Popular HD DVD Disc Hits a Snag

An anonymous reader writes "Following weeks of headlines touting strong sales for Blu-ray discs, rival next-gen format HD DVD looked like it had its own success story in the making with this week's HD DVD release of the cult hit 'Children of Men.' The disc recieved a stellar review at High-Def Digest, and went on to out-sell the most popular Blu-ray discs on Amazon. But now comes word of apparent incompatibility issues with the Xbox 360 HD DVD player, with some (but not all) consumers reporting that even multiple returns of the disc are unplayable on the format's leading playback device."

Comments

What's old is new again

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of 1st and 2nd generation DVD players had occasional trouble with some DVD titles. Given the complexity of something like DVD, HD-DVD or BluRay it's really to be expected. Both the hardware and software is complex enough, and many Slashdoters know the difficulty of getting both new hardware and software to work together properly.

Re:What's old is new again

[dAzED1]

yeah, I agree. It has to be really hard for a group of people to agree to a standard, and then stick to it. Especially when MS is involved.

Re:What's old is new again

[Half a dent]

My first DVD player refused to play The Matrix properly when it was released (quite common at the time). IIRC this was due to an interactive feature (follow the White Rabbit?) not being compatible with the firmware version of the player, looks like a similar story here.

Re:What's old is new again

[walt-sjc]

So the question now is, can the people buying the movie get their money back? I know that most stores will not let you return opened music / videos / software - only exchanges for the same exact thing in case of bad media.

Re:What's old is new again

[SirMeliot]

Yep I had that too.

In the UK Woolworths sold a Samsung DVD player which was I think the first sub £200 DVD player you could buy in the high street. They sold a ton of these and were very good about taking them back again when they wouldn't play the Matrix.

IIRC early PS2s didn't care too much for the Matrix either.

Re:What's old is new again

[i_wanna_be_a_scienti]

yep and so the cycle of (techno)life goes on ...

Re:What's old is new again

[VWJedi]

Although its impossible for the creators of a (HD-)DVD to guarantee it will work on every player, they should at least make sure it works on the "the format's leading playback device."

Re:What's old is new again

[ncohafmuta]

Perhaps the DVD player was IN the matrix, and so as to protect itself from being discovered by the humans, and giving them too much information, refused to play.
Seems pretty logical to me.

-Tony

Re:What's old is new again

[dAzED1]

apparently, the mods today don't like sarcasm that has a point. Lets try again.

MS is part of the group that created the HD-DVD standard. They were not part of the group that made the DVD standard. Titles that had problems with the DVD standard initially either were not from groups associated with the DVD standard, or they were stupid.

Point is, I don't care if some DVD titles had problems with early DVD players. That is completely unrelated to whether or not it is ridiculous that MS can't follow the standard they helped create. Is MS-bashing cliche'? Sure. Does that mean that it isn't dumb that this is happening? No.

Re:What's old is new again

[cyphercell]

No kidding, what I find interesting is that it's the same movie on the same platform showing truly sporadic results. This is a bit different than the "White Rabbit" scenario where it was one movie, having problems with specific players because of an identified feature.

Re:What's old is new again

[Malc]

It wasn't anything to do with the follow the white rabbit feature. That was an InterActual DVD-ROM feature only available when played in PCFriendly under Windows. Set top boxes usually ignore the DVD-ROM segment of a DVD. I do recall that title had some other issues - perhaps a UDF issue or something? I remember problems browsing the disc under NT4. I think WHV did a run change after a while that might have fixed the problem.

Re:What's old is new again

[brianosaurus]

Damn straight!

I've had my share of hardware+software trouble, but its usually when I'm trying to do something new or different, like trying to get Linux installed on some obscure hardware. Stuff there's not really manuals for... Things that aren't format standards that I helped create.

Its not clear from the article whether the flaw is in the hardware or the disc, but this is certainly a HUGE screwup on someone's part. If the flaw does lie in the hardware, this could seriously hurt the HD-DVD format in the market, with Blu-Ray consistently claiming its successes, as dubious as they may be.

That said, I'm glad I've not wasted my money on either. BluRay and HD-DVDs are just band-aids until downloaded and streaming HD movies get here. I learned my lessons with DVD. Once the initial novelty of "I have this expensive player, so I better buy every movie that comes out" wore off, Netflix beats the hell out of buying movies all the time.

Netflix is already shipping the HD formats, so if and when I do break down and buy a PS3, I'm sure I'll rent a few, but I don't need to burden myself with storage of yet another set of 5" plastic discs. AppleTV and the MeTooTubes should have us covered before too long.

Re:What's old is new again

[jon_joy_1999]

apparently, the mods today don't like sarcasm that has a point. Lets try again.

MS is part of the group that created the HD-DVD standard. They were not part of the group that made the DVD standard. Titles that had problems with the DVD standard initially either were not from groups associated with the DVD standard, or they were stupid.

Point is, I don't care if some DVD titles had problems with early DVD players. That is completely unrelated to whether or not it is ridiculous that MS can't follow the standard they helped create. Is MS-bashing cliche'? Sure. Does that mean that it isn't dumb that this is happening? No.

first off. this isn't sarcasm that has a point. this is MS bashing without any facts, which makes you look stupid in my eyes.
I don't care if this gets modded down, that's the truth.
I am sick and tired of people jumping to conclusions without all of the facts.
FTA "We've contacted both Microsoft and Universal, but have not yet received any official word on whether it is a hardware problem, a software problem, or both." which I interpret as "Microsoft and Universal have nfc what's going on" note: Microsoft AND Universal.
so it's not just Microsoft in this game. please hold your bashing until after there is a declared winner.

Re:What's old is new again

[elrous0]

Makes me wonder who, if anyone, is doing quality control at the studio. I picture the President's cabinet from Idiocracy sitting around asking "What should we test it on?" and ultimately listening to the guy who says "Why would we need to test it? It's supposed to work, right?"

Re:What's old is new again

[c_forq]

At least some states in America this is actually illegal. There are states where stores are required to give at least store credit, and even though the store policy and sign at the return desk says you can only do same-item exchange if you bring up the state law you can usually get a manager and store credit very quickly.

Re:What's old is new again

[LoudMusic]

My first DVD player refused to play The Matrix properly when it was released (quite common at the time). IIRC this was due to an interactive feature (follow the White Rabbit?) not being compatible with the firmware version of the player, looks like a similar story here. That sounds familiar. But the good news here is that, theoretically, the XBox should be firmware upgradeable via the internet.

Re:What's old is new again

[Fezmid]

Actually, all HD DVD players are required to be updatable over the Internet. It's in the spec, so they all have an ethernet port.

Re:What's old is new again

[EtherMonkey]

Given the complexity of something like DVD, HD-DVD or BluRay it's really to be expected.

So, in other words, it's ok for me to pay $400 for a new, standards-certified, HD-DVD player and then $30.00 each for HD-DVD-labeled movies, but I shouldn't expect them to work together? And because I've probably owned the HD-DVD player for several weeks/months before coming to this sad realization, and because I obviously need to open the shrink wrap on the HD-DVD movie before attempting to play it, I cannot recover any of the money I've paid for this premium, standards-organization-certified, combination of player and media?

Well, at least now that I own the physical media and therefore have legal license to play the movie, I can legally download a working, albeit lower-quality copy off the Internet. Oh wait, that's still illegal.

Eventually, all the crap that the entertainment companies go through to implement copy protection, (a.k.a. DRM), is going to wind up frustrating even the most steadfast consumers of legally-aquired recordings, and they will be driven to pirate downloads as a matter of survival.

Re:What's old is new again

[Tim Browse]

It wasn't anything to do with the follow the white rabbit feature. That was an InterActual DVD-ROM feature only available when played in PCFriendly under Windows.

No, the White Rabbit feature worked on my Samsung DVD 709 (I had the later firmware that fixed the problems it had with The Matrix DVD).

I thought the Matrix problem was to do with branching playback? (Which I believe the White Rabbit feature used, hence the problem.)

Re:What's old is new again

[bgeerdes]

they will be driven to pirate downloads as a matter of survival

Because we all need HD movies to survive.

Re:What's old is new again

[Malc]

Oh you're right, sorry. It's been a long time. I remember seeing in PCFriendly, and it showed a white rabbit. Lots of info on the web, including this:
http://www.eeggs.com/items/9422.html

Re:What's old is new again

[Jherek Carnelian]

Well, at least now that I own the physical media and therefore have legal license to play the movie, I can legally download a working, albeit lower-quality copy off the Internet. Oh wait, that's still illegal.

Legality aside, the full-quality version (no resampling, no missing features) of this specific title is already out on the darknet.

Re:What's old is new again

[aluminumangel]

I purchased the Children of Men HD-DVD. It came with a little white card reminding me to update the firmware on my HD-DVD player, so I would agree that a firmware issue on the 360 is the prime culprit, and Universal has obviously suspected that some players may not be up to spec yet.

Re:What's old is new again

[westlake]

So, in other words, it's ok for me to pay $400 for a new, standards-certified, HD-DVD player and then $30.00 each for HD-DVD-labeled movies, but I shouldn't expect them to work together?

There is a price to be paid when you are an early adopter. Edison's first commercial wax cylinders [1880s] were anything but flawless. Phonograph cylinder

Re:What's old is new again

[Dal Platinum]

Of course it's supposed to work, it's got electrolytes and shit.

ah DRM

[mastershake_phd]

If the DRm is too strong you get stuff like this (I remeber a similar story about Tivo DVD players not playing new Blue-ray discs), too weak and you can get anything to play them.

Re:ah DRM

[PitaBred]

too weak and you can get anything to play them.

Man, it SUCKS when I want to play my media on a device I own, and it actually does it without me having to jump through hoops!

Re:ah DRM

[EveryNickIsTaken]

"(I remeber a similar story about Tivo DVD players not playing new Blue-ray discs)"

You're aware that BluRay discs require a BluRay player, right?

Re:ah DRM

[mastershake_phd]

"(I remeber a similar story about Tivo DVD players not playing new Blue-ray discs)" You're aware that BluRay discs require a BluRay player, right?

Whoops, I meant new DVDs.

Re:ah DRM

[bealzabobs_youruncle]

This has nothing to do with it, it plays fine on my HD-A2 and my cubicle mates 360 add-on, most likely there were a bad batch of disk. You may now remove your tin foil hat.

Re:ah DRM

[elrous0]

(I remeber a similar story about Tivo DVD players not playing new Blue-ray discs

I imagine so. It might help if they actually made a blu-ray player.

It only hurts the honest.

[bigtangringo]

Meanwhile, pirates have probably ripped the disc and made it available online.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Re:It only hurts the honest.

[His name cannot be s]

No good deed goes unpunished.

Weird.. the first time I read that, I saw No good deed goes unpublished :~}

Re:It only hurts the honest.

[Chandon Seldon]

No good deed goes unpunished.

That's not always true. For example, the nice pirates you mentioned who ripped the disk and shared it with everyone will probably manage to avoid getting punished for their good deed. Probably because they thought about the issue beforehand.

Re:It only hurts the honest.

[miscz]

Cool, thanks, I'll download it soon. I wonder why they didn't make it 720p though, would be better for those with such screens. I have 1440x900 display so I don't care about exact resolution anyway :) Scene should standarise HD rips, they should fit on a DVD.

Re:It only hurts the honest.

[jeblucas]

No good DVDeed goes unpublished.

What do you bet it's the copy protection scheme...

[jhfry]

that broke.

I hope it is, as that might finally make these coalitions focus on developing the better technology for delivering the content instead of protecting it.

It's not worth the risk to release a format that is encumbered with complex copy protection schemes. They WILL get broken, and they WILL cause problems for consumers.

Bug or Feature?

[TheMeuge]

Well - the industry has realized that marketing expensive HD-DVD players is a nightmare, when an Xbox can do that and so much more at a much lower price. Making HD-DVD content unplayable on the Xbox is just another logical step (they have they own special logic). So the question is this - is it a bug, or a feature?

Re:Bug or Feature?

[at_slashdot]

"is it a bug, or a feature?"

It's called "shooting yourself in the foot". I don't plan to get any HD-DVD or Blue Ray for at least 5 years.

Re:recieved-received

[otacon]

'I' Before 'E' except after 'C' and when sounding like "Eh" and in "Neighbor" and "Weigh"

Cult hit?

[RPoet]

Children of Men was a Hollywood-style blockbuster, a dime a dousin. And it was only recently released. How is it a "cult hit"?

Re:Cult hit?

[Conception]

Because it was a British movie released in 2006 to film festivals and not a Hollywood style blockbuster?

Re:Cult hit?

[Penguinisto]

Okay, that makes it go down just a bit easier, but still... I thought that in order to achieve a "cult" status, a movie/book/TV show/whatever had to have some or most of the following:

* A loyal fan base willing to spread it to firends and strangers alike, and willing to spend more than the usual amount of time on promoting it (e.g. "Star Trek" during the 1970's).

