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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?"
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.
Between Sony and MS, I'll take sides with MS DRM. Sony at the very least is a total DRM nazi regime. Everything from their minidisk format to their memory stick "magic gate" employ DRM.
Fuck Sony. I kick them to the curb. As with MS, I'll continue to watch them with a very close eye.
Life is not for the lazy.
They probably have the chairs in that particular conference room bolted down, glued to the floor, and then weighted with lead. 60 billion dollars won't give you the ability to lift a chair which takes 800 lbs of force to seperate from the ground.
As much as I like watching Microsoft and Sony fanbois duke it out, it's getting a little tired.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
If I recall correctly, the Blu-ray format uses Java for interactive content. If corrent, that could be what riles Microsoft.
The power station I work for generates 1.6 Gigawatts (spelt with a G)... plug into our switch yard... pay us a couple of million bucks, and back you go!!!!
//END OF MINDLESS BANTER
Ahh, we all knew one day that the confusion with the G at the start of a GIF file would seep into modern day life... is it pronounced Gif(t) or Jif? the saga continues!
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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
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
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
And memory stick ? Why do people bitch about memory stick and not SD, or MMC or compact flash ?
Because the memory stick didn't have any advantage whatsoever over any other format, Sony only introduced it for the sole purpose of being able to control the technology. That it was hideously expensive compared to the other memory formats was just adding insult to injury for the first few years it was out. Every other memory format had some REASON for its introduction -- it was smaller, lower power, or had higher capacities.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I sure hope so! In fact, I don't usually buy consoles (the most recent I own are the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis), but I think I might buy the Revolution. Why? Because it's going to play the back catalog of games, but also because I want to oppose Sony's and Microsoft's DRM.
If any employee of Sony or Microsoft is reading this: I refuse to buy your products, and even make it a point to buy your competitors' ones, specifically because of your obsession with DRM. Either stop being evil, or fuck off and die!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Every movie brought out onto DVD in the past few years was digitized into an HD (or higher) format then downsampled for DVD. It's just waiting for a format. This transition will happen quickly, you can be sure.
> cat ~/.signature | grep -v bullshit
>
I think that already happened with the GameCube. Afterwards, a updated version called "The Q" (or something like that) was released by Panasonic that could play DVD movies. The catch? It costs a couple hundred dollars more. I'm not saying that Microsoft will do a similar thing, but if we're to take from history it'd be pretty likely and useless to spend an extra few hundred dollars on top of the already $300/$400 console.
I've already decided on a Revolution. Xbox is out of the question and I've dumped PS3 for the Rev. Have'nt been interested in game consoles for a long time but that one looks really interesting, and I can't forget the Donkey Kong and Game&Watch that got me started. Nintendo are true innovators. I don't really think the Rev. will be kids-games only, with the possibilities of the new controller. Looks perfect for FPS.
Just wished it would support Blu-Ray but you can't always have it all and I would probably anyway buy a standalone player to go with the rest of the setup.
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.
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!!!
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
Then on June 15, the Blu-ray camp decided against using Microsoft's IHD technology to add interactive features to Blu-ray disks, opting instead to stick with software based on Java technology.
This for me is interesting. Now that MS are really pissed off and it looks like Blue Ray has the edge, will Sony change their mind and use IHD (could keep MS happy - but then they are a serious competitor), OR go to town on them and stick with Java in which case we could see the Xbox 360 announcing a HDDVD(Toshiba) add on for the console at a later dat. Time will tell...
My comment was based on TFA and what I read previously. The Blu Ray consortium only agreed to support VC-1 on the condition MS stayed neutral to both formats. Now that MS has broken that agreement the Blu Ray group is not bound to supporting VC-1 except for technical/time reasons. Supporting Requiring.
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