check out this article.... http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6464036.html?tag=blog . Looks like owners of old HDTVs are in the clear for now.

Not entirely in the clear - the article mentions the Warner Brothers "will be an enthusiastic proponent of image constraint", which sounds to me like any Blu-ray discs you get from Warner (like Batman Begins or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) will be limited to 540 (although I forget if it's 540p or 540i). It also mentions that the studios that were in both camps haven't quite committed either way.

Still, that this is in the hands of the movie studios rather than some HDMI comittee is a positive sign. I was under the impression that all bluray players would have this limitation forced upon them.

Both formats are using AACS, and the final decision from AACS was to make the image constraint flag optional, leaving it at the discretion of the studio for each disc produced. I'm not sure how much better off we are with the studios deciding - it's better than a mandatory restriction, but it was the studios that wanted to "plug the analog hole" in the first place. If they start to see disc sales picking up beyond early adopters (and into a market segment that may not even be aware of the flag), they could start flipping that bit to "on" for new releases.

Having the studios "choose" is the same as no choice. They will all choose to downsample. Thinking otherwise is an exercise in self delusion. They are absolutely paranoid about casual copying in high def. These restrictions won't hurt the big pirates in the slightest, but will inconvenience regular consumers who are expected to lap this stuff up.

Actually Ritz, Sony actually announced that their initial offerings from Sony Pictures on BD disks would not do downconverting.

So for at least the near term those with older equipment can get full HD quality from BD with Sony Pictures discs.

Of course they could easily change their minds on that...

I saw the Sony announcement. It was made for only one reason...to sway public opinion in their favour from the competing HD DVD format. The instant they think that is no longer a problem, you can bet your bottom dollar that will change. I'm in the music and video production business and have a LOT of dealings with Sony BMG. This announcement was purely a temporary measure. I suspect it will be a non-event since they'll likely change their minds before any content is actually made available to the public.

cheers,

Remember that Sony is a monster of a company, and they sell gobs of hardware as well. It's entirely likely that their promise of not engaging the downconversion flag on Sony titles could be rescinded at any time to "combat piracy" - in other words, if they think that by doing so they could sell more SXRD TVs. And the result would be the same - those with older TVs would be back to square one.

They might wait a bit to ensure market penetration and be sure that people are locked in to their product, but there's no doubt they'll do it. And with the age of Digital-only TV only 3 years away, they probably wouldn't feel overly obligated to justify the decision.

Remember, Sony is the compay that installed malware into millions of computers which compromised their security, including some computers in sensitive locations. When found out they were never really punished.

I'll try to buy non-Sony whenever possible in the future, which is essentially a reversal of my prior practice.

Yeah, I felt the same way Charlie, but decided to cave. I looked at the available 1080 HDTV big screens and nothing beats the Sony SXRD units right now.

In terms of absolute picture quality, they will have the top spot in the market for 50" and 60" units probably until SED displays come out.

It was either that or DLP and DLP is just a kludgy design in it's current form and is not true 1080.

I thought I was going to wait for SED but it just got delayed more... Fall 2007 is the expected date. Sony has some new SXRDs this fall and the price is dropping some, might jump on that.

Yeah, Toshiba and Canon are apparently set to start production in June/July of 2007. So they might be available in fall, but you will pay the early adopters tax to get them then.

From what I understand, not much is changing on the new SXRDs although they will be a little less deep, although at around 18.5" they aren't exactly deep as it is.

I just wish they would offer the side speakers as an option. Apparently a lot of customers are complaining about them and the people who can afford custom installs are just having the cabinet faces built in front of them so you just see the screen.

the new SXRDs can accept a 1080p signal, which was the one thing missing from the current sets. Also, the rumor is the 50" will be $3,000, which is getting more reasonable for me.

Ahh, interesting.

Yeah, I got a decent deal on the one I just bought at $3100. I intend it to be a short term buy. Will keep it for two or three years until SED is a viable option.

I just can't understand the urgency people have with purchasing 1080p displays when there isn't a single title available in that res today and likely will be only a handful available even by the end of the year. Folks get this sense of money burning a hole in their pocket for the latest tech and there isn't even any content to consume that takes advantage of it. Why be the guinea pig for the industry and pay 2-3 times the cost of the same gear a year or two from now when we might have some semblance of knowing which technology is actually going to win the format war...

*shrug*

HT magazine found that some of those new 1080p sets don't even properly process and deinterlace 1080i signals, so some of the early adopters won't even get good HDTV results while they're waiting for the cutting edge content.

I wanted it for the 1080i capability and also cuz I wanted a good widescreen NOW instead of waiting two years for something else to come out.

I personally don't think that 1080p will be much better than 1080i, particularly on a good 1080p set, but that's just me.

If you already have an HDTV that you are happy with, then now isn't a good time to buy, but for me, I'm still using a 9+ year old mits 35" TV and I'm ready for a change.

I do, however, think that if you are getting a TV today and want to keep it for any length of time, you are much better off getting a true 1080 set vs a 720 set.

This means your choices are limited to CRT based systems, a few LCD direct view systems, some of the LCoS systems such as the Sony SXRD stuff and a very few of the very high end plasma sets.

As I said before that none of the DLP sets that I'm aware of other than the more expensive front projection sets are true 1080. They use a method called "wobulation" to create a facsimile of 1080.

This is why the Sony SXRD sets are a bit sharper than their DLP counterparts.