Danno

Only as much as the 6 free HD-DVD deal Toshiba has had going since February.

Don't forget that they will still carry 360 add-ons, but I understand how having the standalones is a good move. Of course the problem is that they won't fly off the shelves at current prices - people seem to ignore it but HD-DVD standalones have been selling A LOT better than BR standalones and one reason is the price. I guess we'll have to see if Wal-Mart is going to introduce those sub-$200 HD-DVD standalones this holiday season or not. If so, then BR is going to have a bit more trouble than it bargained for. I know what you mean, but I wouldn't say they've sold "a lot more". HD-DVD stand alone players sold to date: 150,000 Link Blu-ray Stand Alone Players sold to date: 120,000 Link Whereas: PS3's sold to date: 1.8 Million Xbox 360 HD-addons sold to date: 50,000 and Movie sales are 2:1 in favor of Blu-Ray to date, with it being almost 4:1 since January. Also - Both LG and Samsung are planning Low cost ($200) Blu-Ray players for this fall.

Wow, a whole $20.

I don't get it, Target is going to start selling (possibly if people buy em) Blu-Ray players, in addition to HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Disks, and HD-DVD players (online) so that means the "war" is over and HD-DVD owners are SOL as of now? Man that sucks, good thing I have both. They do not carry HD-DVD players in their stores, and with this they will not, throughout the upcoming Christmas Shopping season. They are the Second Largest Retail Department store in the US. This is a HUGE move. When the Second largest retail store and the Largest movie rental chain tells HD-DVD "The party's over" they should probably listen, and stop the bleeding before it gets out of control.

And if the Blockbuster Blu-ray Only announcement weren't enough.... Target Stores jumps on the Blu-Ray bandwagon. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4999196.html Alas, Toshiba - you made a valiant effort. We bid you adieu.

I've seen surveys where something like 90% of the DVD consumers interviewed said they NEVER watch any of the extras and don't care about them. Yep. And There was another survey of Movie-capable Game Console owners, asking whether they use their Game Consoles to play movies. only 14 % of them responded yes. Pretty low considering the install base of the PS2, X-Box 360 & PS3. Which is funny, considering that 14% of the PS3 sales to date is equal to 100% of teh HD-DVD players sales TOTAL, including all standalone HD-DVD players. Sounds like Sony could have beat the Universal/Toshiba HD-DVD cabal all by themselves with a Game system, without any help from Stand alone Blu-Ray players. Yet, Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, LG, Denon, and Harmon Kardon are all manufacturing Blu-Ray players now as well.

that's right the number will change dramatically. Hd-DVD will have far more films no one has ever heard of, from dubious low quality independent sources, taking up vast amounts of shelf space in Amazon's warehouses, and not moving anywhere.

the fifth element disc was a manufacturing problem. They are re-issuing it, and replacing all the previous owner's discs for FREE. True, BD's don't have a ton of extras on them yet, but the 1080p transfer and Uncompressed audio takes up a whole lot of space. Also - Most BD's released so far AREN'T the 50gb Dual-layered discs. they are the 25 Gb single layered ones.

There's already new OE firmware being produced by other hackers.

Don't carry them around in a fanny pack and bump it against things. You KNOW you wear a fanny pack.

Don't use CDRwin. Use Alcohol 120%. It's got a much better compatitbility with most popstation converters than CDRwin.

Just Bought a Blu-Ray player. It's a Panasonic. I'm completely satisfied.

no, but some of the newer converters are quicker, and compress things a little better. also - PSX2PSP allows you to customize everything in the file, not just the icon and background. You can customize the warning image too.

The "i" word is interlaced. "Half that for each frame" is essentially right, but the terminology is "field", rather than "frame". One frame is two fields, and each field is either all of the odd or all of the even numbered horizontal lines in the frame. So a 1080i set shows you 540 of the lines (even or odd), then 1/60 second later shows the other 540 lines. A 720p set shows you all 720 of its lines every 1/60 second. A 1080p set would be all 1080 lines each 1/60 sec. HOWEVER, a 720p set is progressive, but it's display is 1280x720 progressive. a 1080i set is 1920x1080 interlaced. Even though a 720p set is progressive, it is a lower overall resolution.

The long and short of it is, even if all you want to do is run emulators, you HAVE TO do all the stuff shadow did just to get it to run. I've posted a million links on here as to how to do the downgrade/upgrade process. all told it takes maybe 20 minutes if you're patient enough to actually read the instructions. the best place to start is the tutorials in the forums over at www.psp-hacks.com. but my guess is you'll have a shiny new Sony Brick on your hands because you'll cut corners.

Did you even read through this thread? shadow460 was able to find the needed info in it and get his PSP running emus. yeah i read it smartass...i'm not sure what he was trying to do with his...i'm not really trying to do anything but set up a couple of basic things, no PS1 stuff or anything like that...not sure that i'm wanting to do the same thing he was wanting to do...was just asking if anyone had a how to link for just the Atari type stuff...i visited all of the links in the site and i'm still a bit confused, but that's cool...i'll figure it out...thanks for your help. Yeah I'm the smart ass. That's why CPUWIZ gave you the rolled eyes before me. Name calling is a great way to try to get some help there. Good luck with it. yeah and if you had been around here long enough to know what the was really about then you might understand it....and like i said...i'll figure it out..you were not providing much help anyway, just asking "did you even read this thread"...you missed my entire point which was that I did read it, and checked the links, and was still confused...and was asking if anyone had a link to a "ground zero how to" on any of it...more or less a good start point for just classic emu's or mame...but, all you were interested in was being a smartass...so that's cool...i'll figure it out myself...not a big deal...and thanks for your help. I've got your ground zero how-to right here.

3.40 oe also allows you to run ISO backups of your UMD's from an ISO folder on your memory stick. But really, the emulators, especially the Atari emulators and the built-in PSX emulator are the best part. I have two memory sticks now, one just for emu's and one just for PSP-isos. also customizing the XMB menu/background/waves is great. Here's what mine looks like now:

And I don't particularly want Microsoft trying to do the same, but they certainly are, even if they got a later start. Microsoft doesn't own any movie studios to go with the HD DVD format last I checked. Microsoft also doesn't own the music industry (CDs), nor have control over Columbia Tristar. Nor does Microsoft have any stand-alone HD DVD players on the market, or TVs to watch hi-def on. Sony is trying very hard to control every single entertainment dollar we have, coming from the music side, the Consumer Electronics side, and also with the Hollywood side. Microsoft doesn't even come close to the level of control that Sony has right now. It's very dangerous for Sony to have a complete monopoly in Entertainment, as it would be for Microsoft, except MS doesn't even approach the same amount of pure control that Sony has and is gaining. Controlling the OS market for PC's is pure peanuts to what Sony is doing. People aren't thinking at all about this, they just buy their crap and move on, but if it wasn't for the stiff competition coming from Toshiba and MS right now, even less people would be able to enjoy Blu-Ray because prices wouldn't have lowered so fast. And when I say lowered, I'm talking about Sony slashing prices on it's BDP-300 from $1000 down to $500. This would not have happened without HD DVD, and this is why it's pure foolishness for fans of High Definition to cheer for the demise of the competition, which you seem to be very fond of judging from your posts. I'll bet your player is a PS3 correct? Rooting against fair competition in the marketplace is not only very immature and a total misunderstanding of consumer pricing, but it's very selfish and anti-consumer/pro-big corporation. So you're saying that the PS3 would have launched at $1,000 last year if it weren't for HD-DVD?

You are correct on that. I was waiting to see if anyone would bring that up. I only made this up to show that there are many possiblities to do high def. I'm one of the people who feel that downloadable content will be the winner in this game. Cable and satellite providers already offer this and now there are providers that offer movies over the internet. BD and HDDVD will be the Laserdiscs of this generation. But you're missing the point. The HD format war all but ignores downloadable content, because 99% of downloadable content is NOT HD quality, otherwise download times would be ridiculous, even with FIOS or some of the faster internet connections available. No one wants to wait 3 days for a 25Gb HD movie to finish downloading. Downloadable content may well win the movie rental format war, but it will never be a replacement for HD quality. And Sure, HD won't really become standard anytime soon, but what market penetration it will have (probably 15% to 20%) will be more than enough to keep it afloat. If Apple has survived this long with their tiny market share, So will Blu-Ray.

Uh, a two sided DVD9 disc would be 18 gigs. About the same size as a single layer HD-DVD. You mean to tell me that a single layer HD-DVD isn't large enough to hold a high def movie? I brought up the X360 because it outputs high def with regular DVD's. Hell, some games on the original Xbox could output 720p. Digital data is digital data, doesn't matter if it is a movie, music, spreadsheet or a game. What is really wrong is your single mindedness that only the new formats can work for high def movies. Dumping them on a portable hard drive would be even better! You wouldn't even need a fancy new drive to read them. EDIT: A dual-sided DVD9 would hold 17.1 gigs, while a single layer HD-DVD holds 15 gigs. Movies on Single Layered HD-DVD's are encoded at a much higher compression rate. therefore the Quality of the resultant video is markedly lower. a Dual layered HD-DVD holds only slightly more than a single layered BD disc. No one is really making Double sided Dual Layered DVD drives because it's not cost effective. too many lasers, motors, etc.

