Will you be rushing into the new Hi-Def formats in 2006? (1 Viewer)

[AaronMK]

The distinction that makes disagree that the HD/BR Copy Protection = Divx is that for Divx No News == Bad News and for HD/BR, No News == Good News. Maybe for Managed Copy an account will be needed, but not for watching off the disc.

As for PPV, the studios would really be shooting themselves in the foot going to that model. How many movies in your collections have you watched enough times to say that the rentals would have cost more than the purchase? For many people (including the average consumer), I think the knowledge of ownership gets them to spend more than they would have. (Unfortunatly, I have to use the term 'ownership' loosely.)

I suppose a studio could release a disc that only offered a route to the play function through a BD-J or iHD application that handled the PPV transaction, but that depends on if they can lockout chapter/title access functionality. If they could not, I suppose they could get around that by making the application also handle the decoding. These workarounds seem too error prone to provide a good and secure PPV model.

There are a lot of evils with how the studios are handling copy protection (which I have made my views on clear the other threads), but I don't think it provides them the ability to move hard media to a PPV model.


This is what would worry me most about a switch to "medialess" distribution.

 

[BrettGallman]

I was just saying the same thing to someone the other day about the MP3 music industry; it seems that quality takes a back seat to convenience. I just hope the average consumer doesn't say to themselves, "you know, it's just a lot easier to download my favorite movies on to a hard drive and accessing them, rather than having all these discs sitting around." Because downloading full length, quality films that both HD disc formats can deliver is a long way off, so anything downloaded would be compromised, quality-wise. Just downloading a movie in SD would be bad enough now, because the files are huge. Also, there's the issue of space...whatever the studios came up with to hold any downloaded films would need to have an enormous amount of space for those of you out there that have huge collections.

 

[John H Ross]

I read this yesterday over at davisdvd.com. Please forgive my slight editing, but I'm unable to cut and paste. The full article is here:

http://www.davisdvd.com/news/news.html

20th Century Fox will have five titles... in stores prior to the release of the first player... Each title will have at least one feature unique to the new format and will include 10% to 20% of the bonus features from previously released or new DVDs and 80% new bonus elements such as advanced branching and menus and including added value programming accessed through connections to other devices such as the internet

Well this trend would suck! Carrying over just 10% to 20% of DVD special features would mean you'd have to hold onto most of your old DVDs, just as many of us now hang onto our old laserdiscs for that format's exclusive content (see, until recently, The Frighteners and Jaws). Where do they think we'll find the space? And you just KNOW that a future "ultimate" edition would transfer the rest over at some point in the future.

Do we really want to sacrifice special features in favour of "exciting" new menus?

I also have an issue with this business of pay-per-view and portability. It's one thing carrying music around in your pocket for a quick 20 minute burst while waiting for the bus. But watching a movie on the move is a whole different ballgame. Do you ever have time to sit down for 2 hours? Or are you supposed to watch the movie in chunks? I really don't understand why PSP movies are so popular (if indeed they are popular?)

As for hard drive storage - no chance! I've been looking at dozens of both internal and external hard drive reviews lately (with a view to upgrading) and NONE of them are considered 100% stable. Imagine losing a dozen or so movies when your hard disc dies. Not to mention the expense of backing everything up... well you see my point.

In a nutshell: HD is going to be a double-dippers paradise, pay-per-view for movies will suck. Hard disc storage won't work either.

John

 

[Qui-Gon John]

I guess by Craig's definition I was an early adopter of DVD, I got in in Sept 2000. I felt I was just slightly ahead of mainstream consumers, but quite a bit behind most HT enthusiasts.

But on HD/BR, I will probably stay out of it unless it gets to the point where you can no longer find new titles released in SD-DVD.

 

[george kaplan]

That really doesn't make sense, mathematically, as written. What I'm guessing they meant to say was that 20% or so of the bonus features will be old ones from standard dvd (quite possibly 100% of the features from the old dvd), and 80% of the features will be new ones, not previously on the dvd.

 

[John H Ross]

That's not how I read it at all. I read it as they'll take what they consider the best 20% of the old features, possibly so as to not make people think they wasted their money on the old DVD, and that 80% of the HD features will be new, so as to encourage people to upgrade.

But obviously that's totally impractical for the collector based upon the storage space required to keep both discs.

Plus I'm not particularly interested in clever interactive branching (unless it involves alternate cuts of the film) and internet content. Nor am I wowed by flashy Java menus or whatever they're thinking about including.

JR

 

[Josh.C]

David and others,

I watch these posts go back and forth over technicalities on both sides of the argument.

The one thing that is certain with both sides are that there are "RISKS". Many of us have taken these risks on new technology in the past, and gotten Burned.

If you feel obligated to *fight* this, as you have said in previous posts, HOORAY! more power to you guys. I for one, along with about 80% of my friends here at the HTF, don't feel it is my responsibility to make this thing work. Am I supposed to feel guilty if HD/Blu-Ray isn't a big success? Get real guys, its gonna be a success when America (which BTW is much bigger than the people chiming in on this thread) is ready to make the swap. If you want to invest your dollars in something that is not yet proven, by all means, go for it. I don't feel that as being "my responsibility" as a movie lover.

