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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?"
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??
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.
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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.
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.
I think the format wars are just the beginning.
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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?
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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.
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...
Of course, for Bill Gates to get all righteous about interoperability is just a little ironic!
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
in one word why Microsoft hates Blu-Ray.
Java.
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
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 ?
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.
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.
Be honest, where would you rather store data for you own backup, a hard drive (external of internal, your choice), A Thumb Drive, a tape backup, or a CD/DVD (your choice, or choose a new variant if you like).
Most will choose the options in that order, baring space constraints. Why? Magneto or Flash based storage is far superior to optical storage, the technology is not anywhere near as tested, nor well designed. Optical storage has been around since the eighties if I remember correctly, Flash medium is an advancement of Transistors and IC's. Hard drives have been around so long that most people have no clue that they started out with massive platters that you could add or change, not to mention that it is basically an advancement of the Tape storage device. I am not saying to give up on Optical storage, far from it, send it back to the drawing boards work out the kinks then bring it back as a viable alternative when it has matured past the point of being as much of a nuscence as an improvement.
I work at a video store (rental, small chain), and I can tell you that people like DVDS for quality, not for ease of use, and I get more people that wish that the things were not so finicky, since people don't take care of things that are not theirs, but don't need to take care of a tape.
I can tell you stories of people that didn't think that "since the disk doesn't touch the laser" that the thing "doesn't need cleaning". But these same people understand that a tape touches the head of a VCR or BETA so they need to be cleaned.
I don't pretend to have a source on this, but I cannot think of a single English word that begins with a 'g' followed by a vowel that has a soft g (i.e. a 'j' sound) as opposed to a hard g (i.e. a 'guh' sound).
Gerund? Germany? Germanium? George? Geo? General? Gee? Generation?
Sure, it's mostly "ge" words, but what about Gibraltar? (As in "the rock of".) Gin? (As in the alcoholic beverage or the card game.) I mean these are just off the top of my head.
There's no rule in English that says a "g" followed by a vowel must be a hard "g". And people were saying "jiff" long before I ever heard anybody pronounce it with a hard "g". It's an acronym; acronyms do not need to take the exact same pronunciation as the words the individual letters stand for.
The original pronunciation was "jiff" and as far as I'm concerned that's still the correct pronunciation. I mean at some point, if everybody pronounces a word differently than you simply say the language has changed and move on. But enough people still use the original pronunciation that I still consider it correct - I mean if a certain percentage of people started pronouncing "gin" with a hard "g", I think the rest of the people are just gonna think they're a bunch of morons, right? Why is this different? To me, pronouncing "GIF" with a hard "g" labels you as a newbie - it tells me you first heard of the format after others had started using that pronunciation, and you've probably surrounded yourself with other newbies who use that same incorrect pronunciation.
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.
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[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.
200GB?
How long will it take to burn *that* disk?
I don't get it.
I remember having this discussion in '96 while working for a high-end online-marketing consultancy in Boston. ultimately the soft-g speaking GIF camp in that circle agreed there was no good reason an acronym should not reflect the pronunciation of its constituent words. Of course, we were more apt then to question these sorts of things given the relative age of the field and the opportunity to prefer reason over anecdote.
Link please?
To me, pronouncing "GIF" with a soft "g" labels you as either a newbie, or someone who has never really considered the question for whatever reason. Between '96 and '01, most web-professionals I had the opportunity to work with along the NE corridor used the hard "g" pronunciation. Granted it's been a while since I've done active web development in a social context (closing on 5 years), and maybe the pendulum has swung to soft 'g' during that time. Then again perhaps there are more complex regional preferences at play here than meet the ear.