Archive for the ‘Gaming’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Weekly News Roundup (13 January 2008)

Sunday, January 13th, 2008

Good afternoon. This is DVDGuy for Digital Digest and you’re watching the Weekly News Roundup Show. I hope you are enjoying your weekend wherever you are. Now here’s the news roundup for this week.

Starting as usual with copyright news of sorts, Sony demonstrated at the CES the ability to use the PS3 to make copies of selected Blu-ray titles, for use in the PSP or Memory Stick. While not specifically stated, the copies would most likely be DRM protected to prevent further copying/uploading, and it appears this might not be an example of AACS managed copy, but something else entirely. This is a good start in terms of making DRM more consumer friendly, although we will most likely end up paying more for the right to do this. And just before we move onto HD, Blu-ray backers Lionsgate has come out to say publicly their reason for supporting Blu-ray: more DRM! This is not really new or surprising, as a win for Blu-ray was always going to be a loss for consumer rights, with the region coding, BD+ and various other anti-consumer “features” of Blu-ray. It is surprising that, with DRM being so unpopular right now that even staunch DRM supporters Sony BMG has just dumped it, that Lionsgate would actually admit that DRM is the main reasons for supporting Blu-ray, not the PS3, or advanced features, bigger storage space. Even though Lionsgate admit that DRM is unlikely to stop piracy and that the best way to fight it is offer better features and pricing to make official versions more attractive, they are still supporting a format mainly because it has more DRM.

And on that note, we move onto HD. Oh boy, what a week it has been. Blu-ray supporters are still celebrating the death of HD DVD (slightly premature, IMO), while the wires has been full of news about the imminent about face of Paramount and Universal to ditch HD DVD (or at least ditch HD DVD exclusivity). Both companies have come out with statements of support for HD DVD, although Warner did the same not too long ago and supporting HD DVD does not mean not supporting Blu-ray. The Warner affiliated studios such as HBO and New Line have also come out with Blu-ray exclusive stances, which is not surprising considering they are owned by the same parent companies and that New Line has yet to release any HD DVDs of note. Meanwhile to add insult to injury, adult studios Digital Playground and Hustler have both ditched their HD DVD exclusive stance to support Blu-ray as well – although you will note that we broke the Digital Playground story 3 weeks ago, so this is more of a “kick them while they’re down” type of story, rather than an actual reaction to Warner’s decision. The good news continues for Blu-ray with the announcement of a sub-$300 Blu-ray Profile 1.1 player from Funai, hopefully a sign of things to come in the hardware pricing department. Not so good news for early Blu-ray adopters, especially those that aren’t aware of profiles, is the BDA’s attitude towards those that have helped it to possibly win the format war. Their “They knew what they were getting into” statement and revelation that the incomplete specification that is Profile 1.0 was rushed to the market to compete with the finalised specification of HD DVD, smacks of a statement that comes from someone who cheated and then got away with it. It seems good guys do finish last (and by “good guys”, I mean the people that were able to release a complete hardware specification, didn’t think consumers needed region coding and passed on shoving more DRM down the throat of users – you can read more of my ranting in my previous blog). Microsoft, ever so careful as to not stick their foot in too deep into the HD war, has distanced themselves from the Warner decision by indicating that a Blu-ray add-on drive for the Xbox 360 might be a possibility if HD DVD fails. Not exactly what Toshiba wanted to hear from one of it’s main partners. However, Microsoft appear to be not working on the Blu-ray add-on drive yet, and one might take quite a long time to be produced, if ever at all, due to the complications of BD-J. Actually while researching BD-J versus HDi, I came across this interesting forum post that dissected a story about the history for the HD format war – a very interesting read with input from Amir Majidimehr, who works for Microsoft and with some very inside knowledge about the formation of the HD formats. Did you know that the Blu-ray Technical Committee recommended HDi for use in Blu-ray instead of the harder to programme for and slower BD-J?

But it’s nice to see that there are still some companies that are supporting HD DVD, blank media makers Ritek being one of them. Ritek demonstrated some quite funky new HD burning technologies, including the ability to make dual sided, dual-format (Blu-ray on one side, HD DVD on the other) blank media, as well as do-it-yourself HD DVD combos that contain both HD DVD (single and dual layer) and DVD content on a single disc. Home made combo discs can be quite useful for home users and businesses as they transition from DVDs to HD media (and don’t want friends/family/customers from getting a disc that they can’t play). Moving away from the HD format war to another format war, Panasonic has demonstrated wireless HD using their imaginatively named WirelessHD technology. This kind of technology, in my opinion, is extremely useful and I will write a blog entry on this next week. And when I say “another format war”, there is a rival but most likely incompatible system called Wireless HDMI. Panasonic also demonstrated the world’s largest plasma TV, at a massive 150″, or 9 times the picture area of a 50″ screen. All you need to get one is a second mortgage for your home, a Toshiba micro nuclear power plant to power it, a third mortgage to build the extension to your home to fit the damn thing in, and you’re set for some awesome TV viewing.

