REDRAY Players are shipping!!!

[L. Langer]

I think it's interesting how so many people are whining about locking connectors. Fact is, HDMI has had locking connectors in the spec since v1.1 and they even work with standard ports, the locks are on the cable ends.

OK, fine, so where are they? Well, truth is, I've only seen a couple of them and it seems no one makes them and the market at large is entirely disinterested in using them. For consumer electronics, locking connectors are BAD! In a CE environment yo have lots of non-techy people who will just yank a cord to unplug it or people who trip over cords and a number of other things where having a cord secured to a device is usually a bad thing. In addition to that, HDMI cables snap into place firmly enough for most applications. If you have cables that pop out or fall out too easily, you have shit cables.

For general purposes, locking cables on mostly unsecured equipment is bad. For commercial, industrial, even film set environments with secured equipment, secured cables are indeed better. I think if a manufacturer were to actually start producing the locking HDMI connectors (I think they're actually called Type L as opposed to Type A or B), people would buy them. OTOH, I had someone tell me once that they don't work worth a crap because they were a band-aid solution to work with existing ports and they don't really lock as one would expect. Don't know, I've only seen a couple of them and have never actually played with one.

Perhaps this will become more prevalent as it seems HDMI is rapidly becoming a professional interface as well... seeing how DisplayPort can't seem to get it done and all the other interfaces to come before are falling by the wayside.

I'm not sure where you get your information, but the HDMI spec NEVER EVER had a working locking mechanism nor has there ever been any "Type L" HDMI design. A locking mechanism is something the HDMI association has always been wanting to incorporate but they never went any further than talking about it as they couldn't agree on anything. Perfect Path, which makes HDMI cables, implemented a "pop" spring-locking mechanism that does work with all regular HDMI ports - which have two notches originally intended for cable retention from 1.1 when they were going to put springs on HDMI cables - and other companies have had their own solutions - physical brackets or knock-offs of Perfect Path's design - but none of them ever became implemented for whatever reasons.

 

[Casey Green]

I think REDRAY & .RED may die if it doesn't have a huge marketing campaign shoved behind it... .RED is REDS biggest asset... Would be really sad to see SONY bring out something less... and push the .RED to the side. Would be a crying shame to see a VHS Vs BETAMAX happen to us all again. In that case.. the lessor quality won purely due to hype and amazing marketing.

Jarred... I put my hand up if you need any help in this area.

REDRAYs time is now. Any hesitation could be critical. Hoping for a big push as well!

 

[David M]

Would be a crying shame to see a VHS Vs BETAMAX happen to us all again. In that case.. the lessor quality won purely due to hype and amazing marketing.

.

Yep, it's a great story, rolls easily off the tongue, allows you to nod knowingly at the silliness of the lesser intellects you are forced to share the planet with.
And like so many pieces of Urban Wisdom, it is also TOTALLY UNTRUE :beatdeadhorse5:
Beta, Betamax and Betacam are three completely different formats that use the same-dimensioned plastic box (the "cassette") to hold different types of tape, with widely different levels of performance. But people routinely confabulate the excellent perfomance of Betacam with the "Just OK" playing time of Betamax. You could have about 20 minutes of broadcast quality or about 2 1/2 hours of YouTube quality
The reality is, Betamax was a hastily re-jigged version of the failed Industrial/Educational "Beta" format. By halving the tape speed, and employing a lot of signal processing tricks, in 1974 they were able to squeeze a 2 hour playing time out of the crappy tape formulations of the time.
But 2 hours wasn't long enough. So a group of elderly engineers at JVC were given the task of making a similar consumer product, but with a bigger cassette that would give about 3 hours. Not being hamstrung by having to "use up" an existing piece of engineering, they were free to use a design that held a lot more tape, allowing a faster tape speed (and hence better audio quality) and a smaller and simpler head drum assembly.
As for: " hype and amazing marketing" you are absolutely dead right there: Sony managed to convince a certain mentality that their crap format was better than one specifically designed to overcome all the things that made Betamax a crap format!

