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Why Microsoft Hates Blu-ray
An anonymous reader writes "The private feud just became public. Apparently,
Gates yelled at Sony's CEO because the new copy protection Blu-ray has adopted would prevent players from streaming content to the Xbox 360. Since the PS3 will have Blu-ray support but the Xbox 360 only has a plain DVD drive, this means PS3 will be the only console that can play HD movies. Also, Paramount just announced support for Blu-ray and
Warner Brothers may also jump ship. Will VHS vs. Betamax turn out differently this time?"
Will VHS vs. Betamax turn out differently this time?"
Not unless you can travel back in time. =P
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
What, it's not like he threw a chair at him while doing the Monkey Dance...
Great. So they're going to pull another DVD+R DVD-R type of format war over the consumer. My vote is for betamax.
"They only thing Blu at MS are the screens of death!"
PS3 won't be the "only" console that can play HD movies. Microsoft has previously announced that future versions of the 360 will have HD-DVD drives.The HD-DVD version of the 360 may be released to coincide with the PS3 launch for all we know.
ART on dA
MS has fought so hard for DRM and copy control and now they are pissed because someone else's is biting them in the ass. Suckers!
Gates argued that Sony's new high-definition DVD standard, called Blu-ray, needed to be changed so it would work smoothly with personal computers running on Microsoft's Windows operating system.
Is there a reason to assume that Blueray drives or disks will not work smoothly in Windows, but will work fine in Linux, Mac, etc??
Why can't microsoft have support for Blu-ray in Xbox 360 ? They can get the license etc (whatever the technical term is). Or the hardware is very complicated for that technology ?
How do you like DRM *now* Mr. Gates?
After reading the article, I find myself supporting Microsoft's stance on letting customers stream their DVDs to other devices in the house. Of course, their position may be based upon the fact that the XBox doesn't have a Blue-Ray DVD player, so it's hard to tell if their heart is in the right place. Still, it's in Microsoft's best interest to have lots of tiny computers in a household that share information such as movies - all running Windows, of course.
Give me something that'll produce 1.21 Jiggawatts and I'll figure something out.
God, I'm so sick of these DRM wars. It seems like the sole criterion on which to judge the two schemes is whether its DRM is good or not. Screw this, I'm not going to watch another movie, paid or stolen. They can shove their higher-resolution fascism where it belongs.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
All this talk about corporations being hurt by this is a side show. The real victims are the consumers. This will cause massive confusion. People will wonder why some movies will play in their PS3, but not on the XBox 360. With such confusion, people will be less inclined to give such media out as gifts. I mean, no grandma will get her grandkids a movie that they may not be able to play.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
yesterday: Ballmer threw a chair at Google.
Today: Gates yells at Sony
Sheesh, of those billions of dollars, the Microsoft guys should invest a couple thousands on a psychologist...
The VHS vs Beta was about people trying to own the market for a particular format. This is about trying to controll information in an information age defined by the free flow of information. It is purely reactionary, and changes nothing about the fundamental fources at work here - they are trying to controll how people copy and distribute information just at the point in history where it has never been easier since the birth of human history to do just that. The truth is that when push comes to shove, the DRM people need the cooperation of their customers way more then their customers need theirs. They (the DRM's) are trying to seize controll, because they are vulnerable and they know it.
You don't get it. The content won't be streamed/copied around your house in the clear (MS still has Linux to worry about!) Instead, it will be transcoded to Windows Media DRM but Gates gets to own the keys to that kingdom. MS' position is NOT good for home users. It's just about trying to set themselves up as the new Gateskeepers
Who gives a toss? They can all destroy each other as far as I'm concerned. All Microsoft cares about with its strategic use of HD-DVD is that Windows Media becomes the eventual default, one true DRM and media format. They do not want to have to use anything else. Do you think Bill Gates gives a damn if the XBox 360 isn't able to stream to the PS3?
I for one welcome our new DRM overlords. There'll be so much incompatible shite nothing will work. Nice one.
Jump ship generally implies that you are fleeing a situation.
Perhaps you mean that Warner Bros. jumped onto the Blu-Ray bandwagon.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
only took Steve Austin 6 million, and he coulda done it....
I think the format wars are just the beginning.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Blu Ray and HD-DVD have the same physical dimensions, the same tracking systems, the same video output, the same codecs and pretty much the same copy protection mechanisms. Even the lasers are the same frequency. 90% of the internals of the box will be identical. All they need are two lasers, or switchable optics, and even the cost of this will go down. Building a dual format player will not be that great a technological challenge.
How do you like it NOW Mr. Gates? Incompatibility keeping something from working on your platform? How do you like the taste of your own medicine?
EvilCON - Made Famous by
It's confirming all the stuff we've known (and worried) about for a while. No backups. Controlled streaming over a home network. Phoning home, and all that implies. All backed up by DMCA or DMCA-like legislation as it spreads around the globe at the behest of the media corporations (hello, Finland!).
Fuck 'em. I already own pretty much all of my favourite films and TV shows on DVD already. They can't force me to go hi-def and re-buy everything I've already paid for... can they?
You must think in Russian.
I must have left off my sarcasm HTML tags. Yes, it's pretty obvious that Microsoft's issue is that their XBox 360's won't be able to play any Blue-Ray DVDs via a network connection to a PC. Microsoft does indeed want to have their XBox as their living room Media Center device.
To be honest, I'm not sure how big a deal this really is. I may have a home network where video is streamed about, but how many normal people are really going to set this up? Even with wireless connectivity making life easier, I suspect it's simpler to go out and buy a Blue-Ray DVD player (or PS3) and hook it up to your television.
Right, the copy protection has nothing to do with whether the xbox will play blu-ray. It has to do with the drive in the xbox. Of course, the same argument works in reverse: the playstation 3 won't play HD-DVD discs. Both groups have said that it is possible to make a hybrid disc (with Blu-Ray/HD-DVD on one side and regular DVD on the other) but that doesn't mean any given release will actually have a DVD layer so the idea that the Xbox will play all HD-DVDs is just a pipe dream anyway.
If I recall correctly, the Blu-ray format uses Java for interactive content. If corrent, that could be what riles Microsoft.