On to gaming, Sony has claimed that they have sold 1.2 million PS3s during the holiday period. Meanwhile, Microsoft is claiming another type of record, claiming they will break revenues records for a game console in 2008, after selling more than 17.7 million Xbox 360’s so far. There is no doubt that the Xbox 360 is the most profitable console on the market today, mainly due to high games sales. The December NDP figures should be released soon so we can have a better look at how the 3 main consoles fared during the last month of 2007.

And that’s the news for the second week of 2008. We will be back with more roundup next Sunday, so until then, have a good week. This is DVDGuy signing off.

Posted in Copyright, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (13 January 2008)

The HD Format War: End Game?

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

So it’s a couple of days after Warner’s shock decision, and I think people have not yet fully digested (pun unintended) what has happened yet, and what this will mean.

The latest rumours are suggesting that Paramount will now ditch HD DVD as well and go back to Blu-ray, and after the last round up rumours turned out to be true in regards to Warner, you can’t rule anything out at this stage. If Paramount does ditch HD DVD, then I think HD DVD will not survive the month.

While I’ve already touched on the subject in my earlier blogpost about the Warner decision, but for this post, I want to concentrate on the future of HD, with the assumption that HD DVD had gone the way of the Dodo. What will we, as consumers, have to look forward to in the Blu-ray dominated market? Of course, these are just educated guesses, starting the assumption that HD DVD will fold, so please bear with me.

First of all, I think Toshiba will start making Blu-ray players, maybe dual-format players to cater to some movies which may still be HD DVD exclusive. They may not be happy with the outcome, but they are not going to destroy their promising consumer electronics division just to hold a grudge. Microsoft has shielded themselves from the format war by being quite distant to it. Yes, the would prefer HD DVD have won, but they’ve left enough room to wiggle just in case HD DVD didn’t win. A Blu-ray add-on drive is a possibility, a dual-format drive as an upgrade to the existing HD DVD add-on drive might also happen.

Sony has taken a huge risk in tying the success of the PS3 with Blu-ray. If either failed, both fails, but if either wins, both wins. It’s an “all or nothing” strategy that appears to have succeeded, although not without losing significant ground in the console war, to the Xbox 360. When you have so much to lose, you end up with the will to win at all cost – something that Toshiba and Microsoft lacked.

A reminder again that this is all just an assumption and some guessing, not facts, and so we come to the assumed conclusion that Blu-ray wins the day. The market will be flooded in 2008 with Profile 1.1 players, dubbed “Bonus View”. If you want to access all the bonus features of a Blu-ray disc, you will have to throw out your Profile 1.0 player (about a million sold in the US so far) and upgrade to the new 1.1 player. Us consumers are fairly predictable – if there’s an upgrade that gives us what appears to be more features, we will often do so, because nobody wants to be left behind. Then in 2009, “BD-Live” (Internet connectivity) will be introduced in discs and then a whole new range of Profile 2.0 “BD-Live” players will be on the market. Time to upgrade again. You can of course avoid all of this by buying the PS3, as recommended by my Blu-ray and HD DVD Buyer’s Guide, as it can be theoretically upgraded in software to BD-Live and beyond (more than 3 different profiles? Now that’s a scary thought). By the time “BD-Live” players are everywhere, you won’t see too many “Bonus View” players for sale at all (except perhaps on eBay), so if you don’t want to be left behind, you have to upgrade again. This cycle might continue on if the market (that is, us consumers) accept it, since every upgrade means extending the time it takes for hardware prices to bottom out, as it did quite quickly with DVDs.

On the region and copy protection front, BD+ will ensure hacking is limited to no more than specific discs and specific players. It will be highly inefficient for anybody to try and hack BD+ for all Blu-ray titles that uses it, meaning that for the first time, there is actually a copy protection mechanism that works (something that DVD does not have, although not for want of trying by the studios). This will eliminate the rent-and-copy crowd that is quite a large group when it comes to DVDs, which eats into disc sale profits and has been the ire of the studios for quite a while now. Discs will get managed copy, which means you can make (mostly inferior quality) DRM’d copies of discs for use in your iPod or PSP, or maybe even a DVD version. This is actually a good thing for consumers, except the cost of these different versions of the film will have been included in the cost of the disc and passed onto consumers (hopefully, there will be “standard” and “copy-enabled” versions of the same movie being released at the same time, with different pricing).

