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HP No Longer Exclusively Supporting Blue-Ray
linumax wrote to mention an MSNBC article stating that HP is dropping its exclusive support for Blue-Ray. They'll be offering support to the HD-DVD format as well. From the article: "The decision is the latest sign of a looming 'format war' between the competing standards for a new generation of digital video players that can record high-definition films and video games. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD-compatible devices are expected to hit stores worldwide early next year."
This trumped-up format war is going to be dead on arrival -- because 90% of U.S. televisions won't be anywhere near an HDTV signal until 2015. It's going to be DVD right up to the holocubes.
It already happened. It's a draw, just like for DVDs. We'll have both formats on the market with most players handling both formats.
HP No Longer Exclusively Supporting Blue-Ray Saturday December 17, @02:53AM
Journey Towards The Center of the Earth Friday December 16, @10:59AM
Windows Gets Independent Security Certification Thursday December 15, @07:14AM
linumax is getting to be like BB.
The article headline says that HP has dropped support for Blu-Ray, implying that it has dropped all support. Whereas the article text makes it clear that HP has only dropped exclusive support.
A bit of fact-spinning going on at MSNBC?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
It's not Blue-ray, since it was considered too generic to be trademarked.
Hmm... "Blue-rays" less generic than... Windows?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
DVD burners can now do DVD+R and DVD-R in one, and are finally getting down in price.
And now we have the next turn around, with Blu-ray and HD-DVD.
So place your bets, gentlemen. Will one die, as in Betamax?
Or will they eventually be combined in a single machine? (Is that possible?)
Not that I'm being pedantic ...
I wonder what happened... Did the President of HP find Sony's Rootkit on his computer?
Not to sound like Bill Clinton, but there's support in the sense of "backing" and support in the sense of "working with." For example, you could say Apple iPods support mp3, but in reality Apple backs AAC while still working with MP3.
Only the most open solution can win. Consumers will realize if they can't copy (to some other medium) or if either one angles them in DRM, that it just isn't worth it.
AFAIK, both of them drown in DRM features and there's no real buzz for them outside some in the video-phile community, DVDs will prevail - they are good enough and neither new offering offer killer must-have features for the majority of people.
Since either medium doesn't give me a significantly big boost in GBs that I was expecting, it will probably flop on the computer side as a gotta have (as a burner) because Holographic storage will blow it away by the time burners come out.
"Still no clear winner"
v shddvdDejanews.png
"Try again"
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/images/meme/bluray
a looming format war? what have you called the last year? minor consistent back and forth skirmishes?
sorry folks, the format war has been going on.
We're supposed to be boycotting both Sony and Microsoft right now!
HP wants to support HD-DVD because Windows Vista will have support for HD-DVD, but add-ons like Java will be required for Blu-ray. Microsoft won't ship Java with Windows Vista.
This only matters for PCs and laptops, not stand-alone Blu-ray players. The makers of stand-alone players are happy to ship Java.
I plan on buying the PS3 as my high-def disc player. It will support Blu-ray and it runs Linux. Plus I can play games on it.
HP is just trying to strong-arm some more concessions out of Sony on Blu-Ray features like managed copy. With 90% support from movie studios and HD-DVD delayed until 2006 the battle is already over. Even Microsoft has quit making noise about a possible HD-DVD X-Box 360. As far as low cost manufacture of discs, Blu-Ray can win there too with mpeg-4 on conventional DVD-9 for low bar entry into HD production -- can you aay porn? I know you could.
Letter To Iran
Who would support Blue-Ray anyway? I mean it isn't even a standard like Blu-Ray is.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
The decision is the latest sign of a looming 'format war' between the competing standards for a new generation
First of all, only those of us who actually want to use this stuff will "lose" this war. As with the DVD +/- "war", we'll just end up seeing every device need to license both formats, boosting prices and causing massive incompatibilities where people argue about which brand of media works best in which brand of drive. And Grandma still won't understand why she can't burn her now-in-HD soaps to a plain ordinary CD ("But it fits in the drive!").