If this isn't about HD gaming, then why do you care about the difference between 9Gb and 50Gb? What, do you find there just isn't enough room for all the "commentaries' on your DVDs, and you think even 9Gb isn't enough to hold them? Maybe you want all 6 Star Wars movies on one disc complete with features so that you can't lend out parts of the collection. Oh yes, thank God for that extra space. Clearly you don't know the first thing about digital video resolution. DVD-9 discs can BARELY hold 2 hours of video at standard DVD's maximum resolution of 720x480, unless you compress the shit out of it, which is the exact opposite of the purpose of HD video. at HD 1080p resolution, a normal 2 hour film takes up almost 35Gb's. But that's my point Danny. I've said a hundred times here that just HD is not a big enough feature to sell the format and then you talk about storage space doing it. If I don't think the video upgrade is enough and then I say I don't know what you are excited about the extra space for, why the frig are you assuming I was focusing on 1080p resoultion. Your entire defense of Blu-Ray is that you think people will stop buying great DVD players that you can get for $100 now with a harddrive and $20 without one, and will pay $5 more a movie because for a certain minority of the market the video quality will be slightly better. And in the amount of time it will take for it to matter for the majority, you don't think someone will come up with an actual upgrade. Way to put words in my mouth. My only "defense" of blu-ray is that of the two new formats, it is clearly the technically superior. that, and with the exception of Universal Studios, the Film Industry has embraced Blu-Ray, and not HD-DVD. I don't assume people will do anything. People are already doing something. Blu-Ray players and Discs are clearly outselling HD-DVD, and are are selling at a MUCH better pace than standard DVD was at this point in it's lifecycle. In 1997, a year after DVD's launch, only 300,000 units had sold. To date, Blu-Ray has sold nearly 2,000,000 units in it's first year. And for those of you who are using the "I'm waiting for something better" excuse: enough already. HDTV manufacturers spent a LONG time (several decades) developing the technology for HDTV in hom televisions and has now settled on the current standards. There will be no upgrade in players or TV technology as far as screen resolution anytime soon.

If this isn't about HD gaming, then why do you care about the difference between 9Gb and 50Gb? What, do you find there just isn't enough room for all the "commentaries' on your DVDs, and you think even 9Gb isn't enough to hold them? Maybe you want all 6 Star Wars movies on one disc complete with features so that you can't lend out parts of the collection. Oh yes, thank God for that extra space. Clearly you don't know the first thing about digital video resolution. DVD-9 discs can BARELY hold 2 hours of video at standard DVD's maximum resolution of 720x480, unless you compress the shit out of it, which is the exact opposite of the purpose of HD video. at HD 1080p resolution, a normal 2 hour film takes up almost 35Gb's. I love it when people who don't know jack shit about a subject try to be all "funny".

But Gab, did the Dreamcast come back three days later? It's really too bad that Sony decided to use the PS3 as their way to promote Blu-Ray. Really there isn't a need to start a new format to get high-def. The good old DVD can do it just fine (see Xbox 360 games). If you need more storage, then put data on both sides (some movies currently do this, Full Screen on one side, Wide Screen on the other) and put two lasers in the unit. If you're worried about damaging the information, put it in a cartridge like you see for some DVD-RAM discs. The ONLY reason for the new formats was to have better copyright protection. And that is a joke. I've already seen claims from some shady sites that there is freeware out there that can copy Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs. What's going to happen in 5 years when I can buy a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray burner for my PC for $100? A new format? there are so many things wrong with this post. I don't really know where to start. Good Old DVD isn't capable of HD resolution movie playback. Dual sided DVD discs are the same as Dual Layered DVD's, both maxing out at 9Gb. Blu-Ray discs hold 50Gb. This isn't about HD Gaming. Stop bringing the X-box 360 into the argument.

And I don't particularly want Microsoft trying to do the same, but they certainly are, even if they got a later start.

Wow. Such hostility. Sounds like fanboyism to me... but telling people I'm pulling things out of my ass isn't hostility? You can't afford a PS3? Get a better job. Maybe I can get two, as per Kutaragi's suggestion. Right now Krazy Ken could probably use a job too! And Gabby, you're going to have to realize that some people just don't like Sony, for some very valid reasons. They made it very hard for gamers to get 2D games throughout the late 1990's. They used legal action to kill Lik-Sang and their stilted licensing policies to send Working Designs to the poorhouse. They've used tacky, borderline antisocial advertising to promote their products. They never pass up a chance to show their disregard for gamers, and they're clearly convinced that they're entitled to control the video game industry simply because they're Sony. Is any of this getting through to you? Hey, I'll admit that Nintendo hasn't always been angelic. They were arrogant dicks in the late 1980's, and that attitude earned them a much-deserved drubbing from Sega. Now it's Sony's turn to learn some hard lessons from a former industry underdog. JR Just as many, if not many more don't like Microsoft, for the same reasons plus a thousand more. King me.