And with BD+ in place, the typical way of getting region-free playback on PCs will no longer be valid, and so with strict hardware control and application of the new digital copy protection laws that most countries now have, region-free players will be a thing of the past if not due to technical difficulties, then due to legal difficulties. For the first time, studios now have a solid region control system (again, something that DVDs do not have) which allows them to delay releases in regions and create pricing differentials depending on local economic conditions. The US will get movies quickly and cheaply because that’s where the competition is, while the rest of the world will get movies when the rental, cable TV showing period is over, and at a price that seems awfully high compared to the US.

So Blu-ray looks set to fix some of the “mistakes” that DVDs made, namely low hardware prices far too quickly, lack of proper region control and ineffective copy protection. It’s the optical format studios have been dreaming about since before DVD, not because of improved quality or any of the things we consumers look for, but for the added security of being able to control how and when people will be able to use your content. Of course, consumers will have to allow them to get away with it, and that’s not a certainty, especially with the hostility that has been shown towards audio DRM. There is still a chance that we can make Blu-ray a more consumer friendly format, but only if we put in the effort to make the studios know how we feel about region coding or DRM or any of these anti-consumer gimmicks, instead of accepting “BD-Live” as just another upgrade we had to have.

Posted in Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | 5 Comments »

Weekly News Roundup (6 January 2008)

Sunday, January 6th, 2008

Welcome to this slightly later than usual weekly news roundup, the first for 2008. I actually nearly forgot today was roundup day, as the whole week has been a bit like the weekend.

Starting with copyright news, as reported a bit earlier, the RIAA is still trying to ban CD ripping, completely ignoring fair use. CDs do not have copy protection mechanisms, so it’s not against the DMCA since nothing has been hacked or bypassed. And unless someone rips and upload the music online, nobody’s copyright has been violated either. Content owners have really lost sight of what copyright enforcement is about, and the constant targetting of their customers has had the unintended effect of making DRM public enemy number one. Keep it up guys, you’re doing a heck of a job destroying the reputation of DRM. Speaking of reputations, here’s another story of DRM gone mad, as changing your monitor might mean you lose access to your paid content. No wonder people prefer pirated stuff. And sort of in between copyright and HD, PowerDVD Ultra has been updated to be Blu-ray Profile 1.1 compatible, and it now supports BD+. Good news, on the surface. But to ensure BD+ cannot be bypassed, Cyberlink has now made it impossible to playback BD+ titles that do not have AACS (eg. if you were somehow able to bypass AACS through third party software, which I will not mention by name here), and also to playback any HD content (including both Blu-ray and HD DVDs)  from your hard-drive. If you want to keep these functionalities then you can skip the upgrade, but you will lose Profile 1.1 compatibility. So Blu-ray profiles have some use after all, to force people to accept harsher DRM or risk not getting to play advanced interactive content.

And now moving onto HD, and this has been a huge week for HD news. Well just like the story of the boy who cried wolf, the wolf finally came. Warner Brothers has finally gone down the anti-consumer street and abandoned support for HD DVD, becoming Blu-ray exclusive after May 2008. I’ve already said what I feel about this change of stance in the previous blog, suffice to say, the reaction on some of the forums have been quite hostile. Blu-ray fanboys gloating, HD DVD fans fighting back, and others selling their HD DVD players on eBay. I feel the people selling their HD DVD gear is a bit premature, there are still going to be some twists and turns before the war is over. It all depends on what the DVD Forum, Toshiba, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Universal and Paramount decide to do about it – as you can see, this is a list of some of the biggest companies in the world (Universal and Paramount added together is bigger than the entire Blu-ray studio camp, minus Warner), I don’t think they got to where they are by just giving up at the first sign of trouble. And your HD DVD gear won’t suddenly stop working just because Warner has gone blu – there are still tons of movies you cannot get on Blu-ray, even some Warner ones. A good time to pick up cheap HD DVD hardware and movies though. More good news for Blu-ray though, as the first Blu-ray enabled Mac might premier at Mac World later this month. For PC users, there is a look at the various HD acceleration performances of the latest NVIDIA and ATI GPUs, which is worth a look if you are looking to upgrade or build a new computer for HD playback.

And on that note, we move to gaming. Xbox Live users would have encountered some problems during the holiday period, as the Xbox Live servers were bogged down due to the ever increasing number of users (the holiday sales figures should be good for the Xbox 360 – several stores I went to just before Christmas were completely sold out of 360’s and Wii’s, with only some PS3s left). Microsoft has issued a “mea culpa” to Live users, and to make it up, will be offering a free Live Arcade game to all users (details to be made available soon). That’s nice of them, although it would be nicer if they had anticipated the increase in Xbox Live demand, especially so soon after it’s five year anniversary promotions.

