DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

And so another week is upon us. Not much news this week though, but there was one big breaking story, which we’ll get to soon enough. The PlayStation Move has been released since I last posted, and there’s a bit more on that in the gaming section, although I do plan on writing a short little comparison between the Move and Kinect, or rather, why a direct comparison between the two motion gaming accessories is a bit silly, and that one doesn’t necessarily have to lose in order for the other to win (unfortunately, the Wii loses in either scenario).

In copyright news, the big news of the week I alluded to earlier is that HDCP, the copy protection scheme we’ve all learned to love, is dead.

HDCP, as found in the HDMI standard, is cracked

It was short lived, we hardly knew thee, but HDCP copy protection has been cracked, with the master key posted on Twitter of all places. People at first were sceptical, but a few days later, we had confirmation from Intel, the company that developed HDCP, that, yes, the posted key was in fact the legitimate master key. So what does the master key do? Well, it the way HDCP works, it allows legitimate source keys (keys for things like Blu-ray players) and sink keys (keys for receiving devices, mainly TVs and monitors) to be generated, and therefore it means that there is no way now to tell the difference between authorised devices, and unauthorised ones, thus killing HDCP as a viable DRM scheme. Well some articles screamed that “Blu-ray copy protection has been killed”, it isn’t quite that simple. Yes, Blu-ray players rely on HDMI and therefore HDCP copy protection, but the disc itself is still protected by several other layers of DRM, including AACS. However, it will now be possible to intercept the HDMI output and get access to the raw digital stream to make copies of the movie, although that will require a bit of hardware ingenuity, although something could be done in software too. Those around when DVD ripping first came onto the scene will remember Power Ripper, the tool that used PowerDVD’s screen capture tool to rip DVDs, frame by frame. Since then, many DRM schemes have protected this sort of ripping by disabling screen capture or encrypting the path from software to screen. But with HDCP out of the way, this kind of ripping may be possible again (and this time, since HDMI carries audio too, the whole stream can be riped). Of course the question is why would anyone want to do this when there are much easier ways to rip Blu-ray movies? But there are also other applications other than ripping, such as allowing movies to still be played via HDMI even when the TV’s HDCP chip has died.

But the most important aspect of this leak of the master key is that it confirms once again relying on technical measures to prevent piracy is an extremely naive strategy. There are people that crack HDCP for fun, and it doesn’t matter if it takes a month, or 5 years, they have the time! Now, Intel has hinted that since the technical protection is all but gone, they may rely on legal protection to keep HDCP viable. After all, it’s worked for DVD’s CSS, which has been cracked since 1999 and yet it’s still widely in use today, largely thanks to the legal protection it, and any DRM scheme (no matter how weak), offers (thanks to the DMCA). But even legal protection won’t stop people doing things that annoys rightsholders, once the technical barriers have been removed. So HDCP will still be around, and all your TVs and Blu-ray players will use it, but once again, you have to ask, what’s the point? Having some crappy DRM in there makes lawsuits simpler, but copyright infringement is copyright infringement, it doesn’t really matter to the court if DRM has been broken once, a hundred times, or that DRM didn’t exist at all. And when the DRM negatively impacts on legitimate customer’s user experience, then one should wonder if this is a fair deal, that legitimate customers have to pay dearly just to give rightsholders a false sense of security (but I guess a false sense of it is better than nothing, which is why companies are still paying a lot of money to license DVD’s CSS).

Technical, legal ways to fight piracy has obviously failed, and continues to demonstrate how it fails every single day, whether it’s HDCP, or France’s Three-Strikes, or multi-million dollar settlements being thrown out of court for being unconstitutional. The common sense approach would then to be to find another way to fight piracy, perhaps a way where rightsholders can get loyal customers to join their battle, no, not by paying out rewards for dobbing your friends and family, but by making sure that paying customers want to stay paying customers because they are treated right. So right that even those that aren’t paying would start to envy those that are paying, and would do so if they could afford it. Whether this means making the whole experience so much easier than going out and obtaining the pirated version, or if it means more exclusive content and experiences that cannot be pirated, or even just making the price so reasonable that, it makes it not worthwhile to pursue pirated content. I firmly believe such a solution is possible, and in the end, everyone will benefit.

4chan DDoS attacks AiPlex and the MPAA, giving (AiPlex at least) a taste of their own medicine

Or you can just launch DDoS attacks on BitTorrent websites. But if you use less than ethical and possibly illegal tactics, then don’t be surprised if the response is of a similar nature. Last week, I mentioned the story of an Indian based anti-piracy firm, AiPlex, who appeared to have owned up to launching DDoS attacks on BitTorrent website. So this week, a group from 4chan, called Anonymous, have decided that the right response is to DDoS AiPlex’s website. And attack they did, bringing the entire website down for hours. And not only that, they decided to attack the MPAA website too, also bringing it down for several hours. Both websites appear to be back up again this afternoon, after having changed IP addresses, but it’s unknown at this point if the attacks will continue (both sites appear to be slowing down again, which could signal the start of a new attack, or just that I have a crappy Internet connection). Now, I don’t think many people will condone DDoS and similar attacks, but that’s exactly why people were shocked to discover that AiPlex had resorted to such actions in the first place.

Over to the UK, Internet users over there will soon have to pay to be spied on by their ISPs, so the profits of record companies and other rightsholders can be protected. The government has announced that ISPs will have to foot 25% of the cost of anti-piracy operations, with the rest of the 75% being the rightsholder’s responsibility. You would think that rightsholders, you know the multi-billion dollar music and movie industries, would be happy with this arrangement, but they’re not. They had wanted ISPs to foot all of the bill, to even pay for the investigation part of the operation, and so wanted to contribute nothing in order to gain all the benefits. I should be surprised, but I’m not, because these are industries that are out there blaming everyone else for problems of their own creation (by that I mean not moving quickly enough to satisfy user needs, so the users found something better, cheaper).