HD is around to STAY!!! It ain't going nowhere! (as we say in Texas). Just have a little freaking patience and let them work the bugs out of this thing, and allow for natural progression to bring consumers into this new market. IT WILL HAPPEN, and despite of how much we argue about it, and how many of you try to convince me to join in on this mighty crusade to overthrow the evil's of being content (right now) with SD.

Honestly guys, if I didn't know any better I would think you were putting on your armor for battle, getting ready to go up against the forces of Mordor.

Quit trying to make me feel like it is up to me for this new concept to work. I am a true believer that things will happen when they are ready to happen. Looks like some of you are going to have to cope with the idea that maybe mainstream America isn't ready for this in 2006! Get over it!

 

[george kaplan]

You may very well be right. However, if so, that is an extremely poorly constructed, mathematically misleading and bizarre sentence being used to say it.

I call it 50/50 whether they meant what you think and just couldn't figure out how to say it in English, or whether they meant what I'm guessing, and couldn't figure out how to say that in English.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Oh, how I hope and pray that this is true. Unfortunately, the entertainment companies are betting the other way. They're certain the future is in "new media" -- low-quality streaming Internet video, UMD movies, iPod video [a friend of mine remarks that, on his 35" TV, it "looks like Beta-II"; in other words, "good quality for crap"], and more importantly non-movie entertainment such as video games. The video game market is such now that the game version of a movie costs far less to make and actually grosses more, in many instances, that the film itself.
We could have had high-definition everything a decade and more ago, but the entertainment companies were unwilling to sink any money into it, and now they're moving out of that sphere entirely [just look at what's on television now -- almost nothing]. Unfortunately, since they have the "market power" -- they control the rights, the infrastructure, and the capital -- ordinary market forces have no effect on them. If they don't choose to offer something for sale, nobody gets a chance to buy it.

 

[george kaplan]

If time proves you right, I'll be very happy. But I think you very much underestimate the ability of these companies to fuck with your machine, and their desire to do so.

Hell, Sony figured out a way to use an existing cd format to break people's computers and open them up to internet viruses, all in the name of copyright protection.

If you think these companies won't figure out a way (and maybe already have) to do things to you via internet connection of a HD machine, that even the most vocal supporters here would find 100% unacceptable, then you are being way too optimistic.

I very much hope that we'll see actual machines and actual discs that function without such threats. But until such time as I see this in practice, I'm biding my time.

Either I'm paranoid or you're naive, and it may be a little bit of both, but the greed and lack of ethics of these companies is something that you'd need a hell of a lot more than 50 GB to even begin to adequately display. :frowning:

 

[ChristopherDAC]

You may be right about that, and I don't intend to find out, either way. My point had to do with the control measures which are part of the formats themselves, not something which might be done from outside.

Unless I badly misread the news coming out of CES, the first generation Blu-Ray players, the ones without the full interactive layer, won't even have network connectors. Since I can live without Internet-based "interactivity" and "special features", there's no reason for me not to buy one of them. If there aren't any titles I want announced by the time the second-wave, fully-interactive units come out, I'll probably be able to get it slightly-used or new at a sharp markdown, since most people apparently do care about those things.

In any case, if a network connexion is not provided for, it stands to reason that it will not be required for feature-presentation playback. That condition will probably not change for subsequent generations of machine. Less than an ideal solution? Certainly. Utterly intolerable? Not to me.

 

[Cees Alons]

What makes it worse: even if the studios don't "use" some of those evil specs, someone else might.

I get tired of those people stating that the studios "won't do" this or that. When any idiot could possibly produce a DVD that (either immediately or in time) "revokes" my player when I, or one of my housemates, or someone I temporarily lend my player to would be lured to playing it (and don't even try to tell me no such person exists on earth), the player is unsuited for use in a home.

And for "revokes" read any other damage or altered specs.


Cees

 

[ChristopherDAC]

I'm going to post something now, which some people might take as meant for an insult. It is not. The questions below are real questions, to which I would appreciate answers.

Now, as the launch dates of the new video-disc formats draw near, after literally years of discussion, some people are suddenly expressing alarm and distaste at the fact that certain measures will be implemented in these formats with the effect of keeping a degree of control in the hands of the disc producer. Can you honestly say that you are surprised?

You adopted DVD, adopted it eagerly in fact, in the full knowledge that it implemented such measures, in the forms of Macrovision, CSS, region lock, and software-based control lockouts. This videodisc format was primarily an improvement in convenience over the previous one, which had no such restrictions at all. The history of such matters as Copigard/Macrovision on video tape and SCMS in the digital music realm should have made it obvious that the entertainment companies would not relinquish concessions they had once won, but rather would advance from these positions. Did you honestly believe that a new format with 600% the resolution would not also have 600% the stupidity?

