CONDEMNED 2 trailer

Analyst: PS3 Install Base Too Small, Blu-ray to Smash HD-DVD

The install base of the PlayStation 3 is too small for some key developers' tastes, say analysts with theSimExchange, and the PS3 being the lowest-selling game system during the 2007 holiday season isn't likely to help matters.
In October and November, the first-person shooter market -- which analyst Jesse Divnich says can only support two premier titles at once under normal circumstances-- was dominated by The Orange Box and Halo 3 on Xbox 360, while November and December were dominated by Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3. On the PS3, however, The Orange Box saw particularly low sales.

"Unfortunately, the PS3 has such a small install base it is unable to successfully support two first-person-shooters in the same month," said Divnich. "This theory will likely hold true for other great titles under the same genre, with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction cannibalizing each other's sales in December."

TheSimExchange is an online virtual stock market in which gamers, developers and investors trade stock to predict how games will sell.
Divnich did note that as the PS3 install base grows, Sony's console will be able to support more than one standout title per genre. That date may be a ways off, however, as theSimExchange shows PS3 sales being exceeded by every other current-gen gaming system, including the Nintendo DS (of course) and Sony's own PSP (PlayStation Portable).

The weaker-than-the-rest sales will have little effect on the Blu-ray format, however, as theSimExchange anticipates Blu-ray Disc as a format will handily defeat HD-DVD, particularly in light of Warner Bros.' announcement to publish its movies exclusively on Blu-ray effective June 1.

Not surprisingly, the defeat of HD-DVD is not predicted to effect sales of Xbox 360, whose HD-DVD player is strictly an add-on, not an internal drive.

The Downfall of HD-DVD

Turok Demo Available on Xbox Live Today

Turok is an epic, story-driven first-person shooter set on a dark, mysterious planet in the future. Players take on the role of Joseph Turok, a former black ops commando, now part of an elite special forces squad, known as Whiskey Company, which is on a mission to take down a war criminal – Turok’s former mentor, Roland Kane. While Whiskey Company is traveling to the genetically altered planet inhabited by Kane and his soldiers, Whiskey Company’s ship is shot down. Turok must use his elite military training to elude Kane’s well-trained army, known as Mendel-Gruman, and the ravenous, unpredictable dinosaurs, huge insects and other massive creatures that populate the dangerous environment. Turok’s mission? Survive at all costs.
Size: 1.17 GB

Devil May Cry 4 Collector's Edition

Samsung LE52F96BD 52in LED LCD TV REVIEW

With so many big screens with similar model names in its massive flat TV range these days, you could be forgiven for not even noticing that Samsung has now added the LE52F96BD to its big-screen offering. But this would be a mighty shame, for the reality is that this TV is anything but ‘more of the same' from the Korean mega-brand. In fact, it's arguably the most revolutionary LCD TV that's so far passed through our doors. Honestly; we're not just exaggerating in some desperate bid to keep you reading right to the end of the review (for a change?!). Its genuinely ground-breaking nature is just a simple fact, no more, no less.


Essentially, it's all about the backlight. Now when you put it like this, I'll grant you that this Samsung's ‘big feature' doesn't sound all that exciting. But maybe if we point out that normal LCD TVs' static, constantly on backlights are responsible for the vast majority of problems LCD technology has with showing video, then you might start to get an inkling of where we're headed.


Take, for instance, normal LCD technology's problems reproducing a convincing black level response. This is largely down to the fact that the need to keep a single backlight shining at all times means that even pixels that should be dark end up with a bit of the backlight creeping into them, resulting in the greying over effect we so commonly talk about in our reviews.





The always-on stationary backlight also has a negative impact on the presentation of motion. For the fact that the light can't ‘scan' like good old CRT technology means moving images are presented as a series of static frames rather than truly fluid, a situation that causes blur since your eye's natural response is to track the average motion from one frame to the next.


As you've probably started to suss from everything we've said so far, the big trick of the LE52F96BD is that it addresses such backlight-related issues head on, by completely doing away with the solitary, constant backlight approach. Instead it lights its pixels using an array of LED backlights, all individually controllable.


The advantages of this approach are immediately clear. For instance, black levels should be much deeper, since LED-driven screens can completely remove light from dark picture areas, stopping the potential for light seepage to cause unwanted greyness. In fact, Samsung claims the LED system allows the LE52F96BD to produce a jaw-dropping - or should that be eyebrow-raising! - contrast ratio of 500,000:1.


