Why Microsoft Hates Blu-ray

An anonymous reader writes "The private feud just became public. Apparently, Gates yelled at Sony's CEO because the new copy protection Blu-ray has adopted would prevent players from streaming content to the Xbox 360. Since the PS3 will have Blu-ray support but the Xbox 360 only has a plain DVD drive, this means PS3 will be the only console that can play HD movies. Also, Paramount just announced support for Blu-ray and Warner Brothers may also jump ship. Will VHS vs. Betamax turn out differently this time?"

Format wars?

[Mad_Rain (674268)]

Will VHS vs. Betamax turn out differently this time?"

Not unless you can travel back in time. =P

The Curse of Betamax

[fm6 (162816)]

We should have realized that Blu-Ray was doomed the moment Sony backed it. Their track record for formats is appalling. Betamax, MD, a couple more whose names escape me. Plus, they're on a serious PI kick, which is why I'll never buy another Sony laptop. They just don't grasp the concept interoperability.

Of course, for Bill Gates to get all righteous about interoperability is just a little ironic!

Yeah, maybe

[sjf (3790)]

Sony/Philips developed the CD format. I think we can call that an umitigated success. Also, in Asia and to some extent continental Europe, MD is very popular.
Finally, granted Betamax failed as a consumer format. However, as a professional standard it has made SONY bucketloads of cash. It's fair to say that the last 20 years of television were created and edited on various finds of Betamax tapes and machines.

And memory stick ? Why do people bitch about memory stick and not SD, or MMC or compact flash ? I own devices that use each of these formats: why is it only SONY's fault that the market is fragmented and non-interoperable ?

Re:Yeah, maybe

[NMerriam (15122)]

And memory stick ? Why do people bitch about memory stick and not SD, or MMC or compact flash ?

Because the memory stick didn't have any advantage whatsoever over any other format, Sony only introduced it for the sole purpose of being able to control the technology. That it was hideously expensive compared to the other memory formats was just adding insult to injury for the first few years it was out. Every other memory format had some REASON for its introduction -- it was smaller, lower power, or had higher

Re:Yeah, maybe

[fm6 (162816)]

Memory stick is a great format. I use it myself, and much prefer it to smaller memory modules that are harder to manipulate.

But my point (which I guess I didn't make clear) was not that Sony formats were bad. Their problem is they never get accepted. A lot of people thought Betamax was superior to VHS, and for all I know it was. (Embedding time codes in the signal seems like a really good idea.) But Sony failed to get it accepted. Sony also backed DATs and 8MM video, both of which were viewed as superior

Re:Yeah, maybe

[Reverberant (303566)]

Sony also backed DATs and 8MM video, both of which were viewed as superior formats, and neither of which gained much consumer acceptance.

FYI, DAT failed because of SCMS [wikipedia.org]. But, much like Beta, DAT has had a wildly successful run in professional audio (although it recently started to be supplanted by harddrive and solid-state recording)

Betamax != Betacam

[Artemis3 (85734)]

[i]Finally, granted Betamax failed as a consumer format. However, as a professional standard it has made SONY bucketloads of cash.[/i]

No. BetaMAX is a consumer format. The professional format you seem to refer to, is called BetaCAM. They shared some characteristics, but BetaCAM tapes are of much higher grade and achieve a studio grade quality bandwidth. Even earlier and also sharing some characteristics are the machines some call "U-matic".

BetaMax was in widespread use in my country until 1992.

Let me add a couple of formats sony also was behind: Video-8 (low bandwidth) and Hi-8 (with many incompatible methods of writing to the same tape by different cameras), and the 3 1/2" floppy standard. I would also mention atrac, the lossy audio compression format used in the MD.

Re:The Curse of Betamax

[doctor_no (214917)]

Sony's track record is actually suprising good. They are responsible for two of the most popular format in history. The 3.5" floppy disk and the CD-ROM (which they worked on with Phillips). Also the Audio cassette of was made by Phillips but it was Sony who made it popular with the walkman and by convincing Phillips to license it for free. Blu-ray is another Sony/Phillips format.