These industry groups REALLY needs to suck up their pride, and just play a hand of poker to decide which format wins. The winner will agree to buy out the loser's R&D costs (perhaps with a bit extra as a deal-sweetener), and the loser will in turn refrain from unnecessarily fragmenting the market. Then we all win. Even the industry groups.
But more importantly, I see the whole Blu-Ray vs HD-HVD issue as all but moot. Regardless of who wins, we'll only see at best a roughly 10x increase in optical storage capacity per disc, and even that only at the tail end of the effective lifetime of the media (ie, look at writeable dual-layer DVDs - Oh wait, I can't, I've never even seen one in person, and they cost a few bucks each).
The "home theater" market does not have the same requirements as the data storage market. For home theater, just switching the existing DVD standard to allow MPEG-4 would allow for HD movies. But for data storage, particularly backups, we now have desktop PCs with 500GB drives - Which will still take 20 first-gen Blu-Ray discs, or 34 HD-DVDs, to completely back up. And many of us who appreciate the need for good backups have home file servers in excess of a terabyte.
What we really need, we won't get out of simple industry greed in pushing incremental upgrades on us - We need everyone to say "screw the sub-100GB optical formats, let's finally get one of these multi-TB holographic techs we keep hearing about, to market".
My personal opinion is that "HDTV" and "HD-DVD" or whatever are totally missing the point. There's no point in buying one of these "flat panel televisions" -- just go buy a computer monitor. There's no point in getting hi-def content on a dead-plastic disc or from your dead mainstream media. It's all just going to be files on a computer.
My 2cents.
But DRM and copyright flags will prohibit us from watching it with our eyes open.
Yes, drop could mean to totally dump something. But it could also be "drop" as in "a drop in volume", which simply means a reduction. So Sony "dropping" support for Blu-Ray could also be interpreted as "reducing" support. Similar to how Pat Robertson's, "I think we should take him out", doesn't necessarily refer to assassination. It sometimes comes in handy to know how to simultaneously say things and not say them.
Blu-Ray is clearly the better format. It can hold more, and has faster read times (theoretically, havn't seen stats yet). The only reason HD-DVD has alot of interest is because it's cheaper to produce, and requires only small modifications to current DVD players. More evidance that in the current capitalist buisness world, quality is the least important factor in anything. Money is the bottom line.
google.slashdot
From people building support into their products like these people. Hopefully nobody will have the same attitude in thinking "What's the point, 1080p isn't so common" because I don't want to see another fucking interlaced display in my lifetime ever again! There is no reason we should have to put up with visual garbage such as interlacing. Holy crap, it's horrid. I'd rather watch 480p (or 720p) than 1080i, but I'm sure 1080i would be the most supported option just because it's the biggest number (notice how many don't support 720p and jump straight from 480p to 1080i).
Twinstiq, game news
Capitalism is always about a balance or compromise between price and quality. Sony could probably have come out with a format that stores double what it does but at 10x times the cost, in which case HD-DVD would be the clear winner. I demand quality as a consumer, but not at any cost. This is the beauty of capitalism, we the consumers get the quality we want (demand) at the price point we are willing to pay.
Letter To Iran
It sometimes comes in handy to know how to simultaneously say things and not say them.
Well, my original point was that MSNBC appears to be doing exactly that, and that they might have a dishonest motive for doing so.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
The MSNBC article's headline is HP drops support for Sony video format.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Whether HP supported Blue-Ray or HD. IT DOES NOT MATTER. The only ones that matter are the content providers. Those have voted for Blue ray exclusively or vowed to support both format. So, HP and MS really do not matter when it comes to this fight. It is over and Blue Ray has won because of the studios.
...we better get some major consumer electronics retailer to issue a press release and pay MSNBC to cover it. If Blu-Ray wins, think of all the patent licensing revenue we'll lose!
