Oh! My! God! it was like a breath of fresh air from the Gods! When i turned it on to be greeted with a really nice orchestral boot-up noise, great set-up system, Blue-ray player! and NO INDUSTRIAL FAN NOISE!!! It used to piss me off big time every time my XBOX fucked after only a few months but what really annoyed me was having to put the fucking subtitles on most movies I watched at night because I couldn't have the volume loud enough to get over the machines Turbo Engines for fear of waking my kids and the neighbours up.

I really feel for you man! I had enough of shitBox£60's constant fucking up probably coz it got internally Hotter than my toaster and After getting the PS3 I am sooo happy with the machine and the fact that Blue-Ray has won out over HD and I basically got a decent Blue-Ray player and amazingly user friendly media systems that was a doddle to hook up to my WI-FI and I can now try out the connectivity of my PSP to it too so the future's bright!

Your story doesn't fill me with much reasurance but I trust Sony more than Microsoft so fingers crossed! Hope you the best with your replacement machine and don't lose the faith it's a good year to own a PS3!

Putting it in perspective ... getting a few free DVDs, or even a free PS3 (which is not the case here I believe) does not pay the mortgage or put food in his kids' mouths. I swear, Bush gets less flack for starting an illegal war than Mori does for getting a few movies.

Too bad for gamers though seeing as the PS3 is a gimped and overcomplicated hunk of junk that gets the worst versions of multi-platform titles like The Orange Box (terrible frame rate problems; same as EA Sports titles), Splinter Cell: Double Agent (horrid graphics) and Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (broken multi-play) are but a few of the total failures on the PS3. The fanboys love to babble on about the Cell Processor and 50GB BD discs, but they're just fanboys, not sane people.

Yes, the Xbox 360 has spotty reliability and is louder than a jet engine, but it's got GAMES and the best versions of multi-platform games and tons of killer exclusives. If you want to play games, get a 360. If you want to watch movies, get a PS3. If you want to do both, you have to get both. The PS3 is simply too compromised and difficult to code for to ever have more than a handful worthy titles. Otherwise, wait until late this year to buy a standalone BD player.

Personally, I think he SHOULD get a free BD player out of this whole mess. When they couldn't give a shit about a site like this who I believe has a great influence on moving these things, then what chance do us regular folks have? I love the PASSIVE AGRESSIVENESS OF SONY too... "If you really feel you have to slander..." FUCK YOU, GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!!! It's one of those twilight zone customer service experiences where you have to shake your head a few times, bang it against a wall, smack it like Curly, and then remember that, OH YEAH, I'M THE CUSTOMER... I haven't had this situation with Sony as I don't own a PS3, but I have to say that it does seem like this machine is STILL being overhyped all over and that the verdict isn't really in yet. As a BD player, great, that's awesome, but there are already stand-alone players that I think you're better off with if you already have a gaming system and don't even play the one you have that much. But just seeing Mori using this site to get his opinion out there, good or bad, and to WARN people of the potential suckiness of the PS3 warms my heart. My whole thing stems more from my experience with BD last night for the first time, rather than Sony itself.

Here's my deal - I, just yesterday, bought a LG BH200, the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combo player which I absolutely love. I think that if LG actually delivers on a BD 2.0 firmware update to this player (they've already delivered on an entire boatload of other promises with firmware updates so far), then it could be hard to beat. The KICKER is that while this thing was going for over $800 just two months ago, I picked mine up at Best Buy for $550. I already had 40 HD DVD's and a Toshiba A3. I wanted to get into Blu-ray, but I also wanted another HD DVD player to hedge my bets against an equipment malfunction and also to get HD DVD in 1080p when I eventually get a better set. After a ton of research on this player, it became clear that it's hard to beat if you already have HD DVD, and even if you already have blu-ray, you could take advantage of the HD DVD fire sales, plus have a player that does 24hz, 1080p, streaming of all the audio codecs (via recent unofficial firmware update), and it's BD 1.1 with a gig of hard drive space and an ethernet connection, making it 2.0 upgradeable. Someone even came up with a hack to make it a region free DVD player.

So, after loving HD DVD since last November and picking up some AWESOME titles, I ran down to Blockbuster to rent my first BD titles just to finally check out the victor's format. I picked up No Country for Old Men and Ratatouille, 2 titles I had heard were reference quality in BD. Popped them in and while I found Ratatouille pretty impressive, I got the feeling it had more to do with the fact that it's a computer animated film that was originated digitally, so it SHOULD look amazing with hardly any compression down to what amounts to a 2k disc. But after hearing about No Country on High-Def digest as being the end-all, be-all of HD discs, I was a bit disappointed.

