Gaijin

I would like the above poster to believe that some of us might know what we are talking about, have friends and associates in the industry, have been following the format war not only "on the internet" but in person at CES, trade shows, and conferences, and had no need to research the vocabulary to understand what we were talking about in the first place. Most of your "Articles" are from early 2006. The only one from this year only repeats what a press release stated meaning they have no idea of what it even means. HDi isn't just spiffy menus or online interactivity...it's the entire thing. Trust us...you'll be able to watch it and that's it. You don't need to go online in order to access HD DVD's most basic functions that we are used to on any standard player except that particular LG. Because it doesn't have them. The LG player doesn't support the entire interactive layer of HD DVD. That is fact. There were already articles posted about it. Their next model will. The current one doesn't even have the HD DVD logo on it (removed from CES) thus isn't even an HD DVD player. Basically, it's a Blu-ray player that moonlights as HD DVD but with severely limited playback on HD DVD discs. Maybe you'd understand it as if you bought a DVD player, and it played CD's...but the CD's were not able to be skipped, paused, chapter searched, fast forwarded or rewinded...You can play the whole thing through and that's it. Besides...HD DVD is dead in Neyagawa, as in every other part of Osaka no? Why even bother?

The LG player wasn't a tech demo or anything of the sort. It was intended to be a player that will go to market (and has as well) and as JBO pointed out, if it was an experiment (which it wasn't)it would have been labeled as such.

One can argue Sega still is alive and well...I was the most die hard Sega fan around. BUt you can't argue that their current releases (whether developed internally or not) are nowhere near their releases of old. Phantasy Star Universe is rather poor (And I loved PS Online on Dreamcast), Sonic on 360 is broken beyond belief(rumors of the "fixed" PS3 version still run rampant and hope it's true but I'm skeptical at this point), and their new IPs such as Full Auto and Condemned while interesting just don't have the magic of their old IP's. They release a good game once in awhile nowadays but you could argue before, they were one of the strongest 1st party publishers...as a 3rd party publisher, they'd be up there with Capcom, Konami, Namco...instead they are nowhere near that level anymore(with the exception of AM2). I still miss Sega but even I know that they just aren't the same.

Umm..that's largely the point...it would be stuck in english as that's usually the default language on US released anime. Do you like dubs?

Normal exercise is a hell of a lot more effective than playing "Wii Sports". Go jogging for 45 mins instead than come home and play Wii sports afterwards.

Not true. At higher res, you'll see even greater 'pop' to any recent series or animated movie...if an older series masters are not in such great shape and not much is done to fix it then yes the difference would be minimal but the same applies to older movies. You won't find pores and facial detail on your people in high def animation if they were never there to begin with of course, but you'll see a much sharper image onscreen. See the two side by side and you'll notice right away. Even on a smaller 32" and under HDTV. And with animation, you'll appreciate the color high def provides over current standard def outputs.

HDi is the entire interactive layer...not just "spiffy menus". This includes control of the video/audio. Not having that layer means you literally cannot do anything with it except play and stop..no pause, chapter search, fast forward, etc. I believe whatever was the default audio and language would be stuck as well. Think about that one if watching anime. The HD DVD player side of that LG player is completely void of doing anything except play and stop. It is hardly worthy of being a player...especially at that price. And yes, it's started to show up in stores already. Expect this thing to be pulled and become quite the videophile's collector's item.

To make a DVD player requires licensing. To make an HD DVD Player or Blu-ray requires licensing. In the license are things the manufacturer must follow. LG did not get a license for the HD DVD side of the player, nor are they following the HD DVD specs. In other words, the only reason this thing got press was the fact that it was supposed to be a dual format player which turns out it really isn't the case. It's a Blu-ray player with basically a "bootleg" version of an HD DVD player slapped in. This is why the DVD forum has issues with LG. It would be like if Samsung made a new game console that played XBox and Playstation games, but the Xbox games would only play without being able to save plus the A button was disabled on all the games. Plus they didn't even get the XBox license to manufacture the hardware in the first place but somehow got the ok from Sony to have it play PS games. Bad analogy but maybe that would make sense of what LG has done.

If Logitech made a controller with rumble, the game would have to support it...it would would work fine otherwise, assuming the developer of the game pays Immersion as well.

