HomeWeekly News Roundup (20 January 2008)
Like sands through the hourglass, so are the roundups of our week. Or something like that.
Let’s not waste any time, starting with copyright news, it seems the studios have finally wised up and have started experimenting with managed copy. Managed copy is a concept that, instead of letting people make copies of DVDs and stuff for backup or portable use, the studios would make these copies available to you (with the cost included). Fox has demonstrated this feature on some of its new DVDs, including the Family Guy Blue Harvest DVD which will have a DRM’d iPod version of the feature on the disc. Last week, you’ll remember Sony demonstrating something similar with Blu-ray discs on PS3, and copying a version of the feature to the PSP. You have to say that this is much preferred to not being able to make copies at all, although I don’t think this goes far enough – it would be much better if perhaps a 1:1 copy of the feature can be made and stored on networked storage, and to allow standalones to playback these “ripped” features without the disc being present. I’m sure this can be done without encouraging casual piracy (for example, making a copy without owning the original), through some kind of registration/watermark/DRM system. One of these days I’ll have to write a blog entry on how this could work and why it will benefit users (and I do remember promising to write a blog on wireless HD last week, and I haven’t). A more disturbing news was the good old USB system is going to be updated to allow digital video transmission, to compete with the HDMI standard. The disturbing part is that DRM will be added (most likely HDCP) to allow this to happen, which sounds to me like an excuse to add DRM to a standard that didn’t have it before. Why do we even need USB for video anyway – all new AV devices use HDMI as the standard already.
Onto to HD, Amazon is running a competition where 60 fantastic prizes are going to be given over a month’s period (to US residents only, unfortunately). There will be 30 packs that include a Blu-ray player and 100 Blu-ray movies (so 30 players and 3,000 free movies to be given away), and the same for HD DVD. Entry links found here. You don’t need to buy anything to enter, so if you do live in the US, why not give it a go? Good luck. While Blu-ray and HD DVD are fighting a war, Apple has launched a new front in HD downloads through Apple TV. Microsoft already has something similar through Xbox Marketplace, and Sony will introduce something similar too for the PlayStation Store. Will these new distribution methods beat the good old optical disc? I think the problem is that HD downloads and HD content on Blu-ray or HD DVD are two completely different things – one is relatively bitrate limited low quality, while the other represents the best possible quality in A/V at the moment. People who have spent thousands of dollars on LCD/plasmas and surround sound system aren’t going to be terribly impressed by 8 Mbps 720p video with 5.1 channel audio, when they have access to 25 Mbps 1080p versions of the same feature with 7.1 lossless audio. And how will ISPs react to the increase in bandwidth of these new applications? If the infrastructure has been rolled out, then perhaps not much will change. But if the infrastructure is not capable enough of handling such traffic increases, then ISP will have to raise prices and lower bandwidth, like they have done here in Australia regularly over the last few years. Could this happen in the US as well? As for the format war, things continue to bubble, and Blu-ray still has the upper hands, especially the latest sales figures show a commanding 85/15 lead, a likely reaction to the Warner announcement. However, Paramount is still releasing discs for HD DVD, having just announced their 1st quarter release schedule, the same with Universal. If HD DVD can hold on to these two studios, then there will still be many releases that are exclusive to HD DVD, such as Beowulf, Cloverfield, Bee Movie … of course, whether these two studios remain HD DVD exclusive is something that only time will tell. Toshiba is still promoting HD DVD, and they have just dropped the retail pricing of the HD-A3 to around $150, and you can pick one up from Amazon (with 7 free HD DVD movies) for as low as $130 – check out Digital Digest’s Blu-ray/HD DVD deals page for more information on this and many other HD deals. $130 with 7 free movies for a HD DVD player that also does very good DVD upscaling is a bargain, considering that a good DVD upscaler will cost about the same without the free movies. Plus you will get access to whatever exclusives that may still exists for the format, for the time being anyway.
In gaming news, the December and 2007 NPD results are out and I’ve covered it in the previous blog post. Now some (including myself) have been confused by the numbers, which suggest the Xbox 360 widening it’s lead in December over the PS3, but shrinking in terms of overall market share to Sony’s console. This can be easily explained because while the Xbox 360 still enjoys a 3 to 1 lead, unless the monthly Xbox 360 sales numbers continue to have the same ratio to PS3 sales, then market share will continue to grow in PS3’s favor. Of course, if the 360 outsells the PS3 continuously, even if the margin decreases, all this means it that the PS3 will gain market share until a certain point and then stop gaining and at best, all it can look forward to is equal market share with the 360. Or something like that. The somewhat unexpected surge in 360 sales has meant a disruption to the usually reliable Xbox Live service. To make up for it, Microsoft will be giving away a free copy of the Xbox Live Arcade game, Undertow, to all Xbox Live users (both Silver and Gold members). The offer is only for a week, and starts right about now, so don’t miss out (Edit: it’s actually available from next Wednesday to Sunday).
That’s it for this week. Hopefully I will write that article about wireless HD next week, or maybe about managed copy as well. We’ll see.