DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

You know how I said that this was going to be the 30th WNR? I was wrong. This is actually the 31st WNR. Special thanks to me not selecting the right post categories for one WNR post that made this miscalculation possible. And you know how I was going to do something special for the “30th” issue? Well I guess it will have to be for the 31st issue, and it was never going to be that special anyway (what were you expecting? Free PS3s for every reader?). I think you’ve already figured out what that something special is just by doing a quick glance at this new updated WNR …

Oh look at the pretty picture to the left. Wow! Amazing! In copyright news, despite (or is that because of) MPAA’s pursuit of torrent sites, torrent usage has increased. I don’t suppose the extra publicity given to the issue would have driven some, who have never used BitTorrent before, to test it out? But the MPAA won’t make public why they think torrent sites should be taken down, at least the legal arguments to why these sites, which don’t host any of the content, should be considered illegal. YouTube has tried to avoid major lawsuits by implementing a piracy filter. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be going very well. Unless they can hire people to check every single video that is uploaded, then I don’t think the problem is going to go away. The whole point of YouTube is for people to share interesting video clips, and it just happens that many interesting video clips are copyrighted. Who’d have thunk it?

In HD news, the big news of the week has been Universal announcing their first ever Blu-ray lineup. The first title will be available July 22nd, and it includes all their blockbuster releases of the year like The Incredible Hulk, Hellboy II and the new Mummy movie. Catalogue releases include American Gangster, The Mummy Trilogy and season one and two of Heroes. Gladiator, Casino and The Thing are also slated for International release later in the year. Warner is starting to provide more details on the Blu-ray titles that were previously HD DVD exclusives, like Batman Begins and The Matrix trilogy. It appears that they will use the same encodes as the HD DVD versions, with The Perfect Storm getting a new transfer due to problems with the previous one. With Universal, the studio that has backed HD DVD the most, now releasing their Blu-ray release schedule, it seems that’s that for HD DVD. But not according to Samsung, as they will release a new Blu-ray/HD DVD combo drive for PCs (with Blu-ray write capability, and HD DVD read capability). On the same story, LG’s combo drive (reads both formats) is getting discounted here in Australia and it’s even cheaper than the Pioneer Blu-ray reader drive. And in a new feature I’m doing on the forum, I will be posting the Blu-ray/DVD sales stats weekly (with HD DVD stats thrown in for good measure - these stats come from Nielsen VideoScan, which is publised in Home Media Magazine). Last week’s stats (for the week ending 6th April) was interesting in that HD DVD seems to have made a comeback, but it was just a slow week for Blu-ray. This week’s stats, for the week ending 13th April shows Blu-ray bouncing back, but not against DVDs which scored a whopping 95% of the video sales market as compared to Blu-ray.

Moving onto gaming, the GTA IV Australia/New Zealand censorship issue won’t go away, mainly because Rockstar refuses to say what has been removed from the game. New Zealander are a bit unlucky in that they have a 18+ certification for video games, but Rockstar apparently will release the Australian version there as well, so they get the cut version too. The rumour was that only a cutscene was changed, but that appears to be untrue from a statement made by Rockstar. If the changes are small, as Rockstar have claimed before, then they should just come out and tell the public what they are. If not, it will only force people to import. The March US NPD figures are out and as expected, the Xbox 360 beat the PS3 for the first time in 2008 as stock problems cleared. The more detailed analysis will be arriving later in the week. Two Xbox 360 updates recently, one for the defunct HD DVD drive, and now an update that is equally meaningless for most 360 users. It’s more like an update for an upcoming update, rather than anything new and exciting. No details of the annual Spring update yet. The Wii is doing extremely well in the sales charts. There are some great games on the system, but Wii Sports, the one that comes free with the console, still doesn’t have a proper competitor in terms of mini-game compilation or just general fun-ness. The nerd in me wants a Star Wars Lightsaber game so I can swing my Wii-mote around like a deranged maniac. My wish might be fulfilled shortly with the Wii version of Star Wars: Force Unleashed.

Ok, so that’s it for this week. Check back next week for another words, link and now picture filled edition of WNR.

Hello everybody on this beautiful Sunday. Actually it’s cloudy and cold here, but hopefully it will be nice wherever you are reading this from. Quite a bit of news to go through this week, so let’s not waste any time.

