DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

I haven’t had the best of luck in the last few months with technology. The main server’s hard-disk broke in March, then the entire data-center exploded in June. Both of my computers started acting up in August (managed to fix them both though), and now my PS3 is broken. And as covered on the blog, my Xbox 360 broke in January (well, that one was expected). Out of all the electronic equipment I’ve bought, including computers, only 2 devices have ever broken and required warranty service. Both were now-gen game consoles. Coincidence? Or perhaps just a side effect of the game console wars.

Copyright news first. There’s a lot about the hit game Spore this week. Unfortunately, most of the coverage was not about how great the game is (and it is pretty good), but about the draconian DRM that EA felt the game needed. Not only is the game limited to 3 installs, it also limits each copy of the game to only one account, meaning you cannot install multiple copies of the game and play them at the same time on different computers. If you have two computers, you need to buy two copies. 

EA spokesman speaks about Spore DRM

And about only being able to re-install the game 3 times - imagine if the game stuffs up and you need to re-install it, or if you’re running out of disk space and you uninstall the game only later you find that you want to play it again, or that you need to do an OS re-install and then re-install the game - is 3 times really enough? As expected, there was a backlash, most prominently on Amazon where Spore’s product rating had been reduced to a single star, the worst possible rating. Almost makes you want to get the pirated version just to avoid these stupid restrictions? That’s exactly what a lot of people are doing, including people who have purchased already, making Spore the most pirated game in history. Nice one EA.

Not content with ruining one hit game, EA wants to do it to Red Alert 3 as well. Red Alert 3’s DRM is limited to only 5 re-installs, needs online authentication, but at least it doesn’t require the CD to be present. If you need more re-installs, you’ll have to call EA tech support. Or you can just apply the no DRM hack, which I’m sure will pop up around the Net in no time. I like the public backlash in response to what EA is trying to do to PC gaming. It’s one thing to prevent piracy, but to inconvenience legitimate users in such a way is just stupid. Hopefully the no DRM movement, led by Stardock’s Sins of a Solar Empire, will gather pace and gaming DRM will be as unpopular as music DRM is right now. Speaking of Sins of a Solar Empire, it’s doing rather well, having sold over half a million copies despite having no DRM. The game also has low system requirements, which has also helped sales. Not bad for a game that doesn’t even have a storyline mode.

RealDVD: Legal DVD copying? But at what cost?

Back to digital video DRM. Real Networks is set to release a new software called RealDVD, which is the first commercial and legal DVD ripper on the market. What it does is rip DVDs to your hard-drive (well, duh), but it also adds a further layer of DRM on top to ensure the ripped DVD cannot be copied to another computer or distributed online. Obviously, it’s only playable on RealDVD’s software as well. Not sure how useful it will be, having these constraints. The limitation goes so far that even in a RAID mirror array where you swap one drive for another, the ripped files stop being playable as the hardware has changed. This makes backup impossible, so if your drive fails, you need to re-rip everything. External storage drives is the solution to allowing the same ripped DVDs to play on multiple computers, but each computer requires it’s own paid copy of RealDVD as well. RealDVD has noble intentions, but the way it has gone about things is totally wrong. And it may not even be that legal anyway.

What I would like to see is the DVD Forum get in on the act and produce a set of standards from which disc-less DVD playback can occur, even if it has to have some DRM to prevent copying. I would love to have a disc-less DVD library, where the first time you play it, you insert the disc into the player and you will get an option to make a copy of it to that certified central storage device for later disc-less playback on your standalone or HTPC running some licensed decryption software. Perhaps the central storage device can be encrypted to prevent copying and sharing *but not backup, and you would expect the storage device to employ some kind of RAID array anyway), and perhaps a requirement to have the original disc to be inserted after every 5 plays or something, to re-authenticate the copy. I think that’s a fair compromise.

