Format war may be almost over?

[Kevin Shaw]

I have a PS3 which my wife and I bought on Jan. 1st, and as far as I'm concerned it's a fine choice for an HD movie player plus game machine plus digital photo reader, etc. I also have one client who's specifically asked for a Blu-ray copy of his wedding video this summer, and I've told him I'll sort that out with him once I determine what it's going to cost to produce. If burner prices haven't dropped enough by then I figure I'll farm the authoring out to someone who's already made that investment, so either way I'm covered. Same principle applies if someone asks for HD-DVD.

Regarding disc capacity issues, Blu-ray has a definite advantage because a single-layer disc can hold a useful amount of content in MPEG2 format, which is significantly easier to encode than the MPEG4 I'd have to use to squeeze my projects onto a single-layer HD-DVD. Given a choice I'd rather not use multi-layer discs of any format, as even mainstream (Hollywood) DVDs seem to have trouble with skipping at layer breaks. So if I can render a 90-minute video to MPEG2-TS in under 3 hours and have that authored and burned on a single-layer disc the same day, that makes more sense to me than waiting overnight just to render one of my projects to AVCHD or VC1 so I can fit it on an HD-DVD.

I read somewhere that Blu-ray disc sales were running slightly behind HD-DVD until January of this year, when they suddenly surged to roughly double the volume. That's almost certainly a result of widespread sales of the PS3, so if that trend continues Blu-ray appears to have an obvious edge over HD-DVD for the foreseeable future. The HD-DVD group has basically blown their head start on shipping standalone players, so unless they get something going by slashing prices they may be done. Or we may muddle along with two competing formats until they both get buried by something more convenient, but for now it's Blu-ray by several lengths going around the second turn of the track...

[Paulo Teixeira]

Here is another article for anybody who is interested in reading.
http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/

Blu-Ray may be winning at the moment but for a while now, me and others have been predicting that Microsoft may release an X-BOX 360 with HDMI and built-in HD-DVD player by the end of this year. If they release such a player for 400 dollars then HD-DVD will have a chance of competing again. That would be 2 killer game systems, A PS3 that plays Blu-Ray movies and an X-BOX 360 that plays HD-DVDs and both having an HDMI output. With that combination, it wouldn’t be a good idea to purchase that LG combo player.

Speaking of video games consoles, Sony will give away a free Blu-Ray copy of Casino Royale to the first 500,000 Europeans to register their PS3 online. I fully understand Sony's business strategy in this rather than just including it in the Box. They will be able to get quicker sales this way.

[Paulo Teixeira]

Now this is News
A major Australian retailer who backs Blu-Ray refuses to stock HD-DVDs.
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/9548/52/
http://blogs.theage.com.au/screenpla...es/005081.html

[Andrew Kimery]

Interesting. I'm surprised to see a retailer take such a hardline stance.


-A

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Paulo Teixeira

...A major Australian retailer who backs Blu-Ray refuses to stock HD-DVDs...

I guess that's one way to eliminate consumer confusion. Give only one choice!

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

I guess that's one way to eliminate consumer confusion. Give only one choice!

John, while of course that's an excellent argument...how many kinds of DVD can you purchase now?
I'd argue (regardless of my personal position) that consumers can't manage the difference between two formats when given the choice, given that one can't see the differences between BD and HD DVD (actually, you can, but that's related to the decoders, not the disc itself).

[Jon Fairhurst]

Hi Douglas,

I think you're right that most consumers can handle choice: Coke or Pepsi, Bud or Coors, Ford or Chevy. But note that by the time CD and DVD burners went truly mainstream, universal drives had hit the market.

In fact, just today a friend who works in printer technology and marketing asked me about DVD-RWs. He had no idea about the DVD types. He thought the "-" was just a dash.

The other problem is journalists. They love conflict. And they play dumb. (Okay, not all are playing.) So, they say there this format "war", and it's confusing and it's like Betamax, and you could make the wrong choice! It's hard to build a mass market with press like that.

So, maybe there will be a winner. And maybe universal players will emerge as the norm. Or movies on universal disc will solve it all. But it will be dead simple before HD players reach an 80% adoption rate.

But we've got a while before that happens.