* Obscurity, or at least relative obscurity (see also "Rocky Horror Picture Show", before some jackass company released it on tape/DVD and ruined the whole thing forever).

* Independence in birth, thought, and/or most aspects of the film/book/etc that makes it stand away from the 'Mainstream' (e.g. "Night of the Living Dead").

* Longevity - it has to age a bit like fine wine before it can actually have a cult to follow it (e.g. "Equilibrium", which still kicks more ass than Chuck Norris IMHO, but has been out for years now).

IMHO, calling this flick a "cult" film kinda smacks of exploitation by marketing... but then again, maybe my semantics are just off? (I'm sincerely hoping not, but...)

/P

Re:Cult hit?

[fahrvergnugen]

-Loyal Fan-base, willing to spread the word: check.

-Obscurity: Dumped in limited release in the USA on Christmas with no marketing campaign, to a $179,268 opening weekend. Made a total of $35,286,428 over 3 months in US release against a $73mil budget. Check.

-Independence in birth, thought: Debatable, but if you're arguing against this I sincerely doubt you've seen the film. For me, I say Check.

-Longevity: This is the only one we'll have to wait & see about, but early indications such as the unusually long theatrical engagement, huge word-of-mouth buzz among film lovers and critics, and almost total lack of mainstream interest would seem to indicate that this is the sort of film that people will be returning to multiple times over the next few years.

And for the record, Children of Men is way, way, WAY better than Equilibrium.

Re:Cult hit?

[caramelcarrot]

You are aware there was a significant campaign to get it into the Oscars and general recognition, including fan-made trailers? (http://youtube.com/watch?v=-lfs1UIKALQ)

Re:Cult hit?

[Traa]

Children of Men was a Hollywood-style blockbuster, a dime a dousin. And it was only recently released. How is it a "cult hit"?

I triple checked with our marketing department and they convinced me that there is a "cult" out there that loved this movie!

My silly explanation is probably pretty close to the truth though. Ii might well have been some marketing sleaze who came up with calling this not-as-successful-as-Hollywood-hoped movie a "cult hit".

Anyways, I personally liked the movie. The single neatest thing about the movie where the seamless action scenes. Especially the attack on the car in the forest and the following car chase by police. Explosions, people hanging on cars, motorbike crashes and a fatal shooting. Not all that special for a Hollywood movie, except for the fact that it was all shot in a single take!

Re:Cult hit?

[Moofie]

What is a "dousin"?

Re:Cult hit?

[RPoet]

Sorry, I always have problems spelling "dozen". English is not my mother tongue. I'm sure you'd have problems spelling it in Norwegian ;-)

Re:Cult hit?

[Moofie]

You're absolutely right, I couldn't for the life of me spell much of ANYTHING in Norwegian. Do you guys have the cool slashy-o's like the Swedes?

Only reason I posted is because the spelling made me chuckle a bit.

Who Cares?

[Luscious868]

Most consumers do not have HD TV's and most consumers have more than one TV in their home therefore it will be a very long time before either HD movie format matters as even when the majority of consumers own at least one HD TV, both formats will be worthless when watched on the other TV's in the home. Discuss.

Re:Who Cares?

[night_flyer]

I HAVE an HDTV, and I still dont care... 480p is more than suitable for my 32" widescreen, I cant see the picture getting THAT much sharper... on a bigger screen sure...

Re:Who Cares?

[Ford Prefect]

Move to Europe. 576p DVDs as standard, anyone?

Re:Who Cares?

[Gulthek]

I cant see the picture getting THAT much sharper

Perhaps that's because you haven't seen it. It's not just a little clearer and sharper, it's *much* clearer and sharper.

Anecdote: my wife and I watched most of 'Children of Men' on our Xbox HD-DVD player. It crapped out in the last ten minutes of the film and we flipped it to the DVD side so we could at least see the ending. The difference was amazing (in a bad way). It was like we were watching the video on youtube. Details that had previously been so clear and defined were lost in a muddy mess. Bleh.

I'll make a comparison for you. Take your computer screen. (I'll assume you are running 1024x768.) Now set it to 640x480 (probably the lowest supported resolution). Now scale all the icons and text and windows so that everything is proportional to the 1024x768 screen. What do you think of that image? Easy to read? Good detail? The layout is the same, the icons and text and window positioning are the same, but the resolution has dropped dramatically. There's the difference.

Re:Who Cares?

[Garse Janacek]

But the (quite small, so far) percentage of people who do have HD TVs also tend to have very large disposable incomes, and to spend a lot of it on media and entertainment, thereby representing a disproportionate chunk of video sales.

I still think the whole thing is stupid and premature, but this isn't necessarily so just because most consumers don't have HD TVs yet -- with income gaps widening a lot of companies have the luxury of being able to completely ignore "most consumers."

That said... I would have to have a pretty damn big disposable income to worry about HD stuff at this point. I'll probably end up going the same route as with CRT monitors -> LCD -- wait until the prices have dropped so much that the next time I go to buy one, the LCDs are roughly the price I was expecting to spend anyway, and then get that instead. (Although technically I still use a CRT... prices have reached that point, but my old monitor still works, so I've never bothered to buy a new one. Yeah, I'm not the kind of consumer marketers dream of...)

Re:Who Cares?

[Abcd1234]

And how big was the screen? And what was the viewing distance? I ask, because the angular acuity of the eye is limited, and if this is on a 32" widescreen, as the GP suggested, then at a viewing distance of, say, 6 feet or more (my TV is probably 11 feet from my couch), your eyes are probably incapable of seeing the difference between SD and HD content.

Re:Who Cares?

[CastrTroy]

You should have switched over to your SD TV set also. You see, HDTVs have 1 really good set resolution, and looking at them in anything but the native resolution looks really terrible. So if you have a 1280x1024 monitor, and change the resolution to 1152x864, then you'll notice the picture looks a lot worse, even though the resolution is still pretty high.

Re:Who Cares?

[brianosaurus]

I'm wondering if that is the true root of the problem. The disc is a hybrid HD-DVD + regular DVD. Maybe one part of the hybrid works and the other part doesn't.

Is it possible that the people for which the movie does work on their HD-DVD add-on, that they are actually watching the SD plain-old-DVD version of the movie, not the HD version? It would go well with the stories that 50% of peeps with HDTVs aren't actually watching HD, and that 50% of those people *don't even realize* they're not seeing HD.

Or, you know, vice versa...

I can't help but smile over this. I knew the format wars were ultimately bad for the consumer. I just wasn't expecting it to fail us so soon.

Re:Who Cares?

[king-manic]

Most consumers do not have HD TV's and most consumers have more than one TV in their home therefore it will be a very long time before either HD movie format matters as even when the majority of consumers own at least one HD TV, both formats will be worthless when watched on the other TV's in the home. Discuss.

You assumption was valid last year. This past christmas season HDTV's took a big junk of TV purchases. The market is growing fast.

Re:Who Cares?

[king-manic]

It may be the quality of his TV. SD vs HD should still be obvious on a 32" set at 6'.

Re:Who Cares?

[Fezmid]

I don't believe that the Xbox360 HD DVD add-on will read standard DVDs (I could be wrong, but I think I read that somewhere). So if that's true, the people have to be putting the HD DVD version into the player, so your theory probably isn't right. Not that I have any idea as to what the problem really is...

HD DVD, is that the best news you can do?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

...rival next-gen format HD DVD looked like it had its own success story in the making with this week's HD DVD release of the cult hit 'Children of Men.'

If that's really the best news related to "HD DVD", it's probably time to put a fork in the tech anyway, regardless of the console playing stuff. "Children of Men?" Sorry, never heard of it.

Re:HD DVD, is that the best news you can do?

[Diss Champ]

re: "Children of Men" for those who haven't noticed it:

It's just another holywood blockbuster based on a book the moviemaker didn't understand.

Read the book. Skip the movie.

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[nearlygod]

I had high expectations for it and I was very disappointed. I still gave it 3 stars on netflix but I was expecting a 4-5 star movie.

nearlygod

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[sjwest]

Sorry I liked the film (bit depressing), anyhow if your critism was not enough pink floyd then perhaps the fim was not for you to start with.

perhaps the master disk should have been better tested using the microsoft encoding method rather than the industry standard that somebody broke somewhere.

Solution...

[Lumpy]

Install anyDVD on your pc and rip the thing to a Hd Divx and play it on the xbox360 over the network. Then you dont have to fight the stupid DRM and other crap.

Gotta love it that anyDVD now cracks HDDVD and BluRay :-) (crappy part is the drives for your PC are insane priced right now)

Re:Solution...

[iainl]

If you've got the 360 add-on that has a problem with playing the disc, then you've got an external USB HD-DVD drive for the PC already. So that's that sorted.

Personally, it sounds like a software problem with the 360 player; I'd expect an update over Live just as soon as they figure it out.

Re:Solution...

[Overzeetop]

I wondered how well that actually worked. I've got the sd version, but since I don't own a br/hd drive I haven't bothered with the upgrade. Of course it doesn't help matters that the 1TB drives are about 6-9 months behind release schedule (origially due mid 2006, then 4Q 2006, then Jan 2007, then 1Q 2007...still waiting - though dell supposedly has oems). Where are you going to store all that content? And don't tell me to rip to DiVX again...I don't need yet another lossy-lossy conversion. I gave up on DVD-DiVX when I realized that even on my small RPTV the artifacts were obvious at 2.5:1 compression (~1.8GB/movie). BTW - aren't both HD formats already compressed in MP4?

Re:Solution...

[EvilIdler]

> drives for your PC are insane priced right now

But the Xbox 360 drives also work. Much cheaper :)

Re:Solution...

[Malc]

No. Both HD formats support multiple codecs. Many films out there have been encoded using MPEG2. AVC and VC-1 are the main (modern) alternatives.

Re:Solution...

[Lumpy]

You must have been using a bad compression setting. I Rip to Xvid all the time and they look fantastic on 10 foot Projection display. Granted I go for ~ 2.5gb and my rips take 3-6 hours to complete because I have everything set for max quality and multi-pass.

and yes, I rip HD to Divx/Xvid and they do look great. They look pretty darn good at a high compressed 6.8Gb. (and fit on a dual layer standard DVD :-)

Re:Solution...

[Overzeetop]

Interesting. I'm not up on all the details of better ripping technique, and my HT server just got commandeered for the new office server (going to get a new one, eventually, on the company's dime, of course). I'm finishing up the playroom now, and though my wife doesn't know it, I've got my eye on building a bargain FP system with the hitachi 720p dlp and a unity gain 135" 1.78 screen. I've had a 119" system with an old 768p Sony and a hipower, but that got rolled into the construction loan...gotta buy this time with real cash ;-)

Anyway, I've been so disappointed with the Xvid results I was about to just give up. I still may, and just rip to mpeg2 - I've got about 300 DVDs to convert at some point, and HD space is cheap. I just picked up another TB of space for $218. 2x compression for lossy->lossy doesn't sound like a huge bargain (though I'm basing this on audio, which is a dangerous comparison).

If I might ask - what kind of horsepower is necessary to playback the HD? Will a single core P3.4 hack it (XP MCE for the OS), provided there are no other critical bottlenecks?

Re:recieved-received

[compro01]

'I' Before 'E' except after 'C' and when sounding like "Eh" and in "Neighbor" and "Weigh"

unless it's weird.

Re:recieved-received

[onkelonkel]

Science

I saw the movie

[CastrTroy]

I saw this movie over the weekend. It wasn't even that good. It might be the best thing available on HDDVD, but I wouldn't rush out and buy it. Personally I think they did a really bad job on a story with really good potential.

Re:I saw the movie

[Randseed]

I saw this movie over the weekend. It wasn't even that good. It might be the best thing available on HDDVD, but I wouldn't rush out and buy it. Personally I think they did a really bad job on a story with really good potential.

That's because the writers and the directors were far too busy trying to make some kind of idiotic political point that they forgot to make the story something entertaining. I saw it in the theatre, and couldn't get over all the obvious political evangelicalism they were performing.

Re:I saw the movie

[RightSaidFred99]

Yeah, art should never include any kind of political message no matter how vague or realistic. I like my movies like I like my women - bland and opinionless.

If you whiny fucking right wing lugnuts didn't love the torture so much in "24" I'm sure you'd crybaby about its political message this season, too.

Re:I saw the movie

[Moofie]

How did you get from "Person A didn't think this was a very good movie" to "Person A thinks art should never include any kind of political message" to "Person A is a torture advocate and probably eats babies"?

I mean, wow. That's a really impressive set of assumptions you've got there...

Re:I saw the movie

[Randseed]

Yeah, art should never include any kind of political message no matter how vague or realistic. I like my movies like I like my women - bland and opinionless.