What's more, having an array of controllable lights opens up the possibility of recreating the scanning effect so key to CRT's immaculate handling of motion. And as a final ‘bonus' benefit, LED light sources tend to produce a noticeably wider, richer colour palette than standard lamp types.

Itching though we are to find out if all this fine theory has been turned into perfect practice at the first time of asking by the LE52F96BD, we've got a little more groundwork to go over first.


For instance, you really need to know how remarkably pretty this TV is for such a gargantuan effort - just in case you hadn't picked up on this from the pictures we're running.


It's also phenomenally well connected. Heading things up are three HDMIs all made to the V1.3 specification, which is to say they are compatible with such v1.3-exclusive features as automatic lip-synching and Deep Colour (the as yet unseen but theoretically great system for delivering richer colours from specially mastered HD sources).


Also unusual is a USB 2.0 jack via which the TV can play MP3 and JPEG file formats, with other key jacks including a D-Sub PC port and a component video input.


Inevitably given its cutting edge status the LE52F96BD is a full HD screen, complete with 1:1 pixel mapping mode for the purest possible portrayal of 1080-line HD sources and 1080p/24fps support.





The picture processing at the LE52F96BD's heart is Samsung's Digital Natural Image engine which, like most rival systems, focuses its attention on improving colour saturations/tones and fine detailing, as well as providing further boosts to black levels and motion control.


You also get Samsung's Movie Plus mode, with its bold but ultimately flawed (and therefore best switched off) attempt to make objects move across the screen more fluidly; and the equally problematic Edge Enhancer, with its tendency to over-stress rather than improve edges. Again, we'd suggest you turn this off.


There are still a few other picture tweaks at your disposal that we could mention, but frankly we've restrained ourselves for far too long already. It's time to see just what a difference LED makes. And the answer is: a lot. In fact, if I was still five year's old I might even say a very lot.


Take black levels, for instance. For once we have an LCD TV that really can produce a nearly true representation of black, with practically no trace of the misty greyness we're now so accustomed to seeing. This makes dark scenes like the opening shots of Ocean's Thirteen (on Blu-ray) look spectacularly dynamic and, for want of a better word, cinematic. Partly because the range between the screen's peak whites and deepest blacks is so prodigious, but also because the effortless darkness portrayed contains more subtle detailing than you can usually make out, and as such helps pictures look more full of depth.

We'd expect black levels this good to also help a TV's colours, and so it proves with the LE52F96BD. But that's only part of the story, since as well as enjoying more natural tones even during dark scenes because of the black response, the LED light source also seems to produce markedly richer colours than we're used to seeing from LCD TVs.


Turning next to the potential motion-handling benefit of LED technology, again the LE52F96BD doesn't disappoint. There's noticeably less blur over the swinging swords of King Leonidas' men during the HD DVD of 300 than we'd normally see, for instance.


It has to be said that LED technology doesn't suddenly make LCD motion completely perfect; there's still a sense that some resolution is lost where objects pass across the screen. But it's certainly a heck of an improvement.





It's pleasing to note, too, that nothing about the LED system appears to detract from the picture's general sharpness. The 52in screen revels in eking every last drip of fine detail from quality HD moments like, well, pretty much anything on the BBC's Planet Earth, as recorded onto a Sky HD box.


So how come, you're probably wondering, the score for picture at the top of this review only reads a 9, not a 10? There are a number of small reasons. First and worst, the LE52F96BD's picture doesn't bear viewing from much of an angle; from even as little as 30 degrees or so you'll start to notice pretty serious loss of black level.


The set is also rather uncomfortable with standard definition sources, tending to exaggerate any noise they may contain, and leaving skin looking a bit plasticky. Finally, just occasionally a slight greenish undertone creeps into dark scenes , seemingly without warning. But I actually found that I'd pretty much stopped noticing this by the end of my time (a few days) with the LE52F96BD.