Speaking of disc-less, there is talk that the good old CD is on the way out, to be replaced with downloads. CDs have been around for so long now, so it was always a matter of time before it gets replaced. And notice how CDs don’t have DRM, how quick ripping CDs became possible, and how long it has lasted as a format.

The MPAA is at it again

The RIAA/MPAA has been busy this week too. They seek to expand copyright laws to allow the Department of Justice to file civil suits against people who violate copyright, getting the government to use tax payer money to sue, well, the tax payers. There was another act that they tried to introduce which wants the US government to pressure country which they perceive to be weak on copyright protection. The MPAA also don’t want you to have cheap and flexible cable TV because they want to prevent a la carte pricing. Don’t know how this even relates to copyright, but it’s all part of the pursuit of greed the MPAA is really all about. A couple of week ago, I talked about Sony’s multi-DRM initiative, which the RIAA and MPAA are eager to be part of. All parties involved want to avoid the fate that befell music DRM, and they think they can do it by providing user-friendly DRM (an oxymoron if there ever was one), DRM that is “better than free”, as Sony Pictures CTO Mitch Singer described it. Excuse me while I throw up.

In HD news, not much happening at all. The latest Nielsen VideoScan numbers for last week gave Blu-ray it’s best week since inception I think, with DVD sales down, but Blu-ray’s going up. Total sales, the figure which studios are interested in, is down though (as DVD’s sales drop was much larger than Blu-ray sales increase). The rise in Blu-ray sales was almost directly related to the Transformers Blu-ray edition. And as there was no equivalent DVD re-release, it explains the figures somewhat.

Microsoft’s Silverlight platform is set to ditch Microsoft’s own VC-1 codec and support H.264 (and AAC) audio. Not so much ditch, but to start supporting the major rival to VC-1 is significant I think. H.264 + AAC is really becoming the standard much like how MPEG-4 (A)SP/MP3 has been up until now.

And in gaming, the NPD figures for August came out, but I haven’t had time to do a write up yet. The surprise was that Wii sales dropped by 20%, while the Xbox 360 beat the PS3, albeit narrowly. And Madden ‘09 sales was through the roof, with a million copies being sold on the 360, easily making it the best seller of the month. I will have the full analysis up on Monday or Tuesday.

I know you’re expecting more, but that’s it for this week. Overall, a quiet week that was dominated by DRM news. It’s a shame though because DRM is evil and boring, and I would much rather be posting about a new piece of Blu-ray technology or a new killer Wii device that’s a must have. Perhaps next week then …

A follow up to the blog I posted a few days ago. I contacted Sony tech support (Australia). It was quick and painless, and I was given instructions on how to get my PS3 repaired. After giving my details (name, email, address and model/serial number for the PS3), and being asked the nature of the problem, I was told of a few troubleshooting tips, which I had already tried (reset to default settings, full system restore).

Basically, they will send you an email with a PDF file that can be printed, containing a barcode and instructions for the local post office (what kind of packaging, wrap materials …). The helpful local post office staff will usually help you do the packing as well, so you only need to bring the PS3 (no cables, controllers, just the console) to them. This is the process in Australia, at least. The expected return day, I was told, was 10 business days, which is quite acceptable.

Strangely, I was not asked to provide receipts (I do have them), and was only asked about the purchase date of my PS3 (December 2007). This may be an Australian only thing though, because our market is quite small and it is quite possible that information regarding every PS3 purchased is sent to Sony by the authorised retailers, like with many other CE products here (which makes warranty servicing quite simple, no need to registration and the like).

My experience does seem to go against the majority of reports from the US in regards to the same problem, where some people have been told to send back everything, including the controllers and manuals, and the 5 to 7 week return period is common as well. And if receipts are not available, then it is considered out of warranty as well.

Anyway, I’ve sent out my PS3 today (I paid for the registered post option as recommended by Sony tech support - peace of mind for under $3 if worth it). I was told that once Sony receives the console, they will send me an email, and hopefully in a week or two’s time I will get a refurbished PS3 back, so I can finish watching Memento.