If you whiny fucking right wing lugnuts didn't love the torture so much in "24" I'm sure you'd crybaby about its political message this season, too.

You call me a "whiny, fucking right-wind lugnut?" I could just as easily make a movie about a man falsely convicted of rape due to a feminist lying, who gets out in 10 years after being finally cleared. Or a movie about a father falsely accused of sexual molestation by a woman in a divorce trying to retain custody. Or the fact that people like Rosie O'Donnell seem to worship jihadis without regard to the fact that they want to kill her precisely because of the filth that she puts out on her show and which gets beamed all over the planet.

There is more than enough blame to spread around. That isn't the point. The point is that when you try to make a movie to appeal to a wide range of people (e.g., "Children of Men" or "Lord of the Rings" as opposed to tripe like "The Passion of the Christ") you have to accept that if you try to make some political point in it, that many people are going to watch it and boggle. They're going to get bogged down in the political message that you're trying to send, instead of whatever artistic point you're trying to make. You can't blow stuff out of proportion under the guise of "political accuracy" and expect it to have the same effect.

With the point that the handlers of "Children of Men" were trying to make, there are plenty of ways that they could have done it, piss almost nobody off, and have those same people go out of the theatre thinking. That's far more effective. "The Matrix" did this, though I'll admit that the underlying points that The Matrix was trying to make were lost on most of the buffoons out there in the general populace. Unfortunately, in "Children of Men," the political points were superfluous and had little to do with the story ultimately; they were just something that some joker threw in to bitch about current political debate.

Re:I saw the movie

[RightSaidFred99]

Easy.

Person A didn't think this was a very good movie because he didn't agree with the "political" message. Of course, the "political" message of this movie was only part of the movie, and the same "political message" isn't exactly new and has been in movies for decades and decades and in art for as long as there has been art. Namely, how shittily the masses can treat people out of fear or ignorance.

In 95% of cases people who disagree with this "political message" or think the "libral media" is behind it are right wing wingnuts. These same people love the idea of the government doing whatever is necessary to get information from "terrists", whether they're really terrorists or not. Ergo, they love the torture-the-terrists part of "24". They do, however, probably dislike the commentary on how the evil lunatics in the government are trying to lock up all the muslims because many of them think that's probably a reasonable thing to do.

Re:I saw the movie

[AK Marc]

That's because the writers and the directors were far too busy trying to make some kind of idiotic political point that they forgot to make the story something entertaining.

And what was the political point? I could tell they were trying really hard to tell me something, but I could never figure out what. There were two save-the-world groups. The only one with screen time was corrupt and willing to kill to make a statement. Does that mean they wanted me to think that all idealists are evil? How about the infertility thing? Fertility spontaneously regenerated after the world was even more screwed up than before. Is the point that we shouldn't really worry about messing up the earth because everything will work itself out in the end? It seems that the messages were so messed up that they were sending conflicting messages. Or maybe they were trying to force feed messages that didn't make any sense if you actually looked at them? Regardless, the messages got in the way of what could have just been an action/thriller with the unlikely hero, and ended up being a political quagmire with no real point.

Re:I saw the movie

[Moofie]

Dude. You made all that shit up. All of it. The numbers. The assumptions. Every word...your imagination.

Re:I saw the movie

[Randseed]

Amen.

Not just XBox 360 Player that has problems...

[TheNetAvenger]

Not just XBox 360 Player that has problems...

I know it is wild to assume that SlashDot would not mention this part, but it appears that some Toshiba based drives also have problems with this Disc.

PS. I hate the HD-DVD DRM as much as everyone else, but if the DRM was to blame it would NOT be failing at the DRIVE level and would be failing at the player level where the DRM is processed.

Re:Not just XBox 360 Player that has problems...

[corychristison]

Isn't the XBOX drive a re-branded Toshiba drive? If so, that would indeed make a whole lot of sense.

Just a thought I felt I should throw in. :-)

Re:Not just XBox 360 Player that has problems...

[TheNetAvenger]

Isn't the XBOX drive a re-branded Toshiba drive? If so, that would indeed make a whole lot of sense.


At the initial launch of the players they were all Toshiba, but I have no idea if MS has acquired any other suppliers since the launch. Also the model used by MS could be different even if they are all Toshiba; hence, why some users are not having problems and others are.

This could also be as simple as a defective Disc that borders on the readbility requirements for a HD-DVD. Like others have mentioned, when DVD was new, there were a lot of issues because of problems in the Disc manufacturing that were marginal for some players.

Less issues with HD-DVD then Blu-ray

[mrycar]

As an owner of both Blu-ray and HD-DVD, I have found less issues with the HD-DVD format then Blu-ray. On my Blu-ray devices (samsung and LG) I have had issues with Crank and Speed. On the Xbox 360, no issues experienced. I have played Children of men in both my living room and bedroom xboxen with no issues. Checking blu-ray forums shows many disgruntled blu-ray owners. Personally, I dislike either format and would, and would do direct download of HD, if there was a thing as high-speed network connectivity where I live. disgruntled blu-ray owner.

Re:Less issues with HD-DVD then Blu-ray

[flynt]

I have had issues with Crank and Speed.

There are clinics to help you with that.

Re:Less issues with HD-DVD then Blu-ray

[illegalcortex]

Sounds like your player is bad.

Of course, the OP did mention that they had two Blu-Ray players (Samsung and LG). If both players are bad, that's not exactly a strong endorsement of Blu-Ray.

Re:Less issues with HD-DVD then Blu-ray

[ivan256]

Right, because nobody has ever posted negative comments on the internet about a device that competes with the one they bought. Oh, wait. That's probably half the stuff that's out there. The other half is the same small group of people posting the same horror story over and over even though (in most cases) both of the competing devices work just fine for the vast, vast majority of users.

I think the likelihood of of this guy actually having $2500 worth of next generation playback equipment is about 1/1000th of the chance that he's just full of shit. Maybe he's not lying, but odds are...

Re:Less issues with HD-DVD then Blu-ray

[illegalcortex]

So what you're saying is that when you said on the internet that you've had no problems with Blu-ray on your PS3, I should assume you are full of shit?

Duly noted.

Re:Less issues with HD-DVD then Blu-ray

[ivan256]

If I were to say that, then yes. You should assume I'm full of shit.

At least that's the default position I take when reading user-posted comment on the internet... People are full of shit until they demonstrate otherwise.

Re:Less issues with HD-DVD then Blu-ray

[mrycar]

Please do not talk trash about me. I have both and paid significantly less the $2500.

Re:Less issues with HD-DVD then Blu-ray

[Malc]

Samsung player was out months before anything, and hardly works. Waste of money. The new players are improving. Based on price, the PS3 is the best BD player, and it has far more CPU available for Java too.

Isn't the LG the hybrid? It doesn't support HDi advanced content (every Hollywood title out there). What does it do with HD DVD discs - guess which order to play?

Re:Less issues with HD-DVD then Blu-ray

[illegalcortex]

My point being that the information from BOTH sides is from people posting on the internet. Seems hypocritical to take your side as truth and label anyone who posts contradictory information as trolls. Then again, it is the internet. I believe Layer 3 is the Hypocrisy Layer.

Re:Less issues with HD-DVD then Blu-ray

[randomaxe]

I have had issues with Crank and Speed

Hey, blaming an optical data standard for your substance abuse problems is not going to make those problems go away.

You need to learn to love yourself.

Re:Less issues with HD-DVD then Blu-ray

[mgblst]

does anyone really believe that this guy has 2 bluray and a hddvd player?

Re:Less issues with HD-DVD then Blu-ray

[ivan256]

I don't think I'm being hypocritical, since I'm saying that people should be equally skeptical of both sides.

You're right. There are going to be posters with an agenda from both sides posting to the internet... But two wrongs don't make a right.

Just TOO Funny.......

[Prof Kayyos]

Cut your nose off to spite your face or what? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ROFL. Stupid bastards. "Hand me a wrench so I can loosen up my DRM a bit". Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.....!

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[gad_zuki!]

I saw it and its was an incredible dystopian view ofthe future. At rottentomatoes its at 91% positive, so your opinion is very much in the minority. Its worth checking out if you like sci-fi.

In fact, I remember the cool, if not outright negative, response bladerunner got when it came out, its only of late that its even considered a decent movie, so the comparision doesnt really apply. A version of you in the 80s would have said 'its no 2001.'

Re:Another nail in the coffin for HD-DVD...

[SatanicPuppy]

They're both going to lose to digital distribution once the telecoms get off their asses, so it's kind of a moot point. I think half the push toward HD is fueled by the content providers desire to make the files bigger and harder to download.

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[garcia]

Can't believe the trailer compared it to Blade Runner. The King Crimson / Pink Floyd references were cute tho.

I agree! The current events overtones with the Homeland Security and illegal immigrant killings/deportations were only for the benefit of attracting those in the reviewer community that hate the US' current administration. Their plan worked and it got rave reviews.

I saw it opening weekend because I needed to get out of the house but other than that it wasn't worth the $8.75/ticket I paid. The MPAA wonders why piracy is popular? If they think that people want to continue to pay nearly $20 (for a couple) to see politically motivated bullshit with horrendous and unnecessary violence then they have their heads further up their asses than I knew.

If there's absolutely nothing else to see at the rental place, I suggest watching it. Otherwise you're better off going to the back room and getting some cheesy 70s porn on VHS.

Re:recieved-received

[norminator]

'I' Before 'E' except after 'C' and when sounding like "Eh" and in "Neighbor" and "Weigh"

and on weekends and holidays and all throughout May
And you'll always be wrong, no matter what you say!

--Brian Regan

Why can't the industry make things compatible?

[dpbsmith]

These "title-A-won't-play-on-brand-B" stories are common. But why? This is essentially a phenomenon of the DVD era. Or, rather, there are three phases to the history:

Phase A: Pre-recordable-CD. Everything worked. An individual cassette jamming in a player? Sure. A bad pressing or a warped LP? It happened. A bad CD? Prior to copy protection, I encountered _maybe_ one in fifteen years of buying them. But an across the board disaster, like the latest hit title failing to play at all in a popular brand of player? Never.

Phase B: Media incompatibility with recordable media. I've never seen a CD (one bearing the Compact Disc logo, not a copy-protected not-quite-CD) fail to play. But I've frequently encountered the burned CD-R that plays on some players but not all. The CD-RW that says it will play on "most modern" players, etc. And DVD's, hey, the instructions for burning System Restore disks on the computer my wife just bought say--WITHOUT EXPLANATION--only to use DVD+R's, "even if your DVD writer is capable of burning other formats."

Phase C: Popular, commercial entertainment titles on mass-produced non-recordable media that fail to play in large numbers of popular, commercial players.

Why is this happening? Are the vendors now just giving lip service to standards, and are unable to produce a title that will play on everything unless they procure everything and test on everything?

Heaven help me if we ever have digital motor oil.

Re:Why can't the industry make things compatible?

[illegalcortex]

And DVD's, hey, the instructions for burning System Restore disks on the computer my wife just bought say--WITHOUT EXPLANATION--only to use DVD+R's, "even if your DVD writer is capable of burning other formats."

You may already know this, but the reason why is error correction. The DVD+R format is far superior to the DVD-R format when it comes to error correction. So if you get a scratch on a backup disc, you are much more likely to not lose anything if it's a DVD+R. It's probably they didn't want to explain error correction in an instruction manual written for people who would have just skimmed over it anyway. Any explanation for the masses would have just boiled down to "it's better, trust us."

Re:Why can't the industry make things compatible?

[Kjella]

I've never seen a CD (one bearing the Compact Disc logo, not a copy-protected not-quite-CD) fail to play. But I've frequently encountered the burned CD-R that plays on some players but not all. The CD-RW that says it will play on "most modern" players, etc.

1. The pressed CD process predates the players. The burn process has gone through several stages of zoned/linear/faster burn processes which not only arrived later, but vary greatly in tolerances.
2. Cost cutting. Both consumer burners and discs have been cut to the bone to reduce costs, which certainly affects QA. Poorly coated media, poorly balanced media, crappy burn quality (which are being corrected by the error correction from day 1) and so on.
3. Blamability-factor. Stores would get a lot of crap if the CDs they sold didn't work. Burnt discs that stop working quickly? The producers of the burner, discs and player will play pin the blame-game, and you don't get anywhere.

Re:Why can't the industry make things compatible?

[greed]

Is there really a difference in the error correcting codes written to +R and -R?

The important difference is buffer underrun recovery. The +R blanks have a time-code in the groove that's pre-cast into the polycarbonate. -R blanks don't. So, in the event of a buffer underrun, DVD+R can accurately locate the last-time-written position and resume burning without a gap. DVD-R will have to have a gap, just like CD-R with buffer-underrun protection.

For .ISO-type pre-burned image streaming, this isn't a big deal; pick a speed where "Disc At Once" won't be too fast for your hard disk, and there won't be a gap on -R and +R won't win you anything.

But for backup programs, which make things up as they go along, they often underrun. DVD-R takes forever to re-synchronize, and the backup takes much, much longer as a result--and may not read in a DVD-ROM drive if you need it as an emergency boot disk (where facilities exist yadda yada). DVD+R will re-synchronize very quickly.

The gaps also result in a loss of usable disc; with Retrospect for Macintosh, I get about 2.7-3.2 GB on a DVD-R, and 4.3 GB on DVD+R. (There's checksums and catalog data eating up the remaining .4 GB of DVD+R.) That, and 10-15 minutes to write a +R vs. nearly an hour for -R (in an 8X nominal burner), means: Video goes to -R, and Data goes to +R.

Re:Why can't the industry make things compatible?

[illegalcortex]

Is there really a difference in the error correcting codes written to +R and -R?

Yes.
From http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-t o-choose-cddvd-archival-media/

As I said earlier, DVD-R sucks for data preservation for three reasons: inferior error correction, inferior 'wobble' tracking, and the fact its data writing methods look like an un-needed halfway point between CD-R and DVD+R. The wobble tracking I shall explain first, then the error corrections method, then the specifics of ATIP/pre-pit/ADIP optimum power settings.

For a CD/DVD burner to track where it is on the disc, it uses three things: the 'wobble' of the data track (where it actually wobbles back and forth instead of in a straight line) to tell where it is in the track, the position of the track to tell where it is on the disc, and some additional information on the disc to tell where the track (singular, as CDs and DVDs only have one track, and it is written in a concentric spiral) begins and ends.

This additional information on a CD-R is called the ATIP (Absolute Time In Pregroove), which contains how long the track is, where it begins, what the maximum and minimum writing speeds are, what formula dye it uses, who actually made it, optimum power control settings, and error correction data. The ATIP is stored as a frequency modulation in the wobble itself.

However, since the wobble changes subtly to encode data, it is impossible to use with the small size of tracks DVD requires, as electric noise in the laser pickup and wobbles introduced by the electric motor spinning the disc, these could easily be read as frequency changes in the real track itself.

On DVD-R, they tried to solve the problem with something called 'pre-pits' where spikes in the amplitude of the wobble appear due to pits fully out of phase with the rest of the track (ie, between two spirals of the track, where there is no data). This can be viewed as a simple improvement over CD-R as it makes it easier to track the wobble (since the wobble is constant except for the easy to detect and remove spikes).

Unfortunately, this method as one flaw: due to electric noise in the laser pickup, it would be very easy to miss the pre-pit (or read one that wasn't actually there) if the disc were damaged or spun at fast speeds. The time to read a pre-pit is 1T (roughly .0000000038th of a second), which even for a computer can be easy to miss. DVD-R traded hard to track frequency changes for hard to read wobble-encoded data.

On a DVD+R, however, they came up with a much better method. Instead of changing the frequency of the wobble, or causing amplitude spikes in the wobble, they use complete phase changes. Where CD-R's and DVD-R's methods make you choose between either easy wobble tracking or easy ATIP reading, DVD+R's method makes it very easy to track the wobble, and also very easy to encode data into the wobble. DVD+R's method is called ADIP (ADdress In Pre-groove), which uses a phase change method.

With ADIPs' phase changes, the direction of the wobble changes and continues on going in the exact opposite direction (ie, counter-clockwise to clockwise, or the reverse). For example, if the wobble was 'going up', the phase change causes it to instantly reverse direction start 'going down' no matter where it in the wobble cycle. The phase change is very easy to detect, and also continues for a set period (in this case, one 32T section of the track, or 32 times longer than the pre-pit method of DVD-R).

The state of the phase change (clockwise or counter-clockwise) encodes the individual bits in each block In essence, with the phase change method, not only do you have an easy way of tracking the wobble, but you now have an easy way of reading wobble-encoded data.

As I mentioned earlier, this wobble-encoded data includes error correction of wobble-en

Re:Why can't the industry make things compatible?

[Moofie]

Stuff like this is, believe it or not, why I continue to read /.

Mod parent +A Million Really Interesting Stuff

Re:Why can't the industry make things compatible?

[illegalcortex]

Well, I can take no credit for the actual information. I was clueless about the real differences before I read the article. It's a very good read and I highly recommend it. The author did a great job.

Strangely enough, I saw this article on digg just recently. It was a repeat of an article that hit digg on Dec 6th and slashdot a few days later. I only saw it because digg is much worse about dupes than even slashdot. :D

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[beckerist]

It was slow, but there were scenes where blood would splatter on the camera lens, and you literally watch a 7 minute, beautifully choreographed sequence with those same splatters on the lens the entire time. It's hard not to appreciate the work it must have taken for the producers to put it all together. Michael Caine is the MAN!

Back on topic: How hard would it be for MS to issue a firmware upgrade through the 360? To me, it seems like the hardware isn't going to (dramatically) change, and that a simple software/firmware upgrade should be all that's required for added functionality (ie: the "follow the white rabbit" schtick on the Matrix DVD...)

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[MillionthMonkey]

Can't believe the trailer compared it to Blade Runner.

I saw this movie when it came out and immediately thought of Blade Runner. Although my wife liked it and she did not like BR.

Every negative review I've seen is basically a long complaint about the premise being unbelievable. If you can suspend your belief long enough to watch a movie about a big round space station, then unexplained worldwide infertility should be no problem.

Another reason to avoid HD/BR disks.

[wiredog]

It seems, from reading through the forum postings, that some titles work, but the same title fails in a different drive, even if the drive is badged the same. Presumably the Xbox drives are made by different manufacturers and this is the source of the problem. Or possible the disks are pressed in different plants. Either way, that kind of inconsistency seems to be a good reason to avoid the whole thing.

obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

"The current events overtones with the Homeland Security and illegal immigrant killings/deportations were only for the benefit of attracting those in the reviewer community that hate the US' current administration."

Yep. Never mind that it made no sense in the movie whatsoever. Dwindling population unable to reproduce, forcing people out of the country? Um, what? How does that make sense at all?

Re:obvious problem

[RightSaidFred99]

Ooh, good point. Because yeah, it doesn't make sense that people are irrational and would want to conserve resources considering they are the last generation.

Wait, it wasn't a good point - it was retarded.

Not HD-DVD's first embarrassment by far

[DumbSwede]

Not a surprise to those of us that have followed the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD battle for a while. HD-DVD was rushed to market to compete with Blu-Ray. Their first significant demo in January of 2006 was an embarrassing failure with the disc failing to play. HD DVD Demo a Disappointment

It is amazing the HD-DVD camp hasn't folded yet. Listening to the HD-DVD fans it is clear that rabid hatred of SONY drives their insistence that HD-DVD will win in the end.

People where initially skittish of buy Blu-Ray until the Playstation-3 came out. People where initially skittish about buying a Playstation-3 until Blu-Ray prevailed (supply issues aside). As it becoming more and more clear Blu-Ray will win and win big (currently with a 4:1 sales ratio and GROWING) PS3 and Blu-Ray will now both feed into the success of the other. Sony took a gamble, but it appears to be one that will win big for them despite whatever people may think of their sales practices or DRM attempts.

I for one hope hatred of SONY doesn't keep HD-DVD alive -- I would like to only have to buy movies (any movie I want) in one HD format.

Re:Not HD-DVD's first embarrassment by far

[illegalcortex]

Personally, I have favored Blu-ray due to the higher capacity. What becomes popular as a movie standard will also drive what becomes popular as a computer peripheral standard. I'd rather do my backups/offline storage to a higher capacity media. Sony has pissed me off in their treatment of the PS3, but I don't hold that against Blu-ray in general.

But you have to admit, these are the same problems that happened with the first generation of DVD. There were certain discs that would blow up certain players. Manufacturers learned and they fixed them in the next generation. The xbox will probably be able to fix it via a firmware upgrade.

Claiming that this is somehow a harbinger of doom for HD-DVD is doing just what you are accusing the other side of doing. You are letting your rabid hatred of HD-DVD shape your interpretation of something that's just history repeating itself.

Re:Not HD-DVD's first embarrassment by far

[DevoPhl]

Not to mention that the last 5 movies I've seen come out in the last month or so in HD, only 1 is in HD-DVD. The other 4 were Blu-Ray only.

HD formats will die on the vine if more titles that really show off HD come out. I bought the HD-DVD version Chronos, a Imax movie from the mid 80s, and it is a pain to play on the Xbox player but once every 20 or so tries, it will play. When it does, its spectacular.

The Xbox add-on player did include King Kong which is visually spectacular. Even though I didn't particularly like the movie, it does really show off HD.

Re:Not HD-DVD's first embarrassment by far

[Steve525]

Personally, I favored Blu-ray (or at least predicted it to win) because Sony owns a damned studio! Right off the bat, you know there's going to be content that will never be available on HD-DVD, and strong push from a least one major studio to get highly popular movies (like Casino Royal) onto Blu-ray.

As far as disks that won't play, you're right. This does seem like a standard feature of every new technology, and I think Blu-ray has (or will have )some of the same issues. This is more of a problem for the sales of the Xbox player than the HD-DVD technology as a whole. (Of course, if the Xbox player is the most popular HD-DVD player, this could have a stronger overall impact).

Re:Not HD-DVD's first embarrassment by far

[steve_bryan]

despite whatever people may think of their [Sony's] sales practices or DRM attempts

I think we should all be eternally grateful for Sony's maladroit attempt at copy protection. They did one heck of a job of inadvertantly raising the issue of what the media cartels are about to attempt. Their nasty little rootkit was just a do-it-yourself implementation of the Trusted Computing initiative. Just about everyone was up in arms about Sony's attempt to take control of your computer but that is exactly what is planned by the people promoting Trusted Computing. Effectively a rootkit on every PC.

Digital distribution

[illegalcortex]

Of course, I'd still like something to burn those gigs of HD movies to that I download digitally. Storing them all on hard drives is not going to be very cost effective. I'm already hurting from downloading the DivX/Xvid version of Planet Earth in 720p. They're 2.2 gigs each. Oh, and when I play them on my regular media PC, it tends to get a little jerky.

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[Bin_jammin]

Yeah, I haven't seen the movie yet, and really hadn't planned on it, and it was due largely to the Blade Runner reference. Any time a movie is yardsticked to a better movie, it's a safe bet you'll be MUCH better off renting the better movie in the first place. Blade Runner of our times? Why not just rent Blade Runner? I remember Boiler Room (some Wall Street movie) had compared itself to Wall Street. The Wall Street of the 90's. I don't think so, rent the original, clones are usually just a money grab.

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[nearlygod]

I did love the camera work and the look of the film. However, I thought that the storyline had so much more potential. Overall, I was hoping for a film more like The Player, in that it combined great camera work/long shots with an entertaining story. I thought that CoM was more of an exercise in film making, rather than story telling.

nearlygod

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[mgabrys_sf]

Agreed re: Blade Runner. I liked the movie actually but barfed when I heard that advertising tag-line on a radio spot. Blade Runner showcased a fully-realized world that I couldn't imagine. A war-torn UK isn't that much of a strech if you've seen riot footage from the late 70s/early 80s of GB or Northern Ireland. Ok it had floating TVs - but otherwise looked like a normal day in Belfast 1981.

But on-topic (HA moderators! Gotcha! Offtopic me now biotches!) I remember when my circa 1999 Samsung DVD player barfed all over the Matrix (the first multi-layer DVD?) when it came out. I returned it and got an RCA DVD player until I gifted it to someone when I got the PS2 (yes I use the PS2 as my primary DVD player). Hopefully people won't do the same thing - return their machine - with the Xbox360 add-on. Otherwise the number of available chairs in Redmond will drop through the floor, door, window, associate VP's, nearby parked cars, lakefront property, old ladies in crosswalks, girl scouts, small dogs with the name "snookems"....

*OOF*

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[Farmer Tim]

anyhow if your critism was not enough pink floyd then perhaps the fim was not for you to start with.

The only film that had enough Pink Floyd was "Live at Pompeii".

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

it wasn't worth the $8.75/ticket I paid

God, that's cheap. Here in London it is about $23 a ticket, not including popcorn.

Doesn't suck, but nowhere near Blade Runner

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel the movie is closer to Silent Running than Blade Runner. The movie wears its 60's lefty sensibilities on its sleeve. I felt Blade Runner was more universal than Children of Men. CoM's references seem squarely pegged in the late-60's early 70's: Pink Floyd, John Lennon, King Crimson. I kept thinking Michael Caine's character should have been a cynical punk, not a cynical hippie.

