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Blu-Ray player
Can anyone recommend me a good value Blu-Ray player that's under £100
in price? The main things I was looking for was fast load times, bd live 2.0, wide range of supported formats (avi mp4, mkv etc) and giving great quality play back for blu-rays. |
Blu-Ray player
"John" wrote in message ... Can anyone recommend me a good value Blu-Ray player that's under £100 in price? The main things I was looking for was fast load times, bd live 2.0, wide range of supported formats (avi mp4, mkv etc) and giving great quality play back for blu-rays. Which ones did you look at and where? This avoids duplicating items that have reviews online already for you to read, it also saves time telling you how to compare prices. You can find the information yourself from a web browser such as IE or Firefox. You will need to have a look yourself to check the models people are suggesting are suitable. It would make sense for you to make at least some sort of effort, would you like someone to pay for it, deliver it, set it all up and watch the films for you? |
Blu-Ray player
In message , John
writes Can anyone recommend me a good value Blu-Ray player that's under £100 in price? The main things I was looking for was fast load times, bd live 2.0, wide range of supported formats (avi mp4, mkv etc) and giving great quality play back for blu-rays. Saw this recently, though I can't vouch for it. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/168916 I believe it's Ebuyer's own brand. -- Ian |
Blu-Ray player
"IanT" wrote in message ... "John" wrote in message ... Can anyone recommend me a good value Blu-Ray player that's under £100 in price? The main things I was looking for was fast load times, bd live 2.0, wide range of supported formats (avi mp4, mkv etc) and giving great quality play back for blu-rays. Which ones did you look at and where? This avoids duplicating items that have reviews online already for you to read, it also saves time telling you how to compare prices. You can find the information yourself from a web browser such as IE or Firefox. You will need to have a look yourself to check the models people are suggesting are suitable. It would make sense for you to make at least some sort of effort, would you like someone to pay for it, deliver it, set it all up and watch the films for you? ah that New Year friendliness... |
Blu-Ray player
"IanT" wrote in message ... "John" wrote in message ... Can anyone recommend me a good value Blu-Ray player that's under £100 in price? The main things I was looking for was fast load times, bd live 2.0, wide range of supported formats (avi mp4, mkv etc) and giving great quality play back for blu-rays. Which ones did you look at and where? This avoids duplicating items that have reviews online already for you to read, it also saves time telling you how to compare prices. You can find the information yourself from a web browser such as IE or Firefox. You will need to have a look yourself to check the models people are suggesting are suitable. It would make sense for you to make at least some sort of effort, would you like someone to pay for it, deliver it, set it all up and watch the films for you? If we all did that and Googled etc. all the answers you would be alone in this NG. Regards David |
Blu-Ray player
"John" wrote in message ... Can anyone recommend me a good value Blu-Ray player that's under £100 in price? The main things I was looking for was fast load times, bd live 2.0, wide range of supported formats (avi mp4, mkv etc) and giving great quality play back for blu-rays. Richer Sounds have the LG BD350 for £90 the BD 370 adds [wired] BD live for £140 and the BD390 also does it wirelessly for £250. See http://www.richersounds.com/productlistmanu/HDDVD/LG/1 LG Blu Ray probably have the fastest load time in the market, whereas you can read War and Peace waiting for a Sony to start a film... |
Blu-Ray player
In message , R. Mark Clayton
wrote LG Blu Ray probably have the fastest load time in the market, whereas you can read War and Peace waiting for a Sony to start a film... With regards the Sony machines I have to agree. Sony seems to have gone more than one step backwards in consumer electronics when it comes to their design for BR players. There're so slow at loading disks the first impression is that they are never going to play them. -- Alan news2009 {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk |
Blu-Ray player
"R. Mark Clayton" wrote in message
... "John" wrote in message ... Can anyone recommend me a good value Blu-Ray player that's under £100 in price? The main things I was looking for was fast load times, bd live 2.0, wide range of supported formats (avi mp4, mkv etc) and giving great quality play back for blu-rays. Richer Sounds have the LG BD350 for £90 the BD 370 adds [wired] BD live for £140 and the BD390 also does it wirelessly for £250. See http://www.richersounds.com/productlistmanu/HDDVD/LG/1 LG Blu Ray probably have the fastest load time in the market, whereas you can read War and Peace waiting for a Sony to start a film... I got a Sony 360 a few weeks ago; £130 from Dixons. This unit has BD live. Indeed, it's about as slow as my PC at loading Blu-Ray discs. However I was enticed by its claim at a fast loading option of about 6 seconds. This turns out to be if you leave the unit pretty much on all of the time! Still, I can't fault its picture. |
Blu-Ray player
On 03/01/2010 20:59, Grumps wrote:
"R. Mark wrote in message ... wrote in message ... Can anyone recommend me a good value Blu-Ray player that's under £100 in price? The main things I was looking for was fast load times, bd live 2.0, wide range of supported formats (avi mp4, mkv etc) and giving great quality play back for blu-rays. Richer Sounds have the LG BD350 for £90 the BD 370 adds [wired] BD live for £140 and the BD390 also does it wirelessly for £250. See http://www.richersounds.com/productlistmanu/HDDVD/LG/1 LG Blu Ray probably have the fastest load time in the market, whereas you can read War and Peace waiting for a Sony to start a film... I got a Sony 360 a few weeks ago; £130 from Dixons. This unit has BD live. Indeed, it's about as slow as my PC at loading Blu-Ray discs. However I was enticed by its claim at a fast loading option of about 6 seconds. This turns out to be if you leave the unit pretty much on all of the time! Still, I can't fault its picture. You can get a Sony blu-ray player pretty cheaply these days. I have a Sony and it does a wonderful job of upscaling DVDs. As it's impossible to press Stop part-way through a Blu-Ray disc and resume another day, I prefer renting DVDs. Blu-Ray doesn't add much, anyway, as my enjoyment of a film is more down to the quality of the script, direction, acting and so on. -- Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service -------http://www.NewsDemon.com------ Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access |
