DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

December 2009 was a monster month for the Wii, having otherwise suffered a pretty bad 2009 (relatively speaking, of course). You can read all about this in the December 2009 NPD US video games analysis post. The PS3 has been averaging close to a 90% year-on-year increase in sales based on the last few monthly figures, although it’s still involved in a close fight with the Xbox 360. Don’t know if this says more about the popularity of the Slim/price cut, or about how poorly the PS3 was doing this time last year. Probably a bit of both.

In any case, all of this is pretty trivial compared to what’s happened in Haiti during the last week. This is a good page set up by Google that gathers all the information you will need, whether it’s to read more about the crisis, to donate or try to communicate with people you know in Haiti.

Starting with the copyright news, Real Networks has lost an anti-trust counter-suit against the MPAA. As you may know, the MPAA sued Real Networks’ RealDVD product, a software that creates a heavily copy protected copy of a DVD that can be played without the original disc. The MPAA won a successful injunction against the sale of Real DVD, but Real Networks hit back with an anti-trust lawsuit claiming the MPAA studios, through DVD copy protection licensing, is operating a cartel and prevents products like RealDVD from existing legally.

RealDVD is another step closer to permanent death, if it hasn't gotten there already

It was always a shot in the dark, so it was no surprise that it missed the mark. The judge explained that no damages could be found from the MPAA’s actions, and that the only damage was being done by RealDVD. Not what Real Networks wanted, and their CEO stepped down, probably not as a result of the court’s decision, but perhaps also not entirely unrelated. So was the judge right in dismissing the case? First of all, a cartel is defined as “a combination of independent business organizations formed to regulate production, pricing, and marketing of goods by the members”. We know that DVD copy protection is so ineffective, that a junior computer science student probably has the ability to break the code in less time than it takes to make a sandwich. And so from a technical point of view, DVD copy protection is useless. But the studios still persist with it, and charges licensing fees all over the place. For something that they know doesn’t work. So instead of acting as a copying deterrent, it’s basically there only for licensing, and through licensing agreements, to prevent people and companies from doing things to the DVD that the studios don’t agree with. And it was with the licensing agreements that they attempt to kill innovative products like RealDVD and Kaleidescape, products that may affect the production, pricing, and marketing of DVDs, and also the studios’ own products like Digital Copy and Managed Copy. And it wouldn’t be like the first time that DRM is used in an anti-competitive way, and even Apple has gotten into trouble in Europe over this very issue. You get the feeling that governments and courts really do not yet understand the full implications of DRM, and its anti-competitive nature when coupled with something like the DMCA, as otherwise the DMCA would never have been passed or there would be provisions in there to force interoperability and to prevent anti-competitive behaviour.

OiNK's founder is found not guilty. Nobody saw that coming, honestly.

But it seems not all courts, and juries, can be intimidated by the copyright holders’ usually well (and expensively) prepared cases. Alan Ellis, the founder of the music sharing service OiNK, has been found not guilty by a UK court, despite the website being shut down in 2007. The “Google” defence was used, in which Ellis’s defence claimed that OiNK operated in the same way as Google, by not actually hosting infringing content, but by simply organising the available information. Of course, this is true of all BitTorrent download websites as well, and the same defence did not work for The Pirate Bay. But for Alan Ellis, this is a major victory, and a permanent one, since there’s apparently no more avenue of appeal for the copyright holders, and so the decision will be final. Whether this sets a precedent that will be referred to in future cases, particularly ones in the UK, only time will tell.

With courts being sometimes unreliable, the RIAA wants the FCC to act and make ISPs copyright cops in the US. ISPs disagree, as do digital rights groups, consumer groups, and some business groups. While these groups have been making the right arguments, I’m still somewhat surprised that more has not been made of the implications of allowing private companies such as ISPs to spy on user’s activities and pass on user information onto other private companies for financial benefit. And even if you take away the privacy arguments, there’s still the issue of whether ISPs have the power or the legal knowledge to determine just exactly what is infringement. I know it is common sense in most cases, but we do have police and courts for reason, and that is to prevent private justice being dished out without regulation to guide the rulings and prevent abuse. If the RIAA is given the power to order ISPs to become copyright cops, do you trust them (or the ISPs, who will be fearing lawsuits from the RIAA if they do not comply) to not abuse this power, which effectively can cut off their most important form of communication, which can lead to serious consequences such as the loss of a job or a business.