Cuarón's visuals are astounding. The tension he develops in the chase is excellent. He brings the Saving Private Ryan visual style out of Spielberg's slate grey epic and delivers it in natural color with a smaller scale, and throws in some blood splatters for good measure.

The chase doesn't stand up for me. By the end it seemed to move out of hard reality and into allegory. They seem to just breeze through that immigrant concentration camp. The cop who helps Caine smuggle the pot seems more out of Monty Python or Brazil. Takes me out the of reality. And the protagonist's unwillingness to use a gun to save humanity seems strange considering running people over with a car or splattering their brains with a brick was not beneath him. This again is a lefty worldview against the gun object that make little sense.

Also a scene of the polluted English countryside (though prettily composed) doesn't ring true for me. The developed world's land and waterways are cleaner than ever. Top predators and fish migrations that haven't been seen since our pre-industrial past are returning, even in the midst of our sprawl. The xenophobia and the authoritarianism we see in today's government seem properly projected forward, but the pollution of the land seems to require a 180-degree turn around. (Maybe if the movie was set in China?)

So, for me, CoM is not Blade Runner.

Re:Eagles HD-DVD has problems too

[Farmer Tim]

I have Eagles concert HD-DVD that doesn't play in xbox360 hd-dvd player either...

That's not a bug, it's a feature.

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[Aladrin]

I've got news for you: RottenTomatoes is nowhere near the majority of the people. If he were posting that comment at rottentomatoes, he would be in the minority. On slashdot, it's a different group of people.

My experience with RT is that the ratings there are based off how 'artistic' of the film, and not influenced AT ALL by how entertaining it is.

Children of Men was a decent movie, and worth seeing, but it wouldn't get a 9/10 from me.

Re:Throw Away Culture

[Quiet_Desperation]

Yes, but even throw-away culture assumes getting *SOME* use out of an item before disposing of it.

wrong movie

[Rumagent]

Usually I would agree with "haha" in the tag since hddvd is spawned by evil. But children of men is a both beautiful and intelligent movie - both traits are pretty rare and to have them in the same movie is pretty close to miraculous. The tag "sad" would have been more appropriate.

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[RightSaidFred99]

Anyone with any sense instantly ignores any review that whines about the politics of the movie unless the movie is blatantly political. This is a sci-fi/drama movie and your inane comments about it being some kind of "libral media[sic]" propoganda movie is laugable. It's about as smart as people who bitch about violence against children or violence against women in movies. Such violence happens in real life every day, but for some reason people think you can't put it in a movie.

As for the violence - I've got two words for you. Fuck yeah. Sometimes a jolt of the old ultraviolence is just what you need. Hence my term for people who give bad reviews to Children of Men or 300 - "fucking pansies".

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[miscz]

This movie was pure science fiction, in "what if this happened" sense. Other than the main theme from the movie the future was quite believable. Western Europe is already stormed by immigration waves from it's eastern parts and Africa, hundreds of thousands of people from my country left to England and Ireland in hopes for employment because with our current government and trends there's little hope. That's not the point, the movie was about moral decay, it could be P.K. Dick's novel if he lived today. It's not a movie about USA but right-wing is usually paranoid so I'm not surprised that you're offended by anything that resembles critique.

Chronos Blu-ray PS3 again

[whiteSanjuro]

The first pressing of Chronos on Blu-ray had a similar problem with the PS3, but no one found that newsworthy at the time...

Re:recieved-received

[bilbravo]

I was waiting for this... :-)

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[indifferent children]

The current events overtones with the Homeland Security and illegal immigrant killings/deportations were only for the benefit of attracting those in the reviewer community that hate the US' current administration.

You've got the cart before the horse. This is not a dystopia motivated by current events. The Bush Administration simply insists on ripping-off ideas from the most horrific dystopias that sci-fi writers have been producing for decades.

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[Ford Prefect]

I agree! The current events overtones with the Homeland Security and illegal immigrant killings/deportations were only for the benefit of attracting those in the reviewer community that hate the US' current administration. Their plan worked and it got rave reviews.

If you want to place it against your own government's apparent deficiencies, fine - but to my eyes it was commenting more on the far-right sentiments that are all-too-present in the UK today, with a smidgen of American human rights abuses for added verisimilitude. I imagine your average Daily Mail reader would love the Britain portrayed in the film - I found it rather chillingly plausible.

But then, I'm a fervent lefty. I suppose you had to be to really appreciate the film - one touch I liked was the fictitious political cartoonist's work being drawn by the very much real-life Steve Bell. (Yes, I deliberately chose some of his more inflammatory cartoons... ;-) )

Fantastic cinematography, a plausible imagining of a (hopefully) impossible world, and an understated but nuanced plot? I liked it, anyway.

Re:recieved-received

[illegalcortex]

Or oneiromancies. Or deficiencies and zeitgeist.

Or fancied, policies, conscience, prescient, ancient, efficiency, financier, glacier, society, caffeine, protein, Keith, Leith, Sheila, deindustrialize, reignite, being, seeing, keister, neither, obeisance, seize, sheikh, species, feisty, kaleidoscope, height, seismic, counterfeit, foreign, reveille, sovereign, heifer, leisure, atheist, onomatopoeia.

That rule is actually fairly misleading. The British one is a little better, but still has problems.

Re:Another nail in the coffin for HD-DVD...

[hax0r_this]

I never understood why people here want HD DVD to "win". Don't you people know that the evil "M$" is backing it?

Personally I want it to "lose" just because I don't like xbox360s.

In all fairness...

[fyngyrz]

The PS3's Blue-Ray player will not play in HD unless you have a 1080p or 1080i capable display. Since many displays sold until very recently were 720p max, especially projector systems, this puts quite a "ding" in the experience of the PS3's Blue-Ray playback.

What the PS3 does for a system like that is drops back to 480p, which is for all intents and purposes the same as a standard DVD player running in progressive scan. Except that the disk cost $30 instead of $15, that is. These circumstances make the presence of a Blue-Ray player in the PS3 somewhat moot for those with 720p maximum systems.

Sony is of course well aware of this, and despite the recent revelation that the PS3 has a built-in scaler, none of the many updates since the machine was released addresses the problem.

There is a DRM-related agreement (or perhaps I should say conspiracy) with the entertainment industry that says that no component system will be allowed to output more than 720p, but 720p itself is allowed. Standing witness to this is Sony's own stand-alone player which has component out and the ability to do 720p without any problems.

So it isn't only Microsoft that has produced an incomplete or broken solution in the high definition disk arena; Sony's implementation isn't without its serious problems.

Re:In all fairness...

[Tony Hoyle]

..except for 'very recently' replace with 'more than 5 years ago'.

Any TV sold as HD capable should display 1080i - it's part of the minimum standards. In the EU the minimum allowed for 'HD Ready' is 1080i and 720p at 50 and 60hz with a minimum of 720 displayable lines. I'm sure the US has similar standards - and they've had mainstream years.

Re:In all fairness...

[fyngyrz]

(a) 720p is, technically speaking, HD. (b) InFocus, as of last year, was still selling projectors that were 720p max such as the model 5000 (feed them 1080i or 1080p and get garbage or nothing — no downscaling.) (c) standards, unfortunately, cannot be watched. What can be watched are implementations; and some implementations lack 1080i/p capability. The bottom line is, some hardware setups require 720p regardless of your preconceptions; and the PS3 refuses to do that. Because of these facts, standards aside, the bottom line is that for those people who have such hardware, the PS3's Blue-Ray capability isn't any significant amount better than progressive scan standard DVD. You can preach about standards until you're blue (ha!) in the face, but that won't make the PS3 work any better in these situations.

Re:In all fairness...

[ultramk]

One of the reasons I'm glad my Optoma HD72 will downscale 1080p to 720p on the fly.

M-

Re:In all fairness...

[fyngyrz]

Actually, I like Sony just fine. This is a technical glitch I think they need to fix, very similar to the one MS is facing here. My response was based on the TFS's starting out with this: "Following weeks of headlines touting strong sales for Blu-ray disk", and then mentioning the XBox 360's HD add-on as the "format's leading playback device." which I felt glossed over the facts that the PS3 is one of the Blue-Ray's leading playback devices, and it has a far wider-ranging issue that affects all disks. Finally, I'm not siding with either one - I own both systems and the Wii and am well satisfied with all three of them. My Sony projection system does 1080p native. So I suggest crawl back under your bridge, Mr. AC Troll; maybe you'll find someone there who can help you pry your foot out of your mouth.

Re:In all fairness...

[oGMo]

The PS3's Blue-Ray player will not play in HD unless you have a 1080p or 1080i capable display.

This is not true. This was fixed a few firmware revisions ago.

Re:In all fairness...

[maynard]

What are you talking about? When have you ever seen a 720p native display refuse 1080i input? There are plenty of monitors and HDTVs out there that only sync to 1080i (leaving 720p support out), but none out there refuse 1080i.

What does this mean? Well, that your complaint about being unable to watch a Blu-Ray movie on the PS3 due to lack of display support is completely bogus. This, from someone who owns two HDTVs (including a 720p projector - Sony HS-20), as well as a 360 and a PS3. The PS3 is connected to a 720p projector. It outputs 1080i, which the projector readily accepts. Just recently saw Blazing Saddles on BD through that setup and it looked *great*.

Re:In all fairness...

[fyngyrz]

According to Projector Central, the Infocus 5000 takes 1080i over component input. Older Infocus units were 480p projectors. So, your complaint there is also utter bullshit. Why should a 480p projector take 1080i as input?

I've got a 5000 in the rec room. It doesn't take 1080i. Or 1080p. Fact. It doesn't matter what "projector central" says, the unit does not do 1080, period, end of story. No BS involved. What is your agenda that you deny reality?

Re:In all fairness...

[fyngyrz]

Mods, come on. This guy is wrong, first of all. It wasn't fixed. That's a fact. So this isn't "informative." Secondly, he provides no references - you should have known better. If it had been fixed, that would have been easy. Of course it has not been fixed.

Re:In all fairness...

[fyngyrz]

What are you talking about? When have you ever seen a 720p native display refuse 1080i input?

About 2 minutes ago, in my Rec room. Infocus 5000, Firmware 753-0363-10, Brandware 753-0363-02, Bootcode 002-1082-00. That's what I'm talking about. You feed this thing 1080i and you get 1/2 vertical screen of bright green squish.

What does this mean? Well, that your complaint about being unable to watch a Blu-Ray movie on the PS3 due to lack of display support is completely bogus.

No, what it actually means is that you don't know what you're talking about, that there are 720-only capable displays out there, and that you didn't do any research before you shot off your ignorant mouth. For instance, one quick Google search turned up the problem at IGN, avforums, arstechnica, joystiq and many more, both user forums and more technical forums. So lets just drop the "it's not a problem" nonsense right now. It is a problem.

Re:In all fairness...

[Danga]

That sucks that your 5000 doesn't work at all but I have an Infocus ScreenPlay 4805 that excepts 1080i and 1080p input without any hitches and downscales perfectly. I have had this work both over component cable, DVI, and VGA inputs. I find it strange that an older model will except more input resolutions than a newer model but that seems to be the case in this situation.

Re:In all fairness...

[fyngyrz]

Maynard - What the heck is wrong with you - I HAVE a 5000, and it does NOT take 1080i and produce anything useful. PERIOD. This has NOTHING to do with 1080p, other than as a footnote that it doesn't accept that, either. Aside from that, elsewhere in the thread, I have provided MULTIPLE REFERENCES to RESPECTED FORUMS that detail the problem, and WHY it is a problem on MANY types of displays, that VERIFIES that many sets won't take 1080i as an input. Do you spend all your time denying reality? These are FACTS. Look them up.

Re:In all fairness...

[fyngyrz]

Follow the PROVIDED links to the PROBLEM with the PS3, NOT the projector. You are SO lazy and incompetent.

Re:In all fairness...

[Andy Dodd]

Are you trying to feed it via DVI?

DVI + limitation of 1080i but not 1080p = lots of compatibility problems.

The previous poster was talking about 1080i component inputs.

It seems to me that there is more evidence supporting his case than yours - maybe your unit is just defective?

Re:In all fairness...

[WorseThanNormal]

Actually, one of the updates for the PS3 was supposed to address this. Whether it did or not I don't know, but according to the posts I read this was one of the things a recent update was supposed to fix.

Re:In all fairness...

[xero314]

I HAVE a 5000, and it does NOT take 1080i and produce anything useful. You should contact Infocus Immediately since their spec claims 1080i compatibility and they have provided multiple updates for 1080i related issues such as 1080i image positioning is corrected and 720p and 1080i @ 50Hz sources sync and display correctly.

if there is some other infocus 5000 other than the SP5000 then I apologize. Just hate to see you having a faulty unit or Infocus making claims and updates for functionality that does not exist.

Re:In all fairness...