If you look at the history of Format Wars you usually see the same players, Betamax(Sony) vs VHS(Matsushita), MemoryStick(Sony) vs SD(Matsushita/Toshiba/Sandisk), MMCD (Sony/Phillips/etc) vs Super Densisty Disk(Matsushita/Toshiba/etc), DVD-Audio(Toshiba/Matsushita) vs SACD(Sony/Phillips), Blu-ray(Sony/Phlllips/Matsushita/etc) vs HD-DVD(Toshiba etc).

No one company wins all the time, sometimes they both lose (like in SACD vs DVD-Audio), and sometimes an uneasy compromise is met (like in MMCD and Super Density Disk becoming DVDs), and sometimes they both kinda win(like in DVD-RW vs DVD+RW), but it always comes down to which tech giant, usually Japanese, you want to be paying royalities to.

The BetaMax/VHS comparison is irrelevant...

[ikewillis (586793)]

...because with cassettes the media were physically incompatible. With HD-DVD and Blu-ray it will be possible to make dual format players which can read BD-ROM/HD-DVD/DVD (provided the licensing costs come down and the thing doesn't cost an arm and a leg)

Although I do think Blu-Ray will win out in the end as Sony pushes a large number of Blu-Ray players into production with the PS3, meaning there will be a very large installed base of Blu-Ray players right off the bat. This will also help lower the price point for both the drives and the media as everything is ramped up into volume production.

And let's not forget, 200GB 8-layer discs. Yummy.

Re:Great Scott!

[badasscat (563442)]

I don't pretend to have a source on this, but I cannot think of a single English word that begins with a 'g' followed by a vowel that has a soft g (i.e. a 'j' sound) as opposed to a hard g (i.e. a 'guh' sound).

Gerund? Germany? Germanium? George? Geo? General? Gee? Generation?

Sure, it's mostly "ge" words, but what about Gibraltar? (As in "the rock of".) Gin? (As in the alcoholic beverage or the card game.) I mean these are just off the top of my head.

There's no rule in English that says a "g" followed by a vowel must be a hard "g". And people were saying "jiff" long before I ever heard anybody pronounce it with a hard "g". It's an acronym; acronyms do not need to take the exact same pronunciation as the words the individual letters stand for.

The original pronunciation was "jiff" and as far as I'm concerned that's still the correct pronunciation. I mean at some point, if everybody pronounces a word differently than you simply say the language has changed and move on. But enough people still use the original pronunciation that I still consider it correct - I mean if a certain percentage of people started pronouncing "gin" with a hard "g", I think the rest of the people are just gonna think they're a bunch of morons, right? Why is this different? To me, pronouncing "GIF" with a hard "g" labels you as a newbie - it tells me you first heard of the format after others had started using that pronunciation, and you've probably surrounded yourself with other newbies who use that same incorrect pronunciation.

Re:Great Scott!

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

I've only ever heard gif pronounced with a hard G here in the UK over the last ten or so years, so it may very well be a regional thing. At the time I started using it, it was inconceivable that you would pronounce it JIFF, because .jif was (and, I believe, still is) a valid extension for a form of JPEG image (JPEG/JIFF), and no one would have a clue which you were talking about.

Re:Great Scott!

[numark (577503)]

Actually, the creators of the GIF format have repeatedly stated that the correct pronunciation is, in fact, "jif" with a soft "g". See here: http://www.olsenhome.com/gif/ [olsenhome.com]

Yelled?

[Tackhead (54550)]

> Apparently, Gates yelled at Sony's CEO

What, it's not like he threw a chair at him while doing the Monkey Dance...

Re:Yelled?

[PsychicX (866028)]

They probably have the chairs in that particular conference room bolted down, glued to the floor, and then weighted with lead. 60 billion dollars won't give you the ability to lift a chair which takes 800 lbs of force to seperate from the ground.

