HomeWeekly News Roundup (16 March 2008)
What a week it has been. The server problem was finally fixed, although not without a lot of fixing and tweaking as you would expect when you do a major server move. Also received a bunch of cheap HD DVDs that I had ordered in previous weeks, pretty much all the titles I’ve ordered have now been received (I just need to find some time to watch them, that’s all). And I also celebrated my birthday during the week as well. So it’s been a busy week, and if there seems to be less news stories than normal, that’s probably why.
So let’s not waste any time and start with copyright news. The MPAA is at it again (I seem to use this phrase quite a lot. But blame the MPAA, not me). This time, they are against Net Neutrality, because it might hurt their plans to spy on everybody. Net Neutrality basically means leaving the Net alone and not placing restrictions on things like content types, connection modes and placing priority on certain types of content, while reducing priority on other “less desirable” content. Obviously, a restricted and regulated network will benefit the MPAA in their attempt to control how, when, where and what we download. Having big business tell us what we can and cannot do is, in my opinion, even worse than Big Brother type governments doing so … at least government are elected (in most countries).
On to HD. Now that people have finally gotten around to the idea that Blu-ray is *the* HD format for the future, questions are starting to be raised. Even staunch Blu-ray advocates such as Bill Hunt from The Digital Bits are starting to ask the BDA to make changes, the very changes that made people choose HD DVD like prices, profiles. We’ve been flooded with news of Blu-ray prices rises, both for hardware and movies, but I think it’s too soon to tell what the general direction Blu-ray will be heading to next. If the BDA is serious about replacing SD DVDs with Blu-ray, then prices will drop. If they see Blu-ray as a money maker that is needed to replaced flagging DVD sales, then prices may not drop as quickly as one would like. There is a very interesting read on Gizmondo that highlights some of the problems that Blu-ray will be facing in the short and long term. It certainly is a pretty pessimistic look at things, but you would have to agree with their key points, which are: the cost of the format war means prices drops will hurt manufacturers and studios, profile confusion, and productivity problems. On that last point, the article raises something quite interesting in that they speculate Universal studios might be having trouble releasing their titles on Blu-ray due to the entire 2008 production stock already being allocated to other studios. In other words, Universal can’t release movies on Blu-ray because they can’t get production time in the already over capacity production lines. New lines are being built, but they cannot come online quick enough. Of course, this might all be speculation, but one thing is for certain: HD DVD would not have experienced this problem as all recent DVD production lines are capable of producing HD DVDs. And speaking of former HD DVD studios releasing titles on Blu-ray, Paramount is apparently set to re-release their previous Blu-ray titles (before they went HD DVD exclusive) again next week. Seems that they kept their Blu-ray stock, as opposed to pulping them as some rumours had suggested. Unfortunately, Universal never got into Blu-ray production, so it will be some time before you see The Bourne Trilogy on Blu-ray. Another problem for Blu-ray is that upscaled DVD performance continues to improve. Oppo this week officially announced their new DVD upscaler, the DV-983H, which early testing has showed to be possibly the best performing on the market today. From my experience, a fairly average/poor HD encode is often the same or worse than a decent DVD encode upscaled (case in point, T2 Extreme Edition DVD vs T2 HD DVD Australian version). Such decent DVD encodes look very “HD” when upscaled, but the general rule is that real HD, when given a proper encoding, will always look better. But just because it is better, doesn’t mean people are prepared to pay extra for it … think DVD-Audio and SACD, although better video quality is easier to sell than better audio quality.
Meanwhile, HD DVD is selling quite well (the latest numbers showed a 10% market share jump for HD DVD in the US, even though the big sales haven’t really started, at least not at Australian “everything under $10” levels yet). For those that want to join in, keep an eye on this page and this page, as well as the blog. I wish somebody would release Australian sales numbers, because it must be at least 20:1 in HD DVD’s favour in the past few weeks. The Xbox 360 add-on drive is proving particularly popular due to its low price, but Microsoft this week denied again that they are working on a similar add-on for Blu-ray.
Before I move on properly to gaming, DivX support is coming to a lot more Blu-ray players than just the PS3. In fact, their support will be even better than the PS3’s (which is a bit strange). Anyone who has used the PS3’s DivX/XviD playback function will know that it is somewhat limited, with no DivX Ultra support, no support for GMC/Q-Pel and has a few other problems as well. But when a file does work, it plays beautifully. And while the PS3 has had a firmware update (adds nothing of significance, other than some gaming compatibility fixes), the next big update will be interesting if they add enhanced DivX support, as well as perhaps DTS-HD MA decoding (the one essential Blu-ray feature that the PS3 sorely lacks) and even Profile 2.0, although I believe the latter two will be more likely to come only after standalones with similar features are available.
Now onto gaming proper, February’s US NPD figures are out and I will provide a full analysis in the next few days. Once again, all three gaming companies are claiming victory. Nintendo’s Wii sold the most, so they’re claiming they’re the best (with justification, IMO – but if I’m a bit sick and tired of seeing another story about how the Wii is helping the elderly, the injured and basically curing all disease and bringing world peace). Sony’s PS3 sold more than the Xbox 360, so they’re claiming victory too (mainly thanks to Blu-ray’s victory, I think). While Microsoft is still saying Xbox 360 stock shortages are affecting sales figures, and that they sold the most software and made the most profit, which they think is the most important. If Microsoft is really having stock problems, then what they say makes sense, since people are still choosing the 360 over the PS3 when it comes to multi-platform releases (Call of Duty 4, for example). It will be interesting to see which consoles gains most from the release of GTA IV, but I believe with the 360 install base much greater than the PS3 in the US, the 360 version of GTA IV, with the exclusive content, will probably sell more copies. I’ve yet to decide which version I would get (PS3 or 360), although I’m leaning towards 360 due to not having to buy another controller just to get rumble capabilities (and the fact that the 360 version was produced first, meaning it might play a little bit better). Once I assume 360 stock become plentiful again, Microsoft will fight the PS3 with further price cuts which will put pressure on Sony to follow. Expect to see a 360 GTA IV pack for less cost than the basic PS3, and it will sell like hotcakes.
See you next week.