology is used. When a big first run movie comes out they dump everything they can into it to give it the best possible transfer they can muster. The lack of "lossless" audio on the transformers movie was due to them jamming all that useless bonus crap on the disc. They made a judgment call to do that... Bay may or may not have been a part of that (my guess is not). The actual act of encoding of the movie is what would have caused any changes in light level or picture quality between the studio master and the MPEG4 codec encoding, not the media it is presented on. That movie would have had the same video encode if it was Blu Ray or HD DVD because the movie was most likely encoded before the studio decided to side with HD DVD exclusivity.

My entire line is not about formats but about Michael Bay's immature and spited comments about things he probably doesn't understand. Just because the guy makes movies does not make him knowledgeable about the technical specifics of them. Hell, every director I've ever met or worked for was "technically handicapped" to the point that people had to explain things to them. This whole "Blu Ray vs. HD DVD" thing is a Hollywood buddies club fight and most of the vocal supporters of both formats are as such because they know someone who knows someone who told them that they really should support this format. I mean hell George Lucas was so married to Laserdisc that it took us how long to get Star Wars on DVD?

Format is format, encode is encode. Bay is just bitching because he has an agenda. Everything has to be cut down to fit. What Bay sees on his Flint running a straight feed to his reference monitor is not possible with consumer grade blu ray and hd dvd. It all has to be encoded, compressed and put on a disc... and when a studio releases dual format they use the exact same video on both.

Every single dual format disc on the market runs the exact same encoding using the exact same codec. Play a movie like Road Warrior that is on both Blu Ray and HD DVD on a studio reference monitor using the same connections at the same resolution and the pictures will look exactly the same. Exactly. Happy Feet on either format looks exactly the same as well. They all do. Every dual format release... even the ones that rank 5 stars... which shows us that format means nothing, it's all about the encoding.

One format having a supposed specs advantage means nothing if they don't capitalize on it, which they rarely do. Michael Bay's movies if released on Blu Ray would look exactly the same and use the exact same codec as they do on HD DVD. His studio is not going to cut two different runs of his crap just to "take advantage" of one format's supposed superior angles. It's just not done. If and when Bay gets his Blu Ray release it will look just like the HD DVD release. And if and when all the Blu Ray movies get ported to HD DVD they will also be exactly the same.

For Bay to mouth off and claim that his movies would automatically look better on Blu Ray is like me saying my driving would automatically be better if I drove a Porsche rather than a BMW. The car does not decide the driver just as the format does not decide the encode. "Available space" is more than ample in both formats, it all comes down to how much "bonus" junk they glut the disc with.

Edit: the whole point I'm trying to make is that this whole "issue" of which format is "superior" is a matter of opinion and not fact. BOTH formats have excellent 5 star feature laden releases and both have total dogs... and most of that difference has to do more with how much effort the studio put into their release rather than some technical specs related limitations. IMHO it just looks bad for directors to blame formats for problems that are not really the format's fault. Plus this is Michael Bay we are talking about... the guy obviously has a serious chip on his shoulder over this whole thing and he is the LAST person I expect to be impartial about HD media formats. If he is so pissed off then perhaps he should have paid attention the first time around and been involved in the process and had greater creative control over "his" art when it's released on video like many top flight directors do. Any "arguments" that man puts forward are sour grapes in my eyes.

But this is Micro$oft... They want your money, not your allegiance.

Which is pretty much bullshit.

Format means nothing, it's all in the encoding and how the film is compressed for video. For someone who supposedly "knows a lot" Bay sure is an idiot when it comes to his own craft.

Sin City will probably look terrible on HD IMHO. The movie just has all these filters and grain in it combined with a total lack of color (the big thing HD does really well)... I can't imagine a 1080p Blu Ray of it will be that big of an upgrade from the regular upconverted DVD. I would expect Sin City to look like Sleepy Hollow... all washed out, grainy and faded.

My question: Indiana Jones on Blu Ray where are you?

I buy almost all of my HD media off of Amazon lately. They routinely have an item for $20 that the local stores have for $25-$30. Plus no sales tax and if I order two movies at a time you get the free slow boat shipping.