Like DVD before it, HD DVD needs to be licensed by DVD forum with whatever features the format provides. All DVD Players in the world are licensed by DVD forum to play that format. There is nothing new here. DVD Forum isn't being spoiled...LG didn't even license the HD DVD name. In other words, a manufacturer can't just sell something just because they can make it. As much as I dislike HD DVD and the DVD Forum...their reasoning is legal, sound, and makes sense. The "HD DVD" side of that player is anything but. There is no need to question anything about "access to software that is needed to play additional content". It doesn't exactly work like that. They'd have "access" to anything they needed if they want the HD DVD name on it by following the specs and paying the license.

I was right...this LG player combo thing prob won't see the light of day: http://gear.ign.com/articles/755/755809p1.html

SO true. Sega has been on a downward spiral ever since they got out of the hardware business...one bad decision after another.

If Sega AM2 did it it would be good. Seems like most of the other Sega teams are pretty bad these days. Sonic Team has been cranking out some crap lately.

More people remember him as Principal Robin Wood in the last season of Buffy.

Actually upon some asking, I guess not...appears the smaller CPU won't hit 'til mid-2007. I knew they were shooting for last year. I thought they had succeeded since that was one of the reasons they said the cost had dropped for them. It would help the sytem run a lil cooler...now if they would only replace that noisy disc drive.

Everything about a new 360 has been hopeful wishes mostly...even the pics of the HDMI prototypes were dismissed by MS as just that...experimental prototypes. If it does make the cut with a larger HDD and HDMI, the price will likely stay the same, though the new "Core" could become the old one if they went that route. If I'm not mistaken, hasn't MS already started using the smaller CPU in 360's in the last couple months? I thought it already was in production.

It CAAAAAAAAAMMMMEEE from eeeeeBBBBBBAAAAYYYYY!!!!

trav54 He's wrong on this front. There will be no such thing...all PS3 game discs come on Blu-ray's...no DVD games. How would it play the games? Hey both of you guys...Resistance one of these days?

Saturn version is far superior.

Japanese systems will run fine here. It would be even cheaper to mod a new slim line one with a boot disc and a flip top lid. Say $30 and is extremely simple. Instant PS2 Macross!!

Dual format players and discs are way more expensive than the stand alones. You would be paying for one side most would never use. One proprietary format is one thing...TWO is just nuts. HD DVD combo discs from Warner are expensive as it is...a dual format dual layer flipper with HD DVD and Blu-ray sounds a lot more expensive. And DVD+ and DVD-R's were and still are a major pain for literally hundreds of thousands of legacy players. I can't count how many people I've run into that don't have a player that will play either or. A recording format is one thing...having 2 separate types of pre- recorded discs in the stores is still confusing to most and divides studios resources as well. Since most of the studios are backing BD I leaned in that direction. HD DVD's one studio that was exclusive to them isn't quite as rosy as it once was regarding their HD DVD releases: http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Uni...m_Universal/429

Well, I suppose that remains to be seen but it officially supports it whereas, on the HD DVD side...they aren't at all. That infamous disc BTW will play on Panasonic and Samsungs as well. The Sony and Pioneer Elite had some trouble though as they don't have updated firmware (the Sony is a clone of the Pioneer). The stand alones do support BD Java...some of them required firmware updates to bring them up to date though. The LG combo player is missing support for the whole HDi layer of HD DVD...which would mean the disc would theoretically play the video on it...and that's it. No smart menus, etc. It's an odd choice to not have a full working HD DVD player in one touted to be the best of both worlds. For that $1200 price, you could get a $500 PS3 Blu-ray player/game console, a stand alone HD DVD player, and have $200 to buy discs as well. Edit: Though I suppose it's better than this abomination...not to mention the horrid colors together: Hey, you got HD DVD in my Blu-ray...no you got BD in my HD DVD!!!

My pack ins lasted a whopping 14 hours. The ENergizers in now are at the 20 hour mark and show about half charge. Seems OK on battery life so far.

Text is kinda hard on a lot of games. But the games are still playable. Expect to only get the full benefit when you hook up to an HDTV though. Same goes for PS3. While the games still look great on an SDTV, you won't notice the real difference until you get them in HD.

That's even weirder.