Updating for the rest of our lives !!

DELUCAS

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Will we be updating the firmware on all our blu ray players for the rest of our lives !! .............. until the new format arrives ;)

its almost every other film or so its a joke (bloody java etc )

cant they set a standard for encoding etc :(
 
Don't really see the problem myself. My player is connected up to the net anyway for the rare occasions when BD Live content is actually worth looking at, once in a whiel a message pops up when I swithch it on saying there's a firmware update, I press OK, let it do it's stuff, 5 minutes later all done, carry on as normal. I think I've had two updates in the year I've had the player, so not really a big issue.
 
Don't really see the problem myself. My player is connected up to the net anyway for the rare occasions when BD Live content is actually worth looking at, once in a whiel a message pops up when I swithch it on saying there's a firmware update, I press OK, let it do it's stuff, 5 minutes later all done, carry on as normal. I think I've had two updates in the year I've had the player, so not really a big issue.

It can be a big deal like some new films that have come out lately the players wont even load or play without a update that has not even been released or manufactures arnt even aware of an issue !!

but its to late as your family have gone to bed watching Im a celebrity get me out of here ;)

This prob should not be happening not after what 2 years now :nono:
 
Will we be updating the firmware on all our blu ray players for the rest of our lives !! .............. until the new format arrives ;)

its almost every other film or so its a joke (bloody java etc )

cant they set a standard for encoding etc :(

The takeup of Blu-Ray is relatively low in the general population even after 2 or so years - it's not going to take off in a big way so you won't have to worry about updating for much of your life.

I think Betamax was more successful? Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
 
But isn't a master key to the encryption used on BDs recently in the public domain? Up-dating nonsense to maintain player compatibility with new discs can stop once that gets implemented in silicon.
 
Please don't get me started on Java, IMHO absolute rubbish! Not sure if HD DVD used Java but HD DVD was sooo much quicker in loading...lol
 
Please don't get me started on Java, IMHO absolute rubbish! Not sure if HD DVD used Java but HD DVD was sooo much quicker in loading...lol

:smashin:
 
HD DVD didn't use java, it used a system the the Blu ray technical committee also recommended :devil: They were over turned for political reason. Disney idea but made work by microsoft, similar to html and easy to program unlike java. Blu ray has been around for over 4 years now and throughout all this time, the firmware update warning have been regulalrly aired by many of us. It ain't new! We always knew this was going to be the result.
 
Have to disagree on this one... ;)

HD-DVD was just as slow when network interactivity was used, and also HD-DVD initially had a entire Intel Celeron CPU employed to make it seem quick, in addition to a dedicated GPU for video decoding, and expensive SHARC's for DSP work. Blu-ray on that level of hardware would have been damn quick, as it always has been and will be on a PS3, which is probably the only Blu platform (barring a PC) that exceeds those initial HD-DVD players for pure MIPS grunt. And even with HD-DVD's use of hardware I'd be :censored: if I could tell the difference in speed between my HD-E1 and Sony BDP-S300. Universals HD-DVD's with networking drove me up the wall.

So I think much of the speed difference is down really to very different approaches initially at the hardware level.

BD manufacturers went for a method that relied on dedicated chipsets to make the machines viable to them, downside = it was slow, so BD functionality was staged with profiles to increase as chipsets were to get quicker.

HD-DVD went for premium hardware initially to make it seem quick, and worry about integration later, downside = no-one without a vested interest could afford to make the players.

With ALL IT systems initial perception is often key. Once a system is slow, it is always seen as slow even if it improves and infact no longer is. Couple that with the fact that Java comes automatically with a bloatware tag, and BD does have an issue...

However, as the Oppo 83 proved and other models too, with the right hardware there is no excuse for slow local hardware anymore.

BD-Live will always be slow as it will never catch on enough for anyone to put superfast servers at the other end. The studios get no extra revenue from BD-Live yet to justify the spend. However, even if we turned the world on its head, and were all running HD-DVD, we'd still be complaining for the exact same reason, i.e., no-one is really interested in the online interactive stuff yet as no-one has yet figured out what the killer app is for online. And that is not a technical issue. The studios all wanted something they really had no idea about what they were going to do with it.

