Lotsa storage

Pioneer has developed a Blu-Ray read only disk that stores 400GB on sixteen 25GB layers.

The laminated sixteen layer disk is especially impressive as it required new techniques to reduce the "cross-talk" (interference from other layers) so that the data at each of the sixteen layers can be recovered reliably.

Each layer retains compatibility with the Blu-Ray standard, however it is unlikely that existing Blu-Ray readers would be able to read these disks.

PS3's functionality as a Blu-ray player may be catching on with the public, but will the buzz last?

While Blu-ray video sales are supposedly not yet at the level required to make up for a lagging North American home video market in general, a survey commissioned by Warner Home Video nevertheless suggests that Blu-ray media still stands to pick up steam... from PlayStation 3 owners. Backed by this survey, Warner Home Video president Ron Sanders explains at Screen Digest's PEVE Digital Entertainment conference that the percentage of total console usage by PS3 owners spent watching Blu-ray video content increased to 23 percent during the first two months of 2008, up from 15 percent back in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Sanders cited Sony's marketing of the PS3's Blu-ray features as a factor behind the increase in Blu-ray movie viewership. Indeed, Sanders believes the number of PS3 owners actually using the PS3 as a Blu-ray media player on the side increased from 53 percent last September to 80 percent in early 2008. Such figures could help play down concerns that the PS3 itself is holding back Blu-ray growth, due to the public's ignorance/apathy over the hardware's built-in Blu-ray functionality.

Screen Digest meanwhile looks to temper what it fears is premature enthusiasm, especially considering how the timeframe covered in the survey just so happens to be the typically busy Holiday season. How will things look down the road for Blu-ray movies on PS3? Good thing the PS3 can still rely on retail Blu-ray games!

The timing of the Warner research, which was carried out in late 2007 and early 2008, means it is impossible to quantify how much the usual Christmas gift-giving season (and subsequent increase in new BD homes) would have increased consumer spending on BDs without the promotions - or, indeed, whether the uplift is sustainable. Furthermore, the relative lack of strong games titles for the PS3 over this period is also likely to have contributed to the console's use as a BD player. Nonetheless, the sheer size of the PS3 installed base means that even a minimal increase in average per household BD buy rates could have a substantial impact on total hi-def software sales, a fact which played a major role in Warner's decision to abandon Toshiba's HD DVD format in favour of Blu-ray earlier this year

Next-gen home video can't rest on its laurels just yet, even with the fading of HD-DVD as competitor

Sony's Blu-ray is already gaining serious traction since Toshiba exited the next-gen optical disc format battleground through abandoning HD-DVD development. According to analyst groups cited by Reuters, 3.8 million of the 4.9 million high-def ("next-gen") DVDs sold during the first quarter of 2008 were Blu-ray format. While this further cements Blu-ray as the next-gen media of choice for movies, such figures are still not enough to make up lagging sales of "standard" DVD movies, sales of which may have peaked two years ago.

In other words, declining DVD revenue is keeping the North American home video market down, and Blu-ray sales haven't yet reached the level needed to turn the tide. Analysts feel consumers are still holding out on making the big jump to Blu-ray in general, being plenty comfortable with the current DVD format as it is. Another part of the issue is the prevalence of the PlayStation 3 as the Blu-ray player of choice. This means studios distributing movies on Blu-ray will be largely looking at the PS3 install base for sales and it's still a relatively small one, despite the lower pricing of the console compared to standalone Blu-ray players.

In fact, said analysts believe Blu-ray as a medium will only really start picking up once the standalone Blu-ray players themselves start getting some serious price cuts. It's interesting to see that for all the benefits the PS3 has with built-in Blu-ray capabilities (complete with upgradable firmware via PSN!), analysts feel the general public still regards the console as a "games" machine. Well, that certainly isn't going to make anyone who got a PS3 primarily for Metal Gear Solid 4 and Grand Theft Auto IV flinch!

...since the vast majority of Blu-ray players are in homes because Sony has embedded them into the PlayStation 3 video game consoles, many consumers don't seem to care that they even have a Blu-ray player.

Until stand-alone Blu-ray players -- the cheapest is about $370 -- fall to below $200, Americans en masse won't adopt the new technology, experts predict. [Bernstein Research analyst Michael Nathanson] predicts in a recent 27-page report that that won't happen until the end of 2009.

PS3 to become Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0 (BD-Live) player later this month

PlayStation 3 fans will know that one biggest advantages their console has as a Blu-ray player is its ability to be updated into the newer player "profiles" via firmware thanks to the PS3's own system software updates.  The upcoming PS3 System software update 2.20, currently scheduled for release "late March", will include the next biggest Blu-ray player profile update: Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0.

Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0, perhaps better known as "BD-Live", enables support for additional features on Blu-ray discs during playback - provided distributors created any which users can access.  Exclusive BD-Live content generally falls into the realm of interactive features which may or may not "web-enhanced", though it also promises cleaner high-definition transfers in general; more pertitent to PS3 gamers, BD-Live potentially opens the door to "advanced gaming options".  Be warned that the BD-Live update will be the biggest yet, requiring about 1GB worth of free space on the PS3 hard drive.  Maybe it's time for some spring cleaning if you've been going to town with trailer and demo downloads over the PlayStation Network lately.

Outside of Blu-ray, system software update 2.20 also expands Remote Play on the PS3.  This will allow the PS3 to support the PlayStation Portable as a remote control during playback for music stored on the PS3 hard drive.  Meanwhile, the PS3 itself will get the ability to resume playback of Blu-ray discs and DVDs from the point where they were paused, as well as playback support for DivX and WMV video files which are larger than 2GB in filesize.

A quick rundown of PS3 firmware update v2.20 features:

• The ability to copy PS3 Music and Photo playlists to a PSP system. We introduced the ability to create Music and Photo playlists on the PS3 in firmware update v2.0. Now you can easily export your playlists to your PSP.
• You can now play DivX and WMV format files that are over 2 GB. In addition, you can now display subtitles when viewing DivX files.
• Resume Play - begin playing a DVD or BD disc from the point where you previously stopped it, even if you eject the disc and insert a different movie or game.
• Use your PSP as a remote control to play back your music files on your PS3 without turning on your TV.
• The Internet browser now displays some web pages faster. In addition [Save Target] has been added as an option under file. This option lets you save a file that is linked to a web page to your PS3 hard drive or storage media.

Latest SlySoft AnyDVD (HD) strips BD+ from discs

Seems that the wheels keep turning for HD burning companies, with the format war settled and AACS cracked there was only one real thing left to tackle in the market, that of course being BD+

The latest version of AnyDVD (6.4.0.0) manages to not really crack the VM system but instead to just remove the security as a whole from the disc so that people can have DRM free HD discs to run on any system or to pull off for personal use on storage devices. It's certainly a workable approach, if the system is said to not really be crackable for at least 10 years then why bother with it and instead why not just tell it to stay behind when pulling the data off.

The full detail list of 6.4.0.0 comes down to this:

6.4.0.0 2008 03 19
- New (Blu-ray): Removes the BD+ protection from Blu-ray discs!
(for increased compatibility with titles released by Twentieth
Century Fox :-) )
- New (Blu-ray): Added option to enable / disable BD+ removal
- New (DVD): AnyDVD ripper no longer uses the Windows filesystem, it
has now its own UDF parser / reader.
Discs which cannot be read by Windows can now be copied with the
AnyDVD ripper.
- Fix (Blu-ray): Black display with some BD discs, e.g., "Layer Cake",
second release, "The Fugitive", "Wild Things" (all Region B)
- Fix (DVD): Small bugfix in "repairing defective disc structure"
function of AnyDVD ripper
- Fix (DVD): Problems with some Arccos protected titles, e.g.
"The Grudge", R1, US
- Some minor fixes and improvements
- Updated languages

Seems like the consumers are getting that leash around their neck loosened by the community at large, nice to see that the investments made on DRM paid off for the media companies.

