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Blu-Ray Attacks Microsoft, Microsoft Bites Back
QT writes "Ars Technica has been following this week's next-gen DVD dramas closely. First, there's extensive coverage of the
reasons why Microsoft backed HD-DVD, which was primarily inspired by mandatory support for
copying discs to computers. The BDA, however, countered with an attack on Microsoft's reasons, and
Microsoft returned fire. Richard E. Doherty, Microsoft's head of the media entertainment technology convergence group, said that 50GB Blu-ray disc are in fact many years away. Is
MS playing games, or is Sony misrepresenting just how far along BD-ROM really is?" From the article: "HD DVD is proven to deliver 30GB capacity today, with the potential to deliver even greater capacity. The 50GB claim for BD-ROM discs is unproven and will not be available for many years to come, based on discussions with major Japanese and US replicators. Replicators not only do not have test lines running, they cannot even pre-order the equipment to begin evaluating this disc. They cannot judge the cost of these discs, or even whether they can be manufactured at all. Major replicators can mass manufacture 30GB HD DVD discs today and it's well understood that these discs will cost significantly less to manufacture than the lower-capacity 25GB BD discs."
We previously discussed this topic when the announcement came out.
I started out thinking Blu Ray would be the way to go but after reading some of the articles on Ars about it recently, I'm thinking HD DVD would be better. If the movie industry started making all new DVD releases as hybrid discs, there could be a very easy transition, and it could happen soon, from the sounds of things. Of course, things might not be as easy as they sound. Honestly, I don't care about the extra space. I use an external HD for backups, not my DVD burner. And I don't care how many discs my movies/tv shows come on. So I have to change it once an hour, I need to get up once in a while anyway.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".
It's the porn industry that's going to decide, remember? Who cares what the industry people think...
/. so I thought I'd share my own.
Sorry, but I just wanted to pre-empt those that are inevitably going to claim that. At any rate, if the article (re: Microsoft) is true, then Blu-Ray probably won't succeed because HD-DVD is already here. I'm still pulling for Blu-Ray, for a variety of reasons, but realistically I realize that most consumers are going to see "HD-DVD" and think "Ooooh... a DVD that will play HD" (fallacy notwithstanding) whereas people will see Blu-Ray and think "What the... what's this crap?"
Alas, at this point it's still all speculation. Perfect for
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
that a bird in the hand (ie. the standard that's available right now) is worth far more than two in the bush (ie the one that's only promised and is at least two years off)... I mean, which manufacturer is going to hold off on the promise of 50GB, when he can have 30GB right now??? only an idiot who's going to miss the boat and look very, very stupid.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Looks like a set of very down-to-Earth, well argumented reasons. Maybe, for once, this will be a decision that is not grounded in anti-competitive behavior?
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It is like old times. The technology with the best marketing team gets accepted as a standard. To heck with technological superiority and other crap. This is how windows became the defacto in the operating system arena. Even though there were better alternatives like OS/2 and MAC.
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I have to say, however much I may not like Microsoft's shenanigans, that given the history of Sony's formats, I would, without even needing to know the details, choose whatever solution other than theirs.
VHS came out after Beta, BUT, VHS had a larger capacity than Beta. I think we all know how THAT turned out.
What will push Blu-ray? Playstation 3. Microsoft's support of the other team should come as no surprise, but in the end I expect they will support it.
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
Blu-Ray isn't Sony, but you're kidding yourself if you think that Sony isn't the dominant player in the format. Blu-Ray would never exist without Sony's involvement, and they're basically the only company championing the format.
is how much DRM each technology uses.
Blu-ray lost my vote when they decided to build in functionality to allow the movie industry to actually disable your player if they chose. To restore your disabled player you would have to send it in for 'repair'.
It's the porn industry that's going to decide, remember? Who cares what the industry people think...
The ability to view porn in more private circumstances was hugely transformative for the average joe. So the availability of porn made a major difference for videotape buying decisions.
The internet was another dramatic transformation. Not only was human contact at point-of-purchase no longer necessary, but also tiny slices of the market (some rather bizarre) could be specifically targeted and exploited by porn merchants.
But it's hard to imagine Blu-Ray/HD-DVD having any such effect on the porn market. In fact, to really take advantage of better resolution, etc. would probably require production budgets that porn makers just don't have.
No, the main beneficiaries of this in terms of product are the movie studios. Second and third are video games and TV (not necessarily in that order). Between them, they are the important players in determining the succeeding format.
Their competitor's response should then be to show people their 50GB discs. They don't do it, they have egg on their face. They do it, Microsoft has egg on their face.
Either way, I end up smiling at somebody else covered in egg.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
Microsoft and Sony aren't Behemoths. A behemoth is a giant creature with one brain. Microsoft and Sony are Kudzus... Essentially dozens of big companies operating under the same name, often times competing with eachother. For example, the Memory Stick division and Sony's Playstation division couldn't agree on licensing terms, and so the Playstation (and the PS2) didn't ship with Sony's own memory card standard.