Not true

[geekoid (135745)]

all you need is the 60 billion in pennies, a long pole. I think you could lift 800 measly pounds.

Gates actual quote was:

[by Anonymous Coward]

"They only thing Blu at MS are the screens of death!"

Yeah but...

[ScislaC (827506)]

PS3 won't be the "only" console that can play HD movies. Microsoft has previously announced that future versions of the 360 will have HD-DVD drives.The HD-DVD version of the 360 may be released to coincide with the PS3 launch for all we know.

Re:Yeah but...

[Trepalium (109107)]

You've gotta love that vaporware sales pitch. "Yes, their product can do something ours can't do now, but our product will be better than theirs when out new features come out in a little while!" Of course, all this is moot because HD movies aren't available yet, and given the inertia against DVDs that the studios and rental places had, I seriously doubt there'll be any serious availablity next year or even three years from now.

As much as I like watching Microsoft and Sony fanbois duke it out, it's getting a little tired.

Serves them Right!

[GoRK (10018)]

MS has fought so hard for DRM and copy control and now they are pissed because someone else's is biting them in the ass. Suckers!

Re:Serves them Right!

[DigiShaman (671371)]

Between Sony and MS, I'll take sides with MS DRM. Sony at the very least is a total DRM nazi regime. Everything from their minidisk format to their memory stick "magic gate" employ DRM.

Fuck Sony. I kick them to the curb. As with MS, I'll continue to watch them with a very close eye.

Re:Serves them Right!

[the morgawr (670303)]

Does this mean you are boycotting Sony too? I havn't been buying anything of theirs for about two years now. I encourage EVERYONE on slashdot to stop supporting this company.

They have:

1. Supported the MPAA's shenanigans
2. Supported the RIAA's shenanigans
3. Heavily promoted DRM junk

To avoid confusion: I fully support any company that tries to protect its content against unauthorized commercial use, BUT I do not approve of extreme measures that inconveiniance me, the customer, abuse and pervert the US legal system, or damage innocent third parties.

We should ALL stop buying from companies that do not care about their customers.

More complex then that

[geekoid (135745)]

Some departments within Sony don't like DRM, and they are going through some internal struggles. So support the products from the departments that don't have DRM(what ever Sony is calling it) aspects to them. That will send the message "We like your products, but won't by them when they reduce my options."

Re:Serves them Right!

[mkw87 (860289)]

We should ALL stop buying from companies that do not care about their customers.

Then what would I buy?

Re:Serves them Right!

[Slashdiddly (917720)]

I hate Sony's content arm and related DRM crap as much as anybody. But Sony is big. And some parts of Sony do innovate. Even the much-hated here Minidisc, sure it's DRM, but you have to consider the times: 1991. It was the only portable, recordable digital media around. And the players were tiny. Next to them, any walkman or discman looked like the dinosaurs they were. It was not until iPod in 2001 that MD was dethroned in my view.

Also take a look at the subnotebook market. Put the two side by side - Sony a

MS may be our friend after all

[SmallFurryCreature (593017)]

I hope someday soon MS will realize that it will have to make a stand. I see the x-box as a suicide move by MS. Why?

There are a lot of people who are talking about Linux or Mac killing MS. Yeah right, I run linux and love it but lets be honest, we are tiny. Yet when people talk about getting people to use a different OS then Windows for somer reason people never include the PS2 and gamecube's and other consoles.

With the introduction of the next generation of consoles both sony and MS seem to want to introduce a multifunction entertainment device into each and every household. Can you say PC replacement? No of course not a pc replacement for the typical /. reader BUT again lets be honest, we are a tiny portion of the total populace.

With the x-box MS has in some way's introduced a non-branded pc. Bear with me for a second. Although there are a lot of logos and a lot of attempts to have exclusive content for each console compare the difference between say owning a gamecube/ps2/xbox to say owning a mac/linux/windows pc. As the original playstation has shown it is extremely easy for people to switch consoles. Although consoles have 100% lockin compared to pc's (have you ever tried inserting a PS2 disc into a gamecube, where as I can read MS doc's on both mac and linux) this does not translate into consumers being locked into the consoles. I am even willing to bet there are a lot more people who have multiple consoles compared to multiple OS'es.