Let’s move onto 3D/HD news. The good news is that the PS3 should be able to play 3D Blu-ray movies by this time next week, as apparently the “delayed” 3D Blu-ray firmware is now going to launch on time, on September 21st.

There’s very little detail about the exact implementation, so there’s all sorts of rumours on 3D Blu-ray being a bit more limited on the PS3 than compared to dedicated 3D Blu-ray players. One of the rumours suggest that when 3D is being played, BD-J/Java based menus can’t work at the same time. I find this highly unlikely though, since the PS3 has to still be the most powerful Blu-ray player out there (how many other Blu-ray players can do 1080p 3D rendering?). Another earlier rumour suggests that due to the older version HDMI on the PS3, especially the fat one, that 3D Blu-ray will not be full 1080p. This sounds more likely, but I think Sony has already refuted this suggestion. Anyway, we’ll know more in a few day’s time.

But while the update means the number of 3D Blu-ray players around the world has just jumped up quite a bit instantly, the number of 3D Blu-ray movies, on the other hand, is still barely above double digits. One problem many have noticed is that most of the movies released are tied to hardware, usually 3D TVs, and most are not available for general sale. Sometimes like 60% of the movies released or announced for release so far are this types of exclusives, including the big one, Avatar. And some say this will kill off the 3D Blu-ray format before it begins. I’m not sure I agree. Yes, the exclusive releases are an annoyance, it means many 3D Blu-ray owners, like myself, have access to a very limited number of movies (for me, I only have just the one). However, this is just the effect of the hardware-before-content model that 3D Blu-ray has adopted. And this causes the lack of content means manufacturers are even more protective of whatever content they can get their hands on, so they can make it an exclusive and sell more TVs. The alternative is to have content-before-hardware, but producing a 3D Blu-ray movie is quite costly possibly, as opposed to adding 3D to TVs, which isn’t costing manufacturers much at all (and in fact, they’re making more per TV because of the premium attached to 3D sets). In any case, Warner has just announced they will release 6 more 3D Blu-ray movies to general release for this holidays, including the “faux 3D” Clash of the Titans. Sony have also announced Open Season on 3D Blu-ray as well. But all eyes are on when Avatar is going to get a general release on 3D Blu-ray, and that will be the title to take the format to mainstream, I think.

And finally in gaming, the PlayStation Move is out and I thought I should briefly talk about it. Most people are wondering if Move will beat Kinect or the opposite, but really, the battle people should be looking at is whether Move can hurt the Wii, and I think it will.

One annoying thing about still using motion controllers is all the accessories you need to buy for it, no matter how cool they look

The similarities between the Move and the Wii makes the Move both harder to market, and easier. Easier because people already know what it’s all about, harder because many thinks it’s just a Wii clone. However, those that have played it (not me though) will almost always say one things: it’s very very accurate. That doesn’t sound as sexy as Kinect’s “look Ma, no controllers” advantage, but super accuracy can give motion gaming a whole new dimension. For traditional gaming, accuracy already makes a huge difference (think controller versus keyboard/mouse for FPS games). With motion gaming, accuracy will draw users more into the action, without them wondering why their real world movement of the controller isn’t being translated into the virtual world. And accuracy means the Move controller can be used for games that are more simulations than just random waving of the wand. And of course, accuracy makes for better player, and allows for more complicated games that require more intricate movement. Now whether this makes for better games, I’m not totally convinced yet, but the potential is there. And by being similar the Wii, but better, the Move positions itself as a potential Wii killer.

Kinect is a totally different animal. It’s a lot riskier, but if it succeeds, then Microsoft will have a truly unique product that offers something completely different to the Wii and Move. And this difference could either make or break Kinect, but I’m already seeing lots of signs where people generally tend to think of Kinect are more innovative, more fun, and these are two very critical factors in determining what’s the must have item for this holiday season. And not having to buy controllers, and the endless list of accessories for them (from steering wheels, to guns, to tennis racquets …), might be a plus for some.

And as I mentioned before, I might just write a blog comparing the two new motion control systems, and also whether the Wii is doomed.

But that’s the news for this week. A bad week for DRM, which in my book, means a good week. I wonder which DRM will get broken next week!

I posted the August US video games sales analysis yesterday here. Nothing too surprising, but we’re getting into exciting territory now (if, one can be excited about video game sales stats, that is), what with the Move and Kinect on the way. Many have already expressed their opinion that the Wii is doomed, but rather than looking at it at a glass is half empty perspective, I think the Wii has done extremely well given what it offers. It was never going to last as long as the Xbox 360 or PS3, due to the use of old tech in the console. And the fact that its core audience are casual gamers, and casual by definition means these are not the type of users to buy a lot of games frequently.

Let’s start with copyright news. Sometimes there is such a things as saying too much, and an anti-piracy firm based in India may have just admitted to too much in their pursuit of copyright infringing websites.