In Copyright news, apparently DVD piracy is so common amongst the South Australian Police force that it makes it impossible to prosecute. So basically if everybody does it then they can’t do anything about it? Or does having guns help? Or perhaps it’s more of a “one rule for them, and another for the rest of us”? It’s certainly seems that way since the President of the United States has now been caught with pirated music on his iPod. Only last week did the US Attorney General say that piracy leads to terrorism … so where does this act of piracy lead to then? New Zealand meanwhile has passed their new digital copyright laws. While new laws will always mean more, not less, restrictions - at least the New Zealand laws seem to have taken a more sensible approach in terms of fair use. The Europeans are taking a more sensible approach as well, rejecting the latest attempt by the RIAA/MPAA to have provisions to chuck users off the Net who are suspected of piracy. And if chucking you off the Net isn’t enough, you chucking a CD out might be construed as ‘unauthorised distribution’, and hence, piracy. And in a “well it was bound to happen eventually” type of story, hackers have broken the encryption on PlayStation Network games for the PSP, which will now allow piracy of these games to go ahead.

UK subscription television network Sky is phasing out component output on their HD set top boxes in an ‘anti-piracy’ drive. HDMI will be the sole video output supported since it includes HDCP copy protection. Speaking of copy protection, expect to see DisplayPort becoming the next big thing in PC-monitor connection. DisplayPort (DP) is not compatible directly with DVI or HDMI, although it can be made interchangeable through adapters - and yes, it includes HDCP. So that’s VGA/DVI/HDMI/DP - does the PC really need this many connection types? But to be fair, HDMI is not suited for PC connections, and DVI is starting to get a bit old.

Onto HD news. In a surprising turn of events, Microsoft released an update for the HD DVD add-on drive this week. The update is only needed for those that connect their add-on drive to the Xbox 360 for HD DVD playback. And for those that did purchase HD DVD players, including the add-on drive, from Amazon before Toshiba’s decision to pull out, Amazon will be giving them $50 credit that can be used on anything. A very nice move by Amazon, although how many HD DVD users will end up using the $50 credit on more HD DVD movies is hard to say (I know I will if I was eligible - with HD DVD movies so cheap, that’s maybe 3 to 6 movies that you can buy, compared to just two for Blu-ray, so why not?)

I’ve always been facinated with 3D movies, and Disney is about to release a 3D movie on Blu-ray. It’s only a Hanna Montana movie, but I wonder perhaps proper 3D support through electronic glasses could help Blu-ray achieve better sales through the “gimmick factor”? Meanwhile, those with iPhones might be able to interact it with their PS3 - I wonder if the iPod Touch might have been a better choice for the integration. The flurry of news in regards to Blu-ray price rises hasn’t dampened enthusiasm, with statistics (yeah, those damned things) showing people are actually willing to pay for higher prices. Not me though, even though I consider myself an early adopter and us early adopters are well known for wasting money on stuff that we know will be much cheaper in a few months time. The question remains about the general public, who are used to low low DVD prices, and whether they are willing to pay 10 times more for a Blu-ray player and twice as much for the Blu-ray movie? Sony seems to think so, and they are predicting that Blu-ray will hold 50% of the movie market compared to DVDs by the year’s end. Blu-ray actually only holds about 8% of the market at the moment, and there’s no sign that it will surge to much higher than that in the short term, so I don’t know what Sony are talking about. 50% of the movie market will need 50% of the hardware market as well, and I just don’t think Sony and co. can get a few hundred million machines into people’s home by the end of the year when they’ve barely sold over 1 million machines so far. But PR won them the war against HD DVD, so perhaps they’re hoping to do the same against DVDs. But you can’t really fight against low low prices (ie. “reality”) unless you fight fire with fire (or fire sales).

Before we move onto gaming proper, half-way in between is news that Sony will release the 2.30 firmware update for the PS3 that will finally include DTS-HD MA decoding (to LPCM). It is the one last major feature that the PS3 lacks in terms of Blu-ray playback, and I’m glad it has finally arrived since I’ve been telling people it will be here for ages now and have recommended the PS3 based on this assumption.

Onto gaming now. The Wii has scored a coup by signing up a deal with the BBC to add a iPlayer channel. Of course, it’s only for UK users only, but I’m sure Microsoft and Sony would have liked to have been part of the deal. Microsoft are rumoured to be developing a Wii like controller codenamed “Newton”. Not sure if trying to be more Wii-like than the Wii will help Microsoft’s cause, since I think they should concentrate on making a new version of the console that’s a bit more sexier and quieter to compete with the PS3.