Not even Disney, who I think have done more than most to enhance disks in a good way, (and bad if you include the forced trailers, adverts, disclaimers etc) have managed to find that killer must have use for all the interactivity potential.

Also, regardless of eventual platform, once the studios had gotten past the initial move to HD part, they would have bloated the discs to the point of annoyance anyway. Somehow they equate bloatiness to value. HD-DVD simply didn't last long enough to get there.

So whilst Java may not be the slickest or quickest tool out there, it's not to blame for disc slowness. The studios are, and initially the player manufacturers were, however the latter have now sorted their end of it I believe.

The studios are still stumbling around in the dark wondering what to really do with all the new bits and until they hit on the killer app for interactivity, will continue down the more on disc = better value, even if that makes the experience slow and un-enjoyable.

Well, that's my take on it anyway... ;)
 
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The sooner they kill off BD live the better. Gimmick Schmimmicks. All I want is a disc to load, play and do so the next time I want to use it. All I am interested in is PQ/AQ. Not "extended online" menus or optional etcs. Hardly rocket science.
 
but isn't the real issue compatibility and as java is so hard to write correctly, there are then multiple approaches and these need java updates to play correctly as java programming is waay more complicated that that used on the HD DVDs. The spped issue may just be in the mind, which is why the early HD DVD and PS3 approach has proved to be the right one with their hardware acceleration....
 
I think the BD live market isn't us, I wonder what 8 year old girls think in comparison to us?
 
I think the programming is as complex as you want to make it...

80%, maybe more of what the studios put on a disc could be done without any need for complex Java coding. It just goes back to the perception they have that they need to overload discs to present it as value for money.

I have no doubt that the HD-DVD platform would have hit the same issue. Studios would have tried everything they could to add the same stuff to the discs with the same result. During it's life, HD-DVD needed just as many firmware updates to keep up with disc functionality and errors as BD.

I think the continual platform software updates are a price you pay for the "flexibility" these platforms provide. Mobile phones are the same, even satellite boxes. Constant software updates, some rendering older slower hardware obsolete.

I believe the days of simple devices like CD players that just work until they wear out are gone unfortunately.

As for 8 year old girls and BD-Live... I guess the trailers etc will have an appeal if their PC internet access is limited, although I bet they'd like it a lot more if it was faster...

I've always said and thought that for the online part to work, it needed to have a common portal in the same vein as XBox Live, or PSN. If the studios and manufacturers had clubbed together here from the start it would have been much more worthwhile. Instead they all went their own way even within formats. The result has been poor.

They could do a lot worse than get together even now, and create a BD-Live Network, and implement such a portal. It would bring down the costs of integrating with all the social gossip sites that in turn would no doubt help gain traction with the iPhone generation.

Until then I think it will just wallow in it's own muddiness.
 
Not sure I buy all that Ian, off to a dinner (in the rain) but

Java coding isn't actually needed at all on Blu ray discs but they CHOOSE to use, with problems and all.

Toshiba was a single manufacturer format which holds huge advantages for compatibility...

re speed of BD Live, do you think 8 years old know about this? or care when they watch a trailer for a new film. Leaves me cold but others like this. Not everyone has dozens of internet screens around the country.

However single portal would help significantly but they couldn't agree on this years ago and I doubt they could now. Not with all the vested interested. There is lots to be said for single manufacturer formats like PS3, XBox etc but this brings us back to HD DVD.
 
Just thinking out loud and putting it in to a design perspective...

A hardware implementation will always be quicker than coding a piece of software, in this case the bloated Java. If it isn't Java that makes BD run 'slow'ish', then surely it's the hardware, which must mean that the initial design of the chipset requires 'tweaking' (Saying that PS3 loads ok but does have a lot of powerful hardware).

If HD DVD used hardware for a perceived gain in speed and then worried about the software later, to me that is better than a problem in the hardware design, followed by a piece of software written to try and rectify it. You'll never fix a speed issue via software, the hardware platform has to be stable in the first instance?

Got to agree with what Ian said that once a system is perceived as slow, it will have that tag to it's name for it's entire existence. Happens all the time in the IT world....
 
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