Will Warner support Blu-ray?

[Carl B]

Probably HP's strong sales recently in media center PC's factors in somewhere or other; that's my guess at least.

 

[pakpassion]

if HP succeeds in getting iHD into BD, will Sony have to pay loyalties to disney and MS?

 

[rabidrabbit]

In my opinion downloading and listening (compressed) music is very different experience to doing the same with movies.
They're two totally different things really.
One's an aural experience, the other is an aural and visual experience.

Films require your total attention, whereas you can listen to music "on the background".
Most people accept MP3's as good enough for casual listening, but are more critical to visual imperfections in compressed video when viewed on bigger screens. Even moreso as people are getting bigger HDTV's to replace their old tube screens.
By the nature of most films, it also requires more planning ahead when to watch it.
Portable video will never be as big as portable music, as there are less occasions when you'd rather watch the same video from a tiny screen than form your TV/home theater.

The same rules can't just be applied to portable video and portable music, even though they come from the same place people use them very differently.

When you people dl DVD's from for example that Netflix, do they come with the full multichannel Dolby Digital and/or dts sound?

I've never streamed a video over wireless, and really have little idea how well that works on pure DVD quality material with multichannel sound. How much more bandwidth does the sound take on top of the video?

 

[wco81]

I've never streamed a video over wireless, and really have little idea how well that works on pure DVD quality material with multichannel sound. How much more bandwidth does the sound take on top of the video?

Not sure about multichannel sound but a guy on the MS MCE team says video will stream fine on 802.11g and much better on 802.11a. That is why the optional wireless adapter for the X360 supports 802.11a/b/g.

Supposedly, 802.11n will be the big step for streaming richer content. That is if two parties wrangling over different patent portfolios can come to an agreement to form a standard.

UWB is also suppose to be better suited for sending rich media over short distances.

EDIT: Yes I just don't get Microsoft's preoccupation with portable video players. Maybe they just don't want to risk missing out on a potential big thing, as they seemed to have missed out on portable audio players.

Actually, instead of downloading content to portable video players, why not work on streaming live content to portable video players, so that you can access CNBC during the day? People have more use for real-time video content during the work day than watching movies, TV shows or videos.

 

[Carl B]

Actually, instead of downloading content to portable video players, why not work on streaming live content to portable video players, so that you can access CNBC during the day? People have more use for real-time video content during the work day than watching movies, TV shows or videos.

I agree. Actually, the various cell providers are already working on such services. I know I had MobiTV for a while with Sprint and CNBC is one of the stations I was frequently on when using it. I stopped paying for it because - well, I just didn't need it - but I do think that cell providers will be well positioned for the delivery of real time streaming content in the near future.

@pakpassion: Sony wouldn't pay Disney and/or Microsoft royalty fees directly; rather they would be entitled to a piece of the blu-ray royalty pie.

 

[one]

What does MS hold over HP that HP would forego its patent rights over BD-J if iHD replaces it?

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2005/tc20051020_154892.htm

According to the article by Masakazu Honda you quoted, BD-J was adopted by the vote against iHD (10-6) among BDA so it won't happen.

 

[aaronspink]

There's a bit of difference between having a shelf of discs by the TV to pop in the machine, and carrying around a shelf load of CDs to play in your portable music machine though! MP3 isn't just smaller than CD players, which is cool, but lets you carry dozens of CDs without needing the disks. That's not an issue with movies that you'll have the discs stacked somewhere anyway whether you watch from the discs or rip them to HDD. Now if it's case of carrying one HDD with a dozen movies on, or a dozen HDDVDs, then the portable storage makes sense. But who wants to do that?

With physical media, there is storage, cataloging, and organization. I can find songs in my MP3 collection much quicker than on my shelf. The same applies to DVD-on-Disc. The main thing missing right now is a system to tag the movies on disc for easy deep searching, but I'm sure someone will get the bright idea to write the software that quarries IMDB much the same way MP3 rippers quarry CDDB.

The future really is going to be pivoting on content to find new content.