And following last week’s news story about the censored Australian version of the GTA IV, the confirmation has come from Rockstar that the game is censored, although no details has been given as to what has been removed/changed. Well that’s it then, I will have to source the game from elsewhere. Expect Australian versions of GTA IV to sell extremely poorly then, which is a shame for Australian retailers.

Ok, that’s it for this week. Can’t believe this is the 29th issue of the Weekly News Roundup already. Will I do something special for the 30th issue? Wait and see (and don’t be too surprised if nothing happens …)

PowerDVD 8 was released a week or two ago (and yes, I know, I need to finish the review for it), and one of the strangest things to have happened was the removal of HD DVD playback from the Ultra version of the popular movie playback software.

Actually, the reason for removing it is not all that strange. I’m sure including HD DVD playback costs Cyberlink more than not including it (from licensing to support), and with the demise of HD DVD and no new potential customers that could be attracted by including HD DVD playback, the sensible decision would be to remove it altogether. And since the previous Ultra version (7.3) included HD DVD playback, Cyberlink have done the smart thing by not requiring this old version to be uninstalled before installing the new one (something that has always been a pre-requisite). It means owners of PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 can buy PowerDVD 8 and switch between the two depending on Blu-ray or HD DVD playback.

And so this should probably be the end of the story. But no.

A few days ago, some users around various forums started to post that their PowerDVD 8 Ultra version could indeed playback HD DVD. Upon further examination, it turned out that these people were using a pre-release non public beta version of PowerDVD 8 - PowerDVD 8.0.1513 or 8.0.3913.50 Beta to be exact. And further experimentation showed that you could indeed combine the latest version of PowerDVD (the release version) with certain files from the beta version, and even some files from the 7.3 version, and you could “re-enable” HD DVD playback to the retail version of PowerDVD Ultra. Now I’m still investigating this and I might have a guide ready to show you how it is done (assuming I can find the required files). Update: As promised, I’ve written a guide on how to re-enable HD DVD playback under PowerDVD 8 Ultra now that I managed to find the required files online. But what is interesting is that up until the leaked Beta (dated around March 15th), it seemed that PowerDVD 8 was going to include HD DVD playback. Something between then and April must have happened for HD DVD playback to be dropped.

Some speculate that the rush to release PowerDVD 8, due to WinDVD 9’s release a week earlier, might have meant that scheduled updates and testing for the HD DVD component could not be completed in time. So this suggests that HD DVD playback could come back, if there is enough demand for it (and certainly, the negative press being generated by the drop of HD DVD support has hurt Cyberlink, especially when both major competitors, WinDVD and Arcsoft Totalmedia Theater, do included HD DVD playback). I don’t know the truth behind it (I’ve asked Cyberlink and they cite HD DVD’s demise as the reason for dropping support …. nothing too surprising there), but it does seem quite strange.

In any case, there are still plenty of choices when it comes to HD DVD playback on the PC: PowerDVD 7 Ultra, WinDVD and Arcsoft Totalmedia Theatre. I’m just not sure that by trying to save a few bucks (and not passing it onto consumers anyway), whether this decision could end up hurting Cyberlink more than it helps.

Been meaning to write something about a few deals going on at the moment, from all around the world.

Let’s start with the Blu-ray stuff. As you may already know, Amazon.com is having a Buy Two Get One free sale (or 3 for the price of 2). Some good titles in the line up, including the 5-disc edition (3 of the discs are BDs, the other two are DVDs) of Blade Runner.

Deep Discount are having a 59% off Anchor Bay Blu-ray titles sale. Dawn/Day of the Dead, Halloween are all included as part of the same.

The UK based Sendit.com is having a 3 titles for £27 sale. Update: They are now also having a 2 for £10 sale for HD DVDs. However, some users report that they’ve had problems with sendit.com in the past with delayed shipment and cancellation refund problems, so use them at your own risk.

Here in Australia, EzyDVD.com.au is having a huge 3 for the price of 2 sale, probably the largest in Australia so far.

Now onto HD DVD …

All the previously mentioned sales are still going on at Amazon (up to 57% off and Paramount’s up to 60% off sales). There are also selected titles discounted even further, so it’s work going there and searching the site for the titles you want. Many are so heavily discounted, that buying the combo version (which had the DVD version on one side that works in any DVD player) works out cheaper than buying the DVD only version, so people looking for cheap DVDs can also have a look. Going through the HD DVD top sellers list is a good way to spot these cheap titles that are not part of any sales.

