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Why Microsoft Hates Blu-ray 515

Posted by Zonk from the daggers-drawn dept.
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?"
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Why Microsoft Hates Blu-ray More

Why Microsoft Hates Blu-ray

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  • Format wars? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mad_Rain ( 674268 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:42PM (#13743304) Journal
    Will VHS vs. Betamax turn out differently this time?"

    Not unless you can travel back in time. =P

    • The Curse of Betamax (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:12PM (#13743491) Homepage Journal
      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 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sjf ( 3790 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:40PM (#13743649)
        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 (Score:2, Informative)

          by aichpvee ( 631243 )
          Probably because memory stick is expensive, or at least it was last time I looked at anything that used it. The Sony hardware that uses it is also generally over priced for what you're getting. I think that has a lot to do with it.

          For the record I bitch about the XD cards my camera takes all the time.

        • Re:Yeah, maybe (Score:3, Interesting)

          by 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 (Score:3, Insightful)

          by 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 (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Reverberant ( 303566 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @08:20PM (#13744210) Homepage
            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 (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Artemis3 ( 85734 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @11:11PM (#13744919)
          [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 (Score:5, Informative)

        by doctor_no ( 214917 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @08:30PM (#13744261)
        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... (Score:5, Informative)

      by ikewillis ( 586793 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @07:00PM (#13743780) Homepage
      ...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.

  • Yelled? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:43PM (#13743311)
    > 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? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 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.
    • Somewhere in Redmond, someone was heard saying:

      "Chairvelopers, chairvelopers, chairvelopers, chairvelopers! LET'S FUCKING BURY SONY!"

  • Gates actual quote was: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:44PM (#13743321)
    "They only thing Blu at MS are the screens of death!"

  • Yeah but... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ScislaC ( 827506 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:44PM (#13743325)
    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... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Trepalium ( 109107 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:52PM (#13743379)
      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.

      • Re:Yeah but... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Scott Byer ( 830577 )
        Every movie brought out onto DVD in the past few years was digitized into an HD (or higher) format then downsampled for DVD. It's just waiting for a format. This transition will happen quickly, you can be sure.
    • sure, so you get a free drive change later? Of course :) Remember a PS3 will have it from the start, Xbox not. That will cut out all first-time adaptors from HD content. Not that it will count, but ... MS will earn double then, smart move, ain't it?
      • Sony has been very smart about a lot of things. Their use of the CD-Drive in the original Play Station, along with backward compatibility for titles when the Play Station II came out has been cause for respect. If they're smart, some form of backward compatibility along with all of these new features from day one will help to ensure that they remain strong.

        Of my friends who only buy one console from each approximate generation of console, Sony's PS2 was the one to buy. If Microsoft doesn't have featur
    • You are making the assumption there will be any high defintion movies available on HD-DVD to play on this mythical vapor-ware XBox 360 with HD-DVD. According to the article, Paramount is support Blue Ray and Warner may also support Blue Ray? I can give you a hint: the studios probably won't be supporting both.
    • They said it was a possibility. They did not 'announce' it.

    • Re:Yeah but... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ZakuSage ( 874456 )
      I think that already happened with the GameCube. Afterwards, a updated version called "The Q" (or something like that) was released by Panasonic that could play DVD movies. The catch? It costs a couple hundred dollars more. I'm not saying that Microsoft will do a similar thing, but if we're to take from history it'd be pretty likely and useless to spend an extra few hundred dollars on top of the already $300/$400 console.

  • Serves them Right! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GoRK ( 10018 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:44PM (#13743326) Homepage Journal
    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!

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:48PM (#13743350)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Serves them Right! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by the morgawr ( 670303 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:59PM (#13743417) Homepage Journal
        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.

        • I used to work for Sony. I loved it there.

        • More complex then that (Score:5, Insightful)

          by geekoid ( 135745 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {dnaltropnidad}> on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:19PM (#13743529) Homepage Journal
          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."

          • I'd say we all send them a letter and ask them to stop doing stupid stuff as an entire company. If they don't we shouldn't buy from them at all. If we are public about why we arn't buying stuff, when the sales take a dive, it will give the anti-DRM guys more pull in the company and hopefully cause a change.

        • I boycott Sony, and I express a great deal of disdain whenever I see someone showing off one of their craptacular products.

          Geeks get so excited over Sony products, and I don't understand why. I've never seen a Sony product that fulfilled all my expectations for it, and I've seen quite a few of their products that died far earlier than I thought they should have.

        • Re:Serves them Right! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by mkw87 ( 860289 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:54PM (#13743736)
          We should ALL stop buying from companies that do not care about their customers.


          Then what would I buy?