Blu-Ray player
"killjoy" wrote in message
. .. As it's impossible to press Stop part-way through a Blu-Ray disc and resume another day, I prefer renting DVDs. That is disc dependent and down to lazy authoring. Some discs will, after removal and power down, ask you if you want to start again or Resume when reinserted. One of my music concert discs allows me to choose my favourite tracks, resequence them and have that choice offered to me whenever that disc is reinserted. Almost anything is possible. Many BD discs Resume in exactly the same mannner as DVDs, rather too many don't but that is the choice of the film distributor. -- Malcolm |
Blu-Ray player
In message , Ian
writes In message , John writes Can anyone recommend me a good value Blu-Ray player that's under £100 in price? The main things I was looking for was fast load times, bd live 2.0, wide range of supported formats (avi mp4, mkv etc) and giving great quality play back for blu-rays. Saw this recently, though I can't vouch for it. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/168916 I believe it's Ebuyer's own brand. Is that the Forden & Hoesch, or something? If so I believe the same player is available in HMV under the name Limit. It's very highly regarded on AV Forums. It also has the added bonus of being region-free for both DVD and BD, via a remote code. Had I not recently bought a Curtis DVD1100UK from Tesco for £90 (also region-free for DVD & BD) no BD Live though, which is no great loss IMO. Still got my PS3 for that should any amazing BD Live content appear at any time. -- Sean Black |
Blu-Ray player
"killjoy" wrote in message . .. On 03/01/2010 20:59, Grumps wrote: "R. Mark wrote in message ... wrote in message ... Can anyone recommend me a good value Blu-Ray player that's under £100 in price? The main things I was looking for was fast load times, bd live 2.0, wide range of supported formats (avi mp4, mkv etc) and giving great quality play back for blu-rays. SNIP You can get a Sony blu-ray player pretty cheaply these days. I have a Sony and it does a wonderful job of upscaling DVDs. As it's impossible to press Stop part-way through a Blu-Ray disc and resume another day, Rubbish, with my LG unit you can take the disk out, play a CD, put it back and remembers where you left off and resumes there. It also plays DVD's stuffed with MP3's etc. Sony also make you sit through miles of pre-crap no matter how fast it loads. To put it impolitely Sony have got their heads up their own a***s with DRM and their BD players are probably best given a miss as a result. I prefer renting DVDs. Blu-Ray doesn't add much, anyway, as my enjoyment of a film is more down to the quality of the script, direction, acting and so on. I should visit an optician. |
Blu-Ray player
In message , R. Mark Clayton
writes "killjoy" wrote in message ... On 03/01/2010 20:59, Grumps wrote: "R. Mark wrote in message ... wrote in message ... Can anyone recommend me a good value Blu-Ray player that's under £100 in price? The main things I was looking for was fast load times, bd live 2.0, wide range of supported formats (avi mp4, mkv etc) and giving great quality play back for blu-rays. SNIP You can get a Sony blu-ray player pretty cheaply these days. I have a Sony and it does a wonderful job of upscaling DVDs. As it's impossible to press Stop part-way through a Blu-Ray disc and resume another day, Rubbish, with my LG unit you can take the disk out, play a CD, put it back and remembers where you left off and resumes there. It also plays DVD's stuffed with MP3's etc. I've no experience with LG players, but most players will only resume BD playback if it's a non-java disc. If it comes up with some sort of "loading" graphic that usually means it's non-java and it won't resume, if it's an "ordinary" disc and goes straight to the movie/menu (adverts/trailers aside) then it should resume. Thankfully, a lot of (although by no means all) discs now come with the facility to bookmark where you got to. -- Sean Black |
Blu-Ray player
In article , Sean Black
wrote: In message , R. Mark Clayton writes Rubbish, with my LG unit you can take the disk out, play a CD, put it back and remembers where you left off and resumes there. It also plays DVD's stuffed with MP3's etc. I've no experience with LG players, but most players will only resume BD playback if it's a non-java disc. If it comes up with some sort of "loading" graphic that usually means it's non-java and it won't resume, if it's an "ordinary" disc and goes straight to the movie/menu (adverts/trailers aside) then it should resume. This thread has given me a new reason to go on avoiding 'Blu Ray'! Must admit I hadn't realised that the makers were as arrogant as the above indicates. So far as I am concerned, it is a matter of what the *customer* wants that should matter. Should not be in the gift of the disc makers to deny users the ability to be able to resume playing at the same point that it stopped. Since one of my main reasons for using DVD is to allow be to 'break up' viewing into chunks as and when it suits me, if any disc doesn't permit this then it would be 'not fit for purpose' so far as I am concerned. I doubt I am unique in this. Thankfully, a lot of (although by no means all) discs now come with the facility to bookmark where you got to. How generous of them. :-) Oh well, I guess I should have expected this given some of the ways the companies already mistreat DVD customers. Chalk up another reason why I think we need have no sympathy for the big companies who want us to pay their wages regardless of how they treat us... Slainte, Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
Blu-Ray player
Malcolm Knight wrote:
That is disc dependent and down to lazy authoring. Some discs will, after removal and power down, ask you if you want to start again or Resume when reinserted. One of my music concert discs allows me to choose my favourite tracks, resequence them and have that choice offered to me whenever that disc is reinserted. Almost anything is possible. Many BD discs Resume in exactly the same mannner as DVDs, rather too many don't but that is the choice of the film distributor. Fascinating. Where exactly on the disc does it put the information on where you are up to? (clue: The disc is read only). Andy |