The managing director of AiPlex, Girish Kumar, has admitted that apart from requesting web hosts to shut down websites that are hosting or providing links to copyrighted material, they have even gone as far as to trying to “attack the site and destroy the data”. This could either mean actual server hacking, although it seems more likely to be describing an attack based on denial of service. Regardless, both acts are illegal in most countries (or at least frowned upon), and so using an illegal technique to pursue anti-piracy goals seems to be a bit over the top. Although if you consider that the likes of the MPAA and RIAA are willing to forgo even the basic tenets of democracy and rights to privacy, then a little hacking or DoS doesn’t sound too bad at all. While DoS isn’t a popular anti-piracy method, but anti-piracy companies have tried various similar techniques to make Torrent downloading a harder task. These includes uploading fake torrents, uploading invalid pieces to increase the number of errors, and massive leech based attacks, denying downloaders from connecting to seeds. As far as I know, these kinds of “attacks” are not illegal, although their effectiveness is highly questionable.

Sharron Angle sued by Righthaven for reprinting a newspaper article without permission

An update on the newspaper copyright trolling news last week, it appears that a Nevada Republican Senate candidate, Sharron Angle, has become Righthaven’s latest victim, being sued for up to $150,000 for allegedly copying/pasting a newspaper article. It will be interesting to see what happens, whether the settlement fee is paid up promptly, and whether this has any impact, positive or negative, on the actual election campaign. It was always a matter of time before someone prominent was sued by one of the copyright trolls, and it just made things a little bit more interesting. And if it was downloading one of the porn torrents I mentioned in the last WNR, then expect the fireworks to fly. On a side note, if I was running against Angle, I would use the slogan “Sharron Angle, She’s no Angel”. You see, that’s funny because people often misspell both words, and not a reflection or opinion on her actual character by this blog, since I have no idea who she is.

But one issue that has been raised before is whether an IP address is considered to be private data or not. If it is considered to be private data, then monitoring and storing it could in fact breach privacy laws in many regions. And one country seems to be moving in this direction, as a recent court case in Switzerland has pretty much made copyright trolling illegal. A government agency there actually took an anti-piracy investigation firm to court and won the case that basically confirmed that IP addresses are in fact private. Already, some are saying this ruling is a mistake which may turn Switzerland into a safe haven for copyright infringers. I like to think of IP addresses as akin to phone numbers (those with static IP addresses in particular, but those with dynamic ones, then it’s more like having a different pre-paid number every so often). Just like a phone number, an IP address is required to establish communications, and because of this, it means it has to be given out to other parties. But just because it can be seen publicly, like say in a phone book for phone numbers, doesn’t mean that it isn’t personal, private data. You can’t sell a list of my phone numbers for money without my permission, for example, and I think the same should apply to IP addresses. The fact that these companies are making money collecting other people’s IP address suggest there needs to be more protection on Internet addressing. Certainly, just like it was argued in the Swiss case, IP addresses should not be used so negligently in civil cases – criminal cases would be another matter, of course. Hopefully, other countries will follow suit, but somehow I doubt this will happen …

And this is also why making ISP liable for their subscribers potentially illegal activities is just so wrong. Of course, the powers that be aren’t asking ISPs to be liable for all crimes, just copyright infringement, which seems strange to me. Why would the ISP be more liable if one of their subscribers downloaded the movie Inception, then say if another user used their Internet connection to send spam or commit Internet fraud? Either they’re liable for everything, or they’re not liable for anything that their subscribers do. One of the more controversial points of the ACTA is the request for member nations to implement new laws designed to add liability for ISPs, but it seems that this provision is no more. So instead of forcing every country that is a signatory to the treaty to make their ISPs liable, the requirements will now most likely be much more vague, although many countries are still very keen to adopt similar legislation to France’s Three Strikes, for example. And again, I have to ask, why is copyright infringement so special that it requires special laws to overrule long standing privacy laws and practices, and to force liability onto ISPs, when other more or less serious “crimes” are not getting the same attention? I haven’t heard one argument that explains this, other than the fact that copyright infringement is far too common and so it needs something special. But I would argue that spam, spreading malware, hacking, DoS, fraud, identity fraud, Internet bullying and the myriad of other crimes that can be committed via an Internet connection all deserve more attention than helping the movie and music industry make more money. Spam and spam related fraud, for example, takes billions out of the economy each year, and yet, we see very little action (comparatively) from government agencies and industry bodies in combating this rather serious problem. Is this because the anti-spam lobby isn’t as rich or powerful as the anti-piracy lobby?

Steam offers cheaper games via sales, and the frequency of sales suggest it's a strategy that's working

And all this misplaced attention on anti-piracy all assumes that piracy is actually hurting the economy badly, but you look the record profits that Hollywood studios and music labels are bringing in, and you wonder is this really the case? Is piracy really that bad? Well, for video games at least, an industry experts says that piracy isn’t so bad after all. Scott Steinberg, head of technology and video game consulting firm TechSavvy Global, says that piracy can actually help the video game industry. Or more precisely, the industry can use what makes piracy so popular to their advantage, as opposed to continuing the “arms race” against piracy websites and groups, a race in which the industry is losing badly, or using the legal system (and politically lobbying) to stop piracy. Instead, Steinberg argues that by making games cheaper, or even free, and charging small amounts for add-on content, may just be the way, pointing to free social network games such as Facebook’s FarmVille (which is free to play, but extra items can be purchased to enhance the gaming experience). This isn’t actually a new strategy, or one that hasn’t been tried – it has been deployed in practice and the results are usually quite good. For example, Steam are now offering discount games (or even free ones, like Portal a couple of months ago) much more often than before, and I suspect that’s because it’s making them much more money than charging full price for games. Of course, hit games like Starcraft II will always sell well, and a high price is sometimes justified, even though it will lead to more piracy. But I think a balance can be achieved, where you can minimize piracy by reducing the price, but not so much that it becomes unprofitable – if the balance is right, I think publishers can look forward to short term increases in revenue and bigger long term benefits such as purchasable add-on content, sequels, paid online services. The alternative is to take the short-sighted approach and continue charging $50+ for games, and then complain about why gamers aren’t buying all the numerous good games that come out every year.