Ok, to clairify Paramount is on board with BOTH formats. They are going to produce HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Like all production companies they will produce whichever product actually sells. Because frankly who cares if it's on an eight track as long as it sells and they keep margins to meet their profit expectations. According to Toshiba HD-DVD comes to market in Japan at the end of 2005. In terms of developement HD-DVD is well ahead of Blu-Ray according to Toshiba. HD-DVD is supposed to have better cost and productivity advantages over Blu-Ray. In addition it has greater proven capacity to date until Blu-Ray demonstrates a workable prototype of their higher capacity disks. So if HD-DVD comes out of the gates first and studios like Paramount and Warner Home Video start selling movies to consumers I find it hard to believe that other studios won't jump on board to sell their movies as well. When you sell gasoline, you could care less what car the consumer puts it in.
So Microsoft is getting annoyed that their suggested improvement on things isn't allowed by DRM. But the obvious irony is that Microsoft would be forced to DRM the heck out of their streaming video project, if they were able to implement it.
Limiting new ideas isn't necessarily a fatal problem in the long run, but potentially it could allow more free technologies to pass DRM's stuff up.
Is there a reason to assume that Blueray drives or disks will not work smoothly in Windows, but will work fine in Linux, Mac, etc??
:P
Probably the same reason Quicktime doesn't want to work smoothly in Windows.
Bill doesn't want it to in spite of the competition.
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
The great thing about standards is there are so many to choose from!
It's only been about 3 years since DVD reached its supposed "critical mass" in the market and the players became extremely cheap to buy. Isn't it a bit soon to be trying to replace DVD? I mean VHS lasted for something like 20 years, DVD has managed about 6. I presume the movie industry views high def movies as another means of getting people to double-dip on their films.
I can see the public rejecting the new formats though. Many people have only had DVD players for 2 or 3 years, they aren't going to want to go and buy a new player and start waiting for their favourite films to be re-released in HD, especially if they run the risk of buying the "Betamax" of this war. I would guess Sony's big gamble is that the PS3 sells by the truck load and thereby they get a significant user base with Blu-ray drives.
I'm sure we'll see lots of dirty tricks like HD films having lots of extras and the normal DVDs being left as essentially bare bones to "encourage" people into upgrading.
What is the driving force behind wanting a new format anyway? Is it because the film industry has bought into the bullshit that DVD piracy is somehow hurting legal DVD sales? Is it because the studios can sell us all the films we just bought on DVD again but this time in high def? I suspect it's probably both...
all you need is the 60 billion in pennies, a long pole. I think you could lift 800 measly pounds.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Of course, for Bill Gates to get all righteous about interoperability is just a little ironic!
They said it was a possibility. They did not 'announce' it.
~ Aero
I've read the fine article, and most of the posts so far. Most notable in all of this bickering is a seeming disregard for the consumer. It's all about controlling the consumer, not about providing the best technology. I wonder when any of this comes about how mature either technology will be.
Have you ever tried to configure and make work current HD technology? Hell, they've not even gotten this to work properly!
Case in point, if you're trying to run HD through an Audio Visual switch, good luck getting the sound to synchronize with the picture. I struggled with this for some friends new setup and did an end-zone dance when I got it to work. Then we found out that some video sources and inputs worked synchronized, while others didn't. What a pain in the ass.
And then, you have to choose what the output from the A/V switch to the TV will be, S-video, composite, coax? For the configuration we set up, getting to a satisfactory signal we went with composite only to find all of the screen enunciator functions from the A/V switch (Yamaha) weren't generated on the composite output.
It seems everywhere you turn, the new wow-technology either doesn't work right, doesn't work well, doesn't work all of the time, and sometimes doesn't work at all. FSCK!
Now layer on top of all of this the new HD or Blu Ray DVD stuff. I shudder at the compolications we face with the DRM crap they're focusing on. Instead they should be making this as easy to use as possible with as few speed bumps as possible. I'm not holding my breath.
And for those who would recommend "RTFM", I did. I went to the various places that sell this stuff, I Googled, and could not find definitive ultimate solutions to all of these glitches. Thank God the entertainment industry isn't in charge of the space program!
Microsoft has had high prices leaked for the 360, and it won't come with a DVD player. So they want Sony to make their PS3 expensive by adding a DVD player so Microsoft can control the PS3 stream and become the cheaper media center.
It's all about the control, baby. All your bases are belong to us.
Infuriate left and right
It isn't that the XBox 360 is going to stream to the PS3. That's not the scenario. The scenario Microsoft wants is for you to be able to buy a Windows Media PC and stream HD video content from an HD-DVD or Blue Ray DVD to a wireless media receiver somewhere in your house. This would allow your PC to become your video jukebox/Tivo that you can stream video using Microsoft's DRM wherever you want. For example, you could stream it to an XBox 360, or to a Plasma TV or a data projector or whatever.
Sony's DRM is going to hurt the adoption of Microsoft's vision on this.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Some departments within Sony don't like DRM, and they are going through some internal struggles. So support the products from the departments that don't have DRM(what ever Sony is calling it) aspects to them. That will send the message "We like your products, but won't by them when they reduce my options."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Originally, I was on the side of Blu-Ray. But now with talk that HD-DVD will support "conrolled copies" while Blu-Ray may or may not, and that HD-DVD may not include regional encoding, I'M SO CONFUSED!
I don't like MS getting their hands into everything, so I don't want to support HD-DVD. But if Blu-Ray has region encoding when HD-DVD doesn't, and if they don't allow for controlled copies, then I don't want to support Blu-Ray.
But I want an HD video media format of SOME sort.
*sigh*
Ballmer Throws A Chair At "F*ing Google"
Is there any reason why that this new format will take off at all? Honestly, my dvd player gives me good enough quality. In order to get good use out of the high definition quality disks, you'll need to get a new high defintion tv set. Will the cost really be worth the benifit to the normal consumer?
I read your comment with interest, but sadly that will not happen. Here's why:
The media hates Nintendo. I don't know why, I don't pretend to know why, but they do, read almost any mainstream news outlet's report on Nintendo and it's always "child focused", or "younger gamer".