[cryocide]

I just tested it on my PS3. Blu-ray output fell back to 480p when I disabled 1080i and 1080p on my TV, leaving only 480p and 720p. Apparently they haven't fixed it yet.

Re:In all fairness...

[fyngyrz]

As I pointed out to you in a different post, the specs for that projector show that it is designed to support 1080i input.

That's completely irrelevant. The fact is, it does NOT accept 1080i. You can browse "projector central" until you're blue in your face and it isn't going to change the fact that the projector won't do anything useful with 1080i, period, end of story. Furthermore, this is ONE example out of many, the links I gave you show the technical community's acknowledgment that this problem is one with the PS3; you can't be bothered to look, that's fine, but that just makes you uninformed, not correct.

But it is true that I didn't look for known bugs on a projector that I don't own. I shouldn't have to.

The links are to the problem with the PS3. Not the Infocus. I'm not claiming that the infocus is the problem. I just said I could duplicate the problem using it. I'm saying that the PS3 has a problem. Don't believe me? Fine. But there are a lot of people out there, some of whom I linked to, who are FAR more trustworthy than you are - and THEY say there is a problem. That makes what you say irrelevant.

You are making claims about the PS3 and Blu-Ray that are blatantly wrong.

No I most certainly am not. My claims are (1) the PS3 will not output 720p when playing back Blueray. This is a known fact, and I have provided many links to verify it. (2) That this is a problem for people with sets that do not accept 1080i AND that there are such sets, and again, the clamor of complaints from people all over the net, as well as the technical sites agreeing, should serve to knock some sense into your stubborn head that this claim has little to do with me and a great deal to do with the current state of affairs. (3) I have a projector in my rec room that, for WHATEVER blinking reason, ALSO will not accept above 720p, and that I can verify this with the flick of a menu option, and DID SO in order to make sure I hadn't misconstrued my own situation, EVEN THOUGH my situation isn't what is at issue here, because my PS3 is on a full native 1080p projector system. Were I to connect the PS3 to it, it would not play back blueray EXCEPT at 480p, WHICH IS WHAT I SAID IN THE FIRST POST! My projectors are not the point here; the lack of 720p playback and its inconvenience to numerous Sony customers is the issue, and I provided the links to verify that. Now go do some research for goodness sake before your foot gets so far in your mouth they have to do a colostomy to allow you to tie your shoelaces!

Re:In all fairness...

[fyngyrz]

Verified problem with PS3 Bluray playback which is NOT the same as game playback, and at NO time did I conflate the two. I don't know what your problem is, why the facts are so annoying to you, but no matter how much you pose and posture, you can't change the facts. Read the links - READ them, don't skim them. You are wrong, you've been wrong since your first post, and that's not going to change until you change your position.

Re:In all fairness...

[maynard]

There were two issues. One was games at 720p. They fixed that. The other was Blueray at 720p. They did NOT fix that. There are links in the thread. Please follow them for more details.

Sony did not fix the problem with displaying 720p games at 1080i for sets that only support 1080i, because the PS3 lacks an internal hardware scaler. That problem is *unfixable*. Displaying 720p *movies* is a nonissue for everyone with a functional HDTV (or HD Ready set) since every HD Ready set in existence supports 1080i over component as a baseline minimum standard. Your problem is that you bought an Insight PJ that doesn't even meet its own technical specs and therefore has broken 1080i support. Therefore, your problem is not with Sony, but with Insight.

Re:In all fairness...

[networkBoy]

Dude, give in.
The only thing protecting you from mobs of flamebait and troll mods is your UID.

As someone in the tech industry I would hate to tell you how many times a manufacturer violates any number of fine points in the spec yet claims to be spec compliant anyway. I have a feeling the projector issue is the same thing. Heck the website only takes the vendor at their word as to the supported specs.

Fact is there are several sets out there that only display 720p, and while they should accept 1080i and scale appropriately the truth of the matter is that they do not. Sony can claim "we designed to spec" and they did, but they should have supported 720p output because they know there are display devices out there that will not work when fed 1080(anything) (IIRC they had a set that was borked when downscaling themselves).

So, while I greatly enjoyed you two's display of (shill Vs rabid dog), (Pedant Vs. Techno freak) whatever. I think you may have lost this one.
-nB

Re:In all fairness...

[maynard]

I don't give a shit about 'winning or losing'. But I will go over a few technical points in reply:

- Just so we're clear, a set that only displays 720p should still take 1080i and downscale. The ATSC spec demands this. Whether there are individual units out there that don't meet spec... well, I've never seen one. But I suppose it's possible. The issue with the other user's PJ display is more about it being broken (does not support 1080i input when it's system specs claim it does).

- The PS3 will happily output 720p. Or 1080i. And even 1080p. What it won't do is scale from one resolution to the next, regardless of source material. That is, arguably, a pretty big mistake on Sony's part. But that design defect has nothing to do with HD movies since both HD movie formats (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) encode and output 1080i/p. Period.

- PJ Central does much more than just take the word of the vendor, they also post reviews. But the most important feature on their website is throw calculation support. One can easily determine if a PJ meets throw distance limits with their site. Most helpful.

Other dude is technically correct in that the PS3 will not scale a 1080 video to 720p, while being completely wrong in his *expectation* that it should have to do so. It might be a nice feature, but one that isn't demanded by spec and one that would be rarely of use. The other problem, those with 1080i sets that can't handle 720p games... well, that's a serious issue as it affects a very large number of early HD adopters. In fact, my very first HDTV bought in '02 would have been confronted with that problem had I not returned it due to a (different) defect.

Re:In all fairness...

[maynard]

Were I to connect the PS3 to it, it would not play back blueray EXCEPT at 480p, WHICH IS WHAT I SAID IN THE FIRST POST!

And that is because *your* *projector* *is* *broken*. Insight sold you a PJ rated to do one thing (take 1080i input). But it doesn't. So, because the PS3 (and most HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players) won't scale 1080i source to 720p, you assert the PS3 is broken. And then point to some press stories. Never mind that its competitors also don't meet this bogus expectation. Never mind that the PS3 actually does what it claims to do while your PJ doesn't.

Nope. It's the PS3.

Of course.

Re:In all fairness...

[networkBoy]

None of what you've said is in dispute other than the PJ actually conforming to it's box's description.
Quite likely I'm willing to bet it is a firmware issue, but none the less I've encountered *loads* of networking hardware that claims to be IEEE802.3 compliant but if you put a scope on it, the spectral shaping is obviously bad. Look at it as an FFT and you wonder how the hell it passed EMI compliance tests for a UL/CE mark. I could list a litany of other things that I've run into but it's superfluous to the discussion. I realize that this is not a PJ issue, just illustrating that vendors lie all the time.
And since the spec says "accept 1080i and like it", Sony didn't put in a down-scalar in the PS3. IM(NS)HO that is a design flaw.
-nB

Re:In all fairness...

[fyngyrz]

You're just a wealth of misinformation. The PS3 does have a hardware scaler. Aside from that, your continuing denial of problems the entire PS3 technical community acknowledges is just a waste of everyone's time.

Re:In all fairness...

[maynard]

"At the time of publication, the reasons why SCEI didn't give developers access to both horizontal and vertical scaling are still unknown, as are the reasons they didn't grant developers access to horizontal scaling until now. The video scaler itself remains shrouded in mystery, as strange as it may seem, but at least now we can say with confidence that it does indeed exist."

Well, now. That's interesting. The last I had read on this issue, only a horizontal scaler was known about. Looks like scaling both H and V in a frame is still not exposed to devs. But perhaps it will be in a future SDK revision. Thank you.

Re:In all fairness...

[fyngyrz]

You're welcome. Another interesting tidbit in this whole tempest in a teapot is that Sony's own Blueray player provides 720p Blueray component output. That's an curious data point when contrasted with your stance that (paraphrasing) "there are no 720p HD systems, only 1080i or 1080p HD systems." Why would Sony do this if that were the case? I mean, aside from the fact that a 720 progressive signal is higher quality than an interlaced signal at 1080 - no jitter and twice the frame rate is much more pleasant to watch, and of course a down-converted 1080i to 720p signal is still 1/2 the frame rate or a true 720p signal.

Re:In all fairness...

[maynard]

(paraphrasing) "there are no 720p HD systems, only 1080i or 1080p HD systems."

That's not really what I said. What I said is that 1080i is a bare minimum standard that all "HD Ready" designated sets must support. That the Sony BDP-1000 (I'm pretty sure that's the model you're talking about) will downscale from 1080i to 720p is a nice feature, but it's not necessary to meet spec. The assumption by manufacturers is that all HD sets (regardless of native resolution) will accept 1080i input. (well, perhaps I should say *should* accept 1080i input).

I will stipulate that -- on fact -- it is true that the PS3 does not (currently) downscale movies internally from 1080i to 720p. That is what I believe you said, and it appears factual. My argument is simply that it doesn't *have* to in order to meet HD spec. Your problem with that PJ is not one that will be common (certainly nowhere near as common as gamers trying to play 720p games on their 1080i sets; Sony really screwed the pooch there).

Look. I jumped down your throat and was a real prick about it. This wasn't my best debate thread - by far. *cough* For my miserable attitude and general assholery, I apologize.

Re:recieved-received

[locofungus]

Weird. ;-)

Bias

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if the world were in that huge state of collapse, you believe the primary concern of the government would be to deport illegals? To the extent were vast amounts of resources were used to control and deport them (let alone be able to)? Please....your bias is showing and it's laughable (along with the film-maker's).

Re:Bias

[Lane.exe]

You must... have bad viewing comprehension. The point of the situation of illegals in Britain wasn't that they were just illegal immigrants -- they were refugees from massive collapse all across the world. If Britain was the only country left that wasn't completely overrun by violence and chaos, it makes sense that people would want to immigrate there. The massive influx of refugees seeking shelter would have been a drain on the country's resources, available space, tax system, and legal system. The British government would have a strong interest in preventing such an influx of people beyond what they could reasonably support without succumbing to a similar fate as other nations.

The rampant xenophobia, totalitarian tactics, and dystopian conditions are the probable result of the government going too far in ensuring their ability to manage their own populace. That's not to say that the government didn't have good intentions and a just cause when it started, just that it ended up exploiting and oppressing people in furtherance of that cause.

Re:Bias

[Coryoth]

How was it that Britain was the only place to survive? You know, given that it doesn't really have vast natural resources to begin with? It wasn't the only place to survive, but it was implicated to be one of the few. The news reports in the film mentioned viruses in the USA that had decimated the population. There was also an implication that early implementation of relatively authoritarian control in the UK had managed to keep the rioting and looting to a minimum compared to many other countries where people ran amuck and significant infrastructure was destroyed. Come now, all these things were covered, at least through implication, if you were actually paying attention.

Re:Bias

[Lane.exe]

It's science fiction. The authors of the screenplay get some essential background facts the way they want them by fiat. If you want absolute "believability" in your speculative fiction, I suggest that you're setting yourself up for disappointment and speculative fiction up for failure. Instead of attempting to determine whether everything you see in a work of fiction is "actually possible," consider whether the work has internal consistency. I argue that as long as it is internally consistent and at least minimally plausible, the work cannot be critiqued on the simple ground that it is a piece of speculative fiction which takes some creative liberties with certain scenarios.

News Alert: Early Adopters Experience Issues

[Hohlraum]

Holy Flurking Schnit! Get over it.

Re:Im still having problems with regular DVDs

[toleraen]

My laptop wont play them without skipping (drive is too slow? not enough RAM?)

might want to check if your dvd-rom is set to DMA mode...choppy dvd playback on computers can be caused by the ide channel being stuck in PIO mode. After doing help desk for a while that seemed to be the most common problem, assuming there aren't other major errors with the system. Fix here.

Re:Another nail in the coffin for HD-DVD...

[ivan256]

While digital distribution has the conceptual potential to be the winner, pay-per-play will kill it. Until the industry ditches pay-per-play for downloaded media, or reduces the price-per-play to significantly (1/10th) less than the cost of a video rental, it will be relegated to the same niche status as pay-per-view cable TV. Even the "all-you-can-eat" models that have a subscription fee associated with them have a serious uphill battle.

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[toleraen]

I'd like to think that such criticisms transcend national boundaries.

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[Caffeinate]

. . . getting some cheesy 70s porn . . . It's really sad that the world has progressed to the point that when someone mentions cheesy porn, the first thing that runs through my head is a naked women and cheese-in-a-can . . .

Re:recieved-received

[compro01]

i think you missed the point of that bit.

weird as in "doesn't follow the rule" and weird is one of said weird words.

Excuse me?

[djupedal]

"...are unplayable on the format's leading playback device."

'Leading' playback device....? Leading what...a pack full of dull witted MS beta testers with nothing more to do than count how many times a disc is ejected in a row? Please...