In 3D/HD news, what if there was a way to get Blu-ray movies to play on the iPad, or even the iPhone?

VLC for the iOS is coming soon, but don't expect full HD clips to play well on the iPad

Sounds too good to be true? Then perhaps it might just be. The upcoming VLC player for iOS promises to support HD MKV files, which for those with the skills, means they can rip their Blu-ray movies and get it to play on the iOS. But play it might, just don’t expect to be at full frames, or anything approaching semi-playable if this video demo is any clue. Without some sort of optimization and acceleration support, it’s just expecting too much of the 1 GHz processor in the iPad, remembering that even a P4 3.2 GHz processor struggles to play Blu-ray movies at more than 15 FPS without help from a GPU that supports AVC/VC-1 video decoding.

So the dream of being able to use your iPad for 1080p HD movies remains just that … a dream. For now.

But that HD MKV file may not play on the iPad, it may very well play on your TV. Many TVs already support the decoding of HD MKV files. Then there are HD streams on the Internet too, and these will be much easier to access thanks to Google TV, which is coming to a TV near you this Christmas. It’s hard to describe exactly what Google TV brings to your TV, but just have a look at the video I posted here, and it will give you a fair idea of what to expect. I’m not sure browsing the web on your TV is going to be great experience, without a keyboard and mouse that is, which is why most Internet TVs have offered only “closed” Internet, just apps that have been custom designed to make using them easier with the TV remote. But with Google TV, perhaps it will be incentive for websites like Facebook and YouTube to offer a version made specially for TV/remote navigation (if they haven’t done so already, in the case of YouTube XL).

And finally in gaming, the PS3 has just had a new firmware out, and the changelog lists “additional security features” as pretty much the only change.

So I’m just going to take a wild stab here and say that it had something to do with the PS Jailbreak device. And guess what, the PS Jailbreak device certainly no longer works after installing firmware 3.42.

But for those that avoided the update, then there will apparently be a new updated version of the Backup Manager. It promises support for future firmware updates (I gather this means that someone will go about hacking 3.42 or later to ensure that the exploit is still there, and that online services are still working). The update also promises native MKV playback, a much missed feature of the PS3, and even bringing back PS2 emulation. So it’s clear that the PS Jailbreak device will be more than just about piracy in the future.

And that’s all the news I have for you this week. Have a good one.

It’s August already, and we’re quickly approaching the holiday season. This holiday season is even more interesting because we have new motion gaming accessories from both Sony and Microsoft, both wanting to challenge Nintendo’s dominance in the casual gaming market. With the PlayStation Move being released in September, and Kinect in November, the months before is all about building enough momentum and hoping that the new accessories help one console get over the line, in terms of being the most popular console during the holiday season. And unlike last year, there are no signs pointing to a clear winner for this holiday season – any of the home consoles can win it – so it’s even more important to have a good August and September to lead up to the crucial October, November and December months. The figures are from NPD, a marketing research firm that releases games console sale data every month.

The figures for US sales in August 2010 are below, ranked in order of number of sales (August 2009 figures also shown, including percentage change):

• Xbox 360: 356,700 (Total: 21.4 million; August 2009: 215,400 – up 66%)
• DS: 342,700 (Total: 43.3 million; August 2009: 552,900 – down 38%)
• Wii: 244,300  (Total: 30.1 million; August 2009: 277,400 – down 12%)
• PS3: 226,000 (Total: 13.2 million; August 2009: 210,000 – up 8%)
• PSP: 79,400 (Total: 17.5 million; August 2009: 140,300 – down 43%)

NPD August 2010 Game Console US Sales Figures

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of August 2010)

My prediction from last month was:

Looking at the Amazon charts, the new Xbox 360 4GB isn’t actually doing fantastically, and it’s being outsold by the 250GB. So while most people are predicting that it would be another month where the Xbox 360 rules, I’m not as certain. I think sales will do well, but it might be the case of things being very close, with the new 4GB probably just allowing the Xbox 360 to sneak to top spot. In games, NCAA Football is usually followed by Madden NFL, the 11th version, and that will always do well. But otherwise, it’s another slow month before the busy holiday period begins, so the top 10 should look pretty familiar.

Well, it was pretty close at the top, but the Xbox 360 still managed to beat the DS by 14,000 units, even as it recorded a month to month drop. And the top two were Madden NFL titles, but that wasn’t hard to predict (although there were some surprises here too, more on that later). And I was right too about it being another slow month, as sales dropped compared to July.

As mentioned above, the Xbox 360 was the most popular console for August, that’s two months in a row, and only the Wii or the DS has ever managed to do this. The new 4GB didn’t help the Xbox 360 record growth compared to July, but it did help to secure first spot. One should not underestimate the importance of these last two month’s victories for the Xbox 360, and of course the new form factor for the Xbox 360, which has finally allowed it to become as “sexy” an item as the PS3, possibly more so depending on who you ask. Plus the increased stability finally allowed Microsoft to put the whole RRoD business behind them. And all in time for Kinect too!