Blu-Ray player
On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:28:29 +0000, Andy Champ
wrote: Malcolm Knight wrote: That is disc dependent and down to lazy authoring. Some discs will, after removal and power down, ask you if you want to start again or Resume when reinserted. One of my music concert discs allows me to choose my favourite tracks, resequence them and have that choice offered to me whenever that disc is reinserted. Almost anything is possible. Many BD discs Resume in exactly the same mannner as DVDs, rather too many don't but that is the choice of the film distributor. Fascinating. Where exactly on the disc does it put the information on where you are up to? (clue: The disc is read only). Good question. I have no idea of the formats and protocols but it would in principle be possible for a disc to have a "Never resume" marker that the player would obey. -- Peter Duncanson (in uk.tech.digital-tv) |
Blu-Ray player
Peter Duncanson wrote:
On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:28:29 +0000, Andy Champ wrote: Malcolm Knight wrote: That is disc dependent and down to lazy authoring. Some discs will, after removal and power down, ask you if you want to start again or Resume when reinserted. One of my music concert discs allows me to choose my favourite tracks, resequence them and have that choice offered to me whenever that disc is reinserted. Almost anything is possible. Many BD discs Resume in exactly the same mannner as DVDs, rather too many don't but that is the choice of the film distributor. Fascinating. Where exactly on the disc does it put the information on where you are up to? (clue: The disc is read only). Good question. I have no idea of the formats and protocols but it would in principle be possible for a disc to have a "Never resume" marker that the player would obey. Nearly... http://www.sony.com.au/subtype/usefulinfo/asset/306437, number 6 I think. B -- http://www.mailtrap.org.uk/ |
Blu-Ray player
On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:28:29 +0000, Andy Champ
wrote: Malcolm Knight wrote: That is disc dependent and down to lazy authoring. Some discs will, after removal and power down, ask you if you want to start again or Resume when reinserted. One of my music concert discs allows me to choose my favourite tracks, resequence them and have that choice offered to me whenever that disc is reinserted. Almost anything is possible. Many BD discs Resume in exactly the same mannner as DVDs, rather too many don't but that is the choice of the film distributor. Fascinating. Where exactly on the disc does it put the information on where you are up to? (clue: The disc is read only). Presumably the information is stored in the player. Two items of data would do the trick: Disc Identifier and the associated Position Pointer. -- Peter Duncanson (in uk.tech.digital-tv) |
Blu-Ray player
On 04/01/2010 15:03, R. Mark Clayton wrote:
wrote in message . .. On 03/01/2010 20:59, Grumps wrote: "R. Mark wrote in message ... wrote in message ... Can anyone recommend me a good value Blu-Ray player that's under £100 in price? The main things I was looking for was fast load times, bd live 2.0, wide range of supported formats (avi mp4, mkv etc) and giving great quality play back for blu-rays. SNIP You can get a Sony blu-ray player pretty cheaply these days. I have a Sony and it does a wonderful job of upscaling DVDs. As it's impossible to press Stop part-way through a Blu-Ray disc and resume another day, Rubbish, with my LG unit you can take the disk out, play a CD, put it back and remembers where you left off and resumes there. It also plays DVD's stuffed with MP3's etc. Sony also make you sit through miles of pre-crap no matter how fast it loads. To put it impolitely Sony have got their heads up their own a***s with DRM and their BD players are probably best given a miss as a result. I prefer renting DVDs. Blu-Ray doesn't add much, anyway, as my enjoyment of a film is more down to the quality of the script, direction, acting and so on. I should visit an optician. How would an optician improve the quality of a film? I watched Let The Right One In on a fuzzy download and it was superb. My eyesight is fine, thanks, but better picture quality doesn't equate to a better movie. Nor does 3D, by the way. You're probably right about Sony players and "pre-crap". I put the disc in well before I want to watch it - with TV and sound system turned off. That's when I come back ten minutes later and it's still waiting for me to choose a language. :-) -- Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service -------http://www.NewsDemon.com------ Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access |
Blu-Ray player
On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:42:43 +0000, Bob Goddard
wrote: Peter Duncanson wrote: On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:28:29 +0000, Andy Champ wrote: Malcolm Knight wrote: That is disc dependent and down to lazy authoring. Some discs will, after removal and power down, ask you if you want to start again or Resume when reinserted. One of my music concert discs allows me to choose my favourite tracks, resequence them and have that choice offered to me whenever that disc is reinserted. Almost anything is possible. Many BD discs Resume in exactly the same mannner as DVDs, rather too many don't but that is the choice of the film distributor. Fascinating. Where exactly on the disc does it put the information on where you are up to? (clue: The disc is read only). Good question. I have no idea of the formats and protocols but it would in principle be possible for a disc to have a "Never resume" marker that the player would obey. Nearly... http://www.sony.com.au/subtype/usefulinfo/asset/306437, number 6 I think. Thanks. I read that and followed links to information about BD-J. Those are Blu-Ray discs with Java (computer) programs on them. When you run one of those Java program code is read from the disc into the player which then runs the program. The program can then give a wide range of facilities in addition to the normal disc menus. This could include computer games. Stopping a Java program, powering down and then resuming it later might be technically feasible, but like putting a Windows PC into hibernation it would require storage space to retain the current state of the program. (On a PC this is a hard disc drive.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J -- Peter Duncanson (in uk.tech.digital-tv) |