Secondly, the public (UK, but probably US as well) see Nintendo as that. As part of my community enrichment project at school, I tried to organise a GCN tournament of Soul Calibur 2. It bombed, everytime I brought the subject up, I was *laughed at*. Despite the fact that the game is a 15+ and is a multi-format game, my peers seemed to think that playing on a Nintendo console would make them somehow less mature, or less "manly".
Nintendo has no problems whatsoever with technology or development. Nintendo has a problem with perception
in one word why Microsoft hates Blu-Ray.
Java.
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
My understanding is both HD formats will not allow you to output HD over analog outputs.
Xbox 360 doesn't have HDMI/DVI outputs, only analog component.
So I believe Xbox 360s (at least initial ones) are boned either way. Even if the streaming were possible to do, the box wouldn't be allowed to output the signals according to the agreements with the HD-DVD consortiums.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
... to VHS vs Beta
Back then the availability of consumer feedback before the technology availablity was scarce. And the only vote the consume had was to buy or not buy. VHS won simply because it was less expensive.
Now, these technologies will be similarly priced and its not going to be economics that is the deciding factor. INfact, it will probably be decided before the consumer ever gets to use the technologies.
Who gives a toss? They can all destroy each other as far as I'm concerned.
That might actually be a good solution.
The whole argument the lobbyists have been using to push for DRM-enforcement laws is the claim that LACK of DRM stifles innovation and threatens the commercial infrastructure. (Our counter argument is that it is DRM that is stifling innovation, to the benefit only of the existing players and the detriment of new players and consumers.)
If DRM turns around and stifles innovation by the old players, to the point that it starts taking them down, it's not just poetic justice. It proves our point AND takes out the companies that have become "blood clots in the arteries of commerce" (to misuse a Bucky Fuller quote).
It might not get the law repealed. But at least it would leave the congresscritters wondering where their next campaign contributions will come from. B-)
Also it would shut up the lobbyists, once nobody is paying them to talk on this subject.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Isn't it a bit soon to be trying to replace DVD? I mean VHS lasted for something like 20 years, DVD has managed about 6.
I remember pointing this out a long time ago, when DVDs first came out. HDTV was already well on its way when DVDs first arrived on the scene, but no support for HD was put into the DVD spec. If there was any forethought put into the DVD spec, then there would have been support for the higher resolution HDTVs. The problem, of course, was technology. A 12-cm disk at the time couldn't store the data for an HD video. This was before MPEG4 though, and theoretically, the creators could have assumed that some time in the future a better compression algorithm would make it possible to store an HD signal into a DVD size, and made it an option for the future.
What I think will happen though, is that studios will create hybrid-DVDs that will play in both current DVD players as a standard DVD, and have a separate layer that will only be visible to the High Definition player. This is already done in Blu-Ray which may be what is making it more appetizing to studios. They sell one movie, and it's compatible with standard and high definition players. It makes the new disks more like an extension to DVD.
"Scientists don't change their minds, they just die." -- Max Planck
Sony/Philips developed the CD format. I think we can call that an umitigated success. Also, in Asia and to some extent continental Europe, MD is very popular.
Finally, granted Betamax failed as a consumer format. However, as a professional standard it has made SONY bucketloads of cash. It's fair to say that the last 20 years of television were created and edited on various finds of Betamax tapes and machines.
And memory stick ? Why do people bitch about memory stick and not SD, or MMC or compact flash ? I own devices that use each of these formats: why is it only SONY's fault that the market is fragmented and non-interoperable ?
First, why are we debating a new standard that is supposed to last 10-15 years when internet speeds and multimedia computers are becoming more and more usable? I don't know about the rest of you but if I can't download movies I want via internet, watch them on my laptop or stream them to a flat-panel monitor in the next decade I'll be amazingly disappointed.
If you want to force an annoying DRM-ridden-useless standard under our noses while waving shiny new gadgets in our eyes we'll do one of two things:
1) Ignore it. Some people will give in. The rest of us will know better and wait it out.
2) Hack it. You want to make my DVDs unrippable so when I'm on a plane I can't switch between 20 movies I paid for? What's to stop me from getting an adapter to go Blu-Ray Player--->Adapter---->Laptop---->Capture
Sure, it'd take awhile. But in as long as it takes to watch a movie I could void millions of dollars of pointless R&D money. Oh, and because it took me two hours to transfer the bloody thing, I probably will share it (something I don't do currently) with everyone I can so they don't have to do the same thing.
There's always a way. One of us will always figure out a way to hack a TiVo, reprogram an iPod, mod a playstation or rewire the garage door opener. And the more they insist on bending over the consumer with trite that doesn't work how it should, the more they'll leave it to Joe Schmo to do some real innovation.
And if M$/Toshiba or Sony/Everyone else buys up all the patents to adapters from their players to my laptop and refuses to make them?
I'll go back to VHS.
my first post after ages of reading
If xbox ships with a plain DVD it won't play HD movies no matter who or what does anything with blu-ray, right?
Perhaps they should not have decided to not put the HD-DVD drive in the xbox. It would seem the first to get a bunch of drives out there is gonna have a good headstart. Making it an extra cost option sometime in the future would seem to be the opposite choice.
Right now we have DVD. Everyone seems to be making a fortune off them. CD pretty much the same thing.
How about high quality music disks? No makes much of anything cause noone knows which one to use. No profits and little consumer choice of titles.
So who is getting paid big bucks to decide they should follow the high-quality music formula?
Too bad there is noone to invent a green laser DVD or something and put them both out of their misery!
Just like they did with SVCD, the Chinese version of a high(er) definition digital versatile disc could be 'teh winnar!' here.
Mr.Gates should hire DVD Jon as a Sony/Blu-Ray DRM 'consultant'.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
I was expecting this to be settled by now.
1 26916,00.htm:
According to http://hardware.silicon.com/storage/0,39024649,39
"Sentiment about the format rivalry varies, depending largely on the size of porn producer. Smaller outfits seem to prefer HD DVD for its lower cost, while larger outfits tend toward Blu-ray for the capacity."
Hey guys - how many times do we have to tell you: SIZE doesn't mean that much!
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
This special +2 mod would be the only way to get a 6 rating.
Maybe now they know how it felt for Linux users trying to view DVD films before deCSS appeared.