Is it just me or has anyone else who was looking at HD DVD for months and then went to BD had this experience? To me, NCFOM on BD looked like a really, really good DVD, rather than the quality I saw in Zodiac on HD DVD. That, to me, is still the best looking thing I've seen on disc. I'll have to watch other BD's, but I have to say, I was not all that impressed. I didn't see the insane clarity I saw in my HD DVD of Dog Day Afternoon, where I could read signs across the street from the bank and pieces of paper hanging on the wall that were previously just blurry messes on DVD. I didn't see that on Blu-ray, and I'm kinda disappointed. I also feel that HD DVD's menu experience is FAR superior to BD, which feels like some hacked, slightly superior rehash of regular DVD. I love the pop-up menus in HD DVD... something just feels right about them.

Oh well... hopefully it gets better, or maybe i'ts just me... believe me, though, nobody wanted to pop in a blu-ray and get blown away more than myself. Maybe my expectations were just too high... maybe Paramount set the bar with Zodiac and they didn't get enough credit for it, whereas No Country continues to get credit where it doesn't even deserve it. Btw, imho, Jesse James, Zodiac, and There Will Be Blood were all better, deeper films than No Country For Old Men.

I gotta say though, that no matter what BD does, now owning a player, I KNOW in my heart that the better format lost. C'est la vie...

While both Sony and Microsoft have had their share of defective machines, at least Microsoft has the balls to tell the truth in the matter! My cousin's machine died in a manner very similar to the one described in this article! He updated, restarted, and - BANG - it was broken! Sony's response: "This only happens in very rare, about 1%, of cases." This is a fine excuse -- until you become the statistic!

Not that I generalise about people, but yeah, mine has been fine, I'm hoping to get the same from my PS3 which arrives tomorrow. yay for amusing timing.

#1 RCA, this one is easily solvable, there is a device available at some pro audio shops and the internet, it is called a "Pad" and it will decrease the level of signal flowing to your amp/tv/speakersystem. You will need one for left channel and one for right channel

If you experience this with your digital system the problem is different. The output is finite in the digital relm and the signal is information and can not be brought up or down in volume via pad. So you must make sure your audio setting are correct and your light pipe cable is(the important part)NOT BENT. It is optical and needs to send a light signal. Distortion from source can blow speakers even if the volume is low.

Imagine you were at work(first imagine you had a job - some of you) then that you have a stack of work, but you can't do it because the machine you use breaks and you need to get it replaced, and the company send you a new one that tanks within 5 mins of opening it.

They then have the gall to call you a slanderer for wanting to mention that it happened.

Honestly, is the average talkbacker on this thread 14 with ADHD?

Also, your whole "I thought BDs would be good but DH-DVDs are better isn't even based on logic, let alone any apples-to-apples comparison. What you need to do to settle that one is first of all find out whether the film/theatrical version was 'soft' or grainy or lacking in colour range/heavily colour graded/lousy sound/whatever in the first place. For instance the amount of morons here that are outraged about paying for pristine digital high-def and getting grain is hilarious as it demonstrates their farcical ignorance. If the film is fucking grainy then the HD version SHOULD be grainy, not cleaned up/smoothed out or edge enhanced or any of that DNR crap. It should be as true to the original as possible. The other thing beyond their understanding is that some filmmakers choose a grainy stock ON PURPOSE, letting the texture of the image suit the tone of the movie. And some films are fucking soft. Like anything with Mae West in it! Don't make the same mistake as these cretins. Different films from different decades hold up better or worse, and age doesn't necessarily have everything to do with it. # strip technicolour or B&W have a better chance at looking pristine than many of the slightly experimental film stocks of the 60s and 70s for reasons I won't bore you with here.

Secondly, you can't compare disparate films on the two formats and surmise that therefore one format is better than the other! Apples and oranges, dude. Especially considering you're one guy who can do a true apples-to-apples comparison - you can get both the HD-DVD version and the BD of the same title and really tell who did the better job. Although you may come to the realisation that with a few caveats, the video codecs are the same on BOTH which is why you were seeing the same (bit-for-bit) VC-1 picture on both. It's not generally the platforms as much as the mastering. Even within just Blu-ray itself there can be differences in say, the U.S. BD and the German BD of Pan's Labyrinth. It's the transfer. The German one was done separately and actually is better quality.

And despite Michael Bay's flip-flopping, 300 (the movie itself not the extras although there'll be a new BD version with better extras like the PIP thing) is pixel-for-pixel the same on both platforms. Conceivably BD could have used even the same codec but at a higher rate to take advantage of the extra space but in reality it makes sense that if they can both play the same codecs then the studio will just use the same transfer. Why spend more money if you don't have to?!

I admit my bias is different to yours though. I personally don't want to watch the SD version if I can be watching HD. Maybe the commentary or something but even storyboards and concept art piss me off because 1080p is the only thing that does them justice - that stuff at SD is a joke. And I certainly don't want to pay the extra for the so-called privilege. I can just rent the SD and burn it for less if I really wanted to.

I'll grab a PS3 or Blu-Ray player when there are no more DVDs on the shelves for me to buy. Otherwise, I don't see a point. For the few movies I do care to watch in HD, I can download the HD version from Xbox Live Video Marketplace, or from the iTunes store. For everything else, upscaled to 720p is fine with me.