Blu-Ray player
"killjoy" wrote in message . .. On 04/01/2010 15:03, R. Mark Clayton wrote: Sony also make you sit through miles of pre-crap no matter how fast it loads. To put it impolitely Sony have got their heads up their own a***s with DRM and their BD players are probably best given a miss as a result. You're probably right about Sony players and "pre-crap". I put the disc in well before I want to watch it - with TV and sound system turned off. That's when I come back ten minutes later and it's still waiting for me to choose a language. :-) I'm another one who's going to stay away from blu-ray for a while longer. I have enough trouble with DVDs that come with copyright messages that, despite paying for the disk, you have to keep seeing over and over again (try explaining the reason to a screaming 3-year-old), and loads of trailers that you have to individually fast forward through before you get to the main movie. I've just rediscovered how wonderful VHS was: you take out a tape halfway through, watch something else, and then put the original tape in (even a year later, on a different machine, and possibly in a different country) and it carries on where it left off! (Although this can sometimes backfire..) I was just visiting someone and they had somewhere a 17" tabletop CRT colour TV, with light-touch channel select buttons that you just clicked to *instantly* switch to another channel! I was changing channels just for the novelty. Why is technology intent on making life impossible instead of better? -- Bartc |
Blu-Ray player
In article ,
bartc wrote: [Snip] Why is technology intent on making life impossible instead of better? You're just a luddite. It must be better - it's "digital". ;-) -- From KT24 Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11 |
Blu-Ray player
"Peter Duncanson" wrote in message ... On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:42:43 +0000, Bob Goddard wrote: http://www.sony.com.au/subtype/usefulinfo/asset/306437, number 6 I think. Thanks. I read that and followed links to information about BD-J. Those are Blu-Ray discs with Java (computer) programs on them. When you run one of those Java program code is read from the disc into the player which then runs the program. The program can then give a wide range of facilities in addition to the normal disc menus. This could include computer games. Stopping a Java program, powering down and then resuming it later might be technically feasible, but like putting a Windows PC into hibernation it would require storage space to retain the current state of the program. (On a PC this is a hard disc drive.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J I don't see that this makes much difference. Instead of the player's firmware recording the title and current position of a disk, it will be up to the Java program doing the same. (Assuming it has access to memory in the player, and therefore knows it was in the middle of playing a title rather than anything complicated.) And using Java (which anyway should be transparent to the user) should surely enhance the product not make it more of a pain to use. -- Bartc |
Blu-Ray player
On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:14:43 GMT, "bartc" wrote:
"Peter Duncanson" wrote in message .. . On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:42:43 +0000, Bob Goddard wrote: http://www.sony.com.au/subtype/usefulinfo/asset/306437, number 6 I think. Thanks. I read that and followed links to information about BD-J. Those are Blu-Ray discs with Java (computer) programs on them. When you run one of those Java program code is read from the disc into the player which then runs the program. The program can then give a wide range of facilities in addition to the normal disc menus. This could include computer games. Stopping a Java program, powering down and then resuming it later might be technically feasible, but like putting a Windows PC into hibernation it would require storage space to retain the current state of the program. (On a PC this is a hard disc drive.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J I don't see that this makes much difference. Instead of the player's firmware recording the title and current position of a disk, it will be up to the Java program doing the same. What I had in mind was that the Java program would need to have all its in-memory data stored somewhere safe during the powered down time. There could be quite a lot of it. It is not impossible in principle (and at a price). The question is whether players are built with enough non-volatile memory to support this. (Assuming it has access to memory in the player, and therefore knows it was in the middle of playing a title rather than anything complicated.) And using Java (which anyway should be transparent to the user) should surely enhance the product not make it more of a pain to use. smile -- Peter Duncanson (in uk.tech.digital-tv) |
Blu-Ray player
In article , bartc
wrote: "Peter Duncanson" wrote in message ... On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:42:43 +0000, Bob Goddard wrote: http://www.sony.com.au/subtype/usefulinfo/asset/306437, number 6 I think. Thanks. I read that and followed links to information about BD-J. Those are Blu-Ray discs with Java (computer) programs on them. When you run one of those Java program code is read from the disc into the player which then runs the program. The program can then give a wide range of facilities in addition to the normal disc menus. This could include computer games. Stopping a Java program, powering down and then resuming it later might be technically feasible, but like putting a Windows PC into hibernation it would require storage space to retain the current state of the program. (On a PC this is a hard disc drive.