DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

Okay, I’ve learnt my lesson. No more controversial intros for the roundup. Just to be clear, if I ever unintentionally mention I might quit writing this feature in the future, I’m most likely only kidding, unless I follow up the statement with THIS IS NOT A JOKE!! In fact, I don’t think you should take anything I write here seriously, since 90% of the stuff I write are actually complete lies.  Or perhaps the last sentence was a lie. Or was the last sentence a lie …

Copyright vs consumer rights is being fought around the globe, this time a Japanese perspective on the issue of Digital TV recordings and copy protection. Sometimes content owners just need to take a step back and see the bigger picture, because if they had their way, half of the products on the market would be “illegal”, and the other half will be filled with DRM. The RIAA, being the leaders of the Senseless Copyright Brigade (SCB), talks about forcing computer hardware and software manufacturers to implement “piracy filters” to prevent people from transferring and playing pirated music. Luckily, the people in the IT industry, who have been affected by piracy more than anybody else, will take a more sensible approach and ignore RIAA’s request. The most recent example being Verizon rejecting another SCB member, the MPAA’s, request for filtering. Good for Verizon, and I hope people reading this will buy their products and use their services to support them.

It’s been nearly two weeks since the Blu-ray free movies promo has ended, and there does not seem to be any signs that a new promotion will start in place of the expired one. The BDA seems to have stopped trying on the promotional front, maybe because they think they’ve won, or because they are saving up for one big final push. It’s not that great being a Blu-ray owner at the moment, with only two rather pathetic sales on at Amazon (one for 6 titles only, the other for 10 titles from Fox, but only a 10% discount on normal Amazon prices). If this is what we should expect if Blu-ray wins the day, then I for one hopes the format continues on for a bit longer so I can buy more cheap movies. Netflix is the most recent of companies to suggest higher HD movie prices are on the way once the war is over, so the lost revenue during the war can be recouped. On the other hand, the HD DVD people have been doing a lot more on the promotional front, with the Superbowl ad now aired (although by all accounts, it was a pretty lame effort), player price drops (which has been better received, with hardware and software sales both up compared to the horrible weeks following Warner’s announcement), movie discounts at Amazon (a new 140+ title 50% off sale is gathering immense interest) and in store promotions (at least here in Australia). Microsoft dropping the price of the Xbox 360 add-on drive is just another part of the promotion, and sales of the drive at Amazon went up an amazing 71,900% after the price cut. Perhaps some will view it as “too little too late”, but there’s still a long time between now and June, when Warner officially drops HD DVD, and anything could happen in between. Then there is also the issue of the Chinese market, which HD DVD has been making huge investments in with both an official Chinese HD format (CH DVD), and also staying out of the Chinese HD DVD market to allow Chinese manufacturers to profit from HD DVD player sales. I know for a fact that the Chinese government does not like Blu-ray (or HD DVD, for that matter) due to the excessive royalties and licensing fees, and so going with the royalty free CH DVD format is their aim, which might be even cheaper than producing DVDs since DVDs have licensing costs too. For a comprehensive and detailed view at the HD format war, the Warner’s decision, the CES, the past, present and future, there is a good article on AV Forums (not to be confused with AVS Forum). There are lots of good points made in the article, as well as some facts that weren’t so clear before – regardless of which side you’re on, it’s worth a read.

And it’s not been great time for Samsung, after being threatened with a lawsuit over their poorly designed BD-UP5000 dual format player, they are now being sued proper for their allegedly “defective” BD-P1200 Blu-ray player in a class action lawsuit. The article goes on about BD+, but the real issue is behind an update to BD-J, which Samsung promised to provide over a firmware update, but has not done so for some reason, causing certain discs to be unplayable. As a owner of a brand new Toshiba HD-XE1 player, I’m extremely pleased to be able to buy such a player (for $USD 490 with 11 free HD DVD movies, which is a steal for a player of this quality). There is currently no Blu-ray player that can match the quality of the XE1 and it’s almost identical twin, the XA2, even without considering price, and that’s something the BDA will have to address soon. A fully featured Blu-ray Profile 2.0 player with Reon upscaling, made by a company known for high end equipment such as Denon or Onkyo, is what many Blu-ray owners are waiting for. But it will take a long time before such a player can be made available, since according to a Denon rep, the reason they have not released a Profile 2.0 player is because Profile 2.0 is not even finalized yet. The worrying thing is that, because Profile 2.0 is not finalized and new things can still be added to it, the PS3 is just a proprietary connector away from being ever able to achieve Profile 2.0 compatibility. For example, if the BDA decides WirelessHD has to be a mandatory part of 2.0, then the PS3, which I have recommended to everybody as the safest bet for Profile 2.0, will never get certified. Let’s hope the BDA come to their sense and allow the PS3 to be 2.0 compatible.

Not much gaming news this week. EA predicts the PS3 will be the top selling player in 2008, while Activision predicts the Xbox 360. Microsoft says they “own” GTA IV due to the exclusive content. And other such PR nonsense, which I won’t even dignify with links (you can search Google News if you’re really desperate). There is one piece of interesting news, reporting that game arcades are suffering because people can now play the same type of games at home on the Wii. An unintended victim of the console wars, no doubt.