PS3 2.42 - Buggy firmware may kill your PS3

If you are reading this and you haven’t upgraded your PS3 firmware to 2.42, then please no matter what you do, do not upgrade to version 2.42. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to keep your PS3 at 2.35 if you can.

Update: There are many causes of this problem (for example, Blu-ray laser problem), and it may or may not be related to fw 2.42, but for some reason, the number of reports of this problem has increased after 2.42, so the firmware must be doing something. It’s possible that the firmware isn’t the cause of all this, and it may all just be a coincidence. Regardless, the best course of action is probably to contact Sony tech support instead of waiting for a firmware fix, especially if your warranty is running out shortly.

Just after 2.42 became available, there were reports that it started causing all sorts of problems, mostly disc reading related problems. Like most people, I didn’t pay too much attention to it. Firmware updates always cause problems for the minority of users. But the reports of the problem grew in number every day, and despite the same old defence of Sony fanboys, accusing users having the problem of exaggerating the claims and not knowing how to take care of their PS3, it was soon pretty obvious that the problem was somehow related to the 2.42 firmware. Or that whatever hardware problem that was around before 2.42, has decided to show up in force just around the time 2.42 was released - perhaps just a coincidence.

Now I had already updated to the 2.42 version before these reports were widespread, and like most users, I didn’t pay too much attention to it. My PS3 was still working, although I don’t use it very often (only for DVDs and Blu-ray). It was still working perfectly 2 days ago.

Today, I decided to watch Memento on Blu-ray. About 20 minutes into the film, the movie froze. The disc drive was reading like crazy, but I was still able to eject the disc. Upon inserting the disc again, it would play for a few minutes and then freeze up again. I decide to soft reset to the PS3 - bad mistake. Upon reset, the drive will no longer read any media, not Blu-ray or DVD. Nothing happens when the disc is inserted, not an error message or any drive spinning - it’s as if the PS3 operating system doesn’t even know that a drive exists anymore. I can still insert and eject the disc, but that’s all I can do with it. A full system restore taking 3 hours did nothing to help. So it’s either hope that the next firmware update will fix the issue, or it’s time to ring Sony tech support and get my PS3 repaired/exchanged.

Reading the various threads about this problem, it seems the problem is now very widespread. Nobody knows why only some PS3s are affected, and other aren’t. My PS3 was purchased in December last year, so it’s not a launch day console. As mentioned before, I haven’t used it like crazy, since I bought it for Blu-ray playback mainly (and the odd DVD). Some launch day consoles are affected, some are only a few weeks old. So it doesn’t look like it’s limited to one particular model, country or type of use. It could even be that an existing hardware problem exists, and that fw 2.42 somehow causes the problem to show up sooner. Who knows.

Luckily, my PS3 still under warranty (until December, that is), and I still have the receipts (as I had to keep it to redeem the free Blu-ray movies), so if I do go through the Sony tech support system, I won’t have to pay for the repair. Unfortunately, those without receipts or are out of warranty have already been made to pay $150 for what is clearly a Sony caused problem (due to their faulty 2.42 firmware). And this is not to mention the up to 7 weeks of wait while your PS3 is repaired, regardless of whether you had to pay $150 or not.

So what should you do to prevent/fix this problem? These tips might be helpful:

• Don’t upgrade to 2.42! Probably best to stay with 2.35, as 2.40 is a bit buggy as well (although 2.40 and 2.41 shouldn’t cause the problems I’ve described with the disc reading).
• If 2.42 is already installed, probably best to not use the PS3 until 2.43 or 2.50 is released if you already have 2.42 installed
• If you get the freezing problem, do a hard-reset (turn off the console using the back power switch) - some have had success with this, but be warned that doing this can’t be very good for the health of your system
• Doing a full (or quick) system restore seems to do nothing
• The next firmware update may fix the problem if you are willing to keep the useless black box until then, but if you contact Sony tech support, they will ask you to send the console in, which doesn’t sound like a problem that could be fixed through software (if it could, shouldn’t Sony have released a firmware update by now?). Probably best to just call Sony tech support
• If your PS3 is out of warranty or you don’t have the receipt anymore, then insist on Sony to fix this problem for free as some other users have already had this offered to them

I will keep you updated on what happens with my PS3.