But let's get real here: Neither VHS OR Betamax produced anything like a broadcast quality picture. They were the video equivalent of the 78 RPM record - abysmal performance by today's standards, but it didn't stop them spawning billion-dollar industries.
On the one hand you're talking about players that that can put out a 6K image, while romanticizing about an extinct format that could on a good day maybe put out the equivalent of a 320 x 240 image...

 

[L. Langer]

REDRAYs time is now. Any hesitation could be critical. Hoping for a big push as well!

I too would like to see REDRAY succeed and it definitely needs a big push. However, next year is the time for that push. Consumers will not be gravitating towards 4K this year except for the well-heeled early adopters who are disconnected from the general market and trends in product purchases as they simply shop on a whim. Next year though, REDRAY will have to hit the market and hit it hard as there will be fierce competition from Sony, Netflix, and Apple, who already have big pieces of the market. Add to the fact that those players will be integrating their tech into TVs and you have a recipe for beating REDRAY on convenience and ease of use alone. Given that advantage, the best course of action is to integrate the RED codec into hardware/software decoders if at all possible though I get the gist that RED is very much against that idea.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'm not sure where you get your information, but the HDMI spec NEVER EVER had a working locking mechanism nor has there ever been any "Type L" HDMI design.

I could be mistaken, but I have actually held the cable in my hands. Physically played with pushing the release clip on the ends... I was at a Sony demo event, a few years ago now, but the Sony guy told me "these connectors are in the official spec now." The only thing I didn't get to do was plug them into a physical port, but was told they work on all standard HDMI ports. They had friction tabs on each side of some sort plus they clamped down in the middle somehow. To release, one would pull the little ring tab back on the connector and then pull out the cable as if it were a regular HDMI cable.

I too would like to see REDRAY succeed and it definitely needs a big push. However, next year is the time for that push. Consumers will not be gravitating towards 4K this year except for the well-heeled early adopters who are disconnected from the general market and trends in product purchases as they simply shop on a whim. Next year though, REDRAY will have to hit the market and hit it hard as there will be fierce competition from Sony, Netflix, and Apple, who already have big pieces of the market. Add to the fact that those players will be integrating their tech into TVs and you have a recipe for beating REDRAY on convenience and ease of use alone. Given that advantage, the best course of action is to integrate the RED codec into hardware/software decoders if at all possible though I get the gist that RED is very much against that idea.

Agreed here. Not time for the push just yet. Most consumers don't have any clue what 4K is or why they would want it. Besides, it's a little hard to make the push when ODEMAX and other services that will run on REDRAY are not available yet. Notice that Sony isn't making a push with their 4K media player in any meaningful way. They're available, they're offering discounts to 4K TV buyers, but that's really it. The push for 4K in the home and their 4K movie service will arrive with the PlayStation 4 and that is going to be a marketing juggernaut.

 

[L. Langer]

I could be mistaken, but I have actually held the cable in my hands. Physically played with pushing the release clip on the ends... I was at a Sony demo event, a few years ago now, but the Sony guy told me "these connectors are in the official spec now." The only thing I didn't get to do was plug them into a physical port, but was told they work on all standard HDMI ports. They had friction tabs on each side of some sort plus they clamped down in the middle somehow. To release, one would pull the little ring tab back on the connector and then pull out the cable as if it were a regular HDMI cable.

Yeah, I know exactly what you are talking about and several companies make cables more or less just like that though it never became "official". The original HDMI spec from many years ago was to have HDMI cables with tension spring locks - just like the OEM SATA and PSU cables you often find in HP and Dell products - and the springs would lock into the bottom wall of the HDMI receptacle (the top wall was optional in addition to the bottom in the initial design but was not implemented in the spec) where there were two little notches placed there for physical cable retention. Every single Type-A HDMI-equipped product has retained those notches - so far as I know - because it was in the connector design from way back when, but the HDMI group abandoned it and they continue to look at adopting an official design. There are five HDMI designs (A, B,C, D, and E) and none of them has locking mechanisms implemented except when done through customized manufacturing, which some Asian companies do offer. From what I know, locking mechanisms are common in Type-E (Automotive) HDMI products.