Who wrote that crap? How about...'only' playback device in any quantity perhaps countable at this time. Or how about not even writing about the 'device' at all in such terms. Gonna be sick...

Re:Excuse me?

[iainl]

Further digging reveals that many HD-DVD add-ons for the 360 do indeed play it - the problem is an authoring cock-up, and so the problem seems semi-random. Which is an arse.

By the way, last time I saw figures, the 360 drives were only about 60% of the HD-DVD market; Toshiba have been vastly outselling standalone BD players, largely due to the sensible pricing.

The fact that the PS3 is a much better player than any of the $1000 standalone players doesn't exactly help, either.

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[MillionthMonkey]

I don't like overexplaining either... let me use my imagination a little bit during those two hours.

Blade Runner would have truly sucked balls if they actually showed how the replicants were created by Tyrell Corporation. Steven Spielberg (who specializes in pleasing dumb audiences) would certainly have wasted screen time showing you every disgusting gooey detail. Just look at what he did with his movie based on a Philip K. Dick story, Minority Report. Despite the presence of Tom Cruise in the cast, that could have been a good movie. It just needed more deleted scenes.

The Matrix

[metamatic]

Actually, there was a fairly lengthy technical investigation, and it turned out that the Warner release of "The Matrix" was improperly mastered--it didn't actually meet the DVD standards.

Annoyingly, Warner didn't bother to remaster it, which is the main reason why I never bought the DVD. Warner have generally done a bad job of DVD mastering over the years--consider also the initial Kubrick DVDs, the continuing lack of widescreen releases of many Warner movies, the crappy cardboard packaging...

Re:The Matrix

[elrous0]

Actually, IIRC, the worst offender back in the early days of DVD was Polygram. Not only did their packaging suck, but quite a few of their titles (most notably "Kalifornia") simply wouldn't play on Toshiba DVD players or clones (because the Toshibas were strict about not playing improperly mastered discs).

Incidentally, for those who are interested, you can find a pretty good list of problematic early DVD's here.

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[Pollardito]

I agree! The current events overtones with the Homeland Security and illegal immigrant killings/deportations were only for the benefit of attracting those in the reviewer community that hate the US' current administration. Their plan worked and it got rave reviews. they had a good model, they saw how well it worked for "V for oVerrated"

Re:Another nail in the coffin for HD-DVD...

[SatanicPuppy]

I agree...I think the TiVo model will be more along the line of what eventually emerges, kind of a tv-on-demand situation, where you pick what you want to watch, when you want to watch it. The problem, of course, is that the networks will lose their fricking minds, because they won't be able to claim numbers from mediocre shows sandwiched between more profitable shows.

That sort of thing is a hell of a long way off into the future, because of ad revenue supporting the tv, etc.

But for movies, why not? I'm thinking something along the lines of subscription to premium (new movies), second run (movies within a year of release), and an "everything else" category that covers, well, everything else. Pay-per-play isn't going to fly unless the amount per play is pretty damn low. I may have the desire to watch some dumbass movie from 10 years ago, but I sure as hell don't plan on paying 5 bucks to see it.

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[Pollardito]

If you can suspend your belief long enough to watch a movie about a big round space station space station?! i thought that was a moon

A cult is defined by its cultists

[Attaturk]

Okay, that makes it go down just a bit easier, but still... I thought that in order to achieve a "cult" status, a movie/book/TV show/whatever had to have some or most of the following: * A loyal fan base willing to spread it to firends and strangers alike, and willing to spend more than the usual amount of time on promoting it (e.g. "Star Trek" during the 1970's).

I like the criteria. I thought I'd answer them if I may. I am a loyal fan of Children of Men. I've mentioned it to several friends and family members as a movie that both surprised and delighted me.

* Obscurity, or at least relative obscurity (see also "Rocky Horror Picture Show", before some jackass company released it on tape/DVD and ruined the whole thing forever).

Few if any friends/family members had heard of Children of Men before I introduced them to it.

* Independence in birth, thought, and/or most aspects of the film/book/etc that makes it stand away from the 'Mainstream' (e.g. "Night of the Living Dead").

It's a highly original plot, a fantastic story presented in a bleak, yet credible, near-future alternative history. I don't think anyone that has watched it could argue about its originality in style. Much like some of the movies it has been compared to - Twelve Monkeys springs to mind - it is pretty unforgettable to those reached by it.

* Longevity - it has to age a bit like fine wine before it can actually have a cult to follow it (e.g. "Equilibrium", which still kicks more ass than Chuck Norris IMHO, but has been out for years now).

For what it's worth, I'll be making posts like this in twenty years if I'm still around and I'm sure I'm not alone.

IMHO, calling this flick a "cult" film kinda smacks of exploitation by marketing... but then again, maybe my semantics are just off? (I'm sincerely hoping not, but...)

I could say the same thing about Equlibrium. We just belong to different cults I guess. ;)

Re:A cult is defined by its cultists

[AK Marc]

It's a highly original plot, a fantastic story presented in a bleak, yet credible, near-future alternative history.

Credible? That the entire world went sterile at the same time for no apparent reason? That's as credible as having some oil drillers turned into astronauts in a week of training. Or when it skips just one generation, so that 18 years after the infertility started, and the world is in *worse* shape in every measurable way, people become fertile again. There were some hints that it was man's abuse of the world that caused the infertility, and the world is abused more because people see the end is near, and it magically cures itself.

If they had been able to make it credible in the least, I might have been more interested. There were some good parts. But when I'm sitting there the whole time saying "this whole infertility thing is just stupid" it is not an enjoyable film. Everyone I've discussed it with also expressed that it was pretty much impossible to get into, with the characters being pathetic and thus hard to relate to and the premise being completely implausable.

Re:A cult is defined by its cultists

[Belial6]

I haven't seen the movie, but figuring out how the whole world could become infertile at basically the same time isn't too hard to do. Just have a couple of vaccines that cause infertility, and then combine that with a dedicated humanitarian push to make sure that no one has to suffer from this debilitating disease. Now for the cure, you just have to have this imaginary vaccine fail over time if no booster is applied. If things are as bad as the commercials made it look like they were supposed to be, vaccinating for a disease that the world hasn't seen in 18 years is unlikely. You could also go with that fancy smancy new satellite radio that comes online with much higher power than what we have now, causing the infertility. Once the world gets bad enough that the satellite is allowed to stop transmitting, everybody can breed again. The possibilities for an 18 year, world wide infertility epidemic are endless.

Re:recieved-received

[Spacezilla]

Nope, he didn't miss it, he was just commenting on how there are many other words than "weird" that don't follow the rule. :)

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[dr.badass]

The current events overtones with the Homeland Security and illegal immigrant killings/deportations were only for the benefit of attracting those in the reviewer community that hate the US' current administration.

These are pretty traditional dystopian motifs, most of which are present in the book upon which the movie is (loosely) based. The undisguised references to current events had more to do with reinforcing the plausibility of the setting, just as the extreme lack of "futuristic" accouterments made it more readily familiar. "Attracting reviewers" is a dreadfully shallow explanation.

And why not onblu-ray?

[blind biker]

I don't own either HD_DVD or blu-ray player, so I may be less informed than most here: I wonder why would it not be possible publish the same title ("Children of Men") on blu-ray as well? I would imagine that whoever the producer and whoever the publisher, their main interest is profit, and having the movie available on both formats would probably mean about twice the market and hence the profit.

Unless there is some strange customer profiling going on here, where blu-ray customers are much less interested in this particular movie. Of course, I doubt this.

Re:Another nail in the coffin for HD-DVD...

[Moofie]

I never understood why some people think that there's some sort of consensus that ALL the people on /. agree with.

Me? I don't care if HD or BluRay wins. I won't buy either of them.

DVD Disc?

[chocolatetrumpet]

Where'd you get the money for that? The ATM machine?

Re:DVD Disc?

[smash]

Yeah, i just put in my pin number...

Re:recieved-received

[illegalcortex]

What Spacezilla said. I just wanted a chance to post exceptions from wikipedia. It actually started out as other weird words like oneiromancies. But then I decided to just post them all.

Re:recieved-received

[tweak4]

Learn the difference between "grammar" and "spelling"!

What conspiracy

[TheNinjaroach]

For most systems that output "only" 720P (720 is still a very nice looking picture) they are still "HD" sets that accept 1080i input. So if the PS3 does discriminate to 1080i like you said there is no issue as the TV will downscale to its native resolution.

I'm not sure where you get this DRM-related agreement or conspiracy crap but you're spewing FUD on the discussion. There are standards that define up to 1080i over component so I'm not sure where the conspiracy lies, and companies like Samsung have gone with unnofficial (but working and supported) 1080p over component.

Re:What conspiracy

[fyngyrz]

Are any of you people capable of independent thought? Look. Pay attention now: Not all displays downscale from 1080i. Fact. FACT! Read the darned thread; I provided the Google-located references you were too lazy to go after; the problem is all over many respected technical forums. "Conspiracy crap", as if. It's just a technical issue, but it's a real one.

Re:What conspiracy

[TheNinjaroach]

If your 720P display doesn't downscale from 1080i then you got hosed. Fact. FACT!

Re:What conspiracy

[fyngyrz]

I swear, the product of the IQ's in the responses in this thread must be near zero... look. I use a Sony 1080p system with my PS3. I am not having any trouble. OTHER people are having trouble. I can DUPLICATE their problem easily by feeding my infocus 5000 1080i, but that's not a problem for me. OK? Got that thru your thick little head? Now, FOLLOW THE LINKS TO THE TECHNICAL FORUMS and you can VERIFY the problem with the PS3. The PS3, NOT the TV SETS. It is WELL FUCKING KNOWN. If you can't be bothered to do that, I can't be bothered to talk to you. You're a complete waste of everyone's time, posting misinformation, not verifying issues, posing as if you knew things you don't. Now piss off. I've had enough of a bunch of wanna-bes pretending to technical knowledge they don't have. I made a perfectly factual post and you IDIOTS are giving me crap without taking ANY effort to verify your positions, or mine. I really don't know why I bother. And the slashdot mods aren't any fucking better, modding WRONG posts "informative" and down-modding posts that are 100% factual.

Re:What conspiracy

[maynard]

I swear, the product of the IQ's in the responses in this thread must be near zero...

You've received a large number of responses along the same lines as mine. In fact, you even got a response from someone who pointed you to the specs for your PJ at the vendor's web site, and even politely included the information that a firmware update may well fix your problem. Instead you respond (to someone else) with crap like what I quoted.

Rather than insulting the intelligence of every respondent, perhaps you should look inward?

Re:What conspiracy

[rtb61]

Top marks for flooding the first page of a story about the failure of M$ xbox, with anti PS3 spin. You want to know why a HD title out sold all the blur ray titles, because there are a lot of blue ray titles to pick from and bugger all HD titles hence, if you wanted to watch what an xbox360 could produce on a high def TV you had no choice, and apparently, thanks to the typical 'lets use paying customers as free beta tester M$ attitude', this title wont do it for you either.

Yeah, I know, it is all the bloody customers fault, how dare they expect hardware or software that actually works, all the expected as sold failures/faults/defects/bugs are all fully detailed in the EULA non-warranty agreement, can't the idiots read.

Re:recieved-received

[Mordaximus]

'I' Before 'E' except after 'C' and when sounding like "Eh" and in "Neighbor" and "Weigh"

Is that so? Damn. I've been misspelling caffeine, either and rottweiler all these years. Or, I've been mispronouncing them! Hopefully the latter, I'm Canadian so I have no problems adding Eh any and everywhere. Gimme some Caffehne, eh!

Re:Too bad the movie sucks

[skoaldipper]

I thought V was for Vilify. Either way, try sitting through "The Shooter" with that Marky Mark guy who dropped his drawers on MTV a while yonder. Now THAT's a piece of political tripe slammed down your throat. Yeah, we all get it Hollyweird.

I just want some flying limbs and witty "I'll be back" quips from my action flicks. Nothing more. Nothing less. Ok. Maybe some more of those quips and limbs. Next time I get duped by Hollyweird, I'm leaving my spit cup in the bag of popcorn under neath the seat, followed by a stern letter of apathy and a good fist shaking in the air. That'll learn 'em.

Re:Another nail in the coffin for HD-DVD...

[cyphercell]

Exactly, IMHO PPV + DVR = Perfection. I rent a show, record it, when it loses any redeemable replay value then I delete it. This is cheaper than buying used or new and offers the option of watching again without sticking you with a home library of hundreds of movies with no replay value whatsoever. Why should I spend $50 on a movie I want to watch 5 times tops, before the movie is completely ruined for me?

Re:Another nail in the coffin for HD-DVD...

[zehnra]

I can't speak for all "people here," but my opinion is that it's a choice between two evils: Sony and M$. I'm not a huge M$ fan, but to me, they're the lesser evil.