So why is the x-box then such a bad move? Simple. It has to a large extent undermined the position of the PC as a gaming device reducing that platform even further in the hopes of generating more x-box sales. The story of Halo is the most blatant example.In return for generating rather bad x-box sales they showed the world that MS itself did not seem to think its OWN pc market was a prime gaming market anymore.

MS owns the PC but instead choose to back the console wich nobody owns, just ask nintendo or atari or sega about how quickly you can go from owning the current generation to being last. Nintendo is surviving at the moment purely because of its brilliant handhelds.

This current spat about blu-ray seems to be MS suddenly realizing that IF consoles really are the way of the future then MS may have dug its own grave. If it allows the kind of DRM nightmares that consoles are (we will have to see if this really happens considering recent legal developments in australia and before in france) then there might be a future where people will no longer want a PC because it doesn't allow them do anything anyway.

MS may have to do some soul searching but someday it might realize that like ISP's and the telecom industry its business is piracy and porn. Philips already realized this to an extent. It sold its media company and now is pure hardware. Does a maker a burners really have an intrest in making it impossible to make your own copies off cd/dvd's? Of course not.

Same with MS, exactly how many of its home pc's are used mostly for copyright infringement? I am not just talking pure simple copying of dvd's here. The big movie companies all have tried time and time again to claim that making your own fan website about a property they own infringes on their copyright. If this becomes accepted practice then who needs a pc, if you can't do anything with it.

Imagine this, no game mods because the game companies don't want you to, no fan sites because the property owners don't want you to, no content because copyright owners don't allow it to be copied to pc. Exactly what reasons remain to own a pc then? Oh sure. Wordprocessing but I got news for you that is something people could do at the library/work/school instead of owning an expensive piece of hardware. ANd you hardly need Windows Vista to type the occasional CV.

Exactly how is MS going to sell Windows Vista to the home user is the home user can't do anything with it.

I think MS has a serious case of a split personality. On the one hand you got this

Strangely supporting some of Microsoft's positions

[PIPBoy3000 (619296)]

After reading the article, I find myself supporting Microsoft's stance on letting customers stream their DVDs to other devices in the house. Of course, their position may be based upon the fact that the XBox doesn't have a Blue-Ray DVD player, so it's hard to tell if their heart is in the right place. Still, it's in Microsoft's best interest to have lots of tiny computers in a household that share information such as movies - all running Windows, of course.

DRM, DRM, DRM.

[Poromenos1 (830658)]

God, I'm so sick of these DRM wars. It seems like the sole criterion on which to judge the two schemes is whether its DRM is good or not. Screw this, I'm not going to watch another movie, paid or stolen. They can shove their higher-resolution fascism where it belongs.

The only people hurt are the consumers.

[CyricZ (887944)]

All this talk about corporations being hurt by this is a side show. The real victims are the consumers. This will cause massive confusion. People will wonder why some movies will play in their PS3, but not on the XBox 360. With such confusion, people will be less inclined to give such media out as gifts. I mean, no grandma will get her grandkids a movie that they may not be able to play.

Re:The only people hurt are the consumers.

[CyricZ (887944)]

It's been shown time and time again that when sales fall, then the consumers don't remain "consumers", but soon become defendants in civil lawsuits. Either way, the media companies get money from the consumers.

Family Feud....

[Spy der Mann (805235)]

yesterday: Ballmer threw a chair at Google.
Today: Gates yells at Sony

Sheesh, of those billions of dollars, the Microsoft guys should invest a couple thousands on a psychologist...

