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But DIVX was just about to take off!

DIVX may be dead, but its earth-destroying relative is being sold at stationery stores, airport newsstands and truck stops across the US.

But DIVX was just about to take off!

DIVX may be dead, but its earth-destroying relative is being sold at stationery stores, airport newsstands and truck stops across the US.

Agreed. Some sales reports of the recent Wal-Mart price cut of the Toshiba HD-A2 suggest sales in excess of 90,000 HD-DVD players in the last couple of weeks... http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6498141.html Whereas Blu-Ray players are gathering dust.

I'm personally staying out of this mess until there's a single, industry-wide standard. And it doesn't look like Blu-Ray is going to be it. Take a look at this Gizmodo article http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/exclusive/the-state-of-blu+ray-320077.php describing the THREE Blu-Ray ""Profiles". Holy crap. As if there wasn't enough confusion in the typical consumer's mind.

That's not the only one. The Samsung BD-P1000 is $500. Of course, it's so shit I'm surprised it is even allowed to carry the BD logo.

A quick look at the list of players on Blu-ray.com indicates four players below $1000. The Philips BD-P9000 seems to work well, but is a little woeful on CPU. The new Samsung BD-P1200 performs really well, as does the Panasonic. The PS3 is like a super-computer compared with them though. Sony must have lost $1 billion on it already. The PS3 is the only one with enough horse-power at the moment for decent BD-J authored titles to load in under a minute.

My personal choice right now (in order) would be: PS3, Samsung BD-P1200 and then Panasonic DMP-BP10 (this last one is rather pricey though).

Unlike DVDs, HD-DVD's have dual keys, 1 for the title, and 1 for the player. At the most, this guy has managed to make 3 titles playable on a single player. What will happen next is Cyberlink will have it's PowerDVD keys revoked and new keys will be provided with a patch.

So at most, you'll be able to 'back up' (or Pirate) the current batch of Full Metal Jacket HD-DVD's to play on an older version of PowerDVD.

So dont go around yelling about how HD-DVD is cracked, cuz it's not.

Here's an article that has a few more facts and less sensationalism.
http://videobusiness.com/article/CA6403011.html

D

Back in May 2006 Warner Brothers also agreed to a partnership with BitTorrent, and back then they were kind enough to provide some more detail. The interesting part:

BitTorrent will use Microsoft Windows Media DRM to copy protect files. Users will be able to make three backup copies of downloads to DVD, but the DVDs will be playable only on the computer with the original downloads. Downloads wont be playable on portable devices for now.

Warner films will be available to only BitTorrents U.S. users at the start, Lin said.

Warner and other studios arent licensing their film downloads for portable players or burn-to-DVD for TV playback because the technology and content protection isnt yet in place.

I imagine these new partnerships will come with the same DRM restrictions, until "the content protection is in place"...

"How can RIAA/MPAA have any say in how electronic devices are made, and what they can support and can't?"

Here's one recent example. The AACS encryption scheme for playback of Blu-Ray discs. If you want to license AACS (to build a player) you have to agree to DOWNCONVERT the signal to the analog outputs.

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6300812.htm l

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6296434.htm l

Rings, Harry and Kong to go high-def
As studios dish slate news at Consumer Electronics Show
By Scott Hettrick 1/3/2006

JAN. 4 | The Mission: Impossible and Lord of the Rings trilogies as well as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Peter Jacksons King Kong all will be released on high-definition digital discs this year.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, almost every studio is expected to announce the first slate of high-def digital disc titles coming to market in 2006. More than 75 new and old movies and TV shows are expected with the introduction of the first DVD player, with dozens and maybe hundreds more by the end of the year.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, the studio with the most at stake in its Blu-ray Disc format, is being the most aggressive with plans to introduce the upcoming theatrical release Underworld Evolution day-and-date with the DVD in late spring/early summer. The studio will have 20 Sony and MGM titles including XXX and Robocop ready to go even earlier, when players are expected to be released as early as March.

Sony also will release four catalog titles each month beginning this summer, every new theatrical release day-and-date on DVD and Blu-ray Disc and the first high-def version of a TV series to be announced so far from a major studio, Stargate: Atlantis.

Additionally, Sony is going out on a limb and committing to the debut of two titles--Bridge on the River Kwai and Black Hawk Down--using the 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray Disc, which has been running behind development time from the standard 25GB single-layer disc.

The studio also is announcing plans Wednesday for summer titles featuring advanced interactive gaming using the BD Java software, which has sparked some dissension from Hewlett-Packard within the Blu-ray Disc camp. SPHE president Ben Feingold said the process is too far along now to turn back and not use BD Java.

As for the 50GB dual-layer disc, Feingold said both movies have long running times as well as hours of bonus features that the studio has produced but been unable to release on DVD because they take up too much space.

Sony also will take advantage of the enormous additional capacity to use uncompressed audio on some of its Blu-ray Disc titles, including two Sony/MGM titles in the first wave--The Fifth Element and The Last Waltz. Sony execs say that even movie theaters do not offer uncompressed digital audio.

Feingold said he expects to ship 50,000 to 100,000 units of each of the first titles, as compared to the 60,000 or so units for each of the first five movies shipped for PSP.

Other Blu-ray Disc backers, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate and Paramount, announced their lineup of titles as well. Disney will announce its titles and other plans at a Blu-ray Disc media event at CES on Thursday evening.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment president Mike Dunn said the studio will have five titles, including Fantastic Four and Ice Age, in stores two weeks prior to the release of the first Blu-ray Disc player by any manufacturer. Fox will release 20 titles by summer, also debuting most new theatrical titles day-and-date on DVD and Blu-ray.

Each title will have at least one feature unique to the new format and will include 10% to 20% of the bonus features from previously released or new DVDs and 80% new bonus elements, such as advanced branching and menus and including added value programming accessed through connections to other devices such as the Internet.

Fox also is preparing two sci-fi titles to be announced later that will take advantage of the extra capacity of the 50GB dual-layer disc.

We have material that we set aside a long time ago for these, Dunn said. Weve been working up to this and cataloging content for two years.

Lionsgate will release its traditional new-format driver Terminator 2 among its fir

One company announce shipping of sample isnt the same as being available in decent quantities.

http://videobusiness.com/article/CA6288668.html

D

What's wrong with uniform standards?

License fees.

It's really a shame when a standard requires very non-trivial licensing. Shouldn't standards be usable by anybody for anything? But somehow high-paid lawyers got mixed in and now it's a mess. I aplaud the Chinese for trying to avoid it altogether.

I expect the Chinese aren't too happy about some other mandates too.

By midyear, the Harry Potter DVD had shipped 6,550,000 units (#1 for the year).

The studios should see this as proof that if they sell a reasonable package at a reasonable price, people WILL buy it. Yup, piracy sure is killing this business, isn't it?

-S

By midyear, the Harry Potter DVD had shipped 6,550,000 units (#1 for the year).

The studios should see this as proof that if they sell a reasonable package at a reasonable price, people WILL buy it. Yup, piracy sure is killing this business, isn't it?

-S

It is already legal to record anything shown on TV for personal use so I don't see how this extra 'bit flag' could become a reality...

You don't mean "already". You mean "currently (despite the efforts of the MPAA)".

I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.
--Jack Valenti, testimony to Congress, 1982.

2001: US prerecorded videocassette sales are approximately $4 billion.

I'm not quite sure how MS plan's on evading the patent issue. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the PVR industry is laden with patents like a minefield. Both TiVo and ReplayTV hold a number of them on PVR technology. Unless these companies plan on surviving on license fees like a tick on Microsoft's neck, it seems to me like Microsoft is going to have quite a wait (about 15 years) before it can get into the PVR biz.

I found that story a bit runny eggs

http://www.videobusiness.com/news/042302_games_mis souri.asp