HDCP and AACS (and ROM-Mark and BD+) are not very different in kind from the "protective" measures on standard DVD. The only particularly new thing is that the cryptographic arrangement now allows for key revocation, a measure intended to increase robustness. The differences are chiefly in degree, not in kind (I seem to recall that certain kinds of "enhanced region coding" can truly bollix up a region-hacked player). Why, when you were so ready to make fundamental concessions in order to get DVD, are you now so shy about expanding those same concessions to get a dramatically better medium?

The degree and kind of the restrictions on these formats come as no surprise at all to me. I was not willing to make any of them for the sake of a Standard Definition medium; I have been and am willing to make some of them for the sake of High Definition, although doing so certainly does not please me. I suppose this is a case of "the shoe being on the other foot."

 

[John H Ross]

I appreciate your point. I think, and this is only my personal view, that it's purely invasion of privacy issues that are pissing everybody off.

I don't think anybody resents the film/music industry taking precautions to prevent illegal copying or distribution. DVDs feature macrovision, fine. They're also region coded, fine. Being in England, the introduction of RCE caused me a few sleepless nights but that was quickly and easily overcome by the "powers-that-be" over here.

But DIVX. Now THAT was a seriously flawed concept that home theater enthusiasts were dead against. The idea of connecting your player to a phone line to unlock a product that you have purchased is totally unacceptable. The idea of linking up to an internet service for ANY reason should NOT be compulsory. Frankly there's no way I would EVER consider connecting my SD/HD DVD player to a phone socket.

The more I hear about the security proposed for HD the more I fear it's edging towards the bad old days of DIVX. There's no reason why better quality should equal better protection. Higher prices, more revenue to protect, maybe. But not better quality per se. This is just Hollywood taking advantage of a new format to stop organised crime syndicates in Asia (or wherever) from mass production of bootlegs.

The sad thing, of course, is that no matter what they come up with SOMEBODY will find a way to crack it!

Like others have commented, nothing has been confirmed yet - the new discs may simply feature "basic" region coding etc - but the potential (and thus abuse) of increased protection or, more importantly, fiercer region coding, doesn't stop people from being concerned since they impact on the rights of law-abiding citizens.

Then again, if all the regions got the same product then there wouldn't be such a big deal about people importing/exporting across regions (which is, having said that, absolutely and perfectly legal). So Hollywood itself has created the very problem that it's working so hard to protect itself from!

John

 

[FrancisP]

Even if a studio makes a committment to do something, there is nothing binding. The studios could change their mind tomorrow if they wanted. A new management team could come in and change their mind. There are only two ways that I would feel comfortable about moving to HD. That is if the firmware is removed or Congress extends fair use rights to HD.

 

[Cees Alons]

Christopher:

(1) Some I did see coming, some others certainly not.

(2) No, I'm not ready to expand my concessions in any serious quantity. What the amount of concession would have to do with the amount of quality, is beyond me, BTW.

(3) What opened my eyes was the almost criminal rootkit disaster. It made me realize that the morals of the studios might be something to watch carefully. I more or less trusted Sony before that.

(4) Even if you see some evil coming doesn't mean you have to like it, let alone accept it.

(5) I find it perfectly acceptable if studios protect their artistic property. But not at an inacceptable expense of my freedom and privacy.

(6) I don't force anything upon them: I simply won't buy what I find too expensive (costs + concessions), weighing the attractiveness of the product against my expenses to obtain it.


Cees

 

[FrancisP]

They are very different in the scope of what it can do. They can keep track of what a user does and download it if given a chance. In addition, the studios want to extend control to what you even copy. They want the ability to limit time-shifting to 90 minutes and not allow any taping of some programs. The creators of BD+ are even urging studios to shut down players over recorded material. That goes beyond SD's current abilities.

If SD allows me those options and HD does not then I will stay with SD. If studios want to use HD to treat their customers like criminals then they can take their movies and go to Hell!!!!

 

[DaViD Boulet]

While I do generally take an optimist point of view (one that closely resembles that of ChristopherDAC) in all of this,

Cees' comments:


Are certainly not lost on me. I hope that rather than being a "window" into our future demise of digital media, that this recent debacle serves as a "wake up" call to Sony and other industry powers that they can't so easily take advantage of the consumers who give them $$$.

 

[RobertR]

My attitude is that we should be as ruthless with them as we can expect they would try to be with us.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

As long as the new players don't have any kind of "RJ" jack, I'm probably in. I feel that if I get a player in Region 1, and only buy legal R1 HD type disks, I'll never have a problem with it.

I don't think that a phone jack on the back is going to work anyway. If not for any other reason, an emergency requiring you to call 911 isn't going to be very pretty. All it would take is for one heart attack victim to die, and for that to get on the news, and the whole market would fall apart. It would also suck if someone else was on the line in another room and you tried to play a disk.

So, that being said, phone jacks are out. I don't have high-speed internet either, so if they require that, I'll just pass. Now, with no internet connection at all, I don't think that they'd ever shut my player down, and if they did, it would have to be with a program that automatically loads when I put a new movie in, but they wouldn't have any reason to do that, would they?

Glenn