Sony Decides Against Blu-Ray Downsampling

Paul Slocum writes "According to Ars Technica, Sony is now saying they will not use the Image Constraint Token and so movies will play on analog HDTV sets at full resolution. If HD-DVD does implement the analog downsampling, it's going to give Blu-ray a nice market advantage." From the article: "Sony's decision to not use the Image Constraint Token for the time being is meant to encourage the adoption of Blu-ray players. Launching a new product that would leave the thousands of analog HDTV owners out in the standard-definition cold could have proven to be a nightmare for Sony and the Blu-ray spec in general. Reports that 'Blu-ray discs don't look right on my HDTV' could result in consumers' switching allegiances to the competing HD DVD standard or postponing purchases of next-generation optical players altogether."

Comments

Almost there....

[gasmonso]

Just get rid of the DRM and we might have a decent product.

But for how long?

[cmowire]

Sure.

But if blu-ray takes off in the market, how long do you think downsampling will remain turned off? :)

If this wasn't a publicity stunt, it would be removed from the spec.

Yeah right

[Anonymous Coward]

What they meant to say was "Sony Decides Against Blu-Ray Downsampling, for now..."

From the company that brought you every other proprietary technology on the planet and likes to subvert their users' computers with rootkits. People aren't THAT stupid. No, they probably are...

Re:Yeah right

[Nogami_Saeko]

Exactly.

So they don't downsample "for now" to get their format established and to get their "foot in the door". There's nothing stopping them from changing their minds later-on once the format is established and the players are commonplace. Flip a bit on the media and it's re-enabled. No HD for you (on old HD sets).

Say they were to release a new HD format and have absolutely no protection enabled on it whatsoever (at least for Sony titles). You do that for a few years and just eat the resulting (probably small) loss in piracy and such while your player crushes competing formats and puts them out of business. Once you've established yourself as the sole format out there, then you can re-enable the protection. What are people going to do? They already have players in their house, and there's no other format to migrate to even if they're pissed-off...

Write the couple years of "no DRM" off to "marketing", and enjoy the heavily DRM'ed future...

N.

Nothing to do w/Blu-ray vs HD-DVD

[Keeper]

Sony has said that they do not intend to set the downsampling flag IN THE MOVIES THEY SELL. The capability still exists in the blu-ray standard.

This only affects their movies, not players

[pjcreath]

According to the article, use of the "Image Constraint Token" is up to the studios. This announcement is only that Sony movies won't force down-sampling "for the foreseeable future". Other studios' movies could, since the players will still support it.

Welcome to consumer confusion.

Hey Kids!

[Quirk]

The first taste is always free

Re:That's enough for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm rooting for Sony

But in Soviet Russia (and elsewhere), Sony roots you!

Duck and Cover

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems to be a interesting tactic by Sony. I can already see the class action lawsuit against the studios who implement the Token by users of older HDTVs. In fact there WILL be a lawsuit over this. Chances are also pretty good that this type of functionality will be ruled against in the US. Here is the scenario:

I buy a new HD-DVD so I can watch King Kong in HD.
I place the disc in my new Toshiba HD-DVD player.
I try to play the HD movie on my slightly older Toshiba HD TV.
I do not get to watch my HD movie that I paid for.

Now if I am the consumer, am not told in VERY plain language that my TV will not play the movie in HD, I am now being misled.

At this point there are all sorts of wonderful legal options to pursue. I can sue the maker of the Player for implementing the Token, which I will. I can also sue the studio for enabling the Token, which I will also do. A case for collusion could also be made (let's get everyone to buy new TVs again).

Since Sony would make the player, the TV, and the movie, one stop shopping for a major lawsuit.

Bring it on!

Regions on Blu-Ray plus a roundup of news

[The-Bus]

The proposed Blu-Ray region codes are as follows:

Region 1: North America, South America, Japan and East Asia (excluding China)
Region 2: Europe and Africa
Region 3: India, China, Russia, and all other countries.

Note how they put China and Russia, two countries with lax copyright controls, in the same region.

This means that PS3s, at least as Blu-Ray players, will be the same in Japan as they are in the US, making them much more inviting as imports if they were to launch earlier in Japan as opposed to everywhere else.

Ultimate AV magazine also got to see a preview of Blu-Ray. Here are the important points:

• All first titles are expected to be limited to a single layer.
• There are two Blu-ray modes: Movie Mode (used for high definition films) and BD-J Mode (a fully programmable mode that includes interactive features, like games and Internet connectivity). Both modes can be used on the same disc.
• Sony and MGM titles will be encoded on the discs at 1080/24p. The user will set the player to convert this native resolution as required to match the capability of his or her display.
• At this time Sony has no immediate plans to implement the Image Constraint Token (ICT). (
  That is, they can always turn it on in the future on a per-title basis.)
• All of the Sony and MGM titles will initially be encoded using MPEG-2, at a variable bit rate, but up to a maximum of 30Mb/sec.
• When other codecs exceed MPEG-2 at all data rates, Sony will begin using them.
• On the audio side, all Sony and MGM titles will include both conventional Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks. Dolby data rate is still unconfirmed. DTS data rate will be 1.5Mb/sec. Additionally all Sony/MGM releases will include a 5.1 uncompressed PCM audio track. (To make sense of these audio formats, Todd B. has written a nice summary here).
• The first Sony and MGM titles will each have a hidden Easter Egg containing several setup test patterns-- a sweep, a standard SMPTE pattern including, among other things, a PLUGE, color bars, and a resolution monoscope.

The Blu-Ray group also summarized what they announced at CeBit in this PDF.

Highlights:

• Two types of Blu-ray Disc video players will be available: a "BD Player" type and an Internet connected player. The most fundamental feature difference is that one supports Internet connections and the other does not. Either player type can be produced and marketed from day one. The internet connections may be used for firmware upgrades. Toshiba has said in their HD-DVD players you can simply burn an image onto a CD-ROM to do the same thing.
• From the beginning, all models of either player type support playback of interactive BD-Java
  content. (This had been something that was supposed to be delayed in the hardware).

A source at a studio has said that current "Special Edition" content for Blu-Ray discs is being ported over to a High Def signal. It won't be only the movies that are in HD.

Netflix will be carrying both Blu-Ray and Hd-DVD discs at launch.

If you have a video card that says it will support HDCP, you may be disappointed. It looks like no current video cards on the market will really support HDCP. From Ars: "With regards to shipping cards, they are correct: no matter what a box's feature list may say, no video card supports HDCP fully at this time. Why? They have not been completely programmed. Until the specifications for the access control system are completely finished, implementing pro