In the digital entertainment news world, the news items are represented by three separate, yet related, groups. Copyright news that deals with the legal ramifications of digital copyright, HD news that deals with the emergence of HD video, and gaming news that talks about the next generation game consoles. These are this week’s stories.

Dun. Dun.

Let’s start with copyright news. In Italy, the MPAA’s president have been giving the Italians some advice on how to deal with piracy: get the ISPs to do your dirty and unconstitutional work. Not very original at all. The Italian courts have been quite reasonable in their dealings so far in relation to digital copyright, and they even said that downloading films, music or software is not a crime if it isn’t done for profit.

If the ISPs don’t get on board, than colleges will be the next target. It’s not the first time that the MPAA has blamed college students for their revenue losses. “What revenue losses?”, I hear you say, and you’re right, the movie industry has been making record profits of late. The “revenue” they refer to, of course, is the imaginary one that has been lost due to people pirating and not buying movies. This of course assumes that the college student that downloaded 500 movies would have paid for those if piracy had been prevented. Yes, I’m sure it’s is entirely plausible for a college student to have a $10,000 DVD collection on campus. And not only that, each student would have to have their own collection, as sharing a movie is also illegal according to the MPAA.

IsoHunt - taking the fight to Canada

IsoHunt’s fight against the RIAA is now turning into a fight against the CRIA (Canadian version of the RIAA), but the first strike has been from IsoHunt. Taking an offensive step in the litigation process, IsoHunt has tried to explain how torrents work and why it shouldn’t be considered copyright infringement if a website only hosts the torrent files. The law lacks sufficient clarity when it comes to these types of issues, such as whether linking to a third-party site that hosts pirated material is the same as hosting the pirated content yourself. Second degree piracy, or something. Torrents are the same … you can link to a torrent file which is basically just a text file, but without the trackers, seeders and leechers, you can’t do anything with the torrent file. 

PlayTV - no DRM?

Sony’s new PlayTV add-on for the PS3, which adds TV recording facilities to the PS3, might be DRM free after all. How long before PlayTV recorded shows make their way onto the Internet and will Sony defend against charges that it is making devices that facilitates piracy? Or will Sony, one of the largest makers of blank media (and one of the largest uses of blank media is related to piracy, of course), turn a blind eye when they stand to make a profit from all this. DRM-free is the right thing to do, but the “holier-than-thou” attitude towards DRM from Sony is hypocritical from a company that has profited from piracy, like most other media/electronics/gaming companies.

Let’s have a look at HD news. Sony has came out with a bold prediction that Blu-ray will be the last optical format. Either they’re extremely confident that no technology will ever better Blu-ray in terms of storage, production costs, speed, or that they don’t think the good old optical disc has much life left, now that there are alternative methods of distribution. I’m more inclined to believe the latter, and it seems another Blu-ray backer, Samsung, agrees with this as well.

Samsung: Blu-ray only has 5 years left

Samsung says that Blu-ray only has 5 years left (which, ironically, is just about the time that Blu-ray will overtake DVDs, by many other’s predictions), and after that, downloads and whatnot will take over. I have no idea what will happen, as downloads/streaming will depend a lot on how sound the Net infrastructure is and whether it can cope with the added demand (and the news that Comcast is starting to cap broadband usage suggests that the infrastructure is getting stretched). There’s also the slightly tricky issue of getting consumers on board, as without a simple plug and play device to download/stream movies, people will be turned off by it. But video on demand is the future, and by “on demand”, I don’t mean having a 10,000 Blu-ray disc movie library which you have to store, catalogue and search through whenever you want to watch a movie. Either way, it sounds like Sony may be onto only a temporary winner when it comes to Blu-ray.