Actually, it's Apple that compiles quicktime to run on Windows. As I've read on the forums (ya, rumors...could be true, could be BS), Apple does not use any x86 optimizations. Basically, It's just a ho-hum port with compatibility in mind.
Life is not for the lazy.
I find myself supporting Microsoft's stance on letting customers stream their DVDs to other devices in the house.
.ms-dvr DRM container. My portable media player doesn't support .ms-dvr, so I'm pretty much fucked, aren't I?
That's not really their stance, though. The real stance is "consumers should be allowed to stream content to whatever device they like -- as long as that device is a licensed Microsoft Media Center Extender[TM]."
If MS were devoted to unfettered content sharing, XP Media Center Edition would save its TV recordings as raw MPEG-2 files, rather than wrapping them in their
But, I won't buy anything with overly restricted DRM.
I won't buy anything thats not compatible with my existing plasma screen, my existing DVI monitors, or my existing 32" widescreen LCD TV.
These devices are very capable. I see no reason to discard them for an overly restricted DRM regime.
This is not a financial decision. I understand that as an earlier adopter, I should be prepared to switch to different systems if the market shifts.
I refuse, however, to buy something whose technical specifications are similar (or worse), simply because the powers that be are insane.
I suspect other "middle-upper" class geeks feel the same way. All these people who have already purchased Plasmas, or LCD, or various other HD monitors are going to be mighty pissed when they are "supposed" to buy a new one. I expect that uptake of this crap will be slow.
As for myself? I plan to figure out some way to rip the HD content to my harddrive (I'm 100% sure its possible), and then either playback from a console unit HD, or store it in MPEG4 on existing dual layer DVDs.
My understanding is you can do 720p at 6 Mbps, and 1080i at 12 Mbps, with very good quality.
Both of those will fit on a dual-layer DVD fairly nicely.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Although I do think Blu-Ray will win out in the end as Sony pushes a large number of Blu-Ray players into production with the PS3, meaning there will be a very large installed base of Blu-Ray players right off the bat. This will also help lower the price point for both the drives and the media as everything is ramped up into volume production.
And let's not forget, 200GB 8-layer discs. Yummy.
Not that I have any great love for Microsoft, but I have a greater concern that one of the main players in Blu Ray is Sony and being that Sony owns a major movie studio and tons of other media properties I see that as a conflict of interest. They are far more concerned with protecting their IP at the consumer's expense than looking at what's the best choice for us.
I'm sure Microsoft doesn't force Apple to create a buggy, inconsistent piece of crap? Quicktime 7 is better, but not by much. And why the hell do I need to pay to use full screen viewing!? I'll stick with Windows Media Player 10 thanks.
The DRM aspects of this fight bother me, but competing standards have been part of the computer and games industries for decades. I think people, even most grandparents, know by now that some programs only work on Windows, and that some games only work on the PlayStation. Customers will adapt to the format choices, but only if they find the new formats compelling enough. That's where Microsoft and Sony are treading on thin ice.
MiniDisc, anyone?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Of course with x86 Macs in coming over the next year, this will probably change.
It shocks me that some of you are bashing Microsoft here and blindly supporting Sony. You complain about DRM but are willing to accept Sony's Blu-Ray which will require that your STANDALONE DVD Player be connected to the internet for verification of discs, firmware, etc.? DRM is evil to you but this is not? Have I walked into bizarro world?
China will have the final say whether we use
DVDs or Blu-ray, being the major manufacturer
of all the major technologies involved, and
in the end China will not want to change much
about the DVD manufacturing sector they now
dominate.
Just clicked on the article (sorry, artical) link and there right at the top that Sun ad with a Japanese dude showing a big measured smile...
:-D
Apparently, it is fun to see Microsoft drink its own medicine and complain... are these M$ guys sissies, too?
Which departments? I suspect you're talking about the computer division, if only because DRM hurts the universality of the computer which might cut into computer sales. (This assumes Sony's computer department is behaving rationally. Clearly, that's not a sure bet.)
And what's your source for this information?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Ten or 15 years.... TEN OR FIFTEEN YEARS?!?! They really do smoke crack at those studios. Let me try to remember the various storage media I've had over the last 15 years...
1990: fifteen years ago, the removable media choices were 5.25" floppy at 1.2MB, or the just-starting-to-be-affordable 3.5" floppy clocking in at a whopping 1.44MB.
1995: CD-ROM drives with 650MB of storage were appearing. 600 times larger - two orders of magnitude larger than floppy disks.
2000: DVDs were becoming mainstream with ~9GB of space, another order larger.
2005: blu-ray is going mainstream with the PS3 and standard drives for PCs. With a current capacity of 50GB, its another order larger.
So in 15 years, we've had a 10,000 fold increase in storage capacity. I understand that blu-ray is designed to accomodate multiple layers in the future, but those are power of 2 increases, not power of 10. And really doesnt handle actual science/technology advances which would be incompatible by definition.
Does anybody actually think that removable storage tech will not advance another four orders of magnitude in the next 15 years? Or that future network tech won't swamp the 50GB capacity either? I mean, why would I carry that 1.44MB floppy around any more when I can copy that much data to and from my server over the net in about 3 seconds?
Having the same removable storage media not change much in 10 - 15 years from now sounds horribly myopic and stifling.
Gates wants to cut cost on the Xbox 360 so he chose not to include a Blue-Ray disc drive. But he still wants it to play content off Blue-Ray discs, so he asks his biggest gaming console competitor to let it stream content off Blue-Ray discs, without him paying of any royalties. Not at all surprisingly Sony tells him to fuck off. Gates gets pissed.
Exactly what planet did Gates come from?! Why would Sony EVER help Microsoft create a console that's cheaper to make?! Why would the movie industry EVER allow HD content to stream across a network MERELY because Gates wants to save a few bucks on his console?! Is this man fucking crazy?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Blueray drives or disks will not work smoothly in Windows
Wait, stuff is supposed to work smoothly on Windows? I thought that was an urban legend.
But really, this seems sort of backwards to me. I thought the software was designed around the hardware? I mean, wouldn't it be more efficient to design the best hardware first, then work the software around it? Software strikes me as less restricted by design limitations.