In HD news, more information is slowly trickling out in regards to 3D TV and Blu-ray. To summarise the whole situation, I would say that an active shutter LCD glasses will be used, which will require a display with 120Hz refresh. Now, most TVs have that but what they don’t have, at the very least, is the ability to actually accept a 120Hz signal (most accepts the 60Hz as outputted by Blu-ray players, and then duplicate frames to get to display it as 120Hz). This, plus signal processing requirements and certain display issues, will mean that you will definitely need a new TV, unless it is one of the very few that is stated to be 3D ready. For similar reasons, you will also need 3D ready Blu-ray players, although as mentioned here before, the PS3 should be fine with a firmware update (and this may be true of a few other players as well).

A mock up of what the "3D Ready" logo may look like

I suspect as we get closer to the 3D rollout, terms like “3D Ready” will have more meaning, and perhaps some kind of certification and labeling program will be introduced to avoid consumer confusion. So the question many of you may have, and it’s one that I’ve been asking myself as well, is that should you buy a TV now or wait until the 3D ready sets are out. For those in the US, you won’t have to wait long, and if you like plasma TVs, then the new Panasonic 3D line up will be the one you need. The cost of adding 3D compliance to TV sets is probably not all that high, and so I would expect most new models to be 3D ready by the end of the year or sooner. But the real question is do you want or need 3D? That’s a question only you can answer, but my feeling at the moment is that 3D is a gimmick, but one that I would definitely want to experiment with.  So need? No. Want? Maybe. So with that said, if I find a new TV (and I need one) for a good price and I’m in a hurry to buy, then I’ll probably buy it even if it doesn’t have 3D. But I will at least wait until several 3D models are available and then see what the price situation is like, and if there’s no premium on the 3D models (and I don’t expect there to be), then I’ll get one (and then probably spend less than 1% of the time using the TV in 3D mode). If the TV manufacturers do charge a large premium on the 3D models, then I’ll consider that a rip off and buy one of the outdated 2D models on the  cheap.

Speaking of rip offs, how would you like paying $3,500 for a Blu-ray player that only costs $500 (or less). The $3,500 Lexicon BD-30, marketed as a THX certified Blu-ray player, is apparently nothing more than an $500 Oppo BDP-83 with a new outer shell and minor modifications (like a new splash screen when the player loads). The Oppo is not THX certified, but somehow the Lexicon, with practically identical hardware, gets it, which suggest THX certification is little more than handing over some cash to THX, at least in this case. So if you want a THX certified Blu-ray player, without the actual THX logo on the player itself, then I have to throw yet another recommendation towards the Oppo BDP-83.

If standalones are not your cup of tea, and HTPCs with Blu-ray playback are too bulky and noisy for your needs, then Asus may have just want you need. It was only a matter of time before Nvidia Ion enabled Nettops come bundled with a Blu-ray drive and allow you to play Blu-ray movies in these small, quiet systems, and the Asus Eee Box may be the first of many that can do this. They would make ideal home theater PCs, due to the small space, low heat and noise and the usually stylish design of the systems.

And finally in gaming, the NPD analysis sort of covers this week’s news items. The reactions from the companies involved are, as always, positive. Nintendo will be happy no doubt having dominated everything in December, having lost a lot during the rest of 2009. Sony is happy because the PS3 is finally selling in numbers that the successor of the PS2 should be selling at. And Microsoft is happy because they managed to get themselves a good lead over the PS3, and will look forward to holding on before Project Natal arrives, and with all the hype the add-on is getting, there’s a good chance that Microsoft will get a bit of the “Wii-effect” when it comes to selling Natal to non traditional gamers.

The other piece of news is that the PS3 3.15 firmware is now a mandatory install, unlike previous firmware updates that have always been optional. This is bad news for those that have been skipping firmware updates fearing that each update increases the risk of their console suffering the dreaded “no disc reading” problem, or the infamous Yellow Light of Death. While I was a victim of a the “no disc reading” problem after a firmware update, I was recently forced to install 3.15 as well, not because it was mandatory, but because I had to if I wanted to play new Blu-ray movies that required a AACS key update. So far, the PS3 is acting normally, and I had a good chance of that happening since the firmware troubles I suspect affects much less than 5% of all PS3s. Nobody knows just how many PS3s are affected of course, and Sony refuses to even acknowledge there is a problem even after being sued over it, and with most PS3s unaffected, fanboys can easily claim everyone who says their PS3 bricked after a firmware update is a liar or just someone who doesn’t know how to use sofisticated [sic] equipment (until it happens to them, of course). What I really should do now is sell my old PS3 and get a new one, which will be easier to sell now that I’ve managed to get the latest firmware loaded on it. You really do have to admire Microsoft’s eventual response to the RRoD problem, even if you can’t exactly admire the design and engineering of the actual console.

Okay, that’s all I have this week. I will be writing a 2009 year in review type of piece for the NPD video game stats, which should be online this week or the next at the latest.