Things are different this time

[argoff (142580)]

The VHS vs Beta was about people trying to own the market for a particular format. This is about trying to controll information in an information age defined by the free flow of information. It is purely reactionary, and changes nothing about the fundamental fources at work here - they are trying to controll how people copy and distribute information just at the point in history where it has never been easier since the birth of human history to do just that. The truth is that when push comes to shove, the DRM people need the cooperation of their customers way more then their customers need theirs. They (the DRM's) are trying to seize controll, because they are vulnerable and they know it.

DRM vs DRM vs DRM

[segedunum (883035)]

Who gives a toss? They can all destroy each other as far as I'm concerned. All Microsoft cares about with its strategic use of HD-DVD is that Windows Media becomes the eventual default, one true DRM and media format. They do not want to have to use anything else. Do you think Bill Gates gives a damn if the XBox 360 isn't able to stream to the PS3?

I for one welcome our new DRM overlords. There'll be so much incompatible shite nothing will work. Nice one.

Nintendo

[Shadow Wrought (586631)]

I wonder if Nintendo is actually going to win the next gen console fight. By the time Sony and MS have finished beating each other to death trying to appeal to the hardest core 1% of the gaming market, I'd predict that there will be some pretty big slices of pie left over for the company whose console is cheaper, more intuitive, and has games that instead of being the most visually stunning FPS shooter evar (sans plot and gameplay) are just fun.

I think the format wars are just the beginning.

Dual format players will become the norm

[91degrees (207121)]

Blu Ray and HD-DVD have the same physical dimensions, the same tracking systems, the same video output, the same codecs and pretty much the same copy protection mechanisms. Even the lasers are the same frequency. 90% of the internals of the box will be identical. All they need are two lasers, or switchable optics, and even the cost of this will go down. Building a dual format player will not be that great a technological challenge.

Re:Dual format players will become the norm

[Babbster (107076)]

The idea that people are going to care about movie playing on this next generation of videogame consoles is ridiculous to me. The only reason people cared even a little bit at the time of the PS2's release was that DVD players still cost a bit more ($100-150 at the low end) and because there were so few decent (let alone good) games available for the system at launch. It was slightly easier to justify buying the $300 PS2 to play SSX since it could play DVD movies.

Today we have a situation where nearly everyone has a standalone DVD player, including the people who bought a PS2 with that purpose in mind (once they found out that the PS2 did a piss-poor job of playing DVDs or their PS2 crapped out on them). The only way it's going to matter in the "next-gen" console market over the next two years is if one of the new formats very rapidly develops an extensive catalog of movies, which will probably go slowly given production constraints and the need to continue supporting DVD. Even then, those who are interested are going to need a capable (DVI/HDMI) HDTV to take advantage.

There are good reasons to wait on buying a videogame console, the biggest being the high launch prices. Whether the system has DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray or PR-DVD (People's Republic DVD) is at best a tertiary consideration.

Taste of Your Own Medicine

[Comatose51 (687974)]

Gates argued that Sony's new high-definition DVD standard, called Blu-ray, needed to be changed so it would work smoothly with personal computers running on Microsoft's Windows operating system.

How do you like it NOW Mr. Gates? Incompatibility keeping something from working on your platform? How do you like the taste of your own medicine?

Poor old Joe Consumer

[payndz (589033)]

After reading TFA, it's clear that the person who loses out the most in the BR/HD battle is... the consumer. Because the fight to win over the content providers will seemingly be won by the company that can place the most restrictions on what the consumer can do with the product that they've bought and paid for.

It's confirming all the stuff we've known (and worried) about for a while. No backups. Controlled streaming over a home network. Phoning home, and all that implies. All backed up by DMCA or DMCA-like legislation as it spreads around the globe at the behest of the media corporations (hello, Finland!).

Fuck 'em. I already own pretty much all of my favourite films and TV shows on DVD already. They can't force me to go hi-def and re-buy everything I've already paid for... can they?

How close is Blu-Ray?

