Over at Gearlog, [ http://gearlog.com/ ] one of our favorite sites, blogger Jennifer DeLeo made a startling discovery when she went to a Sony press event to celebrate 10 years of VAIO technology…Sony was planning on showing off a new VIAO laptop with a blu-ray player in it and even play a blu-ray disc in the laptop, something surely to be a press treat, right? Well…wrong. Here’s the Blu-Ray DVD, it’s apparently House of Flying Daggers, why Sony didn’t choose a better film we’ll never know, but anyway…
So you’d think that the disk inside would be a blu-ray disc, right? No such luck; the disc was actually a burned DVD+R shown in the top image, with sharpie across the top saying “House of Flying Daggers.” No word on the MPAA coming down on Sony for showing a video to a crowd without prior permission or purchasing additional copies. Regardless, I sincerely hope that by the time Sony gets up to speed on Blu-Ray, they ship out DVDs that either aren’t burned and look like crap, or are actual Blu-Ray DVDs.
There’s been a lot of commentary over at Gearlog (mostly the insipid “LOLZ” and “OMG FAKE” from the Slashdot readers that the post aroused from their Sony-cuddling slumber) from Sony fanatics who believe that the entire story is a hoax, that for some unknown reason DeLeo, PC Magazine, ZD Media, and Gearlog want to defame Sony (although none of the commenters seem to know why) or that they’re all just involved in shoddy journalism, or whatever other attack they can levy that will help distract attention from the real fact here: Not even Sony can get its hands on Blu-Ray content.
Even if the laptop did have a Blu-Ray drive in it, why couldn’t Sony get their hands on a Blu-Ray disc to play in it? Better question, why would Sony fake it by burning a DVD and putting it in the Blu-Ray case? Some people have claimed that there’s a second laptop there that’s not Blu-Ray and that’s where the burned DVD was and the real Blu-Ray DVD was in the Blu-Ray laptop, and that DeLeo just took a picture of the wrong laptop, possibly again with the intent to smeak Sony, which I don’t believe for a second (either part, the wrong laptop part or the smearing part-DeLeo would have made sure she was looking at the right machine) but since it’s all hyperbole and the only folks with pictures to prove their story are the fine folks at Gearlog, I think this is a good, solid one, and as long as they’re sticking to their guns, I’ll stick with them. I’ve been wrong before, but knowing Sony and the tricks they pull, I doubt I am this time.
Regardless, this laugh’s on Sony; I was seriously hoping that Blu-Ray would wind up being the winning Hi-def DVD content form over HD-DVD, (I mean hey, the name’s cooler) but if Sony doesn’t step up to the plate, and I mean seriously and honestly with good content and affordable players (and by “affordable,” I don’t mean the PlayStation3) then they might be left out in the cold this time around. But the winner of the content war won’t be decided by me, so I’ll be content to sit back and watch this one unfold. In the meantime, have a good laugh, thanks to the folks at Gearlog.
[ Gearlog :: Update: Happy Blu-Day! ]
update: An update has been posted on this story which, while it’ll probably give the sony fanatics reason to call for the heads of the journalists involved, doesn’t really deem the story any less factual and any less hilarious. Again, don’t mind the horrendous comments, but do mind the content of the update: