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Weekly News Roundup (10 February 2008)

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 (10 February 2008)

Weekly News Roundup (3 February 2008)

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008

Sometimes I wonder if anybody is actually reading this, and that if I should bother continue writing this roundup. But I think I will continue, because I like routine and there’s nothing like a Sunday afternoon spent in front of your computer writing something nobody reads. No, really, it’s good.

In Europe, record labels are now blaming ISPs for music piracy. ISPs have been fearing something like this for a long time, to be blamed for inappropriate content that its users are obtaining online, be it copy protected content or child pornography. They know that if they are held responsible, they will have to start monitoring user traffic. The privacy issues apart, it’s a huge task and responsibility to be placed on a company that sometimes has less than 20 employees. And do we really want a private company to monitor everything we download and to tell us what is appropriate and what is not? The targeting of ISPs might be a change of direction of content owners, since a court has ruled that personal privacy is more important than upholding the rights of content owners. It seems like a very reasonable decision to me, but we now live in a time when reason has fallen victim to corporate greed. And to no surprise of anybody, The Pirate Bay has finally been charged with breaking copyright law. I have a feeling the guys over at TPB have been waiting for this and are prepared for the battle. It will be interesting to see what happens.

And while not strictly copyright related, the beta version of Qtrax was finally launched. Qtrax promises access to millions of songs from record labels free to download in P2P form, with the playback/download application being advertising supported. I for one don’t think this will work, since Internet advertising is not what it used to be, and with a few content owners coming out to say they don’t know what’s going onand that they have had no dealings with Qtrax, things are not looking too bright.

HD DVD is still fighting the good (?) fight, and will spend millions on a 30 second Superbowl ad spot. I just hope they make it funny like most other Superbowl ads. Toshiba’s price cuts to HD DVD players seems to be having an effect, clawing back some of the market in player sales after being beaten senseless in the week following Warner’s Blu-ray exclusive decision (although news has now filtered out that the figures from that week represented a Blu-ray player give-away plus a plunge in HD DVD player sales, meaning total HD sales dropped after Warner’s announcement, which is not what Warner had hoped for in choosing to go with a single format). Here in Australia, the Toshiba HD-XE1 high end player is selling extremely well, not surprising for a $1,000+ player being sold for half of its value. Rumours suggest that HD DVD player sales out-did Blu-ray player sales by 2 to 1 in Australia this last week (led by the XE1), even with the PS3 is included. Going by some of the posts I’ve been reading on Australian HD forums and testimonials from people who have visited electronics stores to enquire about the XE1, that’s not totally surprising. The US is also seeing HD DVD player “clearance” sales, although as Circuit City points out, the “clearance” tag is just used for promotion, and they plan on continuing to carry HD DVD since sales has been quite good since the “clearance” started. Low prices sell stuff, it’s not rocket science. Although with Blu-ray in a strong position, will we start seeing the end of free movie redemption and movie discounts? I hope not. High definition movies still have a long way to go before consumers are convinced that it is needed to replace DVDs, and discounts will definitely help. And speaking of discounts, here in Australia, we can buy The Jack Ryan HD DVD Collection (four movies: The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games and The Sum of All Fears) for about $USD 35. This title is part of Paramount’s HD DVD line up for Q1 2008, and has a retail price of $USD 99 in the US. People in the US might want to buy from Australia, since HD DVD is region-free and any disc will work anywhere. This store in Australia ships to the US for those that are interested.

A couple of short items in terms of movement between HD camps, some Italian distributors have gone HD DVD exclusive; rumour suggest Imation might be scrapping HD DVD production through its TDK brand (even though TDK has never released HD DVD, and TDK company is a Blu-ray exclusive backer and became a major shareholder in Imation in a deal that allowed Imation to use the TDK brand name); ADV Films (anime) might be going Blu-ray exclusive too. Sonic also announced that they will stop supporting the HD DVD version of their Scenarist authoring tool. It’s a bit of a kick in the teeth for people who purchased the HD DVD version of their quite expensive software, even if a exchange program is going to be made available (I’m sure people who bought the HD DVD version had specific needs that won’t be addressed by the Blu-ray version, which they might already own anyway). Oh well, I’m sure other companies will fill the demand, if they haven’t done so already. Microsoft maybe?

And finally, in gaming, a firm release date has been released for GTA: IV in late April. Rockstar broke the silence on the release delay (it was supposed to be available back in October 2007) and as expected, it was the PS3 version that was holding things back, although only partly responsible. The exclusive downloadable content will still be available on the Xbox 360 only, but there will be more downloadable content that will be available on both consoles. I for one can’t wait, and hopefully my RRoD’d 360 will be fully functioning by then. There is also rumours floating around that a new PS3 will be available in the autumn, one that is slimmer and has 120 or 160 GB storage depending on where you found the rumour. Competition to a new quiter, cooler, 360 SKU to be released around the same time? And to follow up on the Mass Effect Fox News Sex Scandal (it sounds a lot more exciting than it actually is, kind of like everything being “reported” on Fox News), the Fox News contributor admits she was wrong and that she has now had a change of mind after actually seeing the game being played for the first time. Oh dear.