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J I don't see that this makes much difference. Instead of the player's firmware recording the title and current position of a disk, it will be up to the Java program doing the same. I agree. Players are essentially finite state machines with their own memory. (If nothing else, they need memory space to do all the data transforms, etc.) And they usually operate in a stiuation where 'off' means 'standby' and/or can have non-volatile memory. So there is no technical reason why they can't hold memory states for each disc and then resume when they detect the same disc has been reloaded/restarted. Thus giving prompt restart from the situation when that disc was stopped or ejected. So I suspect this is the usual mix of two things A) The makers of the discs want to control what you as the mere paying customer can and cannot do with what you *paid for*. B) The makers of the players are either prevented by disc makers, or cannae be bothered. (Assuming it has access to memory in the player, and therefore knows it was in the middle of playing a title rather than anything complicated.) And using Java (which anyway should be transparent to the user) should surely enhance the product not make it more of a pain to use. Indeed, to both. IIRC some DVD players/recorders had the ability to 'remember' a large number of discs. This can be a bit hit and miss. But one player I have often remembers a disc I played some months before and restarts from where I stopped. Given the price of memory these days there is no real cost for this, so we get back to (A) and/or (B) above. I'm afraid this is the 'DRM age' where large companies presume they have the right to dictate everything you can or cannot do. To me the weird thing is the way the same companies then whine and moan about behaviours like recording from TV or downloading from the web. Without even thinking that maybe *they* are pushing people towards doing this to bypass the control freakery they try to impose in terms of absurd restrictions like having to sit though nag screens, not be able to resume play, etc, etc. Slainte, Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
Blu-Ray player
On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:48:44 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote: In article , bartc wrote: "Peter Duncanson" wrote in message ... On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:42:43 +0000, Bob Goddard wrote: http://www.sony.com.au/subtype/usefulinfo/asset/306437, number 6 I think. Thanks. I read that and followed links to information about BD-J. Those are Blu-Ray discs with Java (computer) programs on them. When you run one of those Java program code is read from the disc into the player which then runs the program. The program can then give a wide range of facilities in addition to the normal disc menus. This could include computer games. Stopping a Java program, powering down and then resuming it later might be technically feasible, but like putting a Windows PC into hibernation it would require storage space to retain the current state of the program. (On a PC this is a hard disc drive.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J I don't see that this makes much difference. Instead of the player's firmware recording the title and current position of a disk, it will be up to the Java program doing the same. I agree. Players are essentially finite state machines with their own memory. (If nothing else, they need memory space to do all the data transforms, etc.) And they usually operate in a stiuation where 'off' means 'standby' and/or can have non-volatile memory. So there is no technical reason why they can't hold memory states for each disc and then resume when they detect the same disc has been reloaded/restarted. Thus giving prompt restart from the situation when that disc was stopped or ejected. So I suspect this is the usual mix of two things A) The makers of the discs want to control what you as the mere paying customer can and cannot do with what you *paid for*. B) The makers of the players are either prevented by disc makers, or cannae be bothered. (Assuming it has access to memory in the player, and therefore knows it was in the middle of playing a title rather than anything complicated.) And using Java (which anyway should be transparent to the user) should surely enhance the product not make it more of a pain to use. Indeed, to both. IIRC some DVD players/recorders had the ability to 'remember' a large number of discs. This can be a bit hit and miss. But one player I have often remembers a disc I played some months before and restarts from where I stopped. Given the price of memory these days there is no real cost for this, so we get back to (A) and/or (B) above. I'm afraid this is the 'DRM age' where large companies presume they have the right to dictate everything you can or cannot do. To me the weird thing is the way the same companies then whine and moan about behaviours like recording from TV or downloading from the web. Without even thinking that maybe *they* are pushing people towards doing this to bypass the control freakery they try to impose in terms of absurd restrictions like having to sit though nag screens, not be able to resume play, etc, etc. Seconded. -- Peter Duncanson (in uk.tech.digital-tv) |
Blu-Ray player
Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , bartc wrote: "Peter Duncanson" wrote in message ... On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:42:43 +0000, Bob Goddard wrote: http://www.sony.com.au/subtype/usefulinfo/asset/306437, number 6 I think. [...] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J I don't see that this makes much difference. Instead of the player's firmware recording the title and current position of a disk, it will be up to the Java program doing the same. I agree. Players are essentially finite state machines with their own memory. (If nothing else, they need memory space to do all the data transforms, etc.) And they usually operate in a stiuation where 'off' means 'standby' and/or can have non-volatile memory. So there is no technical reason why they can't hold memory states for each disc and then resume when they detect the same disc has been reloaded/restarted. Thus giving prompt restart from the situation when that disc was stopped or ejected. [...] Uhhh, if the BluRay player uses 16MB of memory (not got a clue on the actual amount, could be 1GB for all I know) in which to run the VM and you need to save its state, then you may need to store all that 16MB (or 1GB) for each disk. Memory may be cheap, but flash is comparatively dear and is not wear efficient, difficult to change unless you force the costs up. Just how many disks would you want them to store? 1? 2? 10? 100? 1000? B -- http://www.mailtrap.org.uk/ |