Another thing that strikes me as backwards is Microsoft having any say at all. The two designs should compete for content, then Microsoft should pick. If Microsoft commits to one before they know what the content (film studios) looks like, then couldn't they wind up with a compatible design with virtually no movies? It seems to me that what M$ wants is irrelevant, as Blu-Ray or HD DVD will rise and fall on the movie studio support.
It as also SanDisk that made Memory Stick Pro (eg > 128MB) possible.
Sony sure didn't innovate their way out of that dead-end they were in for so many years while CF, and SD, etc surpassed and got cheaper too.
I disagree, completely. While your argument holds true for die-hard gamers, its hardly the case for the masses, especially those on tighter budgets.
We are not talking about adding DVD support, we are taking about adding a brand new player to these devices.
With the PS2, I have convinced many to buy it vs Xbox, BECAUSE it comes with a built in DVD player. One example was my brother, who recently married and moved into his own apartment. He wanted a game system in his new apartment, and is on a very tight budget, the PS2 makes the most sense. Why spend $50 more on a DVD player when your PS2 has one?
The same arguments will hold true for XBox 360 and PS3. If I am going to buy a game system, and see 100 blu-ray discs at my local blockbuster... hmm, should I spend $150 on a blu-ray player, then another $399 on an XBox360, or buy a PS3 for $399, and get one with it?
Bluray and HD-DVD players will carry a premium for a few years, integration with the next generation gaming console is really smart.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
Does anyone think that having two standards will cause piracy or online movies to sky-rocket?
I mean, consumers aren't really going to buy two same-generation movie players, are they? It seems to me that this makes it more practical to download, to avoid what'll be several hundred dollars (at least initially) to get both players (I see the opening prices, for the first 6 months, as $100-$150, falling over time). This could either be a boon to Apple, if they are really doing some sort of Media Store in the vein of iTunes, or a new motive for people to pirate movies. I mean, it'd harder, as there would be more restrictive DRM, and the downloads are more significant than music downloads, but I feel that the principal force will be increased demand.
What do you think?
Also the 1st and 2nd generation drives in the PSX all reliably died. It took Sony quite a while to admit to it too, and then the 1st gen PS2 again suffered the same problems AGAIN.
My friends and I went through it all with gritted teeth. The same friends are now Xbox only simply because of the versatility of the HD and downloads. I still got my PS2, but it ain't doing much except for GT4.
They would probably work fine in an Microsoft machine if Microsoft supported it. The problem is that Bluray doesn't fall within Microsoft's vision of the future.
In Microsoft's mind, they think the next big entertainment thing is basically a Media Server, and they aren't wrong or alone here. They want to have their Media Center Editions of Windows to be the forefront of your Home Theather. They want it to be your Tivo, your Stereo, Your Photo Album and your Television all in one unit that can be accessed anywhere in your home. This is all well and good, but Microsoft wants to go further with this.
They see a future where Playing direct from DVD is in the past. The belief is that in the future, hard drives will be so big that you could store your entire DVD collection on your hard disk, and view any of the disks on demand from anywhere in your house using a Media Center PC, an extender, or even an Xbox.
Now apparently from what I'm seeing, HD-DVD is going to have the capability to allow this type of ripping from CD to hard drive built natively in the format. Bluray on the other hand will not. This is why Microsoft is all riled up because all of their Media Extenders and Xbox's With the media extender tech now become useless or at least less convenient since now For Example, you have to walk downstairs, put the Bluray disk into the Player on the MCE PC, walk back upstairs and tell the Media Extender to play the disk, Whereas with HD-DVD, you could just rip it to the hard drive, and watch it upstairs anytime you wanted to.
So at the very least, it looks like Microsoft is taking the HD-DVD side for about the same reasons Intel is. Intel wants to sell Media Servers to Store DVD content and Microsoft wants to make the OS for it. Since Bluray supposedly gives Media servers the finger when it comes to Hard Drive storage, they're picking the Format that is Embracing it.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
The formats can and may exist side by side like they do now. Really, The laser in a DVD will read whatever it's firmware tells it to read. Therefore, it is a matter of whether manufacturer's will pay the various license fees. The consumers have shown they prefer multi-format players so they don't have to dick with compatibilities.
JVC + Panasonic: Developed the VHS format
Sony + Phillips: Developed the CD format
Thomson: Developer of the SECAM televison standards; acquired Telefunken and RCA (Which developed the PAL and NTSC standards)
Yeah, I'd say BluRay is doomed. None of those companies knows how to foster a standard.
Just remember that Bill Gates increased all of his attributes to the 18 - 20 range and he now has demi-god type stats.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29743
..........FULL STOP.
Whoever wins is gonna get cracked anyways :)
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Because I can take the SD card out of my digital camera and put it into my MiniDV camera, my PDA, my laptop /desktop and my MP3 player.
-everphilski-
Instead of caving in to the DRM fascists, download movies off BitTorrent, and do it specifically because it's illegal. That's how we got Prohibition repealed, after all.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Who's more likely to build unbreakable DRM.....
Sony, or Toshiba with MS's influence.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
What will secure the pennies to each other?
emt 377 emt 4
One interesting thing to note is the pricing of the new HD/Ble DVD's. I imagine they will be atleast $10-$15 more expensive then the current DVDs on sale. Why the hell would any of the movie studios sell DVD and HD/BLu rays for the same price when one offers more than the other. And why would they drop the price of DVD's when it has contorl over the current market. The amuzing thing about this is that HD/Blu keep saying that it will cost the exact same to create the new DVD's. Oh but wait that profit will only go to the movie industry and the consumer wouldn't see a dime. So basically now the movie industry makes $10-$15 more per disc. Seriously with bullshit like that, who can they even wonder y people pirate stuff in the first place. The new rips will just be a 4.5 gig xvid that will fit on a single layer dvd. Fuk both blu-ray and HD. Im sticking to my $0.25 DVDs for another 5 years easy.
This is not fair at all to Microsoft: MS has been nothing but cooperative when it has come to standards and cross platform compatability!
I don't know what you're thinking, but Nintendo have always tried way harder than MS/Sony to protect their 'digital rights'. Proprietary cartridges, proprietary discs; GameCube was locked down pretty tight. Where do you get the idea that somehow revolution is going to be a DRM free zone?
