It's official: BOTH Blu-ray and HD-DVD downrez component (1 Viewer)

[Jason Harbaugh]

There's "enthusiasts" claiming to stick with DVD because there are two different formats out there, despite 720p,1080i/p being far superior to DVD. I was actually one willing to support one format in the beginning but not if downrezing is enforced. Sure 540p will be better than standard DVD now, but it is the whole principle of the matter that stinks. I just want to get the word out now before product is released to show that there are people upset with the decision and it will affect their sales. Raise enough ruckus, and perhaps no Studio will enforce ICT. I'll be right back onboard if that happens.

The other reason for protesting this is that you may be all fine and dandy with an HDCP capable set now, but don't think for a second you are safe. If the studios get away with this now, there's nothing stopping them from doing it again.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

This argument is EXTEMELY valid. There as soooooo many movies that I wouldn't watch otherwise if the pirated version is not available. Heck, I don't even download. If my friend didn't already downloaded the movie to her PC, I won't even bother downloading the movie. Furthermore, I don't even really watch the movie. While the movie is playing in the background, I'll be chatting on the phone with my friends etc. So how can these actions be construed as "stolen revenue"?

In conclusion, the movie is being watched just because it happens to be there, otherwise I wouldn't even think about watching it.

On ocassion, I found a gem and guess what? I bought every single one of them. Just like during early Napster days. BECAUSE of file sharing, I bought more CDs and DVDs than ever. Out of my 1,300+ DVDs, easily 300 of them are because of the advantage of "file sharing"

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Hmmm... Well, I won't call your honesty into question, but while I think Hollywood's muy loco to think they're "losing" money from piracy/file-sharing, I would be very surprised if they are actually "gaining" money from it. All the people I know who download songs through peer-to-peer have completely stopped buying CDs because they've decided they really don't have to.

Quite possibly it's just the kind of scum I hang out with, but I don't think it's an isolated trend.

As for why this trend affects audio but not so much video, I'm not really sure. Perhaps people place less importance in audio because it so often happens in the background, while video is more immersive...? Or perhaps just due to download times (audio: a couple of seconds; video: minutes to hours).

 

[Kelly Grannell]

I guess the people around me are the exceptions. We are all artists (music, photography, videography), I guess that's why we have the mentality that if we find something we like, we'll purchase the original.

The very latest example is when I accidentally found a website where I can download the an '80's song. Both my husband and I tracked the CD version of that song all the way to Germany and finally bought the CD single, used, for $80. I guess we are not the norm. :b

But going back to my argument, since Napster (and other easier way of downloading 'illegal' songs) have been shut down, I'm back to 1 CD per month purchase whereas during the Napster days my husband and I used to buy (on average) 5 CDs per week.

Oh, also MP3 downloads sounds extremely horrid, we'd rather have the CD / Vinyl rather than being tortured listening to (then, mostly) 128 - 192 kbps MP3.

 

[Cees Alons]

Kelly,

That's exactly what an article I read a year ago said: downloading CDs also makes certain products "hot", resulting in more buys by the persons who are into buying.

It works promotional and thus makes the "loss" of the studios even harder to establish (perhaps even a profit, in some cases).

It's a complicated matter, and in general, I'm still strongly opposed to illegal downloads. However, it's too simplistic to add all illegal downloaded products, multiply them with their street-value and consider the sum "the loss" of the studios (they're not literally losing any real money, of course: they're not receiving money they think they could expect).


Cees

 

[BrettGallman]

My set can do HDMI, but that doesn't mean that I don't think this entire thing is ridiculous. I think it's important that everyone, including those with HDMI, worry about this. Because if there are so many sets out there that don't have HDMI, everyone with those sets won't buy into the new hardware. Then everyone loses in the end if the platforms fail because of it.

 

[JackKay]

Cees:

Never the less, you are still getting Something for Nothing.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

but how is that construed as "loss of sale" when there is not even an interest to rent it? DUH!

 

[Carl Johnson]

I apologize if this subject has been covered but where will these new DVD players get the data to determine whether or not a particular flag is active? If I'm understanding the concept studios will have the ability to remotely tell a player whether or not a full resolution signal can be sent via componet jacks for each individual movie if they so choose. Does that mean that a player that's not connected to the internet will default to the lower quality setting?

 

[JackKay]

Movie Studios and Record Companies are renown for their creative bookkeeping practices as you know, so anytime someone listens or watches a copyrighted material they did not pay for they feel they have been gypped.

If someone has an interest in a song and P2P downloads it, the copyright holders want compensation. It does not matter that you erase it from your hard drive or IPOD the next day, in their eyes you Took It, just like it was on the store shelf

 

[JackKay]

Carl
No. The individual movie (disk) will tell the player to down-rez or not. The actual down-rezing is hard wired into each player waiting to be turned off or on by the disk at the whims of the individual Studio.

P.S. Apperently you will be able to tell from the outside packageing if its a Down-Rezer or not.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

This what puzzles me. What's the studio stance when 1 person rents a DVD (instead of purchasing) and the entire family watch it? I usually do that. Every time I watch a new movie, usually my daughter, husband, and parents watch it together with me. So according to the studios I ripped them off by 80% (rental $5, purchase $25), and the rest of my family "pirate" the movie? Or at least they've "lost" $120 in sales? Give me (us, the public) a break!

After all, not to be ironic, they (my family) ARE getting something for nothing.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Well, actually, the movie studios tried to kill video rental by lawsuit in its early days. They were stopped by something caled the Doctrine of First Sale, which states [in effect] that once you have sold something, you cannot control how the buyer uses it. Even though they're labeled "for private home use only", you can rent them out or resell them without limit and without paying the studio a cent -- it's only if you do something clearly infringing the actual copyright [rather than the "license notice" at the front], such as arrange public exhibitions for a fee, or braodcast it on television, that they can nick you.
The studios then simply raised the price of VHS tapes to US$100+, so that the rental places would have to pay through the nose; later on they arranged "revenue-sharing" with Blockbuster, and currently Netflix, wherein they get a cut of the rental take.
They do feel that they're being ripped off, but legally there's nothing they can do about it, and they haven't yet managed to get that law changed [though they are working on it].

 

[RobertSiegel]

The movie studios won't stop this behavior until not one illegal copy can be made, and we all know that there are tens of thousands of expert and very smart hackers out there, so the game goes on, and the public loses. I bet it isn't 6 months after the first blue-ray/hd-dvd release that full high-def copies in 1080p will be available for download, taken from the HDMI output. So is the way to solve their problem? Hurt the people that support the studios?

According to Bill Hunt's story today on Digital Bits, he talked with several higher-ups at some studios at the CES show and they won't budge on this, not at all. So no matter what their customers say, the studios don't want to hear us. Aside from some generous studio contributors to public chats (Warner for example), they don't care what we say, want, need, or desire. The exception of course is if there is money in it for them, not if WE lose any..Hollywood has always been and always will be a total greed machine in this respect, but I do love their movies, and they know it.

 

[george kaplan]

I sometimes wonder why HD is going forward at all? If the studios would rather see HD die, than give an inch on their draconian protection schemes, and the public won't buy into those schemes, HD will fail, and while that will be a shame for us in terms of what could be, it's got to be a huge financial loss for the developers of HD. So, why do they bother at all? If they're not willing to put out a reasonably consumer friendly product, then they'd lose less money by not putting it out at all.

 

[David L]

You know the winner of the Blu-Ray / HD-DVD battle just lost an easy win. The winner of this battle just had to announce full 1080i component compatibility and most early adopter would have made their choice. I know I was on the fence about which format would support component 1080i and now it seems I am not on the fence anymore, but back on the sidewalk.

 

[Eric F]

I seriously doubt early adopters will win this battle.

Unless someone folds, this one is going to be a long, drawn out fight.

 

[Juan C]

This is what thedigitalbits' Bill Hunt has just said about this (emphasis added by me):

 

[Edwin-S]

I guess HD can wither and die then. My set upconverts to 540p already. If that is the maximum resolution the studios want to allow over component then there is no purpose in upgrading. I cannot afford to spend 5000 dollars on another set that will be made obselete by these assholes in four years time.

Maybe there are enough people with HDMI connectors on their sets to make the HD format successful, or maybe it will just become another laserdisc with discs costing 80+ dollars. I'll just have to wait and see, because I certainly cannot afford the cost to upgrade. The studios want people to stick to SD-DVD. They are going to get their wish, but I for one am going to be buying a lot less discs.

The people running these studios have visions of "video on demand", which is why I think they are trying to kill disc-based HD formats before they even get off the ground. Thanks to their efforts I may not be able to access HD material, but if they think that I'll ever pay to download a movie then they can forget it. If I can't own it then I don't want it.

 

[Hank]

This format war could end up like DVD-A vs SACD where no one format wins. Joe six-pack is happy with standard DVD's, if the pricing of these HD/Blu-Ray discs are up in price I don't believe they will be big sellers. We are all use to paying $14-$20 on new releases. My HDTV only has component video inputs, I also believe us on this forum and everyone else with component video only TV's will determine where these formats go.