[Morinaga (857587)]

Ok, to clairify Paramount is on board with BOTH formats. They are going to produce HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Like all production companies they will produce whichever product actually sells. Because frankly who cares if it's on an eight track as long as it sells and they keep margins to meet their profit expectations. According to Toshiba HD-DVD comes to market in Japan at the end of 2005. In terms of developement HD-DVD is well ahead of Blu-Ray according to Toshiba. HD-DVD is supposed to have better cost and productivity advantages over Blu-Ray. In addition it has greater proven capacity to date until Blu-Ray demonstrates a workable prototype of their higher capacity disks. So if HD-DVD comes out of the gates first and studios like Paramount and Warner Home Video start selling movies to consumers I find it hard to believe that other studios won't jump on board to sell their movies as well. When you sell gasoline, you could care less what car the consumer puts it in.

You know

[Now.Imperfect (917684)]

The great thing about standards is there are so many to choose from!

Who wants a new video format anyway?

[PhotoBoy (684898)]

It's only been about 3 years since DVD reached its supposed "critical mass" in the market and the players became extremely cheap to buy. Isn't it a bit soon to be trying to replace DVD? I mean VHS lasted for something like 20 years, DVD has managed about 6. I presume the movie industry views high def movies as another means of getting people to double-dip on their films.

I can see the public rejecting the new formats though. Many people have only had DVD players for 2 or 3 years, they aren't going to want to go and buy a new player and start waiting for their favourite films to be re-released in HD, especially if they run the risk of buying the "Betamax" of this war. I would guess Sony's big gamble is that the PS3 sells by the truck load and thereby they get a significant user base with Blu-ray drives.

I'm sure we'll see lots of dirty tricks like HD films having lots of extras and the normal DVDs being left as essentially bare bones to "encourage" people into upgrading.

What is the driving force behind wanting a new format anyway? Is it because the film industry has bought into the bullshit that DVD piracy is somehow hurting legal DVD sales? Is it because the studios can sell us all the films we just bought on DVD again but this time in high def? I suspect it's probably both...

Re:Who wants a new video format anyway?

[OrangeTide (124937)]

It's not soon enough, if you happen to be a media and electronics company. It's time to sell new players for high cutting-edge prices. And get people to rebuy thier icky old low-definition movies on fancy new high def. The high def discs will cost the same as the low def ones, so it's a good deal right? (except you already paid full price for the low def ones, oops, I guess not so good).

I expect DVD to be the main format sold at retail stores for a good decade. A lot of people bought $30 dvd players, including people who don't really have a large disposable income. I'm sure every grandkid was given a dvd player so they could watch disney movies. A new format is going to be really cool for all us people who are into high def, with our fancy TVs and fancy sound systems. And places dedicated to selling videos are going to have pretty massive collections of Blu-Ray or HD DVD or both pretty quickly. But I'm sure if you add up the numbers with all the retailers like Wal-Mart, and various grocery stores, and drug stores, etc. You'll find DVD sales going strong many years from now.

DVD won't be chic for much longer, actually I'd argue it's no longer in vogue. But if you look at VHS, that hung on forever, it's only now starting to become difficult to find VHS. DVD has been around for 10 years, it really took a long time for the market to shift to it. Yet because of the huge technological leap between VHS and DVD, I feel that the jump was accellerated. There isn't as big of a difference between these HD formats and plain old DVD. You get a bit more crisp of a picture, but you still have extra content, and fairly durable media, etc. I think now the only thing that will drive the adoption of HD DVD or Blu-Ray will be the price of the video players and the level of announce DRM may causes. (as far as I can tell, it won't cause any if you just want to pop the movie in your player). It will be kind of painful for people who have high-end setups where they want to do in-home video distribution, or play things on their laptops, etc.

I believe Gates is off-base here...

[YesIAmAScript (886271)]

My understanding is both HD formats will not allow you to output HD over analog outputs.

Xbox 360 doesn't have HDMI/DVI outputs, only analog component.

So I believe Xbox 360s (at least initial ones) are boned either way. Even if the streaming were possible to do, the box wouldn't be allowed to output the signals according to the agreements with the HD-DVD consortiums.