Verdict


So the LE52F96BD's images aren't totally perfect. But they're remarkably close to it for what is, after all, a debut product based on a new technology. In fact, this has to be one of the finest technology debuts ever in this reviewer's humble opinion, raising the very real prospect that one day LED backlighting just might become the default system of choice for the LCD industry as a whole. So long as they can get the price down a bit, that is…

Reminder Samsung 500,000 contrast ratio

Kicking off proceedings is the new F9 series, consisting of two models - the 52in LE-52F96BD and 70in LE-70F96BD - offering full HD (1920 x 1080) and incorporating what Samsung terms LED SmartLighting.

By using multiple LEDs for the backlight instead of regular CCFLs - and thereby being able to better control the brightness - Samsung has, it says, been able to engineer a dynamic 500,000:1 contrast ratio, producing, from what we saw, an image with searing blacks and deep blues.

The contrast difference between this and a traditional set positioned alongside was immediately noticeable. A wider colour gamut also helps with finer colour reproduction.

Connections-wise, it's pretty standard fare, with three HDMI sockets and USB2.0 as well. LED backlit displays have taken time to come to market and Samsung will be charging somewhere in the region of £3,000 for the 52in model. No mention is made of 100Hz support, though.

Samsung is also officially launching its F8 LCD series, available in 40in and 46in panels and supporting 100Hz to reduce that most dreaded of LCD failings - motion blur. The F8 sets are 1080p-compatible and have claimed dynamic contrast ratios of 25,000:1.

That's what i call a blu ray player!

Denon's new high end Blu-ray Disc player


Denon recently announced their new high end Blu-ray Disc player, the DVD-3800BDCI. This monster is the first player to feature support for BD-ROM Version 1.1 which, among other things, allows for playback of picture-in-picture content. The DVD-3800BDCI also features the Silicon Optix Realta chipset, which provides enhanced video performance with upconversion and IP scaling to 1080p.

Denon Electronics, a world leader in high-performance home entertainment products, today announced the upcoming introduction of two groundbreaking DVD products, the new reference-standard DVD-3800BDCI BD-ROM Profile 1 version 1.1 Blu-ray Disc Player and the DVD-2500BTC BD-ROM Profile 1 version 1.1 Blu-ray Disc Transport.

The DVD-3800BDCI is the world's first BD-ROM Profile 1 version 1.1 Blu-ray Disc Player from a Blu-Ray Disc Association member featuring the acclaimed 10-bit Silicon Optix Realta chipset. It provides users with the highest resolution high-definition video available today via HDMI™ connection, as well as the ultimate in audio performance, including high-definition audio decoding and DDSC-HD audio output. The DVD-2500BTCI outputs audio and video signals and requires a connected audio/video receiver to do the decoding.

Microsoft's XBox 3 Could Give It Market Supremacy

The following is just speculative fun. But it is based firmly in reality.

The Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox 360 is very, very well designed. Part of this design genius is ease of manufacture and potential for cost reduction. So I see this console as having a ten year life. This should easily see it up to 2015.

This year Microsoft will use their manufacturing cost advantage to use the price mechanism to build market share in the face of Sony (SNE)’s AAA game releases. This will leave headroom in the market for them to introduce a new premium console giving them a two model range, just as Sony have had for a few years now. It will also make the 360 a cheap mass market machine which will have the effect of growing Xbox Live enormously. And this is the most important thing for Microsoft. It is the online platform which, ultimately, will be the main event.

The new premium console (Xbox 3) will feature a gesture interface and probably integration with a new handheld game console. Microsoft have a great incentive to go for this two model (plus handheld) strategy sooner rather than later because Sony are currently too weak to respond. So it would be a knockout blow that could give them market supremacy.

The new Microsoft handheld will be son of Zune, with iPhone and Nintendo (NTDOY.PK) DS features. This device looks pretty inevitable and will give access to Xbox Live anywhere and everywhere and with its integration to Xbox 3 it will bring a whole raft of new capabilities to the consumer.

Another factor to remember is that Nintendo will have to do something about the Wii. This machine is really Gamecube 1.5 with a gesture interface. Its old technology will find it out. So Wii2 cannot be too far away, and it is something that Microsoft must have an answer for.

So when will we see Xbox 3? The normal console cycle is for new models every 5 years. Which would put availabilty at the end of 2010. I can see Microsoft bringing this forward a year to 2009. The current year year is too soon as they still have to build the market position of the 360. So next year it is then! And rememeber that for just about every new product area that Microsoft has entered, it is their third generation of that product that gives them world domination.