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Weekly News Roundup (20 January 2008)

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the roundups of our week. Or something like that.

Let’s not waste any time, starting with copyright news, it seems the studios have finally wised up and have started experimenting with managed copy. Managed copy is a concept that, instead of letting people make copies of DVDs and stuff for backup or portable use, the studios would make these copies available to you (with the cost included). Fox has demonstrated this feature on some of its new DVDs, including the Family Guy Blue Harvest DVD which will have a DRM’d iPod version of the feature on the disc. Last week, you’ll remember Sony demonstrating something similar with Blu-ray discs on PS3, and copying a version of the feature to the PSP. You have to say that this is much preferred to not being able to make copies at all, although I don’t think this goes far enough – it would be much better if perhaps a 1:1 copy of the feature can be made and stored on networked storage, and to allow standalones to playback these “ripped” features without the disc being present. I’m sure this can be done without encouraging casual piracy (for example, making a copy without owning the original), through some kind of registration/watermark/DRM system. One of these days I’ll have to write a blog entry on how this could work and why it will benefit users (and I do remember promising to write a blog on wireless HD last week, and I haven’t). A more disturbing news was the good old USB system is going to be updated to allow digital video transmission, to compete with the HDMI standard. The disturbing part is that DRM will be added (most likely HDCP) to allow this to happen, which sounds to me like an excuse to add DRM to a standard that didn’t have it before. Why do we even need USB for video anyway – all new AV devices use HDMI as the standard already.

Onto to HD, Amazon is running a competition where 60 fantastic prizes are going to be given over a month’s period (to US residents only, unfortunately). There will be 30 packs that include a Blu-ray player and 100 Blu-ray movies (so 30 players and 3,000 free movies to be given away), and the same for HD DVD. Entry links found here. You don’t need to buy anything to enter, so if you do live in the US, why not give it a go? Good luck. While Blu-ray and HD DVD are fighting a war, Apple has launched a new front in HD downloads through Apple TV. Microsoft already has something similar through Xbox Marketplace, and Sony will introduce something similar too for the PlayStation Store. Will these new distribution methods beat the good old optical disc? I think the problem is that HD downloads and HD content on Blu-ray or HD DVD are two completely different things – one is relatively bitrate limited low quality, while the other represents the best possible quality in A/V at the moment. People who have spent thousands of dollars on LCD/plasmas and surround sound system aren’t going to be terribly impressed by 8 Mbps 720p video with 5.1 channel audio, when they have access to 25 Mbps 1080p versions of the same feature with 7.1 lossless audio. And how will ISPs react to the increase in bandwidth of these new applications? If the infrastructure has been rolled out, then perhaps not much will change. But if the infrastructure is not capable enough of handling such traffic increases, then ISP will have to raise prices and lower bandwidth, like they have done here in Australia regularly over the last few years. Could this happen in the US as well? As for the format war, things continue to bubble, and Blu-ray still has the upper hands, especially the latest sales figures show a commanding 85/15 lead, a likely reaction to the Warner announcement. However, Paramount is still releasing discs for HD DVD, having just announced their 1st quarter release schedule, the same with Universal. If HD DVD can hold on to these two studios, then there will still be many releases that are exclusive to HD DVD, such as Beowulf, Cloverfield, Bee Movie … of course, whether these two studios remain HD DVD exclusive is something that only time will tell. Toshiba is still promoting HD DVD, and they have just dropped the retail pricing of the HD-A3 to around $150, and you can pick one up from Amazon (with 7 free HD DVD movies) for as low as $130 – check out Digital Digest’s Blu-ray/HD DVD deals page for more information on this and many other HD deals. $130 with 7 free movies for a HD DVD player that also does very good DVD upscaling is a bargain, considering that a good DVD upscaler will cost about the same without the free movies. Plus you will get access to whatever exclusives that may still exists for the format, for the time being anyway.

In gaming news, the December and 2007 NPD results are out and I’ve covered it in the previous blog post. Now some (including myself) have been confused by the numbers, which suggest the Xbox 360 widening it’s lead in December over the PS3, but shrinking in terms of overall market share to Sony’s console. This can be easily explained because while the Xbox 360 still enjoys a 3 to 1 lead, unless the monthly Xbox 360 sales numbers continue to have the same ratio to PS3 sales, then market share will continue to grow in PS3’s favor. Of course, if the 360 outsells the PS3 continuously, even if the margin decreases, all this means it that the PS3 will gain market share until a certain point and then stop gaining and at best, all it can look forward to is equal market share with the 360. Or something like that. The somewhat unexpected surge in 360 sales has meant a disruption to the usually reliable Xbox Live service. To make up for it, Microsoft will be giving away a free copy of the Xbox Live Arcade game, Undertow, to all Xbox Live users (both Silver and Gold members). The offer is only for a week, and starts right about now, so don’t miss out (Edit: it’s actually available from next Wednesday to Sunday).

That’s it for this week. Hopefully I will write that article about wireless HD next week, or maybe about managed copy as well. We’ll see.

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (20 January 2008)

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)

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)

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