Blu-Ray player
On 05/01/2010 15:18, Peter Duncanson wrote:
On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:48:44 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf wrote: In a.com, bartc wrote: "Peter wrote in message ... On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:42:43 +0000, Bob Goddard wrote: http://www.sony.com.au/subtype/usefulinfo/asset/306437, number 6 I think. Thanks. I read that and followed links to information about BD-J. Those are Blu-Ray discs with Java (computer) programs on them. When you run one of those Java program code is read from the disc into the player which then runs the program. The program can then give a wide range of facilities in addition to the normal disc menus. This could include computer games. Stopping a Java program, powering down and then resuming it later might be technically feasible, but like putting a Windows PC into hibernation it would require storage space to retain the current state of the program. (On a PC this is a hard disc drive.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J I don't see that this makes much difference. Instead of the player's firmware recording the title and current position of a disk, it will be up to the Java program doing the same. I agree. Players are essentially finite state machines with their own memory. (If nothing else, they need memory space to do all the data transforms, etc.) And they usually operate in a stiuation where 'off' means 'standby' and/or can have non-volatile memory. So there is no technical reason why they can't hold memory states for each disc and then resume when they detect the same disc has been reloaded/restarted. Thus giving prompt restart from the situation when that disc was stopped or ejected. So I suspect this is the usual mix of two things A) The makers of the discs want to control what you as the mere paying customer can and cannot do with what you *paid for*. B) The makers of the players are either prevented by disc makers, or cannae be bothered. (Assuming it has access to memory in the player, and therefore knows it was in the middle of playing a title rather than anything complicated.) And using Java (which anyway should be transparent to the user) should surely enhance the product not make it more of a pain to use. Indeed, to both. IIRC some DVD players/recorders had the ability to 'remember' a large number of discs. This can be a bit hit and miss. But one player I have often remembers a disc I played some months before and restarts from where I stopped. Given the price of memory these days there is no real cost for this, so we get back to (A) and/or (B) above. I'm afraid this is the 'DRM age' where large companies presume they have the right to dictate everything you can or cannot do. To me the weird thing is the way the same companies then whine and moan about behaviours like recording from TV or downloading from the web. Without even thinking that maybe *they* are pushing people towards doing this to bypass the control freakery they try to impose in terms of absurd restrictions like having to sit though nag screens, not be able to resume play, etc, etc. Seconded. Thirded! -- Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service -------http://www.NewsDemon.com------ Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access |
Blu-Ray player
Peter Duncanson wrote:
On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:28:29 +0000, Andy Champ wrote: Malcolm Knight wrote: That is disc dependent and down to lazy authoring. Some discs will, after removal and power down, ask you if you want to start again or Resume when reinserted. One of my music concert discs allows me to choose my favourite tracks, resequence them and have that choice offered to me whenever that disc is reinserted. Almost anything is possible. Many BD discs Resume in exactly the same mannner as DVDs, rather too many don't but that is the choice of the film distributor. Fascinating. Where exactly on the disc does it put the information on where you are up to? (clue: The disc is read only). Presumably the information is stored in the player. Two items of data would do the trick: Disc Identifier and the associated Position Pointer. Looks like this has been covered now. BD-J discs would need to "hibernate" (to use the Windoze term) the entire state of the JVM. I rather think it's more than 2 pieces of information BTW - I don't know about BD, but on DVD you'd need to store all 16 GPRMs and 24 SPRMs indexed to the disc ID. However you'd still get 5 such datasets in 1kB so it wouldn't be too hard. Andy |
Blu-Ray player
"Andy Champ" wrote in message ... Malcolm Knight wrote: That is disc dependent and down to lazy authoring. Some discs will, after removal and power down, ask you if you want to start again or Resume when reinserted. One of my music concert discs allows me to choose my favourite tracks, resequence them and have that choice offered to me whenever that disc is reinserted. Almost anything is possible. Many BD discs Resume in exactly the same mannner as DVDs, rather too many don't but that is the choice of the film distributor. Fascinating. Where exactly on the disc does it put the information on where you are up to? (clue: The disc is read only). There is 4GB of memory in my Blu-ray player and the software allows me to clear out the bits I don't need any more. I suspect other players will be similar. -- Malcolm |
Blu-Ray player
In article , Bob Goddard
wrote: Jim Lesurf wrote: So there is no technical reason why they can't hold memory states for each disc and then resume when they detect the same disc has been reloaded/restarted. Thus giving prompt restart from the situation when that disc was stopped or ejected. [...] Uhhh, if the BluRay player uses 16MB of memory (not got a clue on the actual amount, could be 1GB for all I know) ....or maybe far less than 1MB, for the same reason of lack of knowledge. in which to run the VM and you need to save its state, then you may need to store all that 16MB (or 1GB) for each disk. ...or a far smaller amount. Memory may be cheap, but flash is comparatively dear and is not wear efficient, difficult to change unless you force the costs up. However players tend to be able to adopt 'standby'. And having recently bought two computers with 60GB SSDs I don't know that a few GBs would be expensive given that some players cost north of a thousand quid. Can't really say if we have no clue how much memory would be needed to store a few disc states. Just how many disks would you want them to store? 1? 2? 10? 100? 1000? Personally, a minimum of 1 or 2. Since I am merely a customer (who is also an engineer) I leave it up to the companies. If they can't provide discs and players that do what I require, then I don't buy. However if loads of people buy crap, then yes, makers will sell crap because they can get away with it. That's the 'free market' sic. :-) I appreciate your point, though, that Blu Ray discs may be crap by design. But since I'm not employed to design or build any players I just judge by results. If they can't design and make what I'd want at a price I'd pay, I will stay with what suits me and spend my cash somewhere else. If others buy, that is their choice and their money *provided* they were informed beforehand of problems like this. Slainte, Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