And so this concludes this week’s roundup. Hopefully I will have more updates on my 360 RRoD experience, perhaps an update to a very popular guide that will allow better video playback on a certain game console, and maybe I’ll write that blog on HD managed copy that I promised to write 2 weeks ago. Patience, my lovelies.

Posted in Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | 1 Comment »

Weekly News Roundup (27 January 2008)

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

There comes a time in a man’s life when he has to make a decision. A decision so big, that it could literally alter the course of time, space and reality. Today is not that time. Today is time for yet another Weekly News Update.

It seems in the world of copyright, US colleges are public enemy number one at the moment. The copyright lobby is pressuring the US congress to pass college funding legislation that will ensure Internet filtering and monitoring. To threaten something as vital as education with something as trivial (and rooted in greed) as copyright protection, is probably exactly what is wrong with the US political system at the moment. The MPAA has been on the offensive as well, but perhaps their education wasn’t all it could have been either, as they seemed to have fudged up the numbers in regards to college kid’s contribution to piracy. Their initial figure that college kids are responsible for 44% of all lost income did sound a bit strange. If I have to point to one thing a major cause of lost income, I have to say it’s the industry’s attitude towards consumers. When it comes to copyright control, consumers are treated like convicted criminals. DRM is causing more damage to the industry than casual piracy. Another example is Apple’s QuickTime DRM update causing other software, such as Adobe After Effects, to be disabled. Music DRM is dying, and movie DRM seems to be moving in a more “consumer friendly” direction, taking special note of the quote around the phrase ‘consumer friendly’. Fox’s new Hitman Blu-ray will include a digital copy of the film for use on portable devices. Sounds good, except the recommended price for the title is at $39.98, which makes it higher than most other Blu-ray releases by a couple of dollars. So basically, while a (DRM’d) “digital copy” is provided, the price of this copy has already been included, whether you want it or not. So basically “fine” you for what you might do (which might be illegal) before you even do it. Sounds about right.

In HD news, it has all been about HD downloads these last few weeks. It’s strange that immediately after what appears to be a victory for Blu-ray, people start questioning the need for an optical format. Apple, Microsoft and Sony all have their movie download services, and HBO will now launch something similar in limited areas too. But people look at the cheap prices of purchasing downloads compared to buying discs, but are they looking at the total cost, including bandwidth? Maybe in the US and other advanced broadband nations, it’s not much of an issue, but a typical HD download from iTunes might be 50% of someone’s allocated monthly bandwidth allowance here in Australia, not to mention it might take a day to download due to our limited broadband speeds. I think for now, the optical disc is still the best way to deliver high bandwidth movies. It certainly might still be the cheapest way here in Australia, even though our HD movie discs are way over priced. Speaking of Blu-ray’s “victory”, Toshiba has introduced price cuts here in Australia for their range of HD DVD players (second-generation players). The most interesting is the massive price cut for the award winning Toshiba HD-XE1 (similar to the XA2 in the US), which uses the highly sought after Reon HQV video processing chipset to achieve the ultimate video performance, even for upscaled DVDs. Reading through forums about people’s chats with various stores around Australia, it seems the XE1 (which comes with 11 free movies) is selling very well indeed. Many Blu boys have been turned purple (dual format => red + blue => purple) by the amazing value of the XE1 (a similar DVD upscaling player that uses Reon HQV costs thrice as much). But on the other end of the quality scale, we have the Samsung BD-UP5000, which also uses Reon HQV, but is apparently so problematic that even a class action lawsuit is being considered (although I doubt it). It certainly it’s the best designed machine, and even Samsung realises it as it will be discontinued soon and replaced by the BD-Up5500 (does not have Reon HQV), with the BD-UP6500 (rumoured to have Reon HQV + Blu-ray Profile 2.0) coming soon too. I hope Samsung do get their act together, as a dual format player will suit me just fine considering that I’m still building up my movie collection by buying exclusives in both formats.

On to gaming, there’s probably not much time left to get your free copy of the Xbox Live Arcade game, Undertow. I’ve played it and it’s pretty good, if not a bit repetitive. Underwater, pseudo 3D, flag capturing team shooter is probably the best description of it. Nice graphics and sound though. Sony seems to be dropping their 80 GB version of the PS3, the last model that has PS2 compatibility. This coincides with news of a new 40 GB white PS3, as well as a possible price cut to $299. January 28th is supposed to be the date something happens, so stay tuned for more updates. Sony is also partnering with HP to provide “Manufacture-On-Demand” service for their movies, with HP keen to expand MOD to Blu-ray and HD DVD. Basically you choose a movie and the disc is made to order. It’s a nice idea, although it can’t compete with the lower cost of mass manufacture (although being able to order several SD movies on a single HD disc, with your selection of extra features, sounds very attractive).

And Fox News is up to their usual tricks, this time “bending” the truth as they portray the Xbox 360 game Mass Effect as a deprived sex orgy simulator. It’s funny how people made such a big deal of GTA: San Andrea’s Hot Coffee sex simulation modification, yet people simply ignored that fact that the game allowed you to do drive-bys, shot cops, kill civilians and become a drug mule to earn more money.

And on that family friendly last paragraph, I’ll end this news roundup. See you next week.

Posted in Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (27 January 2008)

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)

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