HP is just trying to strong-arm some more concessions out of Sony on Blu-Ray features like managed copy.
Actually, that has already happened.
Nov 16, 2005 - Blu-ray Disc to Support Mandatory Managed Copy
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
All the filmmakers use Macs, the screenwriters use Macs, the editors use Macs, and the format that Macs can burn is going to be the standard in Hollywood.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Do people really *want* high definition porn?
Last time I checked both formats are rated at the same (slow) speed. Blu-ray's only main technical advantage is that it could theoretically hold more than HD-DVD. But since both formats have a lot more space than is necessary even for HD films, it is hard to see that as much a real advantage in comparison to the cheaper and more flexible manufacturing of HD-DVD. (You can have HD-DVD processing lines make normal DVDs too. Manufacturers really like like that.)
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
Because nobody has a HD-DVD or a Blu-Ray player available for purchase, and won't for at least a year, it is FAR, FAR too early to declare anyone the winner in this format war.
And the fact is that both camps have a reason to lie to you and tell you they are going to be ready as soon as or sooner than the competition to keep supporters from leaving them. At this point there is no way to know when either product is really going to be available. Although HD-DVD may seem to be behind right now because Hollywood prefers the more-restrictive Blu-Ray, IF (and that is a big IF) HD-DVD comes to market significantly earlier than Blu-Ray, then there will be content producers that put stuff out on it (not Sony of course but their competitors who wish to get a leg up on them.) And if there is a critical mass of content available, then all those people who have spent $1300 on a big-screen and want something, anything HD to watch on it will buy HD-DVD players. Once that market is established the studios HAVE to follow, because they can't tell stockholders "yeah would could make lots of money selling HD-DVDs, but its icky so we're not going to."
Now if all the content producers stick together and don't release anything on HD-DVD, then it will be just as dead as Divx (the Circuit City format, not the codec). So will the studios all stick together? Will some of them be afraid to be on the wrong side of Microsoft and Intel? Will Dell start putting HD-DVD drives in all their computers as soon as they are available? Will Apple?
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Out of all the players in both the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD camps, I literally cannot think of a more insignificant player.
HP is dropping exclusive support simply because they are acting as a Microsoft shill to try and shoehorn Microsoft's menuing language into the Blu-Ray spec. Undoubtedly it would stick in Microsofts craw to have to develop tools to help people build Java based menus that are going to be a part of Blu-Ray, and simialrily they probably already have tools lined up to support thier own format.
However I don't think HP's slight shift in allegance will have any impact. If Dell had moved it might be a bigger story, although really the players that matter are the consumer electronics manufacturers as whatever player there are the most of are going to be the players computer owners will want burners for to play thier own media.
Currently still the war looks to be over before it began with Sony shipping Blu-Ray players in every PS3. Within a year there are simply going to be an order of magnitude more Blu-Ray players than HD-DVD, and that will be that as much as the monolithc marketing engines behind HD-DVD will try and drag things out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Who cares? In about two-three years, I plan on rigging a slightly older system (P3 probably) up like this: braodband internet +satellite TV +bittorrent client +TV tuner video card +internal holographic hard drive +external holographic hard drive all connected a pair of large flat panel monitors and nice speakers. That's a real home entertainment system (have all TV shows, movies, music, and whatever else you want all together on one disk, and backed up externally for viewing on a laptop on the go), and a chaper one. Why buy an optical system anymore? Optical drives are slower at reading, much slower at writing, and will have much smaller capacities than external hard drives, and won't be chaper over the long run. And as for distributing media, it will be better for companies to go the way of Valve's Steam service or Apple's iTunes music store. Think a phat pipe and a 300GB 2.5 inch external holographic hard drive. What I really can't wait for is a 500GB-1TB 10k (or, god willing, 15k) rpm 16MB cache SATA II (or 2.5) Raptor hard disk. I shudder with anticipation.