Last month, I mentioned that this month would be important for the PS3. For the first time, we can have a year on year comparison that compared the PS3 Slim to the PS3 Slim (and to the post price-cut PS3 sales figures). Of course, the Slim and price cut was launched in the middle for August last year, so we will have an even better comparison next month. But looking at the PS3 figures, while it still managed a year-on-year growth, but it was only 8%, compare and contrast to the 76% last month. And this could very well mean that PS3 sales would actually drop, year-on-year, next month, although that depends on whether the PS Move shifts any consoles along with it or not (bundles and otherwise). But a drop is not necessarily a bad result, it just means that it’s unfair to compare the post Slim/price cut bump to what is now a normal level of sale for the console. Just like it would be silly to compared  Xbox 360 sales 0f July 2011 with July 2010, due to the post Xbox 360 “Slim” sales bump. And the PS3 was the only console to manage a month to month growth in August, I guess largely thanks to the stock issue finally clearing up completely, so thing are still looking good for the console (and even better overseas, but that’s beyond the scope of this analysis). The less said about the PSP the better.

For Nintendo though, the news remains bad. The Wii is very close to dropping to the third most popular home console (that’s last place, btw), and DS sale has started to drop, perhaps reaching market saturation (although the 3DS will help, a lot, and its only competitor is the PSP, which is doing quite awfully). But with both Microsoft and Sony bringing out their motion gaming devices, it’s not looking good for Nintendo. The low tech nature of the console, which made it an affordable, profit making piece of hardware, and was largely fine for casual games, may finally have caught up with the console – so expect the Wii 2 sooner than later, as the Wii just doesn’t have the longevity of the other two home consoles. And regardless of which camp you’re in, whether you think Kinect will win, or the Move will, what is clear is that both seem better pieces of tech than the Wii. Whether their games will be as good as the best Wii games, remains to be seen, but you can’t argue that both are innovative enough (Kinect with the controller-less interface, Move with its super accuracy) to cause Nintendo concerns, at the very least.

Onto software now. As expected the Xbox 360 and PS3 version of Madden NFL 11 were the top selling titles, in the described order. What some commentators concentrated on was the surprising lack of a gap between the sales figures of the two versions, despite the advantage in hardware units the Xbox 360 enjoys (1.6:1). The actual software advantage was only 1.235:1. But this is actually up on last year’s 1.231:1 ratio. Another multi-platform release was Mafia II, and again the Xbox 360 version outsold the PS3 version, but by how much, we don’t really know because NPD no longer provides sales stats for anything other than the top 5 titles (Mafia II for the PS3 was 7th). Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii was third, and fifth place was occupied by another Super Mario game, New Super Mario Bros. for the DS. The Wii version of New Super Mario Bros. was also in the top 10, with Wii Fit Plus making a return too. For the Xbox 360, Modern Warfare 2 stayed in the top 10 (related to the upcoming Black Ops game, perhaps), and last month’s top title, NCAA Football 11 also remained in the top 10.

Here’s the complete list of the top 10 software sales:

1. Madden NFL 11 (Xbox 360, EA) – 368,000
2. Madden NFL 11 (PS3, EA) – 298,000
3. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii, Nintendo) – 193,000
4. Mafia II (Xbox 360, Take 2) – 121,600
5. New Super Mario Bros. DS (DS, Nintendo) – 141,700
6. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii, Nintendo)
7. Mafia II (PS3, Take 2)
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360, Activision)
9. NCAA Football 11 (Xbox 360, EA)
10. Wii Fit Plus w/Balance Board (Wii, Nintendo)

Prediction time. September = Halo Reach. That’s what next month will be all about. The fact is that, as I type, the top four items in Amazon’s Video Games section are all Halo Reach related (standard, limited, legendary editions, plus the 360 Halo Reach console bundle), just shows how dominant it will be in September’s figures. So expect the Xbox 360 to remain on the top of the console pile hardware wise too, and possibly the best month since, well, the last Halo release. Halo Reach will overshadow Sony’s launch of the Move unfortunately, although it’s doing well to just hang in around 10th, or just outside of it. The Sports Champions bundle should be counted in the software charts (in the same way Wii Fit Plus is in there), so it should be in the top 10 (especially when the top 3 will be condensed into a single entry for Halo Reach). It will be a very interesting month, I feel.

See you next month.

Good news everyone! Another edition of the WNR is ready, for you to enjoy. Actually, since I write the intro first, the WNR isn’t ready at the exact time I’m writing this. And I’m not sure why I started with a Futurama inspired phrase, except perhaps for the fact that I’ve been watching Futurama lately. I kind of feel cheated having previously purchased the *entire* Futurama series on DVD, only for the show to be revived. Let’s just hope they don’t revive Arrested Development as well, to ruin my *complete* collection. It’s pretty news lite this week, but it won’t mean I will write less crap. You’ve been warned!

Let’s start with copyright news, like I always have with the 150+ WNRs I’ve done so far. Copyright trolling is a relatively new term that’s been coined to describe the act of suing for copyright for profit, much like how patent trolls secure patents with no product, in the hope of one day profiting.

The latest trend in copyright trolling is in the dying newspaper business, and I’ve reported on the sue-for-settlement activities conducted by Righthaven for Stephens Media, owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal amongst other papers. But it looks like another newspaper chain has signed up, with Arkansas based WEHCO Media also joining the trolling activities. These cases usually involve suing blogs and aggregators for posting full versions of articles published by the newspaper chains. Now some will argue that there’s nothing wrong with this, and as someone who has had their articles copy/pasted without permission many times, I kind of agree. But as someone who also runs websites that contain user generated content, it’s hard to ensure your users don’t also break the rules by copying/pasting articles. The DMCA safe harbor provisions should protect website owners in these kind of situations, as long as they have clear, enforceable rules in regards to copyright, but it appears the DMCA is not offering protection to those being sued, unless they go to court to claim safe harbor, as their own expense. And while I agree that it’s important to protect copyright, the attempt at monetization here seems a bit too obvious – it’s almost as if this has become a new source of income for the struggling newspaper industry. This blog isn’t well suited to discuss how to save the newspaper business, but with the iPad and similar devices, there does exist a small window of opportunity for innovation. If newspapers can deliver an unique product for devices like the iPad, based on a paid subscription service, then there is potential there. Not trying to do their work for them, not that I have the ability anyway, but perhaps by making news more interactive, with real feedback (polls, text/video comments, user video updates), by providing more in depth coverage, more multimedia coverage – they’re all directions to look at. It’s certainly a better long term solution than copyright trolling.