So that’s it for this week. Keep your eyes peeled to this blog for more fall out from Warner’s bombshell, to see how the HD DVD camp reacts. See you next week.

Posted in Computing, Copyright, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (6 January 2008)

Weekly News Roundup and the Year in Review

Sunday, December 30th, 2007

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.

Posted in Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup and the Year in Review

Weekly News Roundup (23 December 2007)

Sunday, December 23rd, 2007

Welcome to the penultimate WNR of 2007. I love the word penultimate, I once thought that it was just a short way of saying the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword”. I think I know what the word means now. It’s been a relatively quiet week, mainly because I haven’t been paying much attention as I’ve been writing my penultimate buyer’s guide for Blu-ray and HD DVD.

First up in copyright news is a legal analysis of the Sony BMG rootkit scandal, a look at why a company would try and do something so stupid and harmful to themselves. Speaking of doing harm to yourselves, TorrentSpy has lost their case against the MPAA because they were found to have destroyed evidence. If only they had been upfront about it, it might have made a more interesting and penultimately more successful legal battle. As someone who has personally being involved in a legal battle, I can honestly say that being truthful is your best weapon, especially if you truly believe you were correct in doing whatever you did to get you into trouble. Once you start destroying evidence and being evasive, it becomes a reflection of your guilt and the lawyers on the other side, as well as judges, can see it as clear as day.

Next up is HD  news. Digital Playground is releasing their first ever Blu-ray adult title after having released about a dozen ones on HD DVD. Ironically (or not), the movie “Pirates” is a spoof the popular Blu-ray hit “Pirates of the Caribbean”. Digital Playground was initial format neutral before giving up Blu-ray due to resistance within the US to adult Blu-ray disc pressing. They have now gone back to Blu-ray due to user demand, and Sony’s less harsh views towards pornography. The PS3 has been upgraded to Profile 1.1 as expected (so all those who took my advice about buying the PS3 for profile upgradability will be happy to read this news). The same update, also as I had predicted (in a forum post somewhere), also included DivX/XviD support, although initial tests show that it’s a bit disappointing compared to the 360’s support (no GMC/QPel support, which makes it equivalent to a standalone player from about 2 years ago). Meanwhile, hackers have redirected the Blu-ray website to point to the HD DVD one. Will Blu-ray supporting hackers retaliate? Are there any Blu-ray supporting hackers? I would think not many due to Blu-ray’s love for DRM, but you never know. And it’s been a bad week or two for Warner Brothers, as no less than three of their new Blu-ray releases contain glitches that will require disc replacement. I wonder how they managed to produce Blu-ray discs that were actually HD DVDs (don’t they use different manufacturing presses?), and how duplicated discs managed to get past quality assurance. Putting my Michael Bay Tin Foil Hat® on for a second, could this be a signal of Warner’s decision to go format exclusive early in the new year? Perhaps they just don’t care for Blu-ray as much as they do for HD DVD. Maybe the extra manufacturing cost and lower yields for Blu-ray discs means less money and time for QA? Or perhaps the Blu-ray manufacturing plant has had one hell of a Christmas party a few weeks ago that people are still being affected by it. Who knows. It is curious that they have not managed to stuff up any HD DVD discs, which have had the same number of releases as Blu-ray ones from Warner. HD DVD had glitches with the first batch of combo discs, but that was understandable since it was a new type of disc. Blu-ray’s recent glitches also include Disney’s “Pirates: Curse of the Black Pearl”, which had framing problems, and a replacement program is available for the disc.

In gaming news, most gaming sites now have results up for their “games of the year”. Halo 3 is on almost everybody’s list, as is Bioshock. Super Mario Galaxy is a sure thing as well. Mass Effect has received lots of awards and critical acclaim, and I’m not surprised at all after discovering the developer’s previous effort, Knights of the Old Republic II, a year or two ago. You can submit your vote for the game of the year on Digital Digest here. And having just tried the Call of Duty 4 demo on my 3 year old PC, I was surprised to find that it ran quite smoothly even though I was barely able to get Call of Duty 2 running in 640×480 on the same computer a year ago. And it looked quite good too, unlike most new games that I play on my aging system. And in something I will talk about more next week, there are a few new GPUs from ATI and NVIDIA that improves 3D performance and HD video acceleration – will they take the crown away from the 8800 GT, my currently recommended GPU? Find out next week.

See you next week.

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (23 December 2007)

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »