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Future Blu-ray Movies To Come With Playable Game Demos
Audiofan writes "Enthusiasts have long suggested the PlayStation 3 to their family and friends as one of the better and most affordable Blu-ray players. Lately, prices of Blu-ray players have been coming down, but the PS3 is still one of the better options out there. Sony is taking advantage of this by starting to offer game demos on their Blu-ray offerings. While these demos will only be playable on the PS3, they hope the extra value will help drive sales."
... for the porn industry to whip up something fun with this.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Now we can get our crappy sweatshop games right on the same disk as the average movie tie in.
Can't see this being very useful in the real world.
--Question Authority--
...for a good encode of the movie itself. leave the gimmicks out of it.
Can't these companies get it through their thick skulls that Bluray is a dead on arrival format? That consumers don't see it as a necessary update to their plain DVDs, which they see as good enough even with the advent of HD televisions?
Companies are just trying to beat consumers over the head with Bluray for long enough in the hope that some day it might actually catch on, thanks to their wonderfully deep pockets (while they say that they're losing money due to piracy...), instead of letting the market decide what fails and lives. In the past, Bluray would have long been dead, but now Sony and other companies pushing this DOA format are stubbornly determined to make it succeed despite overwhelming apathy for it.
Let it die. Yes, a few people buy it, but no more than the normal amount of "early adopters" for any new technology. It's over, let it pass into history as yet another failed format nobody wants.
Anonymous Coward because I *know* there will be people accusing me of technophobia, hatred of new technology, etc, instead of seeing my argument as what it is -- basic common sense reasoning.
IMDB > Actor biographies
Google Images > Special Artwork
YouTube & Movies Sites > Deleted Scenes and Behind the Scenes Documentaries
Blogs > Director's commentaries
Apple/Youtube > Upcoming releases
Ripping Disc to cleanse the movie > FBI Warning
Watching mold grow > Overdone menus
Surfing the net on my own > Launching my browser with your dumpy "special access" software.
Root Canal > DVD Quizzes
And now...
Downloading Demos > Having them bundled
Hooray, I love more garbage that will make my movies seem even more dated when I watch them 10 years later.
Who am I kidding? They probably won't even put the demos on the disks...they'll just waste your bandwidth by using BD Live to download the demo.
Great idea! This'll be bigger than UMD Vide... oh...
Nevermind...
it's only a matter of time that we'll be watching full blu-ray movies off the ps3 network, kind of like the itune store where we can pay couple dollars and keep the movie for 3 days or so.
As much as many here are too smart to be fooled by this, think back to when Dragon Quest VIII came with a pack-in demo of FFXII. I doubt much of the gaming populace actually bought DQVIII to play it rather than to play the demo (although I like to think that people bought it for DQVIII). However with downloaded demos a much bigger thing nowdays I don't see how this would work. If other demos work just fine when uploaded to the internet and burned on a CD (at least for the xbox 360) then I fail to see how that will be impossible to do here as well. Thus the demo will just show up on bittorrent sites for all to enjoy without wasting their money on District 9.
This is awesome. Most game demos have to give you enough to wet your appetite for more. Most of the time you can realize the game would suck, but the demo usually has a few redeeming qualities making the 30 minutes that you play the demo rewarding and entertaining.
So: I'm all for it.
I believe it is possible to do exactly this with Matroska, as described here.
--bornagainpenguin
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
I really hope that bluray is the last of this shiny plastic disc phenomenon. I had a somewhat respectable VHS collection, then amassed a healthy DVD collection, jumped on the HD-DVD bandwagon with the HD player add-on for the 360 before that battle was lost, and now I've got about the same number of bluray discs.
We've been told time and again, when you buy an album, or a copy of a movie, you don't *own* that copy, you have merely licensed it. So I'm not allowed to make a backup for personal use of the copy of my license, when the new format comes out, I have to buy a new "license" for the IP I have already licensed.... I am sooo ready to simply "license" movies via a Netflix like subscription service....I'll pay $20/month (less than the cost of 2 premium cable TV channels) if I can "rent" any movie I like on the fly. I've already got a 20 Mb/s internet connection, and with DOCSIS 3.0 coming to my area next year, should be fast enough to stream reasonably compressed HD content. No more need to buy and keep track of fragile little discs...or have to re-purchase when the next format comes out 12 years later.
I'm just over it.
But this might be a little irritating to any blu-ray player manufacturers NOT named Sony.
"they hope the extra value will help drive sales"
Instead of increasing the value to "match" the price, they should simply lower their price.
The picture quality of DVDs is much better than the blu ray advertisements try to make you believe (at least on non-crap players) so if they sacrifice to much disk space for demos, the picture quality of the movies might get to close to the DVD quality to have a reason for a switch to blu ray...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
just about the only thing you can't do with a PS3 is use it as a DVR.
This might be true in the US, but in other regions the PlayTV hardware add-on enables you to do exactly that. PlayTV allows you to watch live free-to-air TV and HDTV through the PS3, and record those programs to the PS3's hard drive. I bought the PlayTV add-on (I'm in the UK) as it was cheaper than buying a standalone DVR for free-to-air broadcasts, and have found it to be easier to use and far more reliable than the standalone alternatives available here
Not a grammar nazi, but it's "whet your appetite". 'Whet' means 'sharpen'.
That would have been awesome, Futurama blu-Ray with playable Game Demo...but NO! ;-/
Exactly, i love games with movies, even some mini-games that came on DVDs.
Since someone mentioned Final Fantasy up there, the Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within mini-editor game that lets you re-sequence one of the scenes was pretty damn fun.
I wish more film makers would put some fun back in to the DVD releases.
They will go on the shelf next to all those dvds with the action viewable from different camera angles and lots of alternate endings and stuff we were promised when the same kind of idiots in suits were selling us a new more profitable format.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
I have a 32 inch 720p lcd tv and a 24 inch 1080p monitor. I also have a blu-ray player and hdmi. While yes I can see the difference between upscaled DVDs and blu-ray discs, its simply not worth paying triple the price for the blu-ray.
The problem is not the blu-ray discs the problem is the blu-ray player does such a good job at upscaling DVDs that on most 32 inch and smaller tvs it is "good enough" that you dont feel the need to spend the money to replace the DVD disc.
What the blu-ray fanatics arent saying when they describe about how their friends eyes are popping, is they are comparing watching their blu-rays on 72 inch lcd tvs versus watching non-upscaled dvds on an sdtv, the PS3 does not automatically upscale dvds unless you have the correct firmware and have the settings set for it , oops they didnt tell you that did they?
They also didnt tell you that upscaling on a ps3 is not as good as many regular upscaling dvd players let alone standalone blu-ray players because the system doesnt do that much postprocessing. Why would that be?
I guess sony doesnt really want people seeing upscaled content, that doesnt sell blu-ray discs does it?
That is both fascinating and interesting but also total bullshit as a process. I don't want to have to hack DVDs. Maybe if handbrake had an option for it, but I've had very poor luck with MKVs made by handbrake anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I prefer to download my game demos. This is the combination of two physical forms of media that can be completely digital and available over an Internet connection. I guess I shouldn't be shocked after they started offering streaming Netflix on the PS3 using a disc. Sony, once again you amaze me with your ability to not try very hard.
What I don't understand is why you can't simply play your DVDs on your Blu-Ray player?
The larger, sharper TVs used with a Blu-ray Disc player show larger, sharper artifacts that in fact were always in the DVD media. When you upscale an artifact, all you get is a bigger artifact.
I have a Toshiba upscaling DVD player and a PS3. I have seen no indication whatsoever that the PS3 has any limitations or problems with upscaling DVDs. They look very nice on my 52" 1080p TV. I only bother with Blu-Ray for F/X blockbusters; for chick flicks with the wife I don't need to be able to read the notes on the refrigerator behind the characters.
Where, exactly, are you getting the information that the PS3's upscaling is gimped? At one point, early on, it didn't do upscaling. But that was fixed back in May 2007 (firmware 1.80), and there's been a couple improvements since then...
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
When the game sucks you release the demo weeks after the initial release, thus suckering people into buying the real product because they wont / cant wait, only to be disappointed.
Although, the recent trend has been to release a early beta and when you run into problems they say its beta and it will be fixed in the commercial release.
Dear Sony, You know what would boost sales of the PS3? Removing head from arse, and making it back-compatible with PS2 games again.
