lanky used our news submit to tell us "Although he says he was wrong, he doesn't appologise, what manners. Anyway, read the full story and comments for a laugh."
The other day, PC Magazine's Lance Ulanoff , during a private, 10 year Sony anniversary party, saw two Sony AR Blu-ray laptops, both playing what he thought to be Blu-ray high definition versions of the movie: "House of Flying Daggers". The impressively powerful Blu-ray VAIO (AR) notebooks that were on display that night, feature Blu-ray drives that can record on BD-R and BD-RE media and even play back content at 1080p, with a native resolution of 1920x1200 on a 17 inch XBRITE screen.
He suddenly thought this was his best chance to see a Sony Blu-ray movie disc, so he moved in close and pushed the drive eject button on the left unit. Then, to his surprise, out pops a Verbatim red laser DVD+R complete with House of the Flying Daggers scrawled upon the disc with a sharpie! Funny right? He thought so and posted it in his blog.
Well, today Sony stated in an interview with the PC Magazine reporter, that he merely pushed the eject button on the wrong laptop, that's why it did not have the bleeding edge disc in it. Sony says what he was really witnessing, was a comparison of two identical Sony AR Blu-ray laptops, the purpose being to demonstrate the difference between normal DVD movie playback and a high definition Blu-ray movie displayed on their newest notebook. They say the one to the reporters right, actually held a Blu-ray disc.
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Earlier today, I spoke with a Sony PR rep about what, the company says, I should have seen. According to Sony, there was a demonstration going on there and the laptop on the right-hand side had inside it a Blu-ray disc that was "not final master." I'm not sure what that would have looked like. I wish I had seen it. The rep did not know why the left-hand laptop had a DVD+R instead of a commercial DVD. He said, "We're still trying to find out. Obviously, internally we own the rights to [that movie]." However, he thinks it may have had something to do with wanting to get the right kind of content playing on the standard DVD laptop so Sony could show off an "apples to apples comparison." The Sony rep believes I should have come straight to him when I saw the DVD+R. Had I thought this was a momentous discovery, I would have. But the fact that I found no Blu-ray disc was, to me, humorous and not some indication of bait and switch. |
What is fun to contemplate now, is what we just learned from the Sony rep. He stated that they had two identical AR Blu-ray laptops playing the same title that night. The only difference, one held a non-final master Blu-ray version and the other one contained a DVD+R of normal DVD movie quality.
Oddly, even a professional reporter could not distinguish a difference in playback quality between the two and assumed they both held high definition Blu-ray discs! He even says today, he was not aware that a comparison was going on. This is the beauty of the situation. He was unprejudiced.
While it"s true that I did not check the drive of the second AR laptop, I thought both laptops were showing the same thing and saw no need to investigate the second seemingly duplicate setup.
If this truly was an apples to apples comparison of DVD to Blu-ray, as Sony is claiming it probably was, we just learned that to an unsuspecting observer, (or even a professional reporter), the difference in playback quality between a Blu-ray, HD movie and a run of the mill DVD is insignificant in this comparison. At least to an unsuspecting Lance Ulanoff.
It would have been most interesting to be a fly on the wall that night, listening to those that were aware of the comparison and especially those that even knew which was which. Would they think they could see a difference in the playback? Would they be right? Can a laptop display really demonstrate the benefits of high definition?
Certainly, this is not conclusive, parties are not good places to make judgments. But it is interesting to ponder. At any rate, I sure would like to have one of those laptops for playing back any kind of movie!
Source: Gearlog