The US Copyright Group is scoping for more potential targets in their Hurt Locker lawsuits

And an update on the other infamous copyright troll, the US Copyright Group are moving ahead with their The Hurt Locker cases, with the first users receiving notices via their ISP after the USCG’s subpoena request to ISP Qwest. So for those hoping the USCG would quit after finding more resistance than first expected will be disappointed. What I fear, and I’ve covered this before, is that copyright trolling will be used as an excuse to bring in even harsher copyright laws. After all, three-strikes is better than the one-strike system that copyright trolls are relying on, right? This has already happened over in the UK, after all. And just like overseas, taking the same approach and suing for downloading pirated porn has arrived, and it is expected to bring in an even higher ROI. I mean when accused with downloading a movie called “Shemales From Hell”, even if you knew you didn’t download this file, would you dare to challenge this in court? Of course not, and people will pay up almost every time, and that’s exactly what the law firms are counting on. Is it legal blackmail? Does it sound like a scam? But it is legal, and expect more firms to take up this potential lucrative practice.

Speaking of scams, if I told you I could offer you free unlimited music download from all the major labels for only $25 per month, and since this is a new service, I’m waiving the $25 per month fee for a limited time, and all I need is your credit card number, then would you trust me? I know I wouldn’t trust myself, thanks largely to the Scrooge like pricing strategy of the major labels, ironically. It just sounds to good to be true, and so it probably isn’t true. So beware of sites offering too good to be true offers, because they may be offering illegal services, or worse, offering no services at all.

Moving on quickly to HD/3D news, there are a couple of important announcements regarding Blu-ray 3D. But before we get to that, why did the Blu-ray people decide to call this thing “Blu-ray 3D” and not “3D Blu-ray”? Should it be at least “Blu-ray: 3D” or “Blu-ray in 3D”.

Avatar 3D on Blu-ray, but only for Panasonic 3D TV buyers

Anyway, the first announcement is that Avatar will be released on “3D Blu-ray” in December. But only to those with Panasonic 3D TVs. It’s a shame such a high profile title is being released as a manufacturer exclusive title, but with the close links between Panasonic and the movie, this was never a big surprise. The details are still not available, so we don’t even know if the title will be free for all buyers of Panasonic 3D TV’s, or only offered to those that buy a TV during the promotional period. Those who can’t wait and don’t have Panasonic equipment, then eBay may be your friend. Otherwise, expect the general release 3D Blu-ray version of Avatar sometime in early 2011, maybe in April, exactly a year after the 2D Blu-ray release. Or sooner.

The second announcement is that the eagerly awaited 3D Blu-ray firmware update for the PS3 won’t be coming this month as promised earlier, but should still be here before the end of next month. This is kind of a big deal for 3D Blu-ray, because it would at least guarantee that there will now be millions of 3D capable Blu-ray players in people’s homes, and that may help people make up their minds when buying their next TV (whether it should be a 2D only or 3D). But it would be a bigger deal if more movies are made available on 3D Blu-ray, because the current selection is pretty thin.

Cloud storage for music and movies come to the mainstream via the new Apple TV

Apple announced new iPods recently, but buried amongst the announcements was a new updated Apple TV. Dubbed Apple’s pet project, the Apple TV has not received the same amount of attention and marketing as their other devices. But the new Apple TV is slightly controversial, as Apple is asking people to change the way they enjoy movies and TV shows this time  – by renting, and not buying. Apple plans to do this via the cloud, which is just a fancy way of saying that everything is online, and nothing gets downloaded. But I have serious doubts about such a service taking off because of a few fundamental issues. One, people still like to buy movies and TV shows, as people do re-watch their favourite movies or TV shows, and most don’t want to pay every time they do it. Two, not everyone has an Internet connection capable of streaming the HD video that Apple is promising, not without some buffering, which then becomes just downloading (so not very “cloudy” at all). And three, Apple’s argument that people don’t want to manage large video and music collections simply doesn’t stack up, to me at least, because people do that all the time. And unless Apple offers the ability to store our own sourced content in the cloud (whether it’s ripped from CDs, or purchased from other stores), then there will still be the need to manage a file collection of some sort. But as long as you only use Apple products and services, you’ll be fine, and that’s what Apple is counting on, I suppose – interoperability can take a back seat.

But the biggest problem I have with this approach is still number one, the fact that you can’t buy movies. Just because content is stored in the cloud, doesn’t mean you can’t buy them. The only difference is that with purchased content, you don’t have to pay every time you access it in the cloud, but by providing such a service, Apple would have to charge more per music/movie file made available for purchase on the cloud, compared to a download purchase. And when faced with the choice, people may still just go for the cheaper download and choose to invest a bit more time managing their own file collection locally (or via a third party cloud hosting service). And that’s not what Apple wants.

So cloud storage is great, but as long as the fundamental problems gets solved first, specifically people’s average Internet connection speeds, DRM/interoperability, and please please allow people to purchase stuff.

And finally in gaming, more news on the PS Jailbreak device, which last week say legal action in the Australian courts which led to a ban on the device.