Which is why it was so strange to see that the first movie on a possible Blu-ray killing distribution method, USB memory sticks, is actually a Sony movie. What with the PS3 ready to do video streaming as well, it looks like Sony is hedging its bets on both Blu-ray and purely digital distribution. And who can blame them?

Samsung's 240 Hz LCD

Back to Samsung. They are saying that they will concentrate on new display technologies such as OLED TVs (thinner, brighter, better than LCD technology). 3D TVs without the need for goggles is another one to watch out for. Both Samsung and Sony are working on 240 Hz TVs, which will give motion that is so smooth, that it is very close to what our eyes can see in everyday motion. If you’ve ever watched a Blu-ray movie on a 120 Hz screen (especially compared to a 60 Hz one), you’ll know why this is a good thing. It’s just a shame that not all HDTVs are 120 Hz by standard, which is what I would have expected by now (if Blu-ray was more popular, I think 120 Hz would be too, as Blu-ray’s 24 FPS output is perfect for 120 Hz due to it being a multiple of 24).

And finally in gaming, more Xbox 360 price cuts are coming, with the Arcade bundle now $199 and cheaper than the Wii as Microsoft tries to catch onto the casual gaming wave. I can’t complain about any price drops of course, but I wish they would upgrade the hardware to at least make it less noisy and more reliable (surely technological advances should allow for this to happen now without dramatic product cost increases).

GTA may be coming to the Wii as well, which kind of goes against the family friendly image of the Wii, but there are quite a few violent games on the Wii already.

And that’s it for this week. I’ve been busy with some mundane stuff recently, upgrading the forum software for one which is a pain in the proverbial due to all the modifications I’ve made to it. Hopefully, I can get it done by next week, or somehow wipe out the entire forum in the process, whichever comes first. To be continued …

Created by Dick Wolf.

Hello there! No mid week blog as I’m working on something special. And by special, I mean sometimes that takes me a long time to write because I really don’t know what I am doing. I guess I’ll just luck my way through it, although in my experience, there’s no such thing as luck. 

Let’s start with copyright news. The RIAA had to pay damages in a court case, a reverse of what usually happens. They falsely accused someone of downloading pirated music, and had to pay $107,951.03 the disabled single mother as a result. I wonder how many other of RIAA’s victims are falsely accused. The MPAA has been busy with Operation Takedown, going after pirates in the Asia-Pacific region. Can’t blame them this time for doing so, as they weren’t going after home users, but rather, large scale piracy rings.

Dream Pinball 3D - sold 800 copies, illegally downloaded 12,000 times

In the PC gaming arena, where piracy is rampant, Atari and Codemasters are trying something new to tackle the problem. They have sent 25,000 people £300 fines for illegally sharing their games. Now this is going into a slightly confusing area. How did Atari/Codemasters get the details of these 25,000, let alone figure out whether these people downloaded the entire game or only part of it, whether they shared the entire game or only part of it, and whether they actually used the game that they allegedly downloaded. If, for example, I accidentally download the wrong torrent file and started downloading/sharing a pirated game, but only for 30 seconds, am I culpable for piracy? Or if I managed to download the entire game without sharing any part of it, but I did not play the game and merely deleted it straight away, then should I be fined for £300 as well? And with malware being so prevalent, how can they prove that it was the user’s intention to download the game, rather than the user’s computer being controlled by someone else. I for one hope one of the 25,000 people fined is a lawyer and will take this up further. The CEO of ID Software, Todd Hollenshead, says that PC manufacturers love piracy, as it helps sales. I think that’s true and has always been true for PCs. EA Sports boss Peter Moore thinks that’s not good and wants a piracy crackdown.