Now that’s more like it. A bit more news finally this week. In fact, there’s a lot of news mainly due to the CES 2010 currently happening in Vegas. Most of the news came out of the show, and most of it was about 3D, which was kind of predictable. While everyone was talking up 3D HD, I had to regress from HDMI back to component due to a broken TV, and then suffer the illogical copy protection system that’s present. Hollywood can be so freaking paranoid at times, and even if their fear is justified, they’re still fighting on the wrong front when it comes to online piracy. How is stopping someone from watching upscaled DVDs through component output going to help stop online piracy? I also took the time to update the MeGUI guides for Windows 7, which works quite well after some initial tweaking needed due to 7’s new built in codecs framework.

Let’s start with the copyright news. The Pirate of the Week award goes to Sony, who managed to not only leak a “still at the cinemas” movie to the PlayStation store in perfect digital quality, but also managed to make it a free download for those quick enough to grab this very special offer. But at least the file was DRM protected so that it couldn’t have been leaked online, right? Um, not quite, and if you search the regular BitTorrent networks, you’ll find a “PSPRip” version of the film which came from this Sony gift. Or should that really be “SonyRip”?

Sony like the movie ‘Armored’ so much that it decided to give it away free on the PlayStation Store

I know the MPAA has been talking about wanting to release movies digitally while they’re still showing at the cinemas, something that cinema owners are vehemently against, but what Sony has done here is probably not what the MPAA had intended. Although the MPAA still had time to roll out a new DRM scheme, which basically “pirates” Disney’s Keychest initiative. Basically, it’s a purchase once, view everywhere scheme, and they intend to do this by adding DRM and online authentication to everything. It seems that the lesson the MPAA learned from the RIAA’s failed experiment with DRM was that it failed because interoperability, that is the ability to play the file everywhere, was not ensured. That’s a valid lesson, but online authentication means that if people are away from the Internet, then their entire movie library becomes useless. And I’m sure there will be device manufacturers that do not buy into the MPAA’s DRM licensing scheme, and hence, interoperability will still be an issue. I think the biggest lesson from the RIAA’s DRM fiasco should be that consumers just don’t like DRM, and that in the end, it wasn’t really necessary anyway since DRM free or easily ripped versions of the music (or movie) will still be widely available and ready to be pirated online regardless of how many layers of DRM you put on the music (or movie).

In fact, just this week, the “consumers don’t like DRM” argument was put forward to the courts in relation to the appeal of the Joel Tenenbaum verdict, the student fined $675,000 of downloading 30 songs. The argument is that because DRM limits choice, the only choice then becomes piracy. I’m not sure I agree with this argument, and I certainly don’t think it will hold up in court, because DRM free alternatives were available in the form of CDs, which can then be easily made into digital form legally (not falling foul of the DMCA because CDs are not DRM’d). The other argument that Tenenbaum’s lawyers will use is that the rewarded damages are just too excessive, which is harder to argue against. It wasn’t as shocking at the $1.92m verdict awarded against Jammie Thomas-Rasset for 6 songs less than Tenenbaum, but the RIAA did it to send a message.

But Sony didn’t like ‘Moon’ at all and refused to support it for an Oscar in order to fight online piracy

While still stinging from the “SonyRip” incident, I guess the suits at Sony HQ decided to balance this kind gift out with something nasty, which came in the form of not supporting their own film, Moon, for an Oscar for which the film’s star Sam Rockwell actually has a chance of winning. The lack of support comes in the form of not releasing screeners to voters, which need to be watermarked to prevent piracy, but Sony doesn’t want to spend the money. Sony says they need the watermarking because the movie is yet to be released in the US, although even the Blu-ray version has been available in the UK since mid November, so there’s hardly a lack of a good source for the pirated version. Another quick check on the regular BitTorrent networks and a DVD rip of Moon is indeed available. The cost of issuing the watermarked screeners would probably be less than the cost of the PR campaign Sony now has to put out to counter criticism of this move from celebrities such as Iron Man Director Jon Favreau and Coraline writer Neil Gaiman. The next step for Sony would be to block the release of a film entirely from all channels, if it’s really that serious about piracy (although it might still get leaked online). Better to destroy the film just after it comes out of post production, than to suffer from piracy, right?