Don't you mean it's a whitelist instead of a blacklist? They control what you can do with it, effectively blocking out everything else, thus being a whitelist.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Blu-Ray wins, because they'll have the movies.
Most consumers won't care - they only "stick the disc in and play it" anyhow. But then, for the vast majority of people and movies, they wouldn't have made a copy anyhow. If they wanted a copy to keep, they'd buy the disc at Walmart, or wait for the video store to put it on sale cheap. So Blu-Ray DRM won't affect them.
Techies will find ways to suck the raw signal out and make un-protected copies available on the internet. The few people out there who like to make big video libraries of every bad movie there is, will get their fix this way. So Blu-Ray DRM will inconvenience them - but won't cause them to buy any more copies.
Real pirates will use those same techniques to make pirated copies in commercial quantities, and sell them in countries that don't energetically enforce copyrights against large scale piracy. So DRM will add a little to their costs - but not much.
In short - DRM will have one main effect - the paranoid movie companies will feel safe to keep producing movies.
"We are f***ing going to kill Blu-Ray."
Xbox 360 only has a plain DVD drive, this means PS3 will be the only console that can play HD movies
The XBOX 360 plays HD just fine - as MOST Studios have already backed and plan to distribute HD DVD Content on regular DVDs using WMV format, just like the "T2 Extreme Edition" that was released two years or more ago.
Using WMV HD capable compression capabilities, most studios have commited to providing HD Content on Regular DVDs using the Windows HD Media format.
This is why the XBox 360 didn't need a HD-DVD player, and will actually help to promote the basic DVD using more advanced compression techniques than the VERY AGED MPEG2 format.
Goto: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia if you want to see what 5.1 or BETTER and High Definition Video that will easily fit on a dual layer standard DVD looks like.
Additionally, does anyone not see the irony? Microsoft doesn't like BlueRay because of the 'additional' content restrictions - and yet people here are like "Yeah Sony, you are making it easier to lock our movies!". WTF?
This story is not only FUD, but makes assumptions based on CRAP information.
Slashdot editors and contributors, do you even fact check or monitor each other? Your commentary and news is turning into the laughing joke of the internet.
Like IOdine said, no you can't.
And my PDA is from Sharp, my camcorder is from Cannon, my digital camera is from somewhere else, my MP3 player from another manufacturer... I'm not locked into a vendor to use my memory card.
-everphilski-
Now all the pirates that have downloaded and ripped mass quantanties of standard DVD's can sleep well at night knowing that they will eventually buy the HD versions...unless of course Jon Johansen has got some time on his hands to write HD DeCCS
Go ahead mod my karma bad, just remember what karma is fuckers!!!!!!!!!
I may have a home network where video is streamed about, but how many normal people are really going to set this up?
A lot more than you think. If people are buying iPods and Airtunes, it already shows that while the average population may not be totally computer savvy, they are starting to realize the potential entertainment values a high power PC can present. Oh, sure they mostly see it in illegally downloaded movies and music, but they do realize there are legit uses as well.
I expect they're just waiting for the right product to come out, something easy to use that will let them view all of their internet-obtained content (with or without DRM) on their TVs, in their living rooms.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
There are a lot of people who are talking about Linux or Mac killing MS. Yeah right, I run linux and love it but lets be honest, we are tiny. Yet when people talk about getting people to use a different OS then Windows for somer reason people never include the PS2 and gamecube's and other consoles.
With the introduction of the next generation of consoles both sony and MS seem to want to introduce a multifunction entertainment device into each and every household. Can you say PC replacement? No of course not a pc replacement for the typical /. reader BUT again lets be honest, we are a tiny portion of the total populace.
With the x-box MS has in some way's introduced a non-branded pc. Bear with me for a second. Although there are a lot of logos and a lot of attempts to have exclusive content for each console compare the difference between say owning a gamecube/ps2/xbox to say owning a mac/linux/windows pc. As the original playstation has shown it is extremely easy for people to switch consoles. Although consoles have 100% lockin compared to pc's (have you ever tried inserting a PS2 disc into a gamecube, where as I can read MS doc's on both mac and linux) this does not translate into consumers being locked into the consoles. I am even willing to bet there are a lot more people who have multiple consoles compared to multiple OS'es.
So why is the x-box then such a bad move? Simple. It has to a large extent undermined the position of the PC as a gaming device reducing that platform even further in the hopes of generating more x-box sales. The story of Halo is the most blatant example.In return for generating rather bad x-box sales they showed the world that MS itself did not seem to think its OWN pc market was a prime gaming market anymore.
MS owns the PC but instead choose to back the console wich nobody owns, just ask nintendo or atari or sega about how quickly you can go from owning the current generation to being last. Nintendo is surviving at the moment purely because of its brilliant handhelds.
This current spat about blu-ray seems to be MS suddenly realizing that IF consoles really are the way of the future then MS may have dug its own grave. If it allows the kind of DRM nightmares that consoles are (we will have to see if this really happens considering recent legal developments in australia and before in france) then there might be a future where people will no longer want a PC because it doesn't allow them do anything anyway.
MS may have to do some soul searching but someday it might realize that like ISP's and the telecom industry its business is piracy and porn. Philips already realized this to an extent. It sold its media company and now is pure hardware. Does a maker a burners really have an intrest in making it impossible to make your own copies off cd/dvd's? Of course not.
Same with MS, exactly how many of its home pc's are used mostly for copyright infringement? I am not just talking pure simple copying of dvd's here. The big movie companies all have tried time and time again to claim that making your own fan website about a property they own infringes on their copyright. If this becomes accepted practice then who needs a pc, if you can't do anything with it.
Imagine this, no game mods because the game companies don't want you to, no fan sites because the property owners don't want you to, no content because copyright owners don't allow it to be copied to pc. Exactly what reasons remain to own a pc then? Oh sure. Wordprocessing but I got news for you that is something people could do at the library/work/school instead of owning an expensive piece of hardware. ANd you hardly need Windows Vista to type the occasional CV.
Exactly how is MS going to sell Windows Vista to the home user is the home user can't do anything with it.
I think MS has a serious case of a split personality. On the one hand you got this
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
But this year, Microsoft (MSFT ) Chairman Bill Gates III laid into Sony (SNE ) Chief Executive Howard Stringer, according to two sources, including one who witnessed the exchange in a private room.
Gates argued that Sony's new high-definition DVD standard, called Blu-ray, needed to be changed so it would work smoothly with personal computers running on Microsoft's Windows operating system. Stringer and two lieutenants defended the technology, insisting Blu-ray would work fine in PCs.
Yet Gates's ire only grew. "There must be something much deeper going on," Stringer said later, according to another person who heard the comment. A Microsoft spokesman acknowledges that Gates and Stringer talked at the conference, but says things did not become "heated."
Where is the yell part?
qz
Is it just me or are the microsoft executives being very aggressive lately?
My UID is prime is yours?
You're not allowed to.
As evidenced by the hack in these players.
I wouldn't count on the Xbox 360 being hacked to do this, and I'm sure Bill Gates isn't going to make one of this features dependent on people learning of a hack.
"BillG: We've released the ability to stream HD-DVD to Xbox 360s. You can't output it (wink, wink), but you can stream it. Welcome to the future."
I don't expect to see that any time soon.
I have zero idea why DVD players can't output upconverted DVDs over analog. They're still just 720x480, no matter how much processing you do. And the DVD-CCA has no restrictions on outputting HD content over analog anyway.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
[i]Finally, granted Betamax failed as a consumer format. However, as a professional standard it has made SONY bucketloads of cash.[/i]
No. BetaMAX is a consumer format. The professional format you seem to refer to, is called BetaCAM. They shared some characteristics, but BetaCAM tapes are of much higher grade and achieve a studio grade quality bandwidth. Even earlier and also sharing some characteristics are the machines some call "U-matic".
BetaMax was in widespread use in my country until 1992.
Let me add a couple of formats sony also was behind: Video-8 (low bandwidth) and Hi-8 (with many incompatible methods of writing to the same tape by different cameras), and the 3 1/2" floppy standard. I would also mention atrac, the lossy audio compression format used in the MD.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Ive done side by side comparrisons of Quicktime against QuickTime Alternative. Hearing that apple dont use any optimisations on windows quicktime makes perfect sence, not only does it lag, grind, choke, and hog a huge chunk of my computer. the alternative also LOOKS better than genuine Quicktime, likely because of these optimisations.
XML - A clever joke would be here if
Hell in australia consoles can now be legally modded to avoid drm so might this mean blue-ray drm will also be legally circumvented down under?
The simple question is this. Will there be a blu-ray player that can be connected to a linux/mac machine? Will someone figure out how to access that player? Will someone figure out how to decrypt any content on the disc?
DRM is a difficult thing to enforce on a open system like a pc. It is like building your banksafe in the middle of a wreckers yard owned by the mafia. No matter how safe you make the safe it is still in a place filled with people with all the tools and desire to crack it.
To have effective DRM you have to have complete control over the entire path from creation to reception. If a copy can be stolen from the cutting room drm becomes pointless, if people can just capture a copy of the screen it becomes pointless. We have all this talk recently about Vista "needing" drm monitors. Because even at this stage you could simply hook up a "recorder" to the dvi exit of your vidcard and record everything coming out.
Even with a drm monitor what is to stop someone from putting that drm monitor on a scanning table and just scan the output?
I think we are currenty in a really weird period in time and that the future will probably go to a system where there will be far less DRM as content will be just offered so cheaply that pirating it becomes meaningless. If I can watch a movie instantly for say 0.50 cents why should I spend time scouring the net for it?
How many of us do copyright infringement because of the following reasons:
All that is needed is for content owners to realize that you can make more money by making a billion 1 penny profits then a million 10 cent profits.
It seems an impossible lesson to learn. Just look at phone companies and their rates for data exchange. Yet I am hopefull that one day we can just access the servers of the various content owners and download any of their content for a tiny fee without drm because only a tiny percentage of people will bother with the hassle of pirating when the "profit" for doing so is minimal.
Currently I save a small fortune that I do not in fact even have to spend in the first place by not paying for 99% of my content. I can't pay both my internet AND buy dvd's. Guess wich one I choose?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I hope you're right, because HD-DVD certainly has all the major studios already.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
You know, I've seen some pretty darn good cam shots come out of the theatres, and that's with the given limitations of finding a place to hide the camera, fixed-light, obstructions, etc
Point a decent digital camera at a decent screen... yes the quality will be less but how much will people who download from the 'net care about that? At the least it would probably be better than the theatre cams.
From what you said, the following is true:
1) Make technology and take it to market
2) Make something better and expect everybody to replace previous one
3) ????
4) Profit!
Sorry, but your point is completely bogus, 1.2 and 1.44MB Floppy Drives were not introduced to market just fifteen years ago, that was in 1984 and 1987, respectively. And guess what? They are still in production. Some pretty big manufacturers still offer them in top of the line models. Are they great? Not anymore, but there's still a market for them.
The Compact Disc was introduced in 1982 and the CD-ROM format in 1985. That's not 10-15, but more than twenty years ago.
DVD was introduced in 1996, almost ten years ago, and I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon.
It's not about bringing new formats every couple years, the formats need time to mature and penetrate the market, they need a long time for both manufacturers and content companies to get ahold of the technology, offer enough content and really take advantage of economies of scale. Changing factories, manufacturing technology and playback equipment just because you could make it one order of magnitude bigger would be a horribly myopic and stifling thing to do.
It's perfectly fine to expect Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to be around 2015 and beyond, if any of those formats take off in the first place. If they don't, well, they weren't good enough from the very beginning.
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
sony invented betamax... but according to wikipedia, sony contributed for VHS licensing "some of its critical technology under lucrative licensing agreements"
atrac ? MD ? studios love them, or at least used to love.. Im sure sony covered the development expenses...
memorystick ? just another one on a sea of memory cards.. not sonys fault
blu-ray ? eventually LG will release a read all, record all drive, as usual...
bottomline ? sony wins... sony always wins...
and who looses ? the consumer... paying premium prices for early relesed products, and bitting the bullet afterwards...
I am deeply disappointed in the intellectual level of /. posters. blueray/sony is a very bad thing and no one is thinking it through. There are so many terrible things about this technology beyond that it is all a Sony propaganda lie. But just stop and think for one moment... that never in the history of media has the producer of the medium been the creator of the content as well. Sony owns Columbia. The media which we purchase and record upon has always been a creation of a party that does not produce the content. this has long standing implications. Please do your research. Don't just accept what a bullshitting company like Sony says is true. Remember COPYRIGHT actually means your RIGHT to COPY. Copyright was NOT invented to allow evil companies like Sony to limit you, rather it was to allow you the RIGHT to COPY what you owned. The answer is not someone will find a way to hack it. That is a admittance that you have no rights. There should be no need to hack anything. If Sony has their way breathing will be illegal and we will all pay a licensing fee for air.
please just stop the maddness and stop sony.
P.S. remeber sony lies!!! they are big fat liers. dont trust them. i am not saying trust anyone else. but dont trust what they say. they will say anything to get your money/support. crazy things like: ps2 will render movie quality CG in real time. crazy!!!
Don't tell the Democrats - they think Bush is the AntiChrist!
MS could completely destroy Blu-Ray in one blow: announce that Windows will not support Blu-Ray security, and any content from a Blu-Ray disk can be copied to the hard drive, while HDDVD will be fully supported in all its DRM goodness.
Why wont they learn that any restriction they apply on there content will only hurt the person who is going to use the product for legal use? No matter how hard you try, there will alwase be the pirate groups who will get around it and release it for free to the public.
If they want them to stop, or limit this, start selling your products at cheaper prices so one would be more than happy to be every movie and every game. Its kind of sad that the videogame market has grown widely since it was first introduced, yet prices for the games have increased.
I could actually careless about the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD war, its not going to go bad on the consumer. If anything it will force the companies to use more competative pricing on there products.
So the XBox can't play HD movies ? Though luck. The economics of putting a DVD player in the original Xbox and Playstation made sense when both cost 300+ euros. Prices for DVD players have dropped to 40- euros. How long do before HDDDVD and Bluray drop to the "affordable by everyone" price range ? It will probably be much shorter.
So the XBox can't play HD movies ? Though luck. The economics of putting a DVD player in the original Xbox and Playstation made sense when both cost 300+ euros.
Prices for DVD players have dropped to 40- euros. How long do before HDDDVD and Bluray drop to the "affordable by everyone" price range ? It will probably be much shorter.
The real reason microsoft hates blue-ray is becase all the menus and animation and games and extras are mandatarily to be done in java.
.net cf take up aleady looks like shit by comparison and every nokia/sony/moto/samsung phone shipped makes it worse.
If blue-ray takes off sun can claim the number of java-embedded devices doubles from 5 billion to 10 billion devices or whatever.
'Be the change you want to see in the world' - Al Gore
Don't forget that. A linux kit will likely be available on the PS3, with the IBM cell-processor port of Linux.
Who wanted a new audio cd format? I'm pretty sure when SACD was first launched we were all promised even higher quality audio from these machines and soon you wouldn't even be able to purchase a standard CD machine because the SACD system is compatible with CD's. Well, what happened?
I suspect most of the early sales for Blu-ray/HD-DVD will be to people buying their first HDTV and the store will offer all this as a bundle, the HDTV bundled with whatever disc playing equipment that the manufacturer of the TV is able to supply. That or a subscription to an HD satellite tv service..
I attended a Caldera OpenLinux (hiss, boo) 2.0 demo years ago. The speaker relayed an anecdote from when he was at a seminar, and some guy in the back pronounced it "jiff" - which the speaker 'corrected' as a hard 'g'. The guy in the back responded "well, I invented the format, and I pronounce it 'jiff'."
They've got Digital Rights Management. Toshiba's got DRM.
No thank you. I'll be sticking with DVD. You can cram both DRM formats right up your hairless, flaccid ahole.
Why would they want to help Windows versions of games sell, when people will buy the PS2 version instead (which just works).
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/ 10/1917210&tid=188&tid=198&tid=126&tid=233
That is of course unless you like the idea of the Movie Studios disabling that fancy player you just spent your hard money on, and having them decide what and when you can watch the content you purchased. Personally, I will not by a PS3 because of Blu-ray nor will I ever buy a Blu-ray player. an we say Divx all over again.
Claims of concern over customer choice are red herrings to make their particular brand of greed instead sound like (nonexistent) concern for the customer. Attempts to impose draconian Digital Rights Management schemes (having nothing to do with preventing piracy and everything to do with preventing customers from using products in unapproved ways) and record companies suing customers (or threatening them with suit even when there is no evidence of unauthorized copying) shows their concern over customers is zero, other than concern over trying to increase profits.
I have no problem with that, but their claims of concern for customers are specious; their behavior has shown their concern for customers is exclusively in the range of complaining they are not squeezing enough money out of them.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
I'll do it again anyway. What is the compelling reason for Joe Consumer to go to either format? Most people don't have HDTV and even those that do already watch their DVDs in widescreen and probably think it's good enough. The PS3 might be the wedge that gets Blu Ray into some homes, but if the cost of the movies themselves is higher it will stall for quite a while. There really isn't a killer app and the jump from VHS to DVD is far greater for most then the jump from DVD to next-gen video.
I say GIF (not jiff) and I'm certainly not a newbie...
No sig today...
If I choose SD (which I do) then I can buy pretty much any brand of hardware.
Simple as that.
No sig today...
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD have the same exact copy protection scheme that prevents you from streaming HD content to the Xbox 360. Not only that but any HD movies you would download to a PC with DRM protection from a site like MovieLink or CinemaNow would be forced to be displayed in 480p on the Xbox 360. This has nothing to do with the format wars at all. The current Xbox 360 is not an HDCP compliant device so the movie studios are not going to allow their HD content to be displayed through it.
SB on the subject.
And it'll happen again.
"The Aristocrats!"
Will Blu-ray be backwards compatible with DVD? Yes, several leading consumer electronics companies (including Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and LG) have already demonstrated products that can read/write CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs using a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical head, so you don't have to worry about your existing DVD collection becoming obsolete. Although it's up to each manufacturer to decide if they want to make their products backwards compatible with DVD, the format is far too popular to not be supported. The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) expects every Blu-ray Disc device to be backward compatible with CDs and DVDs.