The point is parent said it wasn't possible to make a backup of his DVDs with menus, commentaries and etc, and I've just pointed him to a method by where it is indeed possible to do so. Could the process be made easier? No doubt, but that isn't the scope of this discussion--the discussion centers on the fact it can be done if he wants to do it so badly.
Personally I think parent was just being contrarian, since everyone else was posting about how they preferred to rip their DVDs to avoid the silly menu delays and animations so just to be contrary parent posted lamenting that he loved the DVD menuing and animations... But there is a way to do it and now parent knows how. If you think it should be easier, perhaps you could post an HOWTO making it easier?
--bornagainpenguin
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
Uh, no, that page describes how to rip a DVD to Matroksa in order to preserve the actual video content, audio channels, and subtitle streams. There's *nothing* in there about ripping the actual menu structure, and AFAIK, the Matroska menu spec a) is in it's infancy, b) has no tooling to make DVD -> MKV w/ menus actually doable, and c) isn't supported by any players out there.
'course, I'd *love* to be proven wrong. :)
And that should do it. After a fair bit of disk-churning, you should have a Matroska file containing all of the elements from the original DVD title.
Some emphasis added. Also, although I recognize this would be considered anecdotal evidence I've in the past encountered MKVs engineered to work this way, with title screens, commentary, multiple audio streams, etc so I do know they exist and that it is possible to do so. While the article is intended for people who want lossless quality, I'm sure it is possible to adjust parameters when encoding to bring about the file sizes you want without ending up with junk. I've seen anime (yes I know anime is different, but still it worked so the files were) encoded to be a mere forty megabytes in file size while retaining their high definition quality.
So, yeah there's some work involved in it, but it is possible.
Also if you need a player and don't want to just use a PC hooked up to your TV with XBMC then you could always try popcorn hour, or some of the machines listed here. You might have to research for awhile but you should be doing that any way, right?
--bornagainpenguin
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
I didn't realize that giving away something that's already free and plentiful can add value. Unless they're planning to create a scarcity of game demos -- which sort of defeats the point -- then this adds little or no value, except possibly for people without PSN access.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Right. The original DVD *title*. ie, the video content of the DVD.
Seriously, read the steps. It involves pulling out the various video and audio titles, and generating a combined Matroska container with that data in it. But nowhere are the *menus* actually ripped. Only the content itself is transformed in that process, producing a multi-program multiplex containing a bunch of programs composed of a video and multiple audio tracks.
Again, I researched this. Heavily. Last I checked, there was a script which attempted to analyze the DVD menu structure and then create a Matroska analog but it simply didn't work. Again, things may have changed since then, but that was the state of the world the last I checked, and the site you linked to provides no evidence that things have changed (that's not to say things haven't, just that that site doesn't address the issue being discussed).
Now, maybe in the last 6 months to a year some sort of MKV revolution has happened, and it's probably time I re-researched this. Here's hoping you're right and my information is out of date. :)
We could have lived with DVDs until about now (year 2010) with good upscaling techniques. The push for a new format was just a marketing ploy to sell more stuff. Now that we are actually creating a huge amount of HD quality video (from the cameras), it is almost necessary to upgrade the format to hold the all the data.
But when they were just putting the old movies on blu-ray, they were simply upscaling the video before it went on disc instead of upscaling during playback. Waste... of... money...
The really funny part is, the blu-ray killer format is right around the corner, even before blu-ray is well established in the market. This is probably just a ploy to divert attention to their new (and already antiquated) technology.
I jumped into the cheaper, better HD-DVD market and still watch them occasionally. The truth is that the physical disc format for movies has become antiquated for me. I no longer care about owning the physical disc of a movie unless it is a collectible and I don't really collect anymore. Thus, after having been an avid movie collector for years, HD-DVD was it for me. Blu-Ray can rot in hell along with the PS3.
I would have been fine with a PS3 that was cheaper and did not use Blu-Ray, but the fact that Sony insisted on forcing Blu-Ray into the gaming community at a higher price point and in effect, pushed an inferior media format(Blu-Ray) on everyone else outside the gaming market, leaves me with no interest in ever purchasing another Sony product. I used to buy Sony exclusively for everything. Sony has lost roughly 17K of my money since the Blu-Ray debacle occurred. I won't even buy Sony products for my friends and family as gifts anymore.