While not doing something as extreme, and for entirely different reasons, but Warner and a few other studios (surprisingly, not including Sony) put pressure on  DVD rental vending machine operator Redbox by refusing to give the right to distribute their movies through this cheaper and potentially revenue hurting new distribution method. Redbox even had to use made up cover art as the studios wouldn’t give permission to use the original artwork, but even the made up art work has come under legal pressure, although Redbox denies any wrongdoing. Warner then attacked Netflix and forced them to delay the rental of their DVDs, although they did offer as a compromise an extended range of movies that will be made available via Netflix’s digital service. All of this is about fighting new delivery methods that are cheaper and more efficient, to protect the dying business model that studios rely on. DVD rental revenue is actually up (cheap stuff sells more, wh0 would have thunk it?), but while the studios were busy fighting online piracy, they forgot that the Internet could also have been used to deliver new services and acts as a new distribution method for their content, and instead passed up the opportunity to the likes of Netflix and Redbox. Just like how the music industry passed up online music selling over to Apple’s iTunes, which is now making huge amounts of money that the music labels should have been making themselves if they had the vision to embrace the Internet, rather than not seeing anything good having come from the Internet at all (to paraphrase Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton).

Well if you can’t stop the piracy at the source, then perhaps you can go to the other end. The French government, now the symbolic head of a global crusade against online piracy, plans to put a piracy tax on Google which will be quite a little earner, as well as doing absolutely nothing to stop piracy just like every other initiative.

Onto HD, or more accurately, 3D HD news. Let’s just go quickly through just a small selection of 3D related news items, most to have come out of the CES. ESPN is set to launch a 3D channel for sports programming, including the opening game of the FIFA 2010 World Cup.

Sony, Discovery and IMAX are set to do the same, but we’ll have to wait until 2011 for the new channel. After Toshiba’s first solid, but otherwise uninspiring Blu-ray player, the company’s next three Blu-ray players will be a little bit more feature packed, and yep you guessed it, 3D enabled. Well actually, only one model will be 3D enabled and it won’t be available until later in the year, but the two soon to arrive models will have Netflix, Vudu, CinemaNow and Pandora streaming support, and Wi-Fi connectivity on the more expensive of the two models. On the PC front, PowerDVD maker Cyberlink demonstrated 3D Blu-ray on a PC. The PC should have an easier path to 3D, since most have the processing power required to decode the “twice the information” Blu-ray video stream (one stream for each eye), and everything else can be done in software. Of course, you’ll still need a new monitor and a pair of glasses.

Panasonic already has a range of 3D ready devices ready for release soon

Now there has been some confusion in regards to the requirement for 3D, and I’m still not 100% clear on all aspects of it, but basically, you’ll need a new TV or monitor. For the PC monitor, you’ll need one that can display 120 Hz, but most can only do 60Hz. The reason you need 120Hz is because due to the need to provide two separate pictures (one for each eye), a 60Hz monitor effectively only gives 30Hz to each eye, which is not nearly good enough to ensure a headache free experience. On the home theater front, there’s also some confusion as to whether HDMI 1.4 is needed for 3D Blu-ray. The answer is probably no, since the 3D Blu-ray specs say that the PS3 can be upgraded via firmware to support 3D Blu-ray, and PS3s don’t have HDMI 1.4 connectors. The part of the HDMI specs that provides for the higher bandwidth video transfer needed by 3D Blu-ray apparently already exists, but it was up to manufacturers whether they wanted to support it or not, and since there was no demand for it, most do not support it. HDMI 1.4 will mandate support, and so expect most new 3D ready HDTVs to use this version of the connector, although against it’s not strictly required. Panasonic’s 3D Blu-ray players will actually have both a 1.4 connector and a 1.3 connector for connecting to legacy equipment. And just because a HDTV displays at 120Hz (and even if it had HDMI 1.4), it doesn’t mean that it will be 3D ready. Most TVs display 120Hz by taking a the 60Hz input and then frame double, or even frame quadruple to 240Hz. However, 3D ready sets will need to be able to accept and process the true 120Hz signal that 3D Blu-ray players will output, and most can’t do that at the moment. That’s my take on it anyway, but basically, if the TV doesn’t say 3D ready, then it’s not 3D ready, probably. This information and the new logo for 3D Blu-ray can be found in this forum thread.

And it was a refreshing change to see LG announce a new Blu-ray player and it had nothing to do with 3D. Instead, it has a built in 250GB hard drive, not for storing managed copies (not yet anyway), but for storing downloads from VUDU as well as the user’s own content. Speaking of Managed Copy, there was hardly any mention of it at the CES, apart from Cyberlink demonstrating a jukebox system for Blu-ray which will utilize Managed Copy. Disappointing, but not surprising.

And in gaming, not much other than more 3D stuff, with the PS3, Microsoft still showing off Project Natal, although it won’t be here until 10 month or so from now, so it’s hard to get excited over it yet. Nothing much for the Wii, except it may support Netflix at some stage.

The CES concludes today, so there will be more digestion of the news over the coming week I suppose, as well as any last minute announcements. I’m getting a bit tired of this 3D thing anyway, because I still can’t see past it as just another short lived gimmick, which 3D will always be until the type where you don’t need glasses becomes mainstream. See you next week.