How dare they...

[everythingelsewastak (921277)]

assume we won't get what we want in the end?

First, why are we debating a new standard that is supposed to last 10-15 years when internet speeds and multimedia computers are becoming more and more usable? I don't know about the rest of you but if I can't download movies I want via internet, watch them on my laptop or stream them to a flat-panel monitor in the next decade I'll be amazingly disappointed.

If you want to force an annoying DRM-ridden-useless standard under our noses while waving shiny new gadgets in our eyes we'll do one of two things:

1) Ignore it. Some people will give in. The rest of us will know better and wait it out.

2) Hack it. You want to make my DVDs unrippable so when I'm on a plane I can't switch between 20 movies I paid for? What's to stop me from getting an adapter to go Blu-Ray Player--->Adapter---->Laptop---->Capture

Sure, it'd take awhile. But in as long as it takes to watch a movie I could void millions of dollars of pointless R&D money. Oh, and because it took me two hours to transfer the bloody thing, I probably will share it (something I don't do currently) with everyone I can so they don't have to do the same thing.

There's always a way. One of us will always figure out a way to hack a TiVo, reprogram an iPod, mod a playstation or rewire the garage door opener. And the more they insist on bending over the consumer with trite that doesn't work how it should, the more they'll leave it to Joe Schmo to do some real innovation.

And if M$/Toshiba or Sony/Everyone else buys up all the patents to adapters from their players to my laptop and refuses to make them?

I'll go back to VHS.

my first post after ages of reading

Will the Pr0n Industry Ever Make up its mind?

[wsanders (114993)]

I was expecting this to be settled by now.

According to http://hardware.silicon.com/storage/0,39024649,391 26916,00.htm [silicon.com]:

"Sentiment about the format rivalry varies, depending largely on the size of porn producer. Smaller outfits seem to prefer HD DVD for its lower cost, while larger outfits tend toward Blu-ray for the capacity."

Hey guys - how many times do we have to tell you: SIZE doesn't mean that much!

I guess I'm turning into a weird hermit

[WhiteWolf666 (145211)]

But, I won't buy anything with overly restricted DRM.

I won't buy anything thats not compatible with my existing plasma screen, my existing DVI monitors, or my existing 32" widescreen LCD TV.

These devices are very capable. I see no reason to discard them for an overly restricted DRM regime.

This is not a financial decision. I understand that as an earlier adopter, I should be prepared to switch to different systems if the market shifts.

I refuse, however, to buy something whose technical specifications are similar (or worse), simply because the powers that be are insane.

I suspect other "middle-upper" class geeks feel the same way. All these people who have already purchased Plasmas, or LCD, or various other HD monitors are going to be mighty pissed when they are "supposed" to buy a new one. I expect that uptake of this crap will be slow.

As for myself? I plan to figure out some way to rip the HD content to my harddrive (I'm 100% sure its possible), and then either playback from a console unit HD, or store it in MPEG4 on existing dual layer DVDs.

My understanding is you can do 720p at 6 Mbps, and 1080i at 12 Mbps, with very good quality.

Both of those will fit on a dual-layer DVD fairly nicely.

Lesser of the evils?

[DaveCBio (659840)]

Not that I have any great love for Microsoft, but I have a greater concern that one of the main players in Blu Ray is Sony and being that Sony owns a major movie studio and tons of other media properties I see that as a conflict of interest. They are far more concerned with protecting their IP at the consumer's expense than looking at what's the best choice for us.

Staying power of a standard..

[cjdavis (13840)]

"We want a standard that's going to be around for 10 or 15 years," says one studio exec.

Ten or 15 years.... TEN OR FIFTEEN YEARS?!?! They really do smoke crack at those studios. Let me try to remember the various storage media I've had over the last 15 years...

1990: fifteen years ago, the removable media choices were 5.25" floppy at 1.2MB, or the just-starting-to-be-affordable 3.5" floppy clocking in at a whopping 1.44MB.