Blu-Ray player
bartc wrote:
I'm another one who's going to stay away from blu-ray for a while longer. I have enough trouble with DVDs that come with copyright messages that, despite paying for the disk, you have to keep seeing over and over again (try explaining the reason to a screaming 3-year-old), and loads of trailers that you have to individually fast forward through before you get to the main movie. Ah, the joys of AnyDVD-HD and the ability to make main-movie only copies... The ironic thing is that all the FBI warnings, trailers etc are only seen by people watching legit originals. Those watching ripped copies get to skip all that garbage and cut straight to the main movie :-) -- Ron |
Blu-Ray player
In article , Ron Lowe
wrote: The ironic thing is that all the FBI warnings, trailers etc are only seen by people watching legit originals. Those watching ripped copies get to skip all that garbage and cut straight to the main movie :-) I'd be inclined to change "ironic" to "insane" or "absurd". Shows the ignorance and arrogance of the people who make the commercial discs that do this. Slainte, Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
Blu-Ray player
"Bob Goddard" wrote in message
... Jim Lesurf wrote: In article , bartc wrote: "Peter Duncanson" wrote in message ... On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:42:43 +0000, Bob Goddard wrote: http://www.sony.com.au/subtype/usefulinfo/asset/306437, number 6 I think. [...] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J I don't see that this makes much difference. Instead of the player's firmware recording the title and current position of a disk, it will be up to the Java program doing the same. I agree. Players are essentially finite state machines with their own memory. (If nothing else, they need memory space to do all the data transforms, etc.) And they usually operate in a stiuation where 'off' means 'standby' and/or can have non-volatile memory. So there is no technical reason why they can't hold memory states for each disc and then resume when they detect the same disc has been reloaded/restarted. Thus giving prompt restart from the situation when that disc was stopped or ejected. [...] Uhhh, if the BluRay player uses 16MB of memory (not got a clue on the actual amount, could be 1GB for all I know) in which to run the VM and you need to save its state, then you may need to store all that 16MB (or 1GB) for each disk. Memory may be cheap, but flash is comparatively dear and is not wear efficient, difficult to change unless you force the costs up. If that's the problem, then the wrong approach is being used. It's ridiculous to have to store 1GB or whatever just to remember the resume info for a disk. All that's really needed, is the disk identifier, the filename that it's in the middle of, and the hh:mm:ss position. If you gave me this info scribbled on a scrap of paper, I could probably manage to find the correct point, so why can't the player? And the info could probably be hashed/compressed into some tiny number of bytes if necessary. Just how many disks would you want them to store? 1? 2? 10? 100? 1000? One disk is a good start. The manufacturers need to know what is needed by a typical consumer: Resume after Pause** and Stop for a start. Resume after Stop+Power-off too (but perhaps not after power-fail, eg. someone yanks out the power lead). And Resume after a disk has been re-inserted is also nice (for example after accidently pressing Eject). Anything beyond that is a bonus, but also gets more complicated (eg. if there are several titles on a disk, should the last-viewed point for each be remembered?) (** The Pause on BBC Iplayer via my V+ box has a timeout, which of course you don't know about until it happens (usually Pause does not time out on other recorded materia)l. This means having to restart the title and fast forward (at quite a slow rate) until to get to where you think you were. But if you fast-forward too much, it screws up so that you just have to watch it again! Or just watch it on a PC...) -- Bartc |
Blu-Ray player
In article , bartc
wrote: "Bob Goddard" wrote in message ... Uhhh, if the BluRay player uses 16MB of memory (not got a clue on the actual amount, could be 1GB for all I know) in which to run the VM and you need to save its state, then you may need to store all that 16MB (or 1GB) for each disk. Memory may be cheap, but flash is comparatively dear and is not wear efficient, difficult to change unless you force the costs up. If that's the problem, then the wrong approach is being used. It's ridiculous to have to store 1GB or whatever just to remember the resume info for a disk. All that's really needed, is the disk identifier, the filename that it's in the middle of, and the hh:mm:ss position. I'd be interested to know if that would work with the relevant discs. The reason I have doubts is that systems like DVD rely on 'metadata' in INFO files to control the playing. So details like time offset into the actual VOB data may not be in the VOB file in an easily understandable manner. Instead you may have to essentially 'run a computation' using the metadata and instructions in the INFO. IIUC The INFO is what reprograms the user controls, and provides the data for things like what order the VOB files are to be played. And times, chapters, etc, aren't linked to the sizes and names of the VOB files in a single way. Heaven knows how much more ways the industry has dreamed up to over complicate this with 'Java' on Blu Ray discs! So what you say may well work, but I'm not sure of that. Slainte, Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