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
I mean, noone actually cares for either of those formats. First of all everyone is turning to Internet for distribution. After iPod for video, the news about various TV networks and studios signing up deals with cellular operators and sites for distribution of content over the net have been flooding all blogs and news channels. When people moved from tapes to CD they had: - lighter/cheaper media - non-degrading sound quality over time (well if you handle it properly) So they gradually moved. But it took years. When DVD hit the market it was: - lighter/cheaper media - non-degrading video quality over time (..) - extras adding quality to the product Again it took years but it was next gen and offering unique benefits so people moved. How about DVD Audio: - ...
So people didn't move. Because CD is just good enough and most people can't tell the difference.
How about HD DVD / Blu-Ray:
- ...
It offers same deal like DVD, but higher quality again, but with like 10% of the people having HD enabled TV, they can't enjoy even this. So it offers: nothing. Get it: NOTHING.
Except weird DRM that pisses off people in the know like nothing else.
So every article about who supports which format makes me laugh. So many resources spent on something doomed to fail before it hits the market.
And in 2006, he is of course aware the one can copy movie ? He hasn't seen VCR for ages, and the only thing he can think of when you speak about recording to him is either Camcoder, TiVO, or downloading from Kazaa.
I've actually seen portable music player beeing advertised as "MP3, WMA, and DRM" compatible. As if DRM was something to be proud of.
And I've seen the average joes *buying* them, not because they understand anything, but just because it has one more TLA, so for sure this *must* be better.
If the industry pushes BD and HD-DVD as new standart, with intelligently determined price, with enough expensive marketing campaign, and menace to discontinue the DVDs, you'll sure everybody will be switching to the new standart (and will buy one more time the movies they already own in VHS and DVD format...)
Be ready, for one, to welcome you future BD/HD-DVD faring, DRM enforcing, internet connected, MS-Windows MPC powerered, virus ridden Media PC zombie botnets overlords.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
CBS uses 1080i, ABC and ESPN uses 720p. And there's no comparison. CBS (CSI) looks far far better).
The only TVs that don't support 720p are cheapo CRT TVs that don't want to convert the signal. 720p requires a vertical frequency of 60Hz and a horizontal frequency of 43.2KHz. Whipping the electron beam right to left between lines 43,000 times per second is a tall order.
1080i only requires a vertical frequency of 30Hz and a horizontal frequency of 16.2KHz. That's a lot easier to do on a tube.
I do have to go back to the original poster's question: where are you getting a 1080p signal anyway? I have nothing against 1080p, but there is no standard for broadcast 1080p. That means you can't get it over the air (OTA), off cable or from DirectTV. There's no HD optical disc format, and D-VHS doesn't support it. So that really makes it difficult to find any 1080p content.
Virtually every (non-CRT) HDTV will support 1080p input by the end of the year, so source material will migrate that way over time I suppose.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Right now, i have a nice dvd player that will play Xvids, but it chokes on hires Xvids and won't recognize Matroska containers at all. Give me a good dvd player that will play h.264 video from MKVs and I'd gladly forget all about Sony's BLUR-ay and HDDVD.
http://malfeasance.50megs.com/
"What's the point, 1080p isn't so common" because I don't want to see another fucking interlaced display in my lifetime ever again! There is no reason we should have to put up with visual garbage such as interlacing.
You can't just make blanket statements like that. 1080i is superior to 720p if your subject is relatively low-motion. 720p is superior if your subject is relativly high motion.
If you watch a lot of sports or play video games, 720p is better. If you watch a lot of dramas and non-action cinema, 1080p is far better.
Personally for me, I don't give two shits about sports, and prefer 1080i in 95% of the situations. Only if I am watching an action flick do I like to have a 720p source.
It also depends a lot on the native resolution of your display.
OHIM, which manages the europe-wide trademark system confirms that "windows" is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation and has been since 1996.
.... http://oami.eu.int/CTMOnline/RequestManager/en_Res ult_unidentified , see CTM numbered 000079681.