This week though featured news that Sony won’t have liked, in that someone has managed to extract the software from the PS Jailbreak device and have made it open source. Dubbed PSGroove, the open source version won’t allow pirated games to be played to avoid too much legal trouble (although there will still be plenty of trouble, I can guarantee it), but it does allow unsigned code to run on the PS3, in other words, homebrew! The PS Jailbreak exploit is based on tricking the PS3 into thinking that it’s a USB hub of some kind, and an overflow exploit to inject code to make it all work. The nature of this exploit means that it’s easy (but not trivial) to build your own USB device, or even use your existing USB device to do it (like smartphones, for example). But what is trivial perhaps is Sony’s “fix” for this exploit, so this exploit is unlikely to work on firmware beyond version 3.41.

And so we come to the end of another issue of the WNR. Hope you enjoyed this edition as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Except I didn’t enjoy writing it 🙂

See you next week.

After my Australian NBN rant last week, there won’t be a pre-WNR rant this week. I really probably should have put that segment as its own blog entry, but then even less people would read it, and a good rant is only as good as the number of people that it reaches. There’s still no firm outcome  in the Australian election, so the fate of the NBN still hangs in the air, but I hope it goes ahead, not just because it means I can finally have an alternative to my 0.8 Mbps 3G connection that dies every 30 minutes due to congestion at peak  times. There’s a bit more to go through in this WNR, so let’s get started.

In copyright news, the RIAA is at it again, and it now wants the government to create even tougher copyright laws, claiming the DMCA that the RIAA and other groups hailed at the best thing ever, has failed.

YouTube or the RIAA ... I know which one I would choose if only one could exist ...

It has failed, according to the RIAA, because ISPs and websites can now “hide” behind it when their subscribers and users violate copyright. You see, the DMCA’s safe harbor provision protects ISPs, search engines and websites with user generated content as long as they have a copyright infringement policy which they enforce. Of course, the level of enforcement is left up to ISPs and websites, since enforcement can be costly, time consuming, and in the end, something will always get through. But the RIAA is not happy because, well, they’re never happy really. If they can’t stop 100% of all piracy, then they might have to innovate and stuff, and nobody wants to do that! But there is a reason why safe harbor exists, as otherwise Google, YouTube, and your ISP, would not survive the round after round of lawsuits that the RIAA, MPAA and others would love to throw at them, and not fail every time (haha Viacom, sucks to be you). I don’t know about you, but faced with the choice, I’d rather Google, YouTube and the Internet exist, rather than to make the RIAA and MPAA feel safer at night knowing piracy is stopped, even though it probably won’t bring them more money (since people who can’t afford to pay for stuff, still can’t afford to pay for stuff, even if you get rid of piracy completely). This Crusade Against Piracy needs to end.

But another day, and another new, innovative, fool proof, way to end piracy once and for all. The latest involved suing the people advertising on websites that host pirated content. That’s what Disney and Warner Bros. are doing by suing Triton Media which they claim supplied ads to websites hosting or linking to pirated content. But Triton Media may have been running one of the piracy websites in question, so it’s not an all out attack on advertising agencies. Yet.  Cutting the funding source for piracy websites, and thus ensuring there’s less incentive to start one, sounds like a reasonable plan, but reputable ad agencies already have policies which prevent these type of sites from signing up, but the less reputable agencies won’t care about a lawsuit or two if they’re located in places that are hard to sue. Thinking about advertising actually makes me think of adult websites (you see, I normally never think about, let alone visit, adult websites … it’s not worth the money I’m paying for my crappy 3G connection with limited bandwidth!). A lot of adult websites that host free content rely on advertising, and if there was a Crusade Against Porn (heh, it’s CRAP again), then the “Won’t Someone Think of the Children Council” or whoever is running the crusade will be going after the advertising agencies providing ads to these types of websites for sure. And I’m sure they’ll be calling on government to monitor people’s Internets so they’re not downloading pron, and asking for tougher laws against ISPs, search engines and websites that allow the spread of pron to go unchallenged. And most of us would then recognise how stupid and futile that moral crusade would be. Just like this one.

But this is about money, so the crusade has even more fervent support. But if it really is just about money, then surely record profits should at least comfort those in power that, maybe just maybe, there’s light at the end of the piracy tunnel. But it seems the only thing they’re seeing may be the imaginary piles of cash that piracy is taking away, although those piles of cash will now and forever remain imaginary, despite what happens to piracy. And then greed will ensure that they will probably ruin whatever they did right (like innovate) to earn the record profits they have. It may be starting with cinemas, which have recorded amazing profits in the last few years, but ever increasing ticket prices are now damping people’s enthusiasm for 3D and big screens, it seems. So innovate, more customers and profit, greed comes in, ruins everything. That’s about right. They want to have their cake, eat it, then have another cake, prevent other people from eating free cake, and then make people pay them for eating cake.

Apple will do everything, including disabling your iPhone remotely, to stop you jailbreak it