Or at least MGS4 the way he REALLY wanted it

Kojima Productions' assistant producer Ryan Payton already created a stir last week when he confirmed that Metal Gear Solid 4 would not feature dual audio tracks for language, citing the lack of space to put both English and Japanese language options in full, even on Blu-ray disc. Now a more telling grievance over Blu-ray's potential storage capacity comes from the driving force behind Metal Gear himself, series creator Hideo Kojima. In an interview with Famitsu magazine, Kojima laments how his team was held back in certain regards during MGS4 development as a result of simply not being able to fit everything they wanted onto Blu-ray:

"For us, we're not still not satisfied with the quality we can do. You know, there's not capacity space... We always talked about where to cut and what to compress."

A single-layer Blu-ray disc already boasts up to 25GB of storage (and dual-layer is naturally double that at 50GB), and Sony Computer Entertainment has continually championed the optical format as the next logical medium for next-gen games due to increasing file sizes for the final code. Yet how much storage will be enough for perfectionists (and nutters) like Kojima if they are given free reign? MGS4 certainly sounds jam-packed at this point! On the other hand, missing out on Akio Ohtsuka's SEXY vocal work as Snake in the Japanese version the fourth time around in the series will probably have some MGS fanatics feeling left out in the cold.

Sony's Blu-ray is in better shape than ever to take the home video market, but DVD is still around too

With Sony scoring victory after victory on the optical disc format front with Blu-ray, word on the street concerning rival format HD-DVD has not kind over the past few days. One of the primary developer of HD-DVD technologies, Toshiba, tried to quell fears over its disc format earlier this week, but it appears to be of little use. Today Toshiba itself has confirmed that it is officially pulling the plug on HD-DVD business and development, at least for movies. Toshiba intends to support its allies who are still aboard the HD-DVD ship including Paramount and Microsoft.  Former HD-DVD backer Universal Studios meanwhile will be turning to Blu-ray.

The HD-DVD format entered the consumer market just a few months before Sony's competing Blu-ray standard did back in early 2006; according to Toshiba, it had sold approximately 1 million dedicated HD-DVD players as of January 2008. Close to 400 movie titles have been distributed on HD-DVD thus far in North America alone. However, Sony gained major traction with Blu-ray over the past few weeks, and struck gold when Warner Bros. confirmed it would back Sony's format exclusively starting this May. The hits just kept coming with major retailers like Wal-mart and Best Buy opting to decrease support for HD-DVD titles, if not dropping it altogether.

"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality."

"It was a heartbreaking decision, but we considered the impact of continuing the business on our earnings, the next-generation DVD market and consumers."

Since 2005, Microsoft backed Toshiba in HD-DVD development. Just one example of the fruits of their partnership can be seen in the support for HD-DVD (versus Blu-ray) on Microsoft's Xbox 360 console through an external peripheral player. Microsoft would make clear that it did not intend to make a fuss over next-gen optical disc formats for its video game console business, though the company claims its HD-DVD player would be one of the best-selling accessories for the Xbox 360.

Perhaps Microsoft already had the inside scoop on Toshiba's plans for scapping HD-DVD, as the software/console giant began slashing prices on Xbox 360 HD-DVD players earlier this month. Nevertheless the company remains adamant that the Xbox 360's future planning will not be greatly affected by Toshiba's announcement. Indeed, despite support for HD-DVD the Xbox 360 never used the format for its actual game software.

As for Toshiba itself, the company could still support HD-DVD outside of movies as both HD-DVD and Blu-ray also exist as (very expensive) data storage mediums for the home and business computing markets.

General consensus is that HD DVDs last days are on the horizon

We were all bracing for a years-long war between the infamous Blu-ray and HD DVD formats, but when Warner announced it was dropping HD DVD in favour of becoming exclusively Blu-ray, it became clear that the war would be over before it could really unfold into something monstrous.

Now, thanks to Bill Hunt at The Digital Bits, we have a pretty pie chart of the devastation Warner's announcement has had on the suddenly eerily-quiet battlefield. The second chart represents hardware sales of Blu-ray and HD DVD (not including PS3/XBOX360 add-on drives) during the first week after the market had a chance to respond, and that small wedge could turn into a tiny sliver if the trend continues.

The obvious conclusion one can make is that HD DVD will not survive much longer, but keep in mind that there are still some very large corporations backing HD DVD, including Toshiba, which just recently cut prices on its HD DVD players shortly after the date the NPD Group data shows here. Presumably, this will raise the sales of HD DVD -- at least until mass consumers start hearing talk of HD DVD's void in studio support, if they haven't already.

I suppose the Best Buys of the world may need to staff up their Returns & Exchanges departments, not to mention get used to fielding angry phone calls from irate (though unfortunately ignorant) customers. My personal opinion is that buying HD DVD hardware now is just begging for a swift kick of obsolescence in the coming 6 months.

In one fell swoop, the next-gen optical disc format battles just got a lot hotter

Time Warner made the surprising announcement late last week to drop support for HD-DVD in order to exclusively release its titles on Blu-ray beginning May this year. Until then the studio will continue to deliver HD-DVD releases, after the "standard" DVD and Blu-ray editions of course.

The HD-DVD format scored some exclusive partners back in August 2007 with Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation, inspiring director Michael Bay's eyebrow-raising rant against what he deemed was Microsoft's conspiracy to undermine next-gen optical disc format market altogether. Admittedly, Bay was a proponent of Blu-ray from the start.

It's interesting to note it was not until Time Warner made an exclusivity announcement of its own that analysts both professional and armchair alike began to foresee any sort of outcome in the next-gen optical disc format "war", saying much of the studio's clout:

"We expect HD DVD to 'die' a quick death, versus a prolonged format war," Pali Capital analyst Rich Greenfield told investors in a note.

"I have not seen anyone give up in this fight. Every time one shoe drops and you think 'Oh, it's over,' the other side comes up with something else," said Stephanie Prange, Home Media Magazine editor in chief.

The battle has confused consumers, she confirmed, but many people don't see the need for high-definition anyway, she added.

The studio's decision certainly caught the HD-DVD consortium off guard, as the format's group of backers suddenly canceled any meetings and press conferences previously scheduled for this weekend's Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Meanwhile, HD-DVD developer Toshiba stands firm behind its format. Though it was as surprised as anybody with Time Warner's decision, the company reminds supporters and naysayers that its solution still has majority (year-to-date) market share:

"We were very disappointed with Warner Brothers' announcement," [Toshiba America Consumer Products president Akiyo Ozaka] said. "Sales of HD DVD were very good last year, especially in October to December."

"It's difficult for me to believe when all the pundits declare that HD DVD is dead," [Toshiba marketing executive Jodi Sally] said. "Clearly, the events of the last few days have led many of you to that conclusion. We have been declared dead before. The reality is we ended 2007 with a majority of the year-to-date market share."

Blu-ray, HD-DVD, and the horrible conspiracy behind it all

Michael Bay is a film director. He has made some big flicks, with explosions and gunfights, such as Transformers. But not only does he direct movies, but he also generates conspiracy theories regarding Microsoft, in his spare time.

Recently on his "Ask Michael Bay" sub-forum from his personal website, a fan asked Mr. Bay about the general unavailability of Bay's films in the Blu-ray format. Michael Bay had this to say on the matter: 

"What you don't understand is corporate politics. Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads. That is the dirty secret no one is talking about. That is why Microsoft is handing out $100 million dollar checks to studios just embrace the HD DVD and not the leading, and superior Blu Ray. They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads. Time will tell and you will see the truth."

Are the format wars just a big diversion from the development of digital downloads? Does Microsoft have some sort of agenda? Are the Free Masons involved... or the Lizard People! Only time will tell, according to Michael Bay.

Plays down importance of next-gen optical disc format rivalry, believing "prestige" is the only reward for a potential victor

Though the 40GB PS3 ditches PS2 compatibility for the sake of streamlining and efficiency, apparently it is already earning its keep since its official debut.  Sony Corp. CEO Sir Howard Stringer claims the PS3 is now selling "twice as fast" as it was before in the U.S. and "three times as fast" in Europe.  Assuming this momentum can be maintained, Stringer believes Sony just might have a shot at hitting its global shipment target of 10 million PS3s before the end of its fiscal year.

Stringer also notes that the battle between next-gen optical disc formats Blu-ray and HD-DVD are now at a "stalemate".  Though he downplays Blu-ray's importance in the great scheme of Sony, seeing the battle between the two formats as really nothing more than a rivalry for prestige, Stringer does feel Blu-ray was initially enjoying a good head start through its own merits.  Paramount's earth-shattering decision to back HD-DVD exclusively for its releases, however, pretty much threw a spanner in their works.

Thus the battle between the two formats is set to rage on with no clear "winner" for quite some time.  It's all enough to make Stringer allow himself to get wistful for a moment in wishing that he was there in the not-so-distant-past to somehow unite the two opposing camps before their rivalry as formats started.

Xbox Disc Replacement Program still covers damaged Halo 3 Limited Edition discs

First reported in the NeoGAF discussion boards and now confirmed by other news outlets, an unknown number of Halo 3 Limited Edition and Essential Edition (not to be confused with the hefty Legendary Edition) game discs suffer varying degrees of scratches. In some cases the scratches could render the discs unreadable by Xbox 360 consoles.

The damage stems from poorly-designed packaging. Specifically, the disc tabs which are supposed to hold the game in place are not the standard seen in typical DVD cases, and in fact allow the DVD to become loose and toss about inside the case during shipping. The issue is currently limited to, well, the Limited and Essential Edition releases of Halo 3; both the "regular" and Legendary Editions had the good sense to utilize stardard DVD cases for game storage.

In a not-so-subtle gesture, Microsoft reminds all affected gamers that their Xbox Disc Replacement Program is applicable for damaged Halo 3 Limited/Essential Edition game discs:

If, for any reason, you have a damaged Microsoft Xbox 360 disc and like to replace it, please review the information below:

NOTE: This program covers the Halo 3 Limited Edition Game Disc and Essentials Disc at no charge through 12/31/07.

This program only applies to games where Microsoft is the publisher, and is subject to availability. To check and see if your game is available for replacement, please review which Microsoft products currently fall under this program here.

At least this time you can't blame the Xbox 360 console for scratching game discs. :\

(Image source: Shacknews)

External PCIe GPU for laptops gets closer

The PCI-SIG defined a standard for external PCIe in February this year, but not much has been heard about it since - until now.

MSI showed its "Notebook Station" external PCIe 16x solution back at CES; it will allow you to connect a dual-slot width graphics card (but NOT two graphics cards, although it is probably only a matter of time before someone makes a dual 8x slot external PCIe graphics bay).

The interesting part was that the external PCIe box was connected with an "ExpressCard" adapter - basically a faster PCMCIA card. MSI claimed that it provided plenty of bandwidth.

Now a bit of googling has revealed that an ExpressCard slot has 2.5GBits of bandwidth, implemented as a PCIe 1x lane - which is a far cry from even a 4x slot; however given how pathetic the 3D performance of most mobile chipsets is for gaming, it is not hard to imagine that an external video card hooked up to a 1x slot will be faster than the on-board GPU.

If you sell mod chips in the States, you might want to watch out

US Customs went on a blitzkrieg of justice today, and their target was mod-chip sellers. 

Across 16 states, US storm troopers raided 30 homes and businesses, busting sellers of mod-chips. These arrests today follow a 12 month investigation launched by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose goal was to ferret out and hunt down these horrendous and nefarious mod chips, which assist in console piracy, and mitigate profit margins. 

"Illict devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind: subverting copyright protections," said the assistant secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering," she went on to say. 

To protect us the from the terrors of mod-chipery, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has worked with Nintendo to sieze over 61,000 mod-chips since April, 2007.   

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement office was setup in 2003, and is a component of the Department of Homeland Security.  

Holographic optical drives not too far off

Squeezing massive quantites of data onto optical media with holographic technology is not new, but recently, researchers found a method of doing this with regular HD DVDs.

The good news came from the University of Berlin, where smart-folk developed a new microholographic recording method that can put nanostructures into the entire volume of a DVD, not just on the surface, in order to store data. This research effort has been named the "Microholas project." The project was started about 3 years ago, and it appears that it is a total success: the prototype can microholographinize 500 gigs onto a disc, and the researchers believe that reaching the 1 TB mark is very much possible.

 

 

I wonder if this will cut down video piracy?

A new anti-piracy system has been been developed by BD+ Technologies for Blu-Ray discs. It is called BD+, and it is coming to a movie rental new you.

The BD+ system works by creating a small virtual machine in the decoder's memory, and in this sense, it is similar to StarForce copy-protection software.  The virtual machine will be compiled using instructions from a new code interpreter that will be included in Blu-Ray optical drives, and from retrieving additional code from the Blu-Ray disc. The code interpreter is fairly small: only a 100 lines of code utilizing 60 different instructions. The code interpreter can do the one of the three things: it can transform data, being able to rearrange the video data on a Blu-Ray disc and insert watermarks; it can also self-examine itself, to see if it has been tampered with; and also, the code interpreter can run numerous advanced counter-measures on the Blu-Ray player during the use. These advanced counter-measures could eventually even be things such as time-limited playback for titles.

The Blu-Ray Disc Association is claiming that this protection scheme will be very difficult to break, because for each title the specific decoding keys have to be extracted, and each virtual machine has to be reverse-engineered. “BD+ will be the proverbial thorn in the side of Blu-ray movie rippers,” optical storage analyst Wesley Novack was quoted as saying. “With AACS and BD+ switching up encryption keys and methods routinely (BD+), it might become too much work to determine how to rip every Blu-ray Disc title out there.”

Some of the big movie studios have been waiting for better content-protection systems to be implemented before releasing big high-definition titles. This move by Blu-Ray to include BD+ might put them further ahead of HD DVD in the disc wars, as more studios chose to release only in Blu-Ray format, instead of HD DVD.   

Blu-ray +1, HD DVD -1

A significant battle in the format wars was fought today.

Blockbuster -- the largest chain of video game and DVD rental shops in the world -- has decided to chose the Blu-ray format, over HD DVD, for their future stock choices. This decision might prove to be a decisive blow against HD DVD.

Since late last year, Blockbuster has been offering both formats to its customers. Blockbuster has stated that customers chose Blu-ray movies over HD DVD titles more than 70% of the time. Matthew Smith, Blockbuster's senior vice president of merchandising told the Associated Press: "The consumers are sending us a message. I can't ignore what I'm seeing."

Similar to the Beta versus VHS format war from 20 years ago, both formats are wrestling each other to become the new marketplace standard for optical media. Since the beginning of the year, Blu-ray has been outselling HD DVD titles, as well as offering a larger selection of titles.

Ken Graffeo, the co-president of the North American HD DVD Promotional Group, was not pleased with Blockbuster's change of position. He said that "trying to make a format decision using such a short time period is really not measuring what the consumer is saying."

At least for now, Blockbuster will continue to offer HD DVD titles at 250 stores. But for exactly how long the HD DVDs will be available for rent has not been publicly determined.

Optical goodness coming our way...

Toshiba has apparently been showing a slim HD-DVD capable of writing 15GB onto a single disk; frankly, given the price of blank HD-DVD media this does not impress me.

On the other hand, Hitachi's GGW-H20N H/H BD Dual Rewriter with Sata Interface DOES impress me.

This drive is a combination HD and Blu-Ray drive that will write 50GB dual layer Blu-Day disks; it write BD-R, BD-RW, DVD and CD formats. Unfortunately it will not write HD-R or HD-RW, but it will apparently read them - and frankly, with the lower prices for BD media, and its higher capacity, I don't particularly care about HD write capability.

I really like the SATA interface; finally we can start to let the old IDE interface rest in peace.

Digitimes reports that Intel will be showing its 45nm native quad core "Harpertown" processor at Computex. The Harpertown is apparently slated to be a server processor. AMD will also apparently be displaying its quad core 65nm Barcelona based Opteron processors not only at its own booth - but also at its server partners booths.

VIA's P4 chipset patent license expired in April, however Wen-Chi Che, CEO and president of VIA, stated they are still in negotiations with Intel, and also apparently stated that he does not believe the lack of a license will materially affect via/

And in the "DUH" (as in obvious) department, Taiwan manufacturers have finally figured out that SATA optical drives will replace the clumsier IDE equivalents. I could have told them this over a year ago!

DRM foolishness again

The Inq reports that Sony is deploying a new copy protection scheme that prevents some DVD players - including Sony ones - from playing Sony DVD's.

So far, the affected titles appear to be "Stranger than Fiction" and "The Holiday".

Apparently when called, Sony reportedly stated that the problem was caused by a new copy protection scheme that is incompatible with some players, and that the customer would have to wait and get his player upgraded - or presumably purchase a new one.

You know, this is getting really ridiculous.

The only people these DRM infenctions do not annoy are the commercial pirates - who will copy the disks *including the protection* all day long.

Legitimate customers... well, we get to not watch the movies we pay for on some DVD players - and perhaps not on our computers too.

Argh.

Console paving the way for increased Blu-ray adoption

Findings from a study conducted by market tracking firm Nielsen VideoScan show that North American sales for Blu-ray movies outstrip HD-DVD movie sales in January 2007, and Sony's PlayStation 3 could be a contributing factor to this increase in Blu-ray adoption.  According to Nielsen VideoScan, approximately 47.14 HD-DVD movies were sold for every 100 Blu-ray titles during the first week of January, a 2-to-1 margin which reported increased to 3-to-1 (38.36 HD-DVD movies for every 100 Blu-ray movies) the following week.

Initial shipments of PS3 consoles were bundled with a copy of Talladega Nights on Blu-ray, as well as a voucher for an additional Blu-ray disc, and Nielsen VideoScan believes this played a part in boosting Blu-ray sales.  Sony was quick to highlight how the increase in Blu-ray disc sales is further supplemented by online survey results which reveal that over 90 percent of selected PS3 owners have used their consoles to view movies on Blu-ray.  While the bundled copies of  Talladega Nights likely contributed to the results, 80 percent of the 100,000 PS3 owners surveyed are still planning to purchase further Blu-ray movie titles, and 72 percent were willing to rent Blu-ray movies in the future.

Such results certainly work towards Sony's game plan; the company was previously placed into a position where it had to justify inclusion of Blu-ray support for the PS3, despite the costs would incur to the console.

Swash buckelers find hidden treasure on The Pirate Bay in the form of the first prated HD DVD movie.

I've made this remark to people before; for every 10 people working to secure some form of digital copyright protection for movies, games and software, there are 10,000 people looking to break that copyright lock. Yes, copy protection schemes do protect the copyright holder. Yes, the vast majority of consumers accept copy protection as a given fact of digital life. And though most could care less of copy protection and would never try to break it, there are those select few who will try. Most of them are honest, law abiding citizens who pay for their media (like I do), but don't favour copy protection. But the overwhelming minority (keep minority in mind) will actually choose to break copy protection and pirate said works of software, music and or movies. But on to the big announcement.

The Pirate Bay (everyones favourite Bit Torrent portal site) has the distinctive Honor (or curse) of being the first site ever to host the first working HD DVD rip. The movie Serenity is available on the site for those seeking HD DVD Bit Torrent bliss, but with a price. First, the movie comes as a .EVO file that is compatible with most (but not all) DVD playback software suites. It works with PowerDVD (the movie being encoded in the MPEG-4 VC-1 format) and perhaps a few others, but more feed back is needed. Secondly, try finding a HD DVD burner and a single slice of blank media for less than the price of a whole new computer. And finally, you'd better have tonnes of spare bandwidth as the hefty 19.6 GB file size will probably hose any connection lesser than T1 speeds.

This development comes about a month after an anonymous programmer known only as Muslix64 released the software that allows for the copying of HD DVDs, but with a hitch. The software places the honours of cracking upon the end user. The end user must have the disc's volume and title key(s) for extraction to work. These aren't made publicly available, so coming by them is a little difficult. The keys for Serenity had been released on the grand ol' Interweb, and a method of extracting those keys was also made available.

