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Archive for July, 2010

Weekly News Roundup (25 July 2010)

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

Hello. I’ve finally completed moving house, by completed, I of course mean that there’s still tons of stuff that needs to be moved over. But this is the first WNR at the new place. But the roundup must go on, as they say, despite aching limbs and a sleep deprived brain. One good thing about the move was that I was finally able to test Blu-ray 3D playback via PowerDVD 10 Mark II to my Samsung 3D plasma. More on that later.

Let’s start with copyright news. The US Copyright Group is in the news again this week as they step up their campaign targeting thousands of web users accused of downloading pirated movies.

The latest development sees the USCG hiring the services of smaller law firms signalling the next phase of their plans – going to court. It was always understood that firms like the USCG would avoid going to court whenever possible, since the costs are higher and so are the risk (of losing, and hence, setting a precedent that could hurt future business). But it appears the USCG is pressing ahead anyway, no doubt going after those that are easy to beat in court. It may also be their way of showing that they do intend to go to court, a criticism that critics have used in the past to attack similar actions, and if they can get a few easy victories under their belt, maybe a high profile one, then this can be used to scare more people into paying up. And as for working with the EFF to draft a user friendlier notice to send to suspected pirates, it seems the two sides just can’t get along and both may have to go and see the judge again to see how they can get things moving. This isn’t the biggest surprise in the world, as one side wants to make the notices are serious as possible to get people to pay up, while the other want the notice to be informative enough to allow people to defend themselves – it was always difficult, if not impossible, to meet both objectives.

The Last Vegas Review-Journal is suing those that use its articles without permission

While the USCG aren’t winning friends with web users, ISPs and rights groups, they are making friends in other media circles, and at least one law firm is now copying their strategy, except going after those who pirate newspaper articles, rather than movies. Suing hundreds of websites and blogs is Las Vegas based Righthaven, representing the owners of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. While most newspapers use DMCA takedown notices to get their full articles removed from forums and blogs, there is no money that can be made by taking this approach. But if the threat of a lawsuit, and the request for a pre-trial settlement works for the USCG on movie downloaders, then the thinking is that website owners will do the same as well, even when the offending content was posted by one of its users, not the website itself. The recent Viacom versus YouTube action showed that user generated websites do have protection from the safe harbor provisions under the DMCA, as long as they have a clear anti copyright infringement policy in place and enforces this policy consistently. So one might think this would apply to forums where users have posted full articles against forum rules, or blogs where users have made the same post in the comments. But the fear of an expensive lawsuit means that many will simply pay the settlement fee to avoid the trouble, although others are willing to challenge the claims in court. If this model works, expect all other newspaper owners to follow suit, as most of them are struggling to keep profits from dropping in what many calls a dying industry.

Irish ISP UPC is going to court to fight three-strikes

Moving to Europe now, it appears ISPs in many countries are not happy at their respective government’s three-strikes policies, and are going to court to fight it. Three-Strikes, or similar laws, may appear to be aimed at users who download pirated content, but it is in fact aimed at ISPs, making them responsible for monitoring and “sentencing”, for want of a better word, their own subscribers. The cost of the operation will have to be absorbed by the ISP, and mistaken identifies or other errors could even see the ISPs sued. The ISPs argue that since the music labels and movie studios are the one that will supposedly benefit from piracy being reduced, they’re the ones that should play a more active role in enforcing three-strikes. The content owners, however, will argue that they’re the victims in this and that ISPs should just pass on the cost to subscribers. The big question is if this wasn’t about the Internet, would government, who are normally clueless about Cyberspace, be so willing to give in to the demands of copyright holders? If people were committing copyright infringement via the telelphone, let’s say something silly like reading out loud books or newspaper articles to the person on the other end, should the telephone company then be tasked with spying on users’ conversations so they can put a stop to this illegal practice? Should the government then help to make spying legal and part of the copyright laws? ISPs are nothing more than utility companies, like the gas, electricity or telephone companies, and making them responsible for what their subscribers do with the service just doesn’t seem right. And if there are any technical advantage that make ISP level “spying” easier, then it would still be unfair to make ISPs bare the entire cost of the operation. It’s forcing one industry, and tax payer money, to protect another industry’s revenue stream for no reason other than it’s the easy thing to do