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jabarnut
Light Years Away
Premium Member
join:2005-01-22
Galaxy M31

jabarnut to Gbcue

Premium Member

to Gbcue

Re: Best Budget Blu-Ray Player

said by Gbcue:

....
It's a Sony product so it's on my NG list.

Since nobody else has, may I be so bold as to ask why no Sony products?
Was it the CD 'rootkit fiasco' several years back? Are you friends with a particular Sony executive that you can't stand?
Sorry, curiosity got the best of me.
I own many Sony products (Including a Sony Blu-Ray Player), and they've been great
Oh, and I also agree that: "the words 'Best' and 'under $100' bucks don't even belong in the same post".
Anyway, good luck.

Gbcue
Premium Member
join:2001-09-30
Santa Rosa, CA

Gbcue

Premium Member

It's the accumulation of public failures by Sony (rootkit included, laptop batteries, PSN hacking, stupid standards (MiniDisc, Betamax, Memory Stick)) and personal experiences with their stuff breaking. Their stuff would be breaking back in the 90's, when supposedly products were made to last.

Anonymous_
Anonymous
Premium Member
join:2004-06-21
127.0.0.1

1 edit

Anonymous_

Premium Member

said by Gbcue:

It's the accumulation of public failures by Sony (rootkit included, laptop batteries, PSN hacking, stupid standards (MiniDisc, Betamax, Memory Stick)) and personal experiences with their stuff breaking. Their stuff would be breaking back in the 90's, when supposedly products were made to last.

Betamax's are worth a pretty penny.

Sony betamax will run from $300 to $600
HD-DVD players will run about $200
VHS to DVD-r burners run about $300-350

Happydude32
Premium Member
join:2005-07-16

1 recommendation

Happydude32 to Gbcue

Premium Member

to Gbcue
said by Gbcue:

It's the accumulation of public failures by Sony (rootkit included, laptop batteries, PSN hacking, stupid standards (MiniDisc, Betamax, Memory Stick)) and personal experiences with their stuff breaking. Their stuff would be breaking back in the 90's, when supposedly products were made to last.

Is it safe to say consumers are generally idiots? Both formats, Beta and Mini Disk failed in the consumer market, but held their niche in the professional world and they’re still being used today. And the formats have been around forever. The last Betamax hardware didn’t roll off the assembly line until I believe 2002 or 03, and I’m pretty sure MD stuff is still being produced in limited quantities for the professional market. For those that used portable CD players, you can thank Sony’s Mini Disk format for the buffer and anti skip technology. And while I have never seen content on beta, I have seen U-matic and Laserdisk though, everything I’ve ever read gives the picture quality nod to Betamax.

I was so glad that the studios had the ultimate say in the Blu Ray/HD DVD war, not the consumer. At CES when WB announced that they were going to go with BD exclusively, I knew it would take a miracle for HD DVD to survive. Shortly after that a bunch of HD DVD related events at CES were scrapped. When I read that, I started chanting to myself out loud ‘Red is dead, red is dead, RED IS DEAD!!!’. Watching the various studios and retailers like Walmart jump from the sinking ship called HD DVD was like the week leading up to Christmas and February 19 2008 was my Christmas morning. The death of HD DVD.

Not sure why no one likes the Memory Stick. The original Memory Stick was a hell of a lot better size-wise then Compact Flash and Smart Media. Some people say it was expensive, but I think I paid like $18 bucks for my 8GB Memory Stick Pro Duo last year for my camera. The problem with Sony, is outside of their Sony Computer Entertainment division which handles Playstation, they have zero marketing. The innovation that comes from Sony is astounding, a lot of technology we have today can be traced back to Sony.

Sony is top notch quality all around. Back in the day the Trinitron as big of a beast as it was, as the benchmark of video quality. Now the Bravia XBR takes care of that. My Sony DB500 2.1 PC speaker set up produces better sound quality then my Klipsch THX Certified system did. My latest toy, my Walkman Z is just phenomenal. I did not think mobile audio could sound that good. If you have the money to spend, they’re Elevated Series home theater gear is top notch and feature rich.

Sony is not afraid to experiment. There have been some successes, there have been some failures and there have been some things that just faded away. But all in all we are all better off because of the innovations from Sony. What was the iPods grandfather? The Sony Walkman.

Hayward0
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium Member
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL

Hayward0 to jabarnut

Premium Member

to jabarnut
said by jabarnut:

Since nobody else has, may I be so bold as to ask why no Sony products?

Let me count the ways

1 The abandoned the superior quality Betamax long before the end of the VCR era. When they said they wouldn't.
2 They are proprietary everything from batteries to the rediculous chewing gum stick memory.
3 Obscene restrictive licensing costs which is why no one ever adopts their crap like the gum stick. Or for that matter the Betamax.
4 Little respect for the consumer only their own interests.
5 No longer innovators... just overpriced as if they were.
6 Trinitron TVs almost always turned green after a few years.
7 VIAO the only laptop ever owned that had a not user accessible hard drive. It also didn't last long, and poor connectivity options.

I could go on many more... there is good reason they have posted major losses last couple of years, the world has wised up to them... and they are just not at all what they once were, just among the most expensive and restrictive of a large group of equals or better.
Hayward0

Hayward0 to Gbcue

Premium Member

to Gbcue
said by Gbcue:

It's the accumulation of public failures by Sony and stupid standards (MiniDisc, Betamax, Memory Stick)) and personal experiences with their stuff breaking.

I'll give you the gum stick, but silly to say Betamax as it was the original and only for a couple of years, and always had the better picture quality. MiniDisc for it time was not bad, especially as it was recordable and with good mics and environment could make surprisingly good recordings. There were no portable CD recorders.

Batamax's failure was SONY's as always restrictive licensing and poor marketing. The only partners they ever gained was Zenith and Sanyo.