CD-R plays on some drive, not others. A fix(ish)

[burnttoy]

Some very old drives just don't play CD-R's but there probably aren't that many left.

Here's what I've found. Burn an audio disk at 2x or 4x and it'll probably play on even the crappest, cheapest, nasty plastic CD player with built in speakers. As the burn speed increases the chances of it failing increase. I've had problems like this with numerous players and burners but burning at a lower speed seems to work out most of these problems... even if waiting longer is boring at least it works. I especially encountered this when burning audio demo CDs for http://www.purrpurrpussy.co.uk/

As for the rest, yup, seems par for the course.

YMMV,
        Matthew

obscurity

[fermion]

The key thing to a great cult film, at least historically, is empty theaters. A lot of people have seen Children of Men.

This movie did not have empty theaters. From the numbers on IMDB, this movie made 40K per screen opening US weekend and continued to make 5K per screen until it began to decline. Compare this to Go which never did more than 3K per screen, or even better Heather's which took in only a million over the entire run. I think Heaters is more cult that Children will ever be, and more vicious than any modern teen girl movie.

By most definitions, given that Children has grossed the reletively large budget(for a so called cult film) make it at best a crossover blockbuster.

As an aside, what some are complaining about is that 'cult' and 'independent' are being used a negotiation and marketing tools. Studios evidently are cutting the budgets of these movies down to nothing, and then paying huge sums for marketing and reaping the profits, without compensating the players. Given the talent in this movie, and the small budget, one assumes that they are pulling this trick here.

You'd Think...

[Nom du Keyboard]

You'd think they'd at least test it on the most popular model(s) of player out there before shipping it, wouldn't you?

Re:Another nail in the coffin for HD-DVD...

[elrous0]

As opposed to Sony, the guys who put rootkits on their CD's and are complete control freaks about ANY attempt at putting homebrew on the PSP?

I am far from a huge MS fan, but I will admit to Western bias when it comes to the 360 vs. PS3. I don't want to see yet another generation completely dominated by annoying JRPG's and witless anime shit. It's not healthy for one country or region to have a 70%-80% videogame console market share. I'm perfectly happy to have the 360 and PS3 remain neck-and-neck. That way, whether you're a fan of Western or Japanese-style games, everyone wins.

As for HD-DVd vs. Blu-ray, I root for HD-DVD (against all odds these days). Allowing Sony dominance is ASKING for trouble (again, remember those rootkits?). Not only are they control freaks, but there is also a serious conflict of interest in a content-producing studio owning the rights to the means of distribution for EVERY OTHER studio as well.

Device key

[DrYak]

if the DRM was to blame it would NOT be failing at the DRIVE level and would be failing at the player level where the DRM is processed

Even since DVD is some information (RPC2) processed by the physical drive instead of the player.

HD DVD has its own load of such crap (device keys, in addition of the player keys that you mention, that could be implemented on the hardware, even if almost nobody use this. Yet)

I don't trust him

[DrYak]

Comming from a guy that tells that on CD and DVD pit codes for "0" and peaks code for "1"....

Who says tht Creative Labs invented the PC analog Joystick connector. (WTF ? It's an IBM PC standart. Creative were only the first to put midi (in a non standart way) on some pins of the port. They even weren't the first to conveniently include it on cheap multifunction cards : multi-IO with serial/parallel/floppy/game connectors were quite popular long before creative decided to make the first joystick/sound card hybrids).

And fails to mention the fundamental topology difference between USB and FireWire. I could pardon him not mentionning it in an article about power over plug-n-play connection, but when he makes an add-up about FireWall, he should mention it with its other technical advantages.

I find him not enough detailled on some part, so I take his description of DVD-R vs +R with a pinch of salt until I have time to check the facts for my self.

Re:I don't trust him

[illegalcortex]

Actually, the author qualifies that with "encoded in various ways depending on the media." He also says later in the comments "its not like its straight one pit/land = one bit or anything." I do believe the author understood the way it works, they just did a very poor job of writing up that paragraph.

As for the joystick thing, the author only said "A bit of time later, Creative Labs added a Joystick/MIDI dual function port on their SoundBlaster series of sound cards." They never said Creative invented the non-midi joystick port. I think you're reading more into some of his statements than is actually there, in an attempt to disagree with him.

And what's this about "FireWall"? Clearly, you have no idea what you're talking about. ;)

In any case, I'm sure we'll all be anxiously awaiting your writeup of DVD-R vs +R.

Re:I don't trust him

[illegalcortex]

Sorry, but that's just not true.

The DVD-R specification states that for every 192 bits, 48 of them are not protected under any scheme, 24 of them are protected by 24 bits of parity, and the last 56 bits are protected by another 24 bits of parity. This weird (to put it mildly) scheme allows you to easily scramble or lose 25% of the data that is required to read your disk! This information is almost more important than the actual data burned on the disc itself.

The DVD+R specification, however, states that for every 204 bits of information, it is split into four blocks of 52 bits containing 1 (shared among all blocks) sync bit to prevent misreading because of phase changes, 31 bits of data, and a 20 bit parity (that protects all 32 bits).

The part about the partitioning of the data is what allows for you to only lose a smaller part of your data should you scratch or otherwise damage the disc after burning. yes, you'll do a verify after burning. But plenty of things can happen AFTER that.

Works fine for me

[ender-]

I picked up the Children of Men HD-DVD on the day it came out, and it played fine in my Xbox360.

Thankfully! I'm usually the sap who gets stuck with the crap that doesn't work. Maybe I had some good Karma built up that I wasn't aware of. :)

Re:Another nail in the coffin for HD-DVD...

[Gogo0]

Why does everyone want digital distribution so badly??

Content providers will charge just as much for a digital version as one that you can hold in your hands, and we can (or will be able to eventually) copy the physical media we have now to portable formats.

As badly effed up as the "you didnt purchase a product, you purchased a license to watch this product under specific circumstances" system is, I prefer to have a space-wasting dvd case with some pretty cover slip over a comparatively-priced all-digital version.

Digital distribution wont fix anything, we'll just be able to watch the crap sooner and have less control over what we paid for.

Re:Im still having problems with regular DVDs

[JensenDied]

I'm sure the guy is just dyslexic

Kubrick didn't shoot in Widescreen

[wantedman]

Kubrick shot all his film with the same ratio as TV, and they were cut to size for the American theater releases. That's why Kubrick doesn't have widescreen movies, because he didn't intend for his movies to be widescreen.

Re:Kubrick didn't shoot in Widescreen

[metamatic]

First off, I know that many of Kubrick's films were shot in Academy ratio. I was referring to the fact that the original Warner Kubrick DVDs were mastered from Laserdisc masters, and had horrible image quality. This was somewhat improved with the later "Kubrick Collection" releases, though "2001" is still problematic. The comment about lack of widescreen releases of many movies was referring to other Warner-distributed movies, such as David Byrne's "True Stories".

But at any rate, since no Kubrick movies were released on DVD until after his death, we can't know for sure what he would have decided regarding whether to release 1.33:1 versions for compatibility with old TVs, or 16:9 enhanced releases for HDTV owners. He certainly shot the films in the full knowledge that their theatrical aspect ratio would be closer to 16:9.

I personally think that "The Shining" in particular is a far better movie cropped to 16:9 than it is at 1.33:1, and not just because of the helicopter shadow in the opening. I think Kubrick would have wanted his movies to use the entire 16:9 screen, just like he wanted them to fill the whole 1.33:1 screen. Thus, I believe he would have wanted to see 16:9 DVD releases of his post-"Barry Lyndon" movies, restoring the original theatrical cropping.

It's actually misleading to say that Kubrick "didn't shoot in widescreen". Rather, like James Cameron, he shot for both theatrical presentation and video. If you watch the documentary on the making of "The Shining", I believe at one point you can see a preview screen with both image areas marked on it.

I actually do the same thing with my home movies, using Scotch tape to mark the 16:9 area on the camcorder LCD...

Re:Kubrick didn't shoot in Widescreen

[shimage]

I'm sure you're aware of this, but your post makes it sound like 16:9 is the aspect ratio in theaters ("Thus, I believe he would have wanted to see 16:9 DVD releases of his post-'Barry-Lyndon' movies, restoring the original theatrical cropping."). Many (most?) films are shot at 2.35:1 (actually, it's 2.39:1), although there are exceptions (including the occasional 1.85:1, which in my extremely limited experience is more common than 1.78). I'm not sure why HDTVs are 1.78:1, but whatever (yes, HDTV shows are generally shot at 1.78:1, but that's just because that's the HDTV spec).

Re:Kubrick didn't shoot in Widescreen

[metamatic]

Oh, sure. The theatrical cropping for The Shining not only wasn't exactly HDTV cropping, it was also different in the USA and Europe; and of course, Kubrick shot "2001" in 70mm Cinerama, so you can't get the authentic experience without a curved screen...

As to why HDTV is 16:9 (1.78:1), the simple answer is that it's native DVD aspect ratio. But that just begs the question of why DVD has that aspect ratio, and the answer is that it's a compromise. It's roughly the mid-point between Academy ratio (1.33:1) and the most common ultra-widescreen theatrical ratios (Panavision etc, 2.35:1), chosen so DVD would be able to do the best job possible of a wide range of source material.

Happily, it's also close enough to the Golden Ratio that it looks very pleasing to the eye. I'm actually coming to prefer 1.78:1 to 2.35:1.

Re:Another nail in the coffin for HD-DVD...

[havenskate]

Yah, I never switched from my 360k floppy disks and my 10MB hard drives and I'm fine with that. Who needs more storage space on optical media anyway!? Crazy I tell you -- that's just crazy.

Seriously, if you think you won't buy either of them you're living in a bubble. You will. Maybe not now, but you will sooner than you think and you'll enjoy the viewing experience... And once the media comes down in price you'll be burning Blu-Ray discs on your PC just like you do now with your DVD burner...

And I agree that Blu-Ray is a much better format and a format that's backed by more companies as well. It's just a matter of time. Go get a PS3 and a 1080p TV and you'll see what I mean...

Re:Another nail in the coffin for HD-DVD...

[Moofie]

I didn't say I'd never ever buy one. I just said that I have no interest in backing one or the other of these horses right now. This pissing match between the manufacturers has absolutely no interest for me.

It's been an awful long time since I have bought a CD. It's not difficult for me to imagine the same thing happening with DVDs or SuperDVDs.

DumbSwede Replies

[DumbSwede]

I wouldn't call myself a fanboy as I don't own Blu-Ray or HD-DVD yet. I'm waiting for things to sort out. You just can't argue with the fact Blu-Ray now has (or will have soon) 3 million players in the field and HD-DVD hasn't even hit .5 yet.

Real HD-DVD fanboys (see the discussions over at Eproductwars (DVD)) keep blather on about higher attachment rates.

If you are loosing sales disc sales 4 to 1 and player sales 7 or 8 to one and new releases 2 to 1, well it doesn't matter what the "attachment rate" is. It has been 3 months now since Blu-Ray took the lead and it when from 2:1 to 3:1 to now 4:1.

The best HD-DVD can hope to accomplish is stay in the running through the 2007 Christmas season. Maybe, Maybe Universal will stay HD-DVD only, in which case you either buy both machines or a combo. But there is no way Blu-Ray will lose.

Whine about how it isn't a fair comparison because of title releases, but it's not about it being a fair fight. If HD-DVD can't match Blu-Ray title releases, it loses. It doesn't matter if SONY has to spend more to win the war. HD-DVD only has lower initial player cost going for it, and that will matter less and less as Blu-Ray prices come down.

When you're already staggering things like Microsoft's on the cheap HD-DVD screw up don't help. And yes I repeat -- HD-DVD was rushed and skimped on and the first players were a loading nightmare (2 minutes plus). HD-DVD was intended to be the cheap good enough format, and now they want to be perceived of has having the same quality.

By Christmas I expect to be watching Blu-Ray.

BTW, it doesn't bother me you came off a bit "rantish" It is always nice to get a response and have a little bit of a heated debate.

I watched the movie on in HD an XBox 360

[AndyMcL]

I watched it last Friday without a hitch. It was great.

So I am not sure if it is a hardware or firmware series having issues or not. The XBox 360 and attached HD-DVD player (and of course my 40 inch 1080p TV) worked as advertised.

-Andy

Re:I watched the movie on an XBox 360 in HD

[AndyMcL]

Opps! Sorry for the title mess up. I addd in some words and then did not read it over again. :-(

-Andy

Re:Another nail in the coffin for HD-DVD...

[ivan256]

Why should I spend $50 on a movie I want to watch 5 times tops, before the movie is completely ruined for me?

Movies on physical media have resale value, can be loaned to friends, taken with you on vacation, in the car, etc...

Electronically distributed movies tend to crack down on those behaviors without discounting much on the price.