Blu-Ray player
On Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:00:47 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote: In article , bartc wrote: "Bob Goddard" wrote in message ... Uhhh, if the BluRay player uses 16MB of memory (not got a clue on the actual amount, could be 1GB for all I know) in which to run the VM and you need to save its state, then you may need to store all that 16MB (or 1GB) for each disk. Memory may be cheap, but flash is comparatively dear and is not wear efficient, difficult to change unless you force the costs up. If that's the problem, then the wrong approach is being used. It's ridiculous to have to store 1GB or whatever just to remember the resume info for a disk. All that's really needed, is the disk identifier, the filename that it's in the middle of, and the hh:mm:ss position. I'd be interested to know if that would work with the relevant discs. The reason I have doubts is that systems like DVD rely on 'metadata' in INFO files to control the playing. So details like time offset into the actual VOB data may not be in the VOB file in an easily understandable manner. Instead you may have to essentially 'run a computation' using the metadata and instructions in the INFO. IIUC The INFO is what reprograms the user controls, and provides the data for things like what order the VOB files are to be played. And times, chapters, etc, aren't linked to the sizes and names of the VOB files in a single way. Heaven knows how much more ways the industry has dreamed up to over complicate this with 'Java' on Blu Ray discs! So what you say may well work, but I'm not sure of that. I too have my doubts. It would be possible from a programming point of view for the Java code, when Stop is pressed, to generate and store a set of "resume data" that would hold the necessary "position" information in terms relevant to the Java code, current menu structure, etc. However, if the code were to do that there is no guarantee that resumption would be free of legal notices and advertising before actually resuming at the point where you stopped. -- Peter Duncanson (in uk.tech.digital-tv) |
Blu-Ray player
"Peter Duncanson" wrote in message ... On Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:00:47 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf wrote: In article , bartc wrote: If that's the problem, then the wrong approach is being used. It's ridiculous to have to store 1GB or whatever just to remember the resume info for a disk. All that's really needed, is the disk identifier, the filename that it's in the middle of, and the hh:mm:ss position. I'd be interested to know if that would work with the relevant discs. The reason I have doubts is that systems like DVD rely on 'metadata' in INFO files to control the playing. So details like time offset into the actual VOB data may not be in the VOB file in an easily understandable manner. Instead you may have to essentially 'run a computation' using the metadata and instructions in the INFO. IIUC The INFO is what reprograms the user controls, and provides the data for things like what order the VOB files are to be played. And times, chapters, etc, aren't linked to the sizes and names of the VOB files in a single way. I too have my doubts. It would be possible from a programming point of view for the Java code, when Stop is pressed, to generate and store a set of "resume data" that would hold the necessary "position" information in terms relevant to the Java code, current menu structure, etc. However, if the code were to do that there is no guarantee that resumption would be free of legal notices and advertising before actually resuming at the point where you stopped. My DVD player has the decency not to show copyright screens when resuming an interrupted (but not ejected/hard powered-off) disk. But it will do at the start of the next title on the disk, if enough time has elapsed. So of course when I finish viewing an episode of a series for the day, I get started onto the next, so that the next day it's ready to go. But this should be unnecessary subterfuge. I don't have to bother with all this nonsense with a book, so why with a DVD? -- Bartc |
Blu-Ray player
On 07/01/2010 18:18, Mike Henry wrote:
, Jim wrote: In , Ron Lowe wrote: The ironic thing is that all the FBI warnings, trailers etc are only seen by people watching legit originals. Those watching ripped copies get to skip all that garbage and cut straight to the main movie :-) I'd be inclined to change "ironic" to "insane" or "absurd". Shows the ignorance and arrogance of the people who make the commercial discs that do this. You'll appreciate Ron Stirling's parody of the DVD piracy trailer, Jim: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRVHUbrbEUA And of course the brilliant IT crowd version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx...eature=related ..."and then, steal it again!" :-) LOL! Fabulous! Thanks for posting the Youtube links. KJ -- Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service -------http://www.NewsDemon.com------ Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access |
Blu-Ray player
Jim Lesurf wrote:
I'd be interested to know if that would work with the relevant discs. The reason I have doubts is that systems like DVD rely on 'metadata' in INFO files to control the playing. So details like time offset into the actual VOB data may not be in the VOB file in an easily understandable manner. Instead you may have to essentially 'run a computation' using the metadata and instructions in the INFO. IIUC The INFO is what reprograms the user controls, and provides the data for things like what order the VOB files are to be played. And times, chapters, etc, aren't linked to the sizes and names of the VOB files in a single way. Heaven knows how much more ways the industry has dreamed up to over complicate this with 'Java' on Blu Ray discs! Oh no, DVDs are _far_ more complicated than that. The .BUP files are no use for anything. The .IFO files have _most_ of the metadata in them - but not all. They don't for example have subtitles, nor do they contain information on what happens when you click a button - that's all in the ..VOB files. The .VOB files do have timestamp information - but it's not measured from the front of the disc. But I'm oversimplifying here. I'll agree with the view on Blu-ray though! Andy |
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