It was surreal on Friday November 17, 2006 a day that will live in infamy for gamers across the USA, to actually lay my hands on a virgin Sony Playstation 3 system. Eager customers waited as long as an entire week, camping outside of stores nationwide to be sure they would be first in line to experience Sony’s answer to the Microsoft Xbox 360. With a reported one hundred million PS2 units sold worldwide, Sony supposedly would only be rolling out a measly 300,000 PS3s on launch day, with about another 100,000 shipping to stores and online retailers before the end of 2006. By video game standards this is a miniscule number; however, what will be of great interest to home theater enthusiasts who have been watching the HD DVD versus Blu-ray format war is the fact that more Blu-ray players landed in the homes of US consumers in one day than had ...

Introduction Format wars. Everyone hates them, but they are a fact of life and HDTV owners who long for more performance than DVD has to offer are smack dab in the middle of a dilemma. Blu-ray or HD DVD – that is the question. Sony has never fared well in past AV format wars (remember Betamax, Mini-Disc and SACD?), but they are betting on their new Blu-ray technology big time. HD DVD rolled out several weeks prior to the Blu-ray launch; the players have so far received cheers for their picture and jeers for their glitchy performance and sloppy interfaces. The mixed reviews have left the door open for Sony’s format to swoop in and impress. The first player to hit the streets is the $999 Samsung BD-P1000. Being the only Blu-ray player commercially available at the time of this review (other than the players available in Sony VAIO computers), the obvious comparison ...