In the meantime, it will be fun to watch it all play out. (And it will be nice when HD disc playing - and burning - becomes more affordable.)

[Mike Brown]

Wired News is reporting that a hacker may have cracked the DRM encryption on HD-DVD disks:

09 ... C0

That's the so-called "Processing Key" that unlocks the heart of every HD-DVD disk to date. Happy Valentine's day, AACS.

AACS, a DRM scheme used to encrypt data on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray disks, would appear to be cracked wide open by that short string of hexadecimal codes, as previously, only disk-specific Volume Keys were compromised. The new hack is the work of Arnezami, a hacker posting at the doom9 forums, fast becoming the front line in the war on DRM.

The new method completely compromises HD-DVD in principle, as it relies on AACS alone to encrypt data, even if there are other parts of the puzzle that are yet to fit together. Blu-Ray has two more levels of protection: ROM-MARK (a per factory watermark, which might revoke mass production rights from a factory but not, it seems individuals) and BD+, another encyption system, which hasn't actually been used yet on sold disks (but which soon will be), meaning that its own status seems less obviously compromised.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/0...w_hddvdbl.html

Will the HD-DVD consortium add new encryption which makes old disks unusable in next-generation players ... give up on DRM ... or just abandon the format if content providers pull the plug on it?

[Boyd Ostroff]

A month ago it was not only cracked, but an HD-DVD movie appeared online for download...

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=84249

[Paulo Teixeira]

Blu-Ray is about to be fully cracked as we speak and I was browsing through that forum yesterday and they want Blu-Ray to be cracked so badly because some of them fear that this may give an advantage to Blu-Ray. As I said in other forums, Sony knew that AACS was going to be compromised so they developed other protection schemes to be used in the future and I wouldn’t be surprised if they use it this year.

I Find it very ironic that they claim its for fair use but when movies becomes available for file sharing, you can clearly see what the motives are.

[Paulo Teixeira]

http://sharp-world.com/corporate/news/070214_2.html

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-ente...scs-236589.php
http://crunchgear.com/2007/02/14/sha...-over-the-top/
http://www.t3.co.uk/news/247/enterta...another_player

If a Blu-Ray recorder is not your cup of tea, then you can always pick up the Sharp 1TB hard drive recorder.
http://sharp-world.com/corporate/news/070214_1.html

http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/02/14...-and-counting/

Anyway, I think JVC will probably release a Blu-Ray recorder with a hard drive very soon.

[George Ellis]

The previous crack was the per disc crack. The new crack is for any disc (process) and also applies to Blu-Ray as it is the same key (was in the Doom9 thread this morning). The Doom9 thread, while technical, is an entertaining read. New keys can be issued later, but the method now yields the key. Years in development, millions in cost, cracked in months. CSS was known to be vulnerable when created. But then again, Hollywood still thinks you just type faster to crack 1024-bit keys in 30 seconds. ;) None of the cracks were breaking the key or even HDMI. It was all about watching the process accessing the data and finding the key. If it is digital, it can be probed.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=121866&page=6

PS - Mike Brown, I suggest you edit your post and remove the key. I just want to make sure the morons do not do a web search and finger Chris for having it on this site.

[Mike Brown]

Originally Posted by George Ellis

PS - Mike Brown, I suggest you edit your post and remove the key. I just want to make sure the morons do not do a web search and finger Chris for having it on this site.

OK ... added some ellipses. They'll have to follow the link to get the full key.

[Steve Benner]

Currently, I am supporting HD DVD (XBOX Player). I have been stunned with the quality and have no issues at all with it. The movie selection currently and in the coming year is much more suited to my tastes (Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Clerks 2, V For Vendetta, Harry Potter, etc...).

The surge was defiantly due to the PS3, but that may level off. Also, with Apple on the brink of releasing HD Downloads, I will partake in that as well, and then combine the HD DVD studio's with Apple's, and you have everything but Sony and Fox currently.

Even if Blu-Ray "wins," it won't be for a while. And then, what does it matter. All of my HD DVD movies will still play fine on my player, and I will just keep stock of them. Not really a big loss.

[Paulo Teixeira]

10X Blu-Ray write speed.
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News...x?NewsId=19792