Over at Amazon UK, some selected titles are also being discounted this way. Examples include Atonement, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and American Gangster. Again, going through their HD DVD top sellers list is usually a good way to spot the bargains. The Buy One Get One Free sale is still going on as well (although the selected cheaper titles are actually cheaper than the BOGOF titles after discounting). Those in the UK can also enjoy dvd.co.uk’s 2 for £12 sale. Their 2 for £15 sale also features a couple of HD DVD titles too.

Back in Australia, a bunch of sales are still going on, but mostly the same titles are before (one site had Beowulf HD DVD, previously thought to be discontinued, and sold all 900+ stock in one day). EzyDVD, DVD Crave (fast becoming a favourite of mine) and Hi-Def Oz all still have some selected titles for sale at very low prices (mostly the same ones though).

So there you have it. Lots of HD goodness for not much money (well not as much as paying full price for them anyway).

A somewhat quiet week, well not that quiet but there has been a spate of news items that I just did not want to reference on the website due to the tendency for them to be April Fools Day pranks. When you go through the news as frequently as I do, you start noticing that most of them turn out to be false. That’s just the nature of Internet news these days I suppose, but with AFD happening in the same week, you just can’t trust anyone. I’m pretty sure at least one of the news items I will reference in this blog will have been a AFD prank turned into “real” news, so please bear with me.

In copyright news, and my April Fools news was that the MPAA was going to introduce a $10 download tax. It was just believable enough to have been true, since the MPAA’s step sister (both of the ugly type), the RIAA, has been touting something similar for ages. The sad thing is this might just become a reality some day. And in another case of copyright/trademarks gone wrong, Engadget has been sued for using a colour, magenta to be precise, on their website. T-Mobile, who also uses the colour magenta, is the company doing the suing because the mobile section of Engadget also uses magenta. If there is genuine confusion over Engadget and T-Mobile using the same colour, then fine, but where’s the confusion? Downloading the latest episode of South Park is equivalent to providing explosives to terrorists, according to the U.S. Attorney General at least. Both leads to terrorism, and if you do have pirated music or movies on your computer, I suggest you go to your nearest police station and hand yourself in. I hear Gitmo is quite nice this time of the year. Of course, you might want to walk to the police station instead of driving, because your car might be DRM protected and it probably won’t let terrorists like yourself start the car, that or if you haven’t been paying your car payment bills. I’m pretty sure this might be an April Fools Prank, but you just can’t tell the difference between real news from The Onion news these days. And that, my friend, is a very sad state of affairs.

Onto HD news now. Not much actually. That’s the sad thing about the ending of the format war, the news stories have really dried up. There’s still all sorts of rumours about Toshiba and Sony and even the Japanese government having all agreed to drop HD DVD back late last year. And continued stories about how great and lovely Blu-ray is. At best, speculation, and at worst, trying to beat the last drop of blood out of a story that is no longer interesting. Even the news items about Blu-ray price rises seem a bit stretched, since prices fluctuate all the time and are seasonal based. If Sony had increased the RRP of their Blu-ray players from $499 to $899, then you have a story, but they haven’t, so you don’t. So about the only really interesting piece of news this week has been the release of PowerDVD 8. What is most interesting is that the Ultra version, which is the version that supports HD playback, has apparently dropped HD DVD playback. I can understand hardware manufacturers dropping HD DVD production, but why drop something you’ve already spent a lot of money developing and which worked quite well in the previous version, especially when your competitors (WinDVD and Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre) both offer Blu-ray and HD DVD playback, and most say in a more superior fashion. A very strange decision by Cyberlink, and perhaps a developing story that could well end up with a happier ending (a free patch to re-enable HD DVD playback would be nice).

Onto gaming now. A poll by IGN has shown that most users want the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV compared to the PS3 version, by a 2-to-1 margin. Of course, Xbox 360 users outnumber PS3 users by, you guessed it, a 2-to-1 margin in the US. More disturbing is that the Australian version of GTA IV (both PS3 and Xbox 360 versions) might be censored, due to our previous government’s stupidity and inaction in allowing a 18+ certificate for mature gamers. Especially stupid when the average age of gamers in Australia is 28! Unless this turns out to be another AFD prank, it now looks like importing is the only option for most people. The PS3 being region-free will hand Sony a big GTA IV win in Australia, although importing the UK un-censored version is actually still cheaper than paying the Australian RRP price for the Xbox 360 version.

Okay, that’s it for this week’s slightly shortened and AFD-disclaimer-laden edition of the Weekly News Roundup. See you next week.