You see, before "windows" the term meant "panes of glass in the wall of a house" to most people.
Just like I couldn't have the term "fishing boat" as a trademark in the boat making industry but could in say the pencil making industry. "fishing boat" is not a term in the pencil making art (AFAIK) and so can be used to indicate origin (in the sense of the originating company for a product) - the purpose of trademarks.
I'd give a direct link but OHIM's db pages suck
pbhj
Problem is there are hardly any spoils to go around for the winner of this little competition. Billions put into research and development for these two formats and I find it highly unlikely either will take off. Like everyone has already said, hardly anyone has a HDTV to take advantage of them, these are expensive devices, and people are not going to be willing to re-buy the old movies and TV shows they just bought on standard DVD just to view them at what most of them would probably call a 10% increase in picture quality. I mean look at this article from two years ago about regular DVD's: "TV shows old and new send DVD sales soaring" http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/137267_tvondvd.ht ml
"Now new and old television shows are being released at such a blistering pace that the genre is becoming the fastest-growing segment of the booming home video industry."
Do you really think that "blistering pace" of sales would occur again for a new format so soon after DVD? Like I said people just bought this stuff for crying out loud and now these corporations want them to buy it all over again?
Bad assumption.
My TV is a LCD rear projection unit with a resolution of 1368x768. It doesn't convert 720p to 1080i. Only CRT-based HDTVs do that. Discrete-pixel displays (LCD, LCos, DLP, plasma, FED/SED) can't even really display interlaced material without converting it to progressive (except the new wobblerating DLPs).
Alias was okay in the early days. It just can't hold a candle to CSI:TOS though, it's been that way for at least two years. It's not just the resolution, because Law and Order is 1080i too and doesn't look as good as CSI:TOS.
Many many people watch HDTV on TVs that aren't even capable of the full resolution of 1080i/p (like 99.99% of plasmas). They're not really in a position to judge the spatial resolution of source material.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Yes, the #2 PC maker. Which as I noted means diddly-squat in terms of consumer electronics.
Dell at least has a small grasp on the market selling TV's and the like. I could see a Dell branded player even. But even if HP offeres a player, who is going to buy it from them?
HP simply has no leverage where it counts. As far as using this move to force the Blu-Ray consoritum to add support for Microsoft menus - Sony and company are just going to laugh at them, or at least shrug it off.
If PC makers had any real say at all in the spec don't you think the Microsoft back spec would have better traction?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...Then I think sales of Blu-Ray/HD-DVD sales will be fairly strong.
Don't forget sales are picking up of 1080p rear-projection TV's, and I expect most Blu-Ray/HD-DVD players to sport circuitry to down-convert to the 720p format used by earlier-generation DLP, LCD and LCOS rear projection TV's. Even down-converted to 720p, the picture quality will still be quite a bit better than the 480p, since the line resolution count will be 50% higher.
But at 1080p resolution, you're talking 2¼ times the resolution of current progressive-scan DVD output--the resulting sharp pictures is breathtaking to see.
The studios aren't committed to anything, whatever their press releases say. They don't make the players, and they don't own the factories that make the discs, either. They have very little to lose if HD-DVD wins if they support it in time, which means they're all sitting on contingency plans for the switch, and can be counted on to abandon Blu-Ray rather than fight for it. So ignore them; they're irrelevant.
Regardless, a promise to HD-DVD is less valuable than a promise to Blu-Ray from content providers because there will be Sony Playstation-3s in the tens of millions whose owners will not be happy if the studios renege on releasing movies. Reneging to HD-DVD isn't reneging to a built in rabid fan base, plus given the delay to 2006 for HD-DVD this camp is already seen on breaking promises to any potential customers already. At this point it would take some incredible turn of events for HD-DVD to get back in it. Everything from here on is sour grapes, maneuvering for concessions, or possibly hanging on long enough to get bought out and recoup some losses.
Letter To Iran