        • 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
      • It's ironic that MS is all of a sudden fighting for our rights. Admittedly a weak ass version of them (this "managed copy" thing is bullshit, but it's better than Sony's "fuck the consumer" approach).

        I wasn't alive for (or at least, I wasn't old enough to notice) the whole Betamax vs VHS incident. Was it as big as this? Or has digital distribution changed something? I guess what I'm asking is, is this just a replay, or is this really something new and bigger than before?

    • MS may be our friend after all (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @10:58PM (#13744871) Journal
      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

  • 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.

    Is there a reason to assume that Blueray drives or disks will not work smoothly in Windows, but will work fine in Linux, Mac, etc??

    • Re:Blueray won't work smoothly in Wondows????? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by segedunum ( 883035 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:58PM (#13743413)
      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.

    • Java maybe? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If I recall correctly, the Blu-ray format uses Java for interactive content. If corrent, that could be what riles Microsoft.
    • Is there a reason to assume that Blueray drives or disks will not work smoothly in Windows, but will work fine in Linux, Mac, etc??

      Probably the same reason Quicktime doesn't want to work smoothly in Windows.

      Bill doesn't want it to in spite of the competition. :P
  • How do you like DRM *now* Mr. Gates?

  • Strangely supporting some of Microsoft's positions (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:45PM (#13743335)
    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.

    • Re:Strangely supporting some of Microsoft's positi (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You don't get it. The content won't be streamed/copied around your house in the clear (MS still has Linux to worry about!) Instead, it will be transcoded to Windows Media DRM but Gates gets to own the keys to that kingdom. MS' position is NOT good for home users. It's just about trying to set themselves up as the new Gateskeepers
      • I must have left off my sarcasm HTML tags. Yes, it's pretty obvious that Microsoft's issue is that their XBox 360's won't be able to play any Blue-Ray DVDs via a network connection to a PC. Microsoft does indeed want to have their XBox as their living room Media Center device.

        To be honest, I'm not sure how big a deal this really is. I may have a home network where video is streamed about, but how many normal people are really going to set this up? Even with wireless connectivity making life easier, I
        • Microsoft has had high prices leaked for the 360, and it won't come with a DVD player. So they want Sony to make their PS3 expensive by adding a DVD player so Microsoft can control the PS3 stream and become the cheaper media center.

          It's all about the control, baby. All your bases are belong to us.
    • Right, the copy protection has nothing to do with whether the xbox will play blu-ray. It has to do with the drive in the xbox. Of course, the same argument works in reverse: the playstation 3 won't play HD-DVD discs. Both groups have said that it is possible to make a hybrid disc (with Blu-Ray/HD-DVD on one side and regular DVD on the other) but that doesn't mean any given release will actually have a DVD layer so the idea that the Xbox will play all HD-DVDs is just a pipe dream anyway.
    • DRM's biggest downside is that it prohibits any features that the DRM designer didn't explicitely think of. It's a blacklist instead of a whitelist. Which is why it irks geeks out there, because there are all sorts of uses for music and video that companies don't think are useful.

      So Microsoft is getting annoyed that their suggested improvement on things isn't allowed by DRM. But the obvious irony is that Microsoft would be forced to DRM the heck out of their streaming video project, if they were able t

  • DRM, DRM, DRM. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Poromenos1 ( 830658 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:48PM (#13743354) Homepage
    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. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:49PM (#13743359)
    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.

    • Not for nothing does the article refer to PS3s as "Trojan Horses", carrying disks we can't play anywhere they don't want us to into our homes. Those disks, presumably, will pop out of the front of these players and slit our throats the first night we own them.

      Based on what I'm reading about the DRM in these and the companies involoved, the only way the consumers can get hurt is if EITHER of these format gets accepted.

      So, um... Where's door number 3?

      • Just like they did with SVCD, the Chinese version of a high(er) definition digital versatile disc could be 'teh winnar!' here.
  • 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 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by argoff ( 142580 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:50PM (#13743367)
    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by segedunum ( 883035 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:53PM (#13743384)
    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.
    • one true DRM and media format
      One DRM to rule them all
      One DRM to find them
      One DRM to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them
    • It isn't that the XBox 360 is going to stream to the PS3. That's not the scenario. The scenario Microsoft wants is for you to be able to buy a Windows Media PC and stream HD video content from an HD-DVD or Blue Ray DVD to a wireless media receiver somewhere in your house. This would allow your PC to become your video jukebox/Tivo that you can stream video using Microsoft's DRM wherever you want. For example, you could stream it to an XBox 360, or to a Plasma TV or a data projector or whatever.

      Sony's DRM is
    • Who gives a toss? They can all destroy each other as far as I'm concerned.

      That might actually be a good solution.