And I know that if the TV craps out, Apple will be quick to fix it for the next three years. The Xbox 360 also has a 3-year warranty, so I'm not really worried about the RROD (besides, I've had one since launch, and even though I sold that one, it never RROD in the two years I had it. My new one has the new mainboard and chipset, so it probably won't RROD either.)

Blu-Ray just isn't compelling yet. `Maybe later, when I don't have any other choice...

This is hippocracy. I use these reviews, very often, to determine what I should rent or buy. So why am I so irked? Most likely because it feels kinda like that kid who always had the newer, better toys than you, who would tell you about them in vivid detail, but wouldn't share.

I have a feeling Mori would share with all of us if he could, but damn dude, take our feelings into consideration! We pay for our shit.

P.S. You might want to call customer care and complain about that person who claimed you were "slandering" Sony's unimpeachable product. You might get some more free shit out of it.

When it comes to comparing images, I work in the business as an editor. I stare at high def images all day long in DVCPro HD, HDV, 2k, etc. as well as standard def by way of betacam SP, digi, etc. I know the differences in source materials and I've shot on 35mm film and had it transfered to miniDV, DVD, etc. and sat in on color corrections or color corrected myself, even though it's been limited experience with Avid and mostly with Final Cut's three-way. I know what I'm looking at and what I'm talking about. You're right about what you're saying, it's just that I think you're misinterpreting some of what I said.

I wrote THE SAME EXACT post elsewhere about all these idiots complaining about grain and lack of pristine colors and "oh the colors in The Deer Hunter on HD DVD and BD don't pop! not a good example for your high-def player!" I completely agree with you. These arguments show the ridiculousness of certain segments of HD fans and the techno geeks that complain about such things. I just want, like with Dog Day Afternoon, to see the image exactly as it would look off of a fresh film print. I've seen Dog Day (sorry to keep using the same example) in the theater twice, and that HD DVD is about as close as I've seen to a theater experience in the home. Zodiac on HD DVD actually surpassed what I saw in the theater, probably because it was shot in uncompressed HD on the viper and was inherently digital in the first place. The point of it is that I don't see Transformers and Resident Evil as the reason for HD, I just see them as something for non-cinephile rich people to show off their systems to their friends. I just want the theatrical experience of movies in the home to be as best as it can be, probably a lot like yourself.

As far as what I said about HD DVD being better than Blu-ray, I stand by that. I said I liked the menu system on HD DVD a lot better. It feels like more of an innovation to me than BD's menus do. Then I went on to say that maybe as things progress, they will catch up and make an even better high def experience. Furthermore, something about blu-ray's loading and just the overall experience feels clunky or like it's going to crash at any second. After that, I said if No Country For Old Men is supposed to be 'the shit' on blu-ray, well then I've already seen better on HD DVD... on a lot of discs. I don't think that has anything to do with the way the Coens shot the movie, the detail that exists in the film didn't make it to the disc, I believe. I didn't say that I hadn't watched the same movies I have on HD DVD on blu-ray yet, so that was a bit of a cop-out, but I intend to see if there are subtle differences. I agree that it's the transfer that should always be called into question, but I was observing that having finally jumped into BD, the results didn't impress me as much as I had hoped they would.

The flip side of that, as an example of poor quality transfer on HD DVD, the Assassination of Jesse James was a REAL disappointment. I'm sure it's the same on BD. They really fucked that one up... you can see the compression noise all over those wide open images. There are moments where it's really great, and then moments where it falls to shit. I'd argue that the regular DVD is more even in quality and acceptable than the high-def version. I'm just saying, High Def Digest said NCFOM was the 'reference' disc for blu-ray and I didn't see that at all. It looked like an overly enhanced DVD to me.

I really just want the movies in high def too, but the miser in me wants the best for my money, and even if I'm not going to use the 2.0 stuff, I'd like to know that I can. I just hope LG keeps up with these BH200 combo player updates, since the player does meet the 2.0 spec.

No, truth is an absolute defense against slander and libel. You can only be guilty of either if your statement is untrue. At least in civilized countries. (Truth isn't necessarily a defense in England.)

Of course, it doesn't play any movies except youtube videos.

My gut reaction to the dude on the phone talking about slander is he probably should find another line of work.

Seriously, it sounds like Sony was VERY accommodating, MUCH moreso than Microsoft was with a friend's 360 that BRICKED after about 4 MONTHS. Maybe Sony accidentally sent you a bad one back, maybe it got damaged in shipping- who knows?

You probably ARE one of the 1%. I know three people with a PS3 not including myself and none of us have had problems, either.

More than HALF the people I know that have a 360 have had a RROD. Not too good an average.

I think it is TOTALLY UNCOOL of you to gripe about it on here when it sounds like Sony is at least ATTEMPTING to solve the problem. Want to know what happened when my Panasonic Camcorder ate shit DURING warranty? Nothing. They said it was physical damage (which it wasn't) and I'd have to pay $275 to fix it. I personally give props to Sony on this one.