But while anti-piracy measures may be important, they must also not impede the user’s fair use rights, at least according to a California judge. Some common sense from the courts, finally. Copyright holders should also stop being so greedy, forcing music streaming sites such as Pandora to shut down due to excessive cost. This will only drive more people to piracy, so the copyright holders can’t have it both ways.

In HD news, the big news of the week is Microsoft’s support for Blu-ray in Windows. XP, Vista, Server 2003/2008 will now have built-in Blu-ray burning supports via a feature pack currently in beta testing that will add native Blu-ray burning support. Good news for Blu-ray supporters, that’s for sure.

Hannah Montana Blu-ray - Comes with 3D Viewing Option

To add more features to Blu-ray, the Blu-ray Group is currently investigating stereoscopic 3D movies, which they think may the “next big thing” in Blu-ray. 3D movies does hold fascination for me personally, but even the best systems today are very clunky or poor in visual quality (not to mention, prone to inducing motion sickness). Can’t help but feel this is all a bit gimmicky, just like BD-Live and most of the “new” features found on Blu-ray. The increased audio/video resolution is the only thing that makes Blu-ray a must-have for me. Convenience of use is something that Blu-ray has to be wary of too, because HD VOD streaming services (either cable based or IP based), especially those on a fixed subscription fee, is a lot more convenient and cheaper than buying Blu-ray movies.

But the problem with at least online HD streaming is the bandwidth, and following our news last week about the BBC upgrading the iPlayer to use H.264/AAC, a new problem with bandwidth has emerged. Small ISPs are complaining that the BBC has switched network carriers, making it unaffordable to them to provide for the increasing demand. There is not nearly enough bandwidth for even today’s video applications if they are to become a success and almost everyone uses them. The fight for bandwidth will certainly heat up, unless new technology can be implemented or if governments and large private enterprises (ie. Google) step up and spend to improve infrastructure (which Google is doing already).

And finally in gaming, a follow on from last week’s surprising “Xbox 360 outsells PS3 in Japan of all place” story, the Xbox 360 is officially sold out in all of Japan this week. This sounds like big news, but I suspect the total stock of Xbox 360’s in Japan is probably only a little bit more than what the Wii sells there in weekly numbers. Typical of Microsoft to not take advantage of a good situation, with buyers unable to buy the Xbox 360 even if they wanted to now.

Good news for Xbox 360 GTA IV fans, the downloadable content that was to be delayed until 2009 will arrrive this year, according to Microsoft at least. Nobody seems to have a clue as to what the DLCs will bring. Whole new cities? More buildings that can be entered? More single player storylines? Better weapons? Won’t have to wait too long to find out, if Microsoft is correct.

Rumor: Xbox 360 Arcade for $200 with motion controller

There is also the rumour that the Xbox 360 Arcade will ship with motion controllers to find the Wii not only on pricing (only $200 for the console), but on features. Aggressive move by Microsoft, if true.

On the PS3 front, Sony will bring out a 160 GB PS3 in October (not in Australia though). It costs $100 more, so you would expect perhaps it would have some other additional hardware features to justify the increase. Replacing the PS3 HDD is extremely easy and cheap, so if the new model only has a bigger hard-drive, then it’s not really worth it in my opinion.

The Wii, meanwhile, is making more money for Nintendo than all the other consoles. Because the Wii uses cheaper hardware (not as advanced in the CPU/GPU department, and no Blu-ray), a profit is made on every console sold. Sony loses a lot of money for every PS3, and Microsoft has only started to profit from their games division. It just goes to show that it’s the games and how people can play them that matters, not how many gigaflops the CPU can handle per second, that’s important.

That’s it for this week. Hopefully, I will finish that guide I’m currently writing that has me all confused this week. Didn’t spot the Obi-Wan Kenobi reference from my intro? Oh well, better luck next time. Until then, may the force be with you.