1995: CD-ROM drives with 650MB of storage were appearing. 600 times larger - two orders of magnitude larger than floppy disks.

2000: DVDs were becoming mainstream with ~9GB of space, another order larger.

2005: blu-ray is going mainstream with the PS3 and standard drives for PCs. With a current capacity of 50GB, its another order larger.

So in 15 years, we've had a 10,000 fold increase in storage capacity. I understand that blu-ray is designed to accomodate multiple layers in the future, but those are power of 2 increases, not power of 10. And really doesnt handle actual science/technology advances which would be incompatible by definition.

Does anybody actually think that removable storage tech will not advance another four orders of magnitude in the next 15 years? Or that future network tech won't swamp the 50GB capacity either? I mean, why would I carry that 1.44MB floppy around any more when I can copy that much data to and from my server over the net in about 3 seconds?

Having the same removable storage media not change much in 10 - 15 years from now sounds horribly myopic and stifling.

10-15 years and beyond is perfectly reasonable

[Rolman (120909)]

From what you said, the following is true:

1) Make technology and take it to market
2) Make something better and expect everybody to replace previous one
3) ????
4) Profit!

Sorry, but your point is completely bogus, 1.2 and 1.44MB Floppy Drives were not introduced to market just fifteen years ago, that was in 1984 and 1987 [wikipedia.org], respectively. And guess what? They are still in production. Some pretty big manufacturers [dell.com] still offer them in top of the line models. Are they great? Not anymore, but there's still a market for them.

The Compact Disc was introduced in 1982 and the CD-ROM format in 1985 [wikipedia.org]. That's not 10-15, but more than twenty years ago.

DVD was introduced in 1996 [wikipedia.org], almost ten years ago, and I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon.

It's not about bringing new formats every couple years, the formats need time to mature and penetrate the market, they need a long time for both manufacturers and content companies to get ahold of the technology, offer enough content and really take advantage of economies of scale. Changing factories, manufacturing technology and playback equipment just because you could make it one order of magnitude bigger would be a horribly myopic and stifling thing to do.

It's perfectly fine to expect Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to be around 2015 and beyond, if any of those formats take off in the first place. If they don't, well, they weren't good enough from the very beginning.

Not true - does ANYONE fact check this CRAP?

[TheNetAvenger (624455)]

Xbox 360 only has a plain DVD drive, this means PS3 will be the only console that can play HD movies

The XBOX 360 plays HD just fine - as MOST Studios have already backed and plan to distribute HD DVD Content on regular DVDs using WMV format, just like the "T2 Extreme Edition" that was released two years or more ago.

Using WMV HD capable compression capabilities, most studios have commited to providing HD Content on Regular DVDs using the Windows HD Media format.

This is why the XBox 360 didn't need a HD-DVD player, and will actually help to promote the basic DVD using more advanced compression techniques than the VERY AGED MPEG2 format.

Goto: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia [microsoft.com] if you want to see what 5.1 or BETTER and High Definition Video that will easily fit on a dual layer standard DVD looks like.

Additionally, does anyone not see the irony? Microsoft doesn't like BlueRay because of the 'additional' content restrictions - and yet people here are like "Yeah Sony, you are making it easier to lock our movies!". WTF?

This story is not only FUD, but makes assumptions based on CRAP information.

Slashdot editors and contributors, do you even fact check or monitor each other? Your commentary and news is turning into the laughing joke of the internet.

Re:Blueray won't work smoothly in Wondows?????

[segedunum (883035)]

Is there a reason to assume that Blueray drives or disks will not work smoothly in Windows

Well for one, Microsoft have named HD-DVD and do not plan BluRay support.

No one knows the exact specifics, but there is a reason Microsoft chose HD-DVD - and it isn't because it is the best technology. One possible reason is that Microsoft wants a technology that gives Windows unrestricted access to content, and then that content could be ripped to the hard drive and then protected by Windows DRM bypassing any other DRM systems. Microsoft wants to be the only game in town, especially on Windows.