I'm with the 'no-one's really going to be streaming movies around the house' supporters myself. If I want to watch a movie mostly I watch it on the main TV where it's comfortable. If someone else wants to watch a movie elsewhere and they've got a DVD player, they can take the disc. It's not like exhausting labour, in this time where people are supposed to be getting at least 20 minutes workout a day if they don't want to die of gutrot and couchpotatoitus. And a DVD player is cheaper than a MCE extender! Okay an HD player isn't yet but in 3 years time or whatever you'll pick 'em up for 40 quid, whereas media extenders will always be quite pricey I'd have thought.

MCE extenders are currently expensive, but there is no reason for them to be. It is pretty easy to make an MCEE for <$100 in volume.

Plus if all your films are on a PC and someone's watching one HD movie downstairs and you want to watch one upstairs, isn't the PC going to have issues broadcasting two HD streams? I've never undestood this, how having all your films in one place allows you to watch multiple movies around the house.

Um, its just bandwidth. You might as well ask how places like sunsite and the like were able to saturate 100mb ethernet in 95! Most disks out there should be able to sustain at leave 2 HD movies with minimal cpu overhead.

 

[aaronspink]

I think the real question is along ERP's suggestion. A fair amount of people are ready for online distribution of movies. This number will only grow. If Blu-Ray does not gain critical mass soon enough, there will never be a disc-based successor to DVD.

I, for one, would benefit from a purely online version of Netflix.

Having played around with movielink and cinemaNow, they both work pretty well. Their primary limitation currently is a limited selection of films. Netflix has been watching both of these firms very very closely as they view them as the main threat to their current bussiness. I wouldn't be supprised if Netflix is already in negotiations to actually apply the Net part of its name.

 

[aaronspink]

There currently only two countries in the world where you could conceivably begin a successful online distribution service: Japan and South Korea - the only countries with sufficiently high speed broadband networks as standard.

And the US, and significant parts of europe. And apparently you haven't heard about the MSTV trials.

The rest of the world is many years behind. The investment in optical cable and re-tooling exchanges is great. The adoption of sufficiently high speed broadband is still not great enough to enable a real threat to optical media formats. This is still at least a decade away from reality.

ngDSL is already being rolled out in the US and has sufficient bandwidth for realtime content distrobution and the phone companies are VERY VERY interested in upping the bandwidth to support things like movie distro and MSTV. Right now the main issues are not technical, they are political with hollywood.

 

[aaronspink]

With iTunes having over 500 million songs sold, and the iPod itself having sold more than 22 million units, that would break down to roughly 23 songs bought via iTunes per iPod.

Now - I know that most iPods have more than 23 songs on them, and I would venture to say that the remainder of those songs don't all come from CD rips. So though the concept is certainly growing, I'm not sure if people are more likely to 'go legal,' or the proliferation of stylish digital players has actually turned more on to piracy. It'll be interesting to see some stats on this a couple of years out.

I would however venture to say that the VAST majority of the songs on an ipod do come from CD rips.

The only alternative to making the content easily attainable IS piracy. And it will increasingly happen unless the movie studios start to actually respond positively to the consumer. There are certainly DRM models that will work and be accepted (tagged device tracking being the obvious one), that would enable hollywood to make a profit and allow consumers to do what they want.

 

[Carl B]

I would however venture to say that the VAST majority of the songs on an ipod do come from CD rips.

The only alternative to making the content easily attainable IS piracy. And it will increasingly happen unless the movie studios start to actually respond positively to the consumer. There are certainly DRM models that will work and be accepted (tagged device tracking being the obvious one), that would enable hollywood to make a profit and allow consumers to do what they want.

I think it stands to reason though that blu-ray will be much harder to crack than HD-DVD; and then with the added possibility that blu-ray players may simply freeze up with a non-signed disc, I mean - it's a pretty tight net they have.

There will still be movie leaks, no doubt, but maybe not as many high-def perfect copies as there would be on the other side of the coin (HD-DVD).

That's not to say that blu-ray won't be cracked and piracy thrive removed from the consumer electronic standalone players, but I do think that certain studios - at least Fox - take extra comfort in that added line of defense.