That’s it for this week, same time, same channel, next week (I think I’ve used this joke before).

So here we are, the very last blog entry of 2007. Not much in the news recently (not that I’ve been paying any attention), so I’ve supplemented this otherwise short blog with a brief look back at 2007, should be interesting.

But to get the news stuff out of the way first.

In copyright news, Antigua has won a fight against the US which will now allow it to (once again) become a pirate and gambling haven. Or something like that. While this decision has a lot to do with online gambling, it also has copyright implications. While I can’t talk about it directly on this website, many people are aware that Antigua is home to a particular software that does certain things to protected video content. It now seem that this software, and software like it, might have found a safe place to reside without being subject to copyright laws of other countries. But a safe home might not be needed for much longer, as DRM in music at least appears to be dying a quick death. Warner, the last major holdout, has just agreed to release all their music DRM-free on Amazon. The next obvious step will be to get rid of DRM on movies, although it probably won’t happen as quickly since the movie DRMs usually reside on discs, rather than online formats. It’s not like music where DRM obstructs portability, which is the whole point of digital music downloads. DRM does not, at the moment, interfere with the normal operation of movie discs, other than being not able to backup your movies (which you’d be hard pressed to do with Blu-ray and HD DVDs, what with them being so large in size).

Moving quickly onto HD movies, apparently The Bourne Ultimatum and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix HD DVDs are outselling all Blu-ray titles this week, including the Blu-ray version of OOTP. This is not too surprising because Bourne is a format exclusive hit movie, and that the Blu-ray version of OOTP has had several production and distribution problems. In the end though, Blu-ray still won the week by nearly a 2:1 margin again. All those PS3s are really helping Blu-ray’s movie sales – even if every PS3 owner just buys only one movie, that will still give Blu-ray a huge advantage even if HD DVD owners buy 3 or 4 movies per player. What I think will happen eventually is that the HD DVD movie sales number will go up due to the people who purchased the cheap $99 HD DVD players (and subsequent sales) finally starting to purchase some movies. Remember that all the HD DVD players came with up to 12 free movies, so there is no immediate reason for people to buy titles until they’ve finished watching the free ones. And once Universal and Paramount start releasing their catalogue titles (older classics, such as Back to the Future or The Godfather), then the numbers will be more even. That’s my prediction for 2008 by the way, and it’s the only prediction I’m going to make since I suck at them. Speaking of sales, don’t forget to keep looking at our special online sales page for high def bargains. The current HD DVD BOGOF sale is going very well, with more than 20 HD DVD titles in the Amazon top 100 movies at times (the top 100 includes DVD, Blu-ray as well as HD DVD sales). Amazon has even released a statement saying they they sold so many high-def players that it could have filled seven (American) football fields. If you’re still confused about Blu-ray and HD DVD, don’t forget to read my new Buyer’s Guide, which even if I’m saying so myself, is pretty useful if you still need more information to make up your mind as to whether to get into HD or not (or which one of Blu-ray/HD DVD/both).

And that’s pretty much it in terms of news.

So onto the yearly review. 2007 has been an interesting year for myself and Digital Digest. The biggest even happened in March. I still cannot legally say much about what went on, except to say that it was a legal matter and that, for a while at least, it appeared that Digital Digest might not have survived to its 8th birthday (which was celebrated in July this year). But survive I/we did, and I think the website is a better one for it – there’s no longer any confusion toward its legal status, and it has forced me to concentrate on some other parts of the website which has been neglected (such as the Blu-ray and HD DVD stuff).

But apart from that, I think 2007 is when Blu-ray and HD DVD finally entered into people’s thoughts, if not their homes (I think this will happen in 2008). This time last year, nobody really gave a damn about the format war or sales figures. Paramount was still format neutral, and you wouldn’t even think possible that a HD player’s price would fall under $100. But from what I have seen, people are starting to think about getting into HD, and while it may still take a year for most people to start caring, I think the trend is there.

Another war that has been brewing is the next-gen games console war, a three way fight between the Nintendo Wii, the Xbox 360 and the PS3. You might say that there are really no losers in this war, at least not for 2007, since in their own way all three consoles have made significant gains. The Wii has become a fad, attracting people who have never played games before. The Xbox 360 has held firm despite RROD problems, while the PS3 looks less like the whipping boy that it was at the start of the year. 2008 should probably see the PS3 make more gains, while we might yet see some new innovations coming the Wii’s way.

2007 is also the year music DRM finally died. To be fair, it was a short and bitter life for music DRM – it never really had any chance because it’s hated by the most important demographics – the actual consumers. Hopefully, 2008 will be the year video DRM dies too, with CSS, AACS and BD+ being hacked beyond all recognition, I don’t think DRM will be missed at all, not even by the studios.

So that’s it for 2007. I hope you’ve had an eventful and pleasant 2007, and if not, I hope that 2008 will be much kinder. Happy New Year from me and everyone here at Digital Digest. See you in 2008.