Tom’s Hardware Guide: Tom’s Hard News — See BS Meter before you read this article. Good job by Tom’s HW Review to get this story out.
Redmond (WA) – In an exclusive interview with Tom’s Hardware Guide, one of Microsoft’s lead representatives on the DVD Forum Steering Committee said that decisions regarding whether his company and Intel would back and promote HD DVD as a high-definition video disc standard, were determined only within the last few days. Prior to some critical recent developments and announcements, both companies – which had proclaimed neutrality – may have been ready to back Blu-ray.
I am not going to buy either standard until I get a drive that supports both, or one has clearly lost. I have seen too many sad faced betamax owners whining about how the superior format lost.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to let the open source community support
the devices? It’s not like there is a shortage of people who can hack together a few lines of code and make a simple disk spin-read-write. This seems like developing a car tire and debating how round it should be or how it should fit on the wheel. Maybe we can reinvent time next and debate what time it should be and how the clocks should turn. Geez!
I guess Microsoft wants it to be interoperable and all that jazz.
This seems fairly simple. Maybe the manufacturers can just ship the things with nobody supporting them. I’m sure in about 15 minutes you would have all kinds of supporting programs and files online.
Generally speaking, I accept a certain amount of DRM as long as it doesn’t get in the way. iTunes’ DRM does it right – it lets me share it to the PC’s in my house and work as well as my mobile platform (iPod) and even lets me burn the songs to CD if I want, so that’s a win for me. If what Intel and Microsoft say pans out (that they want to allow backups of the HD-DVD movies for household streaming) then that’s some DRM that I’m perfectly willing to accept.
I am genuinely curious, John, what bullshit you’re detecting. No disresect – I just don’t see the downside.
The new media should be cheap, so lots of people purchase it in high volume. I think there is room for both formats If you had one drive that supported the new media, CD’s and DVD’s, the only thing needed would be interoperable programs that let all this stuff work on one machine-PC, Mac, Linux or whatever contraption you want to run.
Microsoft could start producing blank media and market it as being interoperable. Maybe we’ll see blue-ray plastic hard drives. Glock makes a plastic 9mm handgun, so there are some fairly robust plastics out there. I think the plastic hard drive is the wave of the future. My old PC fried, so it is now scrap metal.
DRM is the BS. Companies are withholding technology so they can all agree on some control mechanism that restricts users. This is how you get stuff like $4.00 gasoline and expensive CD’s or software.
We should have fuel cells and cheap abundant power. None of that. We are going to get 70% increases in natural gas this winter, along with skyrocketing gasoline prices. After the death ray DRM corporate committee gets done, the whole thing will another inflated, protected high priced mess. Keep paying as these vampires bleed the consumers. Making a fair profit is fine. That’s not good enough for the public be damned billionaire technology jet set. You can live without a computer if you really need to and save some electricity.
The motion picture industry is controlling this rollout. They are also very scared of the technology. My thinking is that by the time the general public see anything substantial, there will be some other technology on the horizon that will replace both.
I put all my money (if any) to the HD DVD format. Why? For the same reason the betamax flunked, because you will NOT see any blu ray device not done by Sony. That’s why the betamax flunked. I have NEVER EVER seen any betamax done by anyone other than Sony.
That’s also the reason why the midisc did not replaced the cd. Sure it has a niche but only that. In the best the blu ray will have a niche but only that.
That is usually the biggest mistake done by companies. They do implement some really good ideas until they do some exclusivity bs and their product, format, etc. end up in the trash can.
I really was impressed that DVD actually flew because of that.
Angel
Sanyo also made Betamax VCRs. As I recall, because it happened before last week, Fisher owned the rights to VHS. Their license was cheaper and easier to attain. Sony’s Betamax was much more expensive and stringent. Thus most manufacturers went to VHS. By the time Sony realized that VHS would become dominent, it was too late and so they killed Betamax.
Although Microsoft and Disney jointly developed the iHD interactivity layer, based on XML – which is the glue that holds together the “Vista vision” of Microsoft’s future Windows platform – and even though Disney is a Blu-ray proponent, the Association chose instead to endorse BDJ, an implementation of Sun-s Java Mobile Edition
They mention that last, of course, but that has got to be a major consideration for M$ – that a cash-cow they developed was snubbed by Blu-ray.
and for Angel:
http://www.blu-ray.com/recorders/
Not only will blu-ray devices and media be produced by firms other than Sony, they already are. Big names like Panasonic, Hitachi, Pioneer, Mitsubishi, and, for the computer geeks, HP, Dell, and our beloved Apple are all slated to build or include hardware and other devices utilizing the blu-ray disc. Sony has a fabulous team of engineers that have designed and created some of the most phenomenal technology we’ve seen in the past two decades–we owe them for CDs, digital photography, and flat-screen TVs, just to name a few–but I feel certain that blu-ray will not go the proprietary way of the Beta, mini-disc, or memory stick, but will flourish once the technology has been finalized. In the end, portable media storage will probably be completely overtaken by flash-based memory chips like those used in the new iPod nano and upcoming devices, and the need for a silly spinning platter to watch a movie or access data will hang on like tape drives and floppy disks, but will lose consumer appeal. Plus, blu-rays saving grace may be its use in the PlayStation 3, which is already predicted to become the best-selling electronic device of all time.
An Early History of 8-Track by Abigail Lavine William Powell Lear, the man behind LearJet, was also the inventor of the 8-track cartridge tape system. by Abigail Lavine
http://www.8trackheaven.com/early.html
Those were the days, before the 1-Track minds wrecked aviation and innovation. “The only serious competition came from cassette tapes (which appeared at around the same time as 8-tracks)”. Serious competition was good. Today the whole game is about eliminating any serious competion and trashing innovation. The best way to figure out what is best is by letting the market do its thing, instead of some standards committee of yo-yos. Many people will buy both formats, if the price is right. Technology should create choices and not limit them. That is why you have so many cheap printers with good print quality.
Are dual layer DVD medias going to go mainstream soon, or is the dual layer capability on my writer is good for nothing?
The best way to figure out what is best is by letting the market do its thing, instead of some standards committee of yo-yos.
If we are talking about breakfast cereal, or automobiles, or video players/recorders I would agree. But if we are talking about “standards”, I disagree.
I much prefer the NTSC standard versus the current “standards war” of High Def, and digital broadcasting in general. Or W3 standards for the web versus the old Explorer – Netscape “features” battles that killed-off most 3rd party browsers.
DVD-R versus DVD+R became a non-event when dual-format players/ecorders became available. I hope the same thing happens with the blue-laser formats – since the two sizes are too invested in their chosen camps to compromise.
Cool, now let the format wars go. I’m sure they have learned from their mistakes and let other companies develop blu-ray.
I just can’t wait for generic players that can do both formats.