 

[PC-Engine]

> "PC-Engine I give you credit for still being behind your team."

I can't help but wonder on the emotional health of such a person, arguing so strongly for a format that is essentially dead before it even starts. When will realization of this fact sink home for someone is in so much denial.

You should not encourage him.

Why continue to make these kinds of posts Edge? It's apparent you still haven't gotten over the debate that transpired over at alwaysgame which is a ghostown now thanks to your modding practices. Do you need everyone who disagrees with you banned? Oh and there's nothing to be in denial about. The format war cannot be stopped, it's best to just accept it and move on. Whether you think the war is already over or not doesn't change the facts. Regardless I don't see what's wrong with supporting a format you believe in and debating its superiority over a competing format as long as it's civil. You OTOH seem to be resorting to insults with nothing to contribute.

Vacuous assertion on your part with zero support. You don't have any comparitive example on how much effort is required to author a given use case in iHD vs BD-J (or HDMV). Care to demonstrate it without appeal to vacuous and vague FUD?

I'm pretty sure Amir knows more about iHD than you. That's what he said. If you want to disprove what he said than feel free. Have you heard about HP's appeal to BDA to have iHD in BR? I guess that's a sign that BD-J is superior right? There's nobody in favor of BD-J over iHD except you. That's surely a hint at something.

The question is, when will Sony agree to put out content on HDDVD.

RIP HD-DVD.

HD DVD doesn't need SONY content to survive. It would be nice but not a necessity.

 

[DemoCoder]

I'm pretty sure Amir knows more about iHD than you.

Appeal to authority from a biased source. In other words, you're ignorant on the subject and are talking out of your ass.

Have you heard about HP's appeal to BDA to have iHD in BR?

Wouldn't surprise me, HP feels the crushing weight of the Microsoft monopoly just as much as anyone else. MS doesn't like Java because it competes with VB/C#/.NET. So MS twists arms.

Why would studios even bother comparing BD-J and iHD when for basic low-tech menu interactivity (what iHD delivers), their competitor is HDMV not BD-J. BD-J is for those scenarios when you want full programmability to deliver application and services along with the BD content.

Bluray is about more than just movie playback.

 

[PC-Engine]

Why not just go with Assembly and have your BR player do everything?

 

[rabidrabbit]

Why not just go with Assembly and have your BR player do everything?

beeecaauuse.... what Blu Ray player would be able to play such a disc.

Just my guess, don't really know if it could, but doesn't a player need to have some Java software inside too?

 

[London Geezer]

Why not just go with Assembly and have your BR player do everything?

/attempt at sarcasm acknowledged

 

[DemoCoder]

Why not just go with Assembly and have your BR player do everything?

Assembly is not portable. Even if assembly were portable, each player would have different hardware. Portability is more than just about language, it's about an abstraction layer, an API combined with a language defined a platform.

Most importantly, assembly would be completely insecure and if players executed assembly code off of discs, the results could be damaged players, or worse, worms and trojan horses.

Completely stupid idea, and completely irrelevent as to whether having a defined API layer plus programming language is better than having DVD menus being authored as HTML-like pages. If you're trying for sarcasm, it's not helping. iHD also includes classes, methods, and properties that can be set via JavaScript. It's just that the API is far less flexible.

 

[Ty]

There's nobody in favor of BD-J over iHD except you. That's surely a hint at something.

Come on now. "There's nobody in favor of HDDVD over BR except you. That's surely a hint at something."

Amir may certainly know about iHD but you have to be honest, the dude works for MS. You have to at least acknowledge that he could be biased.

 

[one]

Amir Majidimehr, the vice president of the Windows Digital Media division at Microsoft, made BDA to adopt VC-1 by expressing neutrality on the 2 HD formats. Now that it was breached, it's like remove VC-1 from Blu-ray or remove Amir's seat at the Windows Digital Media division...

 

[DemoCoder]

Typical MS bait-and-switch. They did the same thing at the W3C. Amir's behavior in AVS is actually pretty unbecoming of someone in his position.