So what does this mean? Well, CyberLink who makes PowerDVD said that these keys were not obtained through them. The content providers (that being Hollywood studios) can invalidate known pirated keys. This could render DVD and or HD DVD rips invalid if a user were forced to update their DVD playback software every single time they inserted a disc.

Muslix64 and those others involved in BackupHDDVD aren't disclosing how these keys were obtained. The most obvious reason for which is to protect themselves from a legal onslaught of overly litigious movie studios. But the greater reason for which may be to protect whatever back-door or hole was found that allows for HD DVD rips

EVD and HD-FVD to join HD-DVD and Blu-Ray in increasing market fragmentation and consumer confusion.

The good news is that both EVD and HD-FVD should be much cheaper than HD-DVD or Blu-Ray

The bad news is that both of them also have DRM.Basically, China and Taiwan both want to have their own HD DVD formats; and in both cases they went with cheaper red lasers.

HD-FVD stores 5.4/11/15GB (single/dual/triple layer) on one disk - not that much more than a standard DVD until you get to the three layer version. The picture quality is said to be excellent.

These new red laser based standards are likely to mean trouble for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray as we are likely to be flooded with cheap EVD/HD-FVD (and probably combo players supporting both standards).

LG announces a dual format Blu-ray/HD-DVD player, while Warner Brothers is set to release Blu-ray/HD-DVD/DVD disc's.

If you've been considering a Blu-ray or HD-DVD set top player, perhaps you should wait. Though the format wars continue for these next-gen modes of optical storage, manufacturers and content providers have been quick to realize that consumers would like to have the best of both worlds. And in one case, all three

First, LG is going to be announcing the release of a consumer based Blu-ray/HD-DVD capable set top player. It may seem a little premature on the part of LG, but it puts them in a prime slice of the new media market share. Currently, the only other manufacturer that could even consider developing a hybrid player such as this would be Samsung. All of the other manufacturers out there have adopted the 'Let's wait and see...' attitude. But this new player from LG, ready for debut at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas (Yes, Neoseeker will be there to sniff out the latest and greatest in hardware) will support something new from Warner Brothers, bringing me to my second observation.

Warner Brothers will also be in attendance at CES for the launch of their new optical media that supports Blu-ray, HD-DVD and DVD. Three formats in one! It seems to be quite the steep away for such a music and movie giant to give consumers such great choice. I would have thought they would have preferred to keep their films on those three separate mediums. In the end we'll have to choose between four different mediums, with this new Total HD disc a sort of test case for the movie studios.

Consumers don't really want to have three different copies of the same movie, and certainly don't want three different players for those three different formats. Perhaps LG and Warner are helping to test the waters for other manufacturers and content providers. And it looks like in the end, we the lowly consumer may actually win this one. Now if they could only loosen the cuffs of copy protection and remove the shackles of HDCP (High Definition Copy Protection).  

NEC develops a chip to play both Blu-ray and HD-DVD media. So long format war!

I guess it was kinda expected, and NEC did it. They have just developed a chip capable of reading both Blu-ray and HD-DVD media. Yes, we all know. One of these two new optical formats was destined to become the latests and greatest in optical storage. Now it would appear that they've both won. Sort of?

It's not like this dual read chip design is anything new. Broadcom also developed a chip that handles both formats, but its creation had both of the standards encoded within it. Somewhat akin to a firmware flash. According to ArsTechnica, this new NEC chip has the integrated circuitry to handle the drives internal logic beyond media stream decoding. And for added bonus, this new chip somewhat ties with Ricoh's quad-mode laser. This laser can handle both the reading, and perhaps even the writing of both the HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats.

This might be enough to convince consumers to start purchasing new Hi-Def players. Though these dual players (and perhaps someday, dual writers) aren't out yet, one set top box would be easier than two. It is expected that one dual format player would be cheaper than a single format player, but far cheaper than shelling out for two stand alone units.

Though this does come with but a single provision. Sony will have to relax some of its licences where applicable to Blu-ray. To maintain some portion of the optical market share, I expect they will.