      The whole argument the lobbyists have been using to push for DRM-enforcement laws is the claim that LACK of DRM stifles innovation and threatens the commercial infrastructure. (Our counter argument is that it is DRM that is stifling innovation, to the benefit only of the existing players and the detriment of new players and consumers.)

      If DRM turns around and stifles innovation by the old players

  • Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .thguorw.wodahs.> on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:55PM (#13743390) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Re:Nintendo (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mrchaotica ( 681592 )
      I sure hope so! In fact, I don't usually buy consoles (the most recent I own are the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis), but I think I might buy the Revolution. Why? Because it's going to play the back catalog of games, but also because I want to oppose Sony's and Microsoft's DRM.

      If any employee of Sony or Microsoft is reading this: I refuse to buy your products, and even make it a point to buy your competitors' ones, specifically because of your obsession with DRM. Either stop being evil, or fuck off and

  • Dual format players will become the norm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 91degrees ( 207121 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:55PM (#13743395) Journal
    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.
    • I agree completely. The loser will adopt the new technology and people will be pissed that they have an "old-version" of the XBOX 360 if Blu-ray becomes the winner since they will have to get the mod for the Blu-ray format. The people who wait a while and buy their system when there is a clear format winner will not only be able to look at all the consoles and make a buying decision, but also be able to play the newly formatted movies.

      Yet another reason for me to wait until the console wars settle...
      • 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.

    • Dude, I'm thinking this just may happen - co-existence of two formats, and dual-compatible drives.

  • Taste of Your Own Medicine (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Comatose51 ( 687974 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:57PM (#13743407) Homepage
    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?

    • Re:Taste of Your Own Medicine (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Incompatibility keeping something from working on your platform?"

      Oh, Blu-ray will work fine on the Windows platform, it's just that the format isn't designed to let you stream to trusted devices, only play locally on the one the disc's in - i.e. it's lock-in Sony DRM. HD DVD however can stream to trusted devices and keep its DRM intact.

      In that respect MS is right - it's not an incompatibility with Windows, it's a potentially useful feature that Blu-ray won't allow you to do, for no good reason. It won't
      • You clearly didn't read the article that this discussion is about. Since this very issue is addresed in detail and you are misinformed.

        First off, Blu-ray itself allows for streaming between devices, what may not allow for it is the DRM that was put in place to get 20th Century Fox support of Blu-ray (Not "Sony's DRM"). The safeguards in question was developed for Fox by San Francisco's Cryptography Research.

        As far as streaming between devices, it seems that decision on that hasn't been made up and it's to

  • Poor old Joe Consumer (Score:5, Insightful)

    by payndz ( 589033 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @05:58PM (#13743414)
    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? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Morinaga ( 857587 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:06PM (#13743450)
    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 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Now.Imperfect ( 917684 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:09PM (#13743469) Homepage
    The great thing about standards is there are so many to choose from!

  • Who wants a new video format anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PhotoBoy ( 684898 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:09PM (#13743470)
    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? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:24PM (#13743556) Homepage Journal
      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.
    • 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 remember pointing this out a long time ago, when DVDs first came out. HDTV was already well on its way when DVDs first arrived on the scene, but no support for HD was put into the DVD spec. If there was any forethought put into the DVD spec, then there would have been support for the higher resolution HDTVs. The problem, of course, was technology. A 12-cm disk at the time couldn't
    • 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.

      That's no dirty trick, that's exactly what I want: just the movie please, no filler. They aren't offering this on DVD, but if HD makes it so, then bring on HD. It will make DVDs more appealing (and hopefully cheaper).
         
  • in one word why Microsoft hates Blu-Ray.

    Java.

  • I believe Gates is off-base here... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by YesIAmAScript ( 886271 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:34PM (#13743610)
    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... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by __aamvsa2347 ( 921277 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:40PM (#13743650)
    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? (Score:5, Funny)

    by wsanders ( 114993 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:46PM (#13743701) Homepage
    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!
  • 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? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DaveCBio ( 659840 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @07:02PM (#13743795)
    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.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cjdavis ( 13840 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @07:42PM (#13743998)
    "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 (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Rolman ( 120909 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @12:53AM (#13745216)
      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? (Score:4, Informative)

    by TheNetAvenger ( 624455 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @10:34PM (#13744783)
    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.

  • Can't believe no ones mentioned j2me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rhyd ( 614491 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @04:32AM (#13745684)
    The real reason microsoft hates blue-ray is becase all the menus and animation and games and extras are mandatarily to be done in java.

    If blue-ray takes off sun can claim the number of java-embedded devices doubles from 5 billion to 10 billion devices or whatever. .net cf take up aleady looks like shit by comparison and every nokia/sony/moto/samsung phone shipped makes it worse.

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