Sony's tech support on their 2,000k dollar fragile-as-crystal notebooks is an exercise in pain. Yet Sony has been the most agreeable publisher I've had the pleasure of working with. Their notebooks are terrible. But their PDA's were the best on the market.
In case you haven't noticed, both companies have their shoddy construction problems in certain areas. Sony's flagship PlayStation was known for a short lifespan and needing to be propped up at funny angles. Microsoft's Windows had to be rearchitected and rebuilt (the latest delay of Vista) because the XP codebase was just crap.
On the other hand, both of their gaming divisions delivered respectable platforms this past generation. Sony's PS2 was a cheaply built little machine, but it had good development tools, good adaptability, and a realistic price point. The Xbox had some great features like XBL and a HDD.
Yet with all of this, the debate over Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD seems like an argument over which Japanese DoCoMo handset is better to sell in New York: Both are incompatible with the current generation of televisions (even cutting edge ones), so what's the point? They're so DRM emcumbered that you can't get a better-than-DVD signal without re-upgrading your home theater system to a "trusted" one.
While HD-DVD requires managed copy ability, companies can still veto it by offering the service for some ridiculous fee.
Ironically Blu-Ray not taking off is better for Sony's PS3. That will ensure lower piracy rates due to the lower availability of duplicating hardware. We also know that it isn't "many years" away, as the PS3 will ship with it. And while the PS3 ship date is optimistic, it will ship within 1-2 years.
Both companies have vested interestes in the technology. What, you think Microsoft is pushing this for consumers? What company do you think is providing the mandatory managed copy software? What, did you think you could copy that HD-DVD to Linux?
The ______ Agenda
The thing that has a lot of the anti-DRM people up in arms about Blu-Ray is how it will enable content companies to change the software on their player, and other evil things about that. However..
HD-DVD MUST allow you to make AT LEAST ONE COPY. This is something that current DVD's don't even let you do (legally.) For this reason alone, i am switching my support from Blu-Ray to HD-DVD (and I suggest that the consortium advertise this. say "blu-ray wont even let you do what you want with the content you own!"). Besides, if it can be shared at least once, theres nothing that says we can't create some software to let us copy it more than once...
Historically, Microsoft has been extremely pro-Consumer... they just sometimes put themselves first.
I mean, Microsoft created the hardware commoditization... had they not licensed a compatible MS-DOS to Compaq (and instead went back to IBM to re-negotiate), the commoditization of PCs wouldn't have happened. They historically were willing to support any hardware platform, not support the monopolization... they haven't tried to lock in a single video card.
Even where they attempted to monopolize markets (DirectX 3D vs. OpenGL), it was arguably pro-consumer... while OpenGL was the better API, MS's API was able to be supported by more hardware manufacturers, while OpenGL was more complicated and required more power...
Microsoft has recently moved in an anti-consumer direction, but ONLY for their own stuff.
Look, I love iTunes and iTMS, but that said, the Microsoft WMA "standard" does support competition in both the player (hardware) market and competition in the music "retailer" market...
While they aren't generally friendly to standards, and compete like dogs against any perceived threat, their default is generally to bring prices down for customers... just not THEIR prices.
Their aggressive tactics DEFINITELY involved non-innovating and swooping in when the leader falters, bundling with their OS monopoly, and generally engaging in tactics that would be cutthroat for a small company, and at times criminal for a monopolist.
That said, they aren't an anti-consumer company, beyond the fact that their actions destroy the competition.
In fact, they have generally been the MOST resistant to limiting user actions, contrasted on the OS side with IBM's OS/2 and Apple's Mac OS (Classic OR X)... you could replace the default shell, and until Win95, some companies did, and other easy to tweak aspects of the OS.
I think that the MS bashing needs to focus on where they are abusive... They also piss off enthusiasts for the same reason Wal-Mart pisses off upper-middle class consumers... If you appreciate quality things, then you HATE the low priced player that puts the company that makes higher quality stuff out of business.
As a enthusiast, I hate that MS's push to lower prices for computers (without lowering their prices) has pushed out good technology and replaced it with crap... however, as a purchaser of computer hardware, I do appreciate how much prices have dropped, and I realize that it was a combination of Microsoft and Intel pushing EVERY OTHER component to commodity status... just like I appreciate the myriad of Linux players doing the same thing to the OS component, and OpenOffice/StarOffice pushing productivity software to commodity status.
Alex
What we all want is itunes for TV and movies, and a 1 tb. server with wireless access to our 1 mm. thick TV screen in our basement so that we can 'own' our movies/tv shows instead of 'renting' them, so our children can go, "What's this Mash thing? Is it about potatoes?"
If Microsoft "followed the money" they would have just joined the java consortium and standards body instead of creating .Net.
If Microsoft "followed the money" they would just support the OpenDocument format instead of waging war on office suites.
If Microsoft did anything for reasons other than emotion, they would be a very different company. Very little of what Microsfot does makes sense outside of the context of a strong agressor aiming to kill competition at all costs - not all gains.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley