Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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.
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.
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.
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
Is there a reason to assume that Blueray drives or disks will not work smoothly in Windows
Well for one, Microsoft have named HD-DVD and do not plan BluRay support.
No one knows the exact specifics, but there is a reason Microsoft chose HD-DVD - and it isn't because it is the best technology. One possible reason is that Microsoft wants a technology that gives Windows unrestricted access to content, and then that content could be ripped to the hard drive and then protected by Windows DRM bypassing any other DRM systems. Microsoft wants to be the only game in town, especially on Windows.
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.
They have:
To avoid confusion: I fully support any company that tries to protect its content against unauthorized commercial use, BUT I do not approve of extreme measures that inconveiniance me, the customer, abuse and pervert the US legal system, or damage innocent third parties.
We should ALL stop buying from companies that do not care about their customers.
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
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
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 ?
Then what would I buy?
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.
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.
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.