And then there are cases when it’s not even about piracy. Take Apple’s recent patent application which could see them disable iPhones remotely if they’ve been detected as having been jailbroken. This is despite, or may be in retaliation to, the recent DMCA changes that allows for legal  iPhone jailbreaking. Apple can put up only a very feeble attempt to portray this as a piracy problem, as iPhone app piracy is possible on jailbroken iPhones, but that’s definitely not their main concern. Their main concern, as always, is to ensure everything you do on the iPhone has something to do with Apple Corp, and if you even try to use it without Apple’s involvement, then be prepared to at least lose your product warranty (which may or may not be legal, depending on your statutory rights as a consumer), and at worse, have all your data deleted and your phone disabled. And by making sure everything has to do with Apple, it ensure their current and future profits. And that’s all it’s really about, money. There is a (good) argument that Apple puts out which says that a controlled eco-system means a better product, and that’s true. And if many of the apps that only run on jailbroken devices were made available by Apple, then hardly anybody would bother to jailbreak their phones. But for various reasons, some directly related to Apple’s bottom line, others relating to deals they’ve made with phone carriers and such (which also affects their bottom line), Apple can’t let you use your legally purchased product in the way you want to. I have a simple solution to this – don’t sell us stuff that we can’t do whatever we please with. Instead of selling us iPhones, rent us the hardware, for peanuts or even for free, and then you can get to control how we can use the device. Otherwise, if you do intend to make hundreds of dollars on the iPhones, iPads, or even PS3s, then the hundreds of dollars we’ve paid should be enough financial compensation for daring to play  with (or “hack”) our devices and to want to do more with them. The versatility of most devices these days means there’s even more incentive to do more “hacking” than ever.

And as a perfect way to segue from discussions about DRM to HD/Blu-ray/3D, the news about Samsung’s latest firmware update will do.

The Samsung BD-P4600 is just one of the Blu-ray players affected by Samsung's firmware SNAFU

Samsung’s new firmware, believed to be DRM related, screwed up their BD-P*600 series of Blu-ray players that none of them, once updated, can now play Warner and Universal studios produced Blu-ray movies. Some users managed to downgrade the firmware, but those that couldn’t are now stuck waiting for Samsung to produce a fix, which won’t be coming until sometime in September. So it’s not okay to hack our own devices to make it do more, but it’s apparently okay now for manufacturers to hack *our* devices to make it do less (Sony … cough … Other OS … cough).

Okay, so this is not like the PS3 Other OS thing, because this was an accident, not a deliberate attempt to disable functions. But once again, it goes to the heart of the argument that frequent firmware updates are bad thing, and since the Blu-ray DRM sort of depends on this, this makes DRM a bad thing. Samsung stuffed up here, and they should pay the price. Something like a bunch of free Blu-ray movies for those affected might be nice, as long as these movies aren’t from Universal or Warner, of course.

But firmware updates are good when it helps to keep your hardware recent. The PS3 is a good example of these types of good firmware updates for the Blu-ray playback function at least, as successive ones have allowed the PS3 to keep pace with Blu-ray player development. Profile 1.1, 2.0, 3D … the PS3 has survived all of these, unlike other standalone players. But if the update is related to the optical laser, then the PS3 won’t be able to keep up, and this is happening now with BDXL, the new higher capacity Blu-ray format. Sony’s new standalone Blu-ray recorders, as well as those from Sharp, will now support BDXL, and it’s expected that standalone players will probably support them soon. But the PS3 won’t, and so could the PS3 be made obsolete as a Blu-ray player? I don’t think so, mainly because I don’t think movie studios will publish movies on BDXL. It is very much a recording format, and not even one that’s likely to be mainstream. There’s just no need for 100/128 GB discs, not when it’s much cheaper and easier to just provide multi-disc sets. But if BDXL do take off as a home recording format, then the PS3 will miss out.

The Blu-ray format overall though it still looking healthy, although as I talked about last week, the rapid growth seen last year is slowing down (but the major releases aren’t out yet for the year, and we’ll see how well Blu-ray does when Inception is out). Fox Australia thinks that 3D will help to ensure growth remains healthy. While it’s possible to deliver 3D via DVDs, there’s no standard like there is with Blu-ray (not to mention the lower quality), so this is one area in which Blu-ray is going to do very well compared to DVDs. Whether it will help it overtake DVDs as the most popular home video format, I really do doubt this. My experience with 3D is that it’s pretty much still a gimmick – good to have, some will love it, but I would prefer a good film (even in SD) over a bad one with great 3D effects, any time.

And some further development in the slow brewing, so quite boring war, between H.264 and WebM. The MPEG LA, the people responsible for H.264 licensing, has promised free H.264 streaming forever. So websites like YouTube can keep on using H.264 to stream their videos without worrying about a hefty licensing fee (although for Google/YouTube, they’ll be able to pay the fee with the change they find in Larry and Sergey’s sofa). But this latest development isn’t convincing Mozilla, because their problem with H.264 isn’t because it isn’t free (and licensing fee they would pay would be quite insignificant), but because it’s a closed, proprietary format. Unlike WebM. So unless H.264 can go open source, or at least some “web streaming” version of it to go open source, it looks like Firefox and Opera will be dealing with WebM instead, and webmasters will have to produce videos that work with both codecs, which is kind of annoying.

And in gaming, and speaking of Other OS (he said three paragraphs later), now that the PS3 has been hacked, there’s been calls for Sony to bring back Other OS. I mean if disabling Other OS was to prevent the PS3 being hacked for piracy, and now that it’s been well hacked, why not bring it back?

Sony is suing retailers who sell the PS Jailbreak kit in Australia ...

But Sony have acted quickly to stop the PS3 jailbreak device, suing three retailers in Australia who are selling the device in the federal court. And the next round of firmware update will surely attempt to do something to stop such devices from working, which will probably have produce some collateral damage, and cause something to stop working.

And that’s all the news I bothered to find this week. You know, it’s not me skipping news item after news item just because I was busy watching movies or playing games or something. I do actually have to look at the news item, see if it’s some press release or one form of advertising or another (“PS3 is most excellent, says Sony’s PR department”, etc…), or that it’s not an old news disguised as “new” news (a lot of that happening now, with websites spamming Google News and whatnot … there’s apparently this new format called HD DVD, according to a “new” news article I read this week), and then decide which makes it, and which gets skipped. It’s not as easy as it sounds!

Watching movies and playing games are much easier.

See you next week.