DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

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.

Continuing on from part 1. After submitting a repair request online, I received email instructions on how to send my faulty Xbox 360 for warranty service. Unlike in the US, we have to provide our own shipping container, although the postage is free. I managed to buy a mailing box from the post office for about $2, and stuffed the Xbox 360 inside, with some bubble wrapping around the 360 to prevent it from moving around too much during transport.

So my Xbox 360 is on its way to the designated service centre. I should get an email once they have received my package, and hopefully, it will be fixed and returned to me in about a week after that.

Well it’s been coming, and I’ve finally joined up with many of my fellow 360 gamers and have suffered the dreaded (or is that “expected”) Red Rings of Death (RRoD) problem. I finally feel like part of the 360 gaming family (and ironically, this is not a sarcastic remark). Having had to sit on the sidelines while watching every other person detail their RRoD experience has left me feeling a bit left behind, to be honest.

As someone who blogs, having something like this is happen is like manna from heaven. I will finally have something to write about for the next week or two, or longer. It’s just a shame that it took so long for it to happen, since this is hardly breaking news anymore.

I had a feeling that my 360 was going to die soon, since I’ve been playing Dead Rising quite a lot lately, as well as watched a few HD DVD movies, during an especially hot summer we’ve been having. I started getting freezing problems about two days ago, although restarting solved the problem. Today, I started Dead Rising as normal and just as I was about to do a flying kick on a zombie, it froze again. I restarted, and instead of getting into the Dashboard as usual, a beep was heard coming from somewhere deep within the chasis of the console, something I’ve never heard before. But still no red lights. Subsequent attempts to turn it on again gave me the same beep treatment. I started to worry, that perhaps, this is not the RRoD problem that I’ve read so much about. Maybe it was something else entirely. And then on about the 5th time I restarted, those three red lights started flashing and, I must say, I felt more relieve than anything else. It would have sucked if my 360 broke and it wasn’t the RRoD problem – now that would have be real bad luck.

So I’ve logged on to the Xbox 360 support website, submitted my details and I now wait for my repair request to be processed. So there is nothing for me to do but wait, and once something happens, you’ll read about it part 2 of this article …

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.

A couple of weeks ago, I promised to write a blog on new wireless video technology, and here it is.

There are a few competing standards, but for the purpose of this article, I will ignore yet another possible format war (wish it was this simple), and just concentrate on how wireless can help transform the home theatre.

Anybody who has a home theatre will know that cabling is the biggest headache. Every device these days seems to need a power cord (that’s a given), some video/audio cords (if you’re lucky, it’s just a single HDMI cable, if you’re not, it’s a 3 pronged component cable plus 6 pronged analogue audio cables), and possibly an Ethernet cable too. Then you will probably have a switch, hub or receiver to distribute all the connected equipment to your display, not to mention a few connections directly to the display. What all this means is just a bunch of cables, possibly very messy.

But imagine if all the video and audio cables are replaced by wireless – and technology is now ripe to allow high bandwidth short distance wireless transmission (see UWB). These new types of wireless technology is all about high bandwidth, offering more than a hundred times the bandwidth of current wireless networking technology, at the expense of range. One of the wireless formats, WirelessHD, allows for 2 Gbit/s up to 20 Gbit/s transfer rates, which is more than enough for today’s video applications (HDMI is 10.2 Gbit/s). The range is anywhere between 5 to 10 meters, which compares favourably to wired connections. WirelessHD is supported by LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), NEC, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba – so pretty much everybody.

There will be a time when new equipment will have WirelessHD or something similar built in. Hopefully, the standard will be backwards compatible with both DVI and HDMI. Older equipment can be wireless-enabled by simply plugging in a wireless dongle to the existing wired connection port (eg. connect two dongles to each older device’s HDMI port – instant wireless HDMI connection is made). And add 802.11n wireless network support in place of Ethernet, and you now only have a single power cable to deal with.

And it’s not just for home theatres, imagine not having to connect your PC monitor to your PC using wires. Many people already have wireless keyboards and mouse, so the next natural step is the wireless monitor (although you still need a power cable). And of course, your PC will be able to connect wirelessly to your home theatre display, as long as it’s not too far away.

I for one welcome high bandwidth wireless technology, especially in the HD arena. Look out for WirelessHD and other products to be released throughout the year.