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Microsoft Longhorn To Support HD DVD Format
MSDVD writes "Microsoft's Japanese Division reported that its upcoming operating system, code-named Longhorn, will support HD DVD format. HD DVD is an enhanced version of the standard DVD technology. According to online reports, Microsoft is pushing the next-generation blue-laser DVD technology like NEC and Toshiba. Blue-light technology can read and write data much faster and at higher densities, which is needed for high-definition content. Few Japanese companies said they will have HD DVD content based DVDs by next year to support the players."
IS it possible to play HD DVD using a normal DVD player?
I would like to add to my own coment. I would have perfered the blue-ray camp win this as at least the technical specs look more like they can be implemented in the OSS world more quickly as its still a form of mpeg 2, it would be just a matter of optimizing playback software for the new data rates and image sizes rather then knock-out a new codec implementation entirely even if it does borrow a great deal from Divix. Lets remember though long before blue-ray mpeg2 disks would have gotten out the door Sony and their gang would have cooked some DRM like system up for it even it was weak like CSS, they were by no streach of the imagination going to allow it to be as open as it might seem at the moment in final release. So its probably a steeper hill vs. steep hill situation and if M$ wins things are really not much worse.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Why does MS do so much talking about what they're going to do instead of actually getting it done? What is the point of all these endless "sneak peeks" and feature announcements and blah blah blah. I'm not just asking this as someone who (admittedly) dislike MS and their products, but rather as someone who just doesn't get why so much blabbing is being done about a product that is supposedly years away from release? One could make the argument that this is potentially harmful to MS in the long-run. They're announcing support for feature X today, but given that feature X may be yesterday's news two years from now, the announcement may actually be harmful to perception of their products. I mean, really: how does this benefit anyone?
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Bad stuff:
8 individual DRM regions not enough any more.
These fuckers are gonna nail it down - not just to your street, or your house, but to a room in your home on a particular day of the week!
Good stuff:
The proposed Sony extension: limiting the colour of pants you can wear whilst over-hearing somebodies brother talk about a work collegue who read an article in another country regarding the disc in question is not expected to make it to the final standard
Phew!
The rest of the industry likes Blu-Ray because it has a higher storage capacity (54 GB vs. 30 GB), uses MPEG-2 so movie/television companies don't need to re-encode their HDTV streams and has Sony behind it (movie studio/music label).
Being only MPEG2, the common player is not able to play DivX/XviD (MPEG4) content. How it may be preferable for the MPAA not to use an efficient compression, is left as an exercise to the reader. Hint: Security through bloat.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Wrote this on my blog a while ago...
Although I'm not a particular "conspiracy theory" freak, I'm starting to smell a rat on the latest moves on the DVD arena. First, the industry tries to play good sport and announces (also here and here, and discussed on Slashdot) out of a sudden it's going to "tolerate" limited copy of DVD, allowing them to be backed up and to transfer content to portable devices. The "gift" is based on technology being developed by a consortium that includes IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Toshiba, Matsushita, Warner Bros. and Disney, and is being labeled Advanced Access Content System (AACS). Trying the usual PR stunt of passing a consumer right, upheld by most Worldwide copyright laws that for a long time have entitled consumers to private copy (something that has up to now, and as you will see, in the future, been denied), as their "gift" to society, they have just, as usual, forgot to mention some "little details".
The same industry that brought us region encoding, supposedly to avoid the possibility of buying a movie in a given place before it premieres at the cinema, although it is available elsewhere, in practice a cover-up to allow regional pricing of DVD (what else justifies 20, 30, 40 year old movies being region encoded?), has "forgot" to stress that this "feature" will only be available on the upcoming new-generation DVD format, still being cooked up by the DVD Forum, former DVD Consortium. So, to keep it short, they want us to buy all over again our DVD collection, now in a neat DRM crippled format.
After failing miserably with the CSS content encryption of current DVD, quickly cracked by the uber-reverse-engineer DVD Jon, and being at the present time little more than a nuisance, they want to have another go. But this time they are making their homework. Lets take the steps and see.
A little more than one year ago, Microsoft unveiled its plans for a new DRM system, nicknamed Janus. One year later it is confirmed and Microsoft lets out a few more details on the features, licensing and partners. A few weeks later, the DVD Forum announces it is going to include Microsoft WM9 codec in its upcoming HD-DVD specification (as a mandatory requirement). Although it may seem they are going down the same road and bound again to be reverse-engineered and fail miserably all over again, things are now different: of course Microsoft is going to patent its DRM scheme. So, while CSS was qualified as a "trade secret", not allowing the ones who cracked it to be prosecuted, reverse-engineering Microsoft DRM scheme will be violating patent law, and the all-mighty DMCA, what makes it a completely different scenario.
Microsoft has already shown it is very interested in the media turf. After developing its own audio and video codecs and using its dominating position to spread them to the web and hardware devices like portable players and even some standalone players, and after including its Media Player in all current Windows version (earning them the current EU law suit), that will of course support both the WM9 codec and the Janus DRM, we can already see they are trying to broaden their scope. This can be seen on their Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004, and it would not surprise me to see it ported to standalone devices, either on its current packaging or by porting it to Windows CE.
So what can we see as the outcome of this scenario?