I would just like to point out that Jim Louderback over at Gearlog has now posted sort of a retraction on their original posting and follow-on update, regarding Sony supposedly faking the playback of Blu-Ray during their 10 year annivarsary party; where they showed off the new AR and UX VAIOs. This time stating, what to some was the obvious, that their on the scene reporter, Lance Ulanoff, did not fully disclose or bother to double check the facts regarding the demo that was being displayed and only decided to throw up a photo of the AR that had a DVD-R in the drive. As with any reporting, just providing limited information can potentially open up a huge can of worms and lead any number of readers to believe and speculate about what actually occured.

I do not want to dwell on this story too much as I think once the VAIO AR is in consumers hands, it will all be a mute point.  The real determining factor will be when we have all had a chance to see with our own eyes the quality of the video we get when using Blu-Ray.

From now on, what I would to do is end each post with a question to any readers out there, as I am curious about what excites everyone else; rather than me just going on about what I like.
Question: Is the Blu-Ray drive going to be more appealing because of its ability to playback HD movies in stunny quality or because you will potentially be able to store up to 50GBs of data/video/photos/music on a disc.

Categories: Notebooks, Desktop Replacement, Blu-Ray
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Looks like more than just Engadget has now picked up on the original Gearlog post about the so called faked Blu-Ray playback at the 10 year anniversary event. Now we are seeing it on sites like Digg and Slashdot as well.

The Digg commets below,
“A reporter from PC Magazine showed up at a Sony event in NYC where the company was displaying their new AR laptop and mobile pc. While there, Sony was playing a Blu-ray DVD, “The House of Flying Daggers.” But when the reporter ejected the DVD, it was really a DVD-R! Sony wasn’t too happy.”

read more | digg story

Categories: Notebooks, Blu-Ray
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There is a good first review of the AR notebook done on the notebook review website. They provide a detailed comparison of the three models that will be available, VGN-AR130G at $1,799; VGN-AR150G at $2,299 and most notibly the high end model with Blu-Ray burning drive and the WUXGA (1920×1200) screen capable of display 1080p content. Note: Do not confuse that just because a screen is capable of 1080p that it also means the CPU & Graphics, etc. will be capable of playing back all 1080p content. The full spec for Blu-Ray goes up to something like 50Mbps. No way is this or any other PC currently on the market going to handle that. They did mention how the Sony guys had two models running side-by-side one with the DVD version and one with the Blu-Ray version of House of Flying Daggers, to allow one to see the comparison of the two. The reviewer makes note, and I quote, “Contrary to what some have said, the difference in quality is instantly noticeable, and according to Sony, it is even more apparent on movies shot in HD (which HoFD apparently wasn’t).”

I personally have not seen a Blu-Ray movie before, but I have seen a lot of HD content and I am sure that it would have been better, or I would at least hope so.

This is where I must comment on another post that was put up on Engadget, originally taken from Gearlog site. The Gearlog site is claiming that Sony was faking the playback of Blu-Ray disc, rather playing just a DVD copy of the movie. It is apparent that the guys over at Engadget and Gearlog did not check or bother to comment on what was in both AR’s drives, but just focused on the one with the DVD. As noted in the review from Notebookreview, there were two machines: one with a Blu-Ray disc and one with a DVD for comparison purposes. Thus the one with the DVD in it was intentional. I will agree with many of the commentors that perhaps it should not have been a copy of a DVD (Doh!), but just a DVD in one of these machines does not mean that they were faking Blu-Ray playback. I wish that a little more intelligence and thorough reporting, fact would have been done before they make pretty mighty claims; especially when they are being countered about a more detailed review on another site.

Categories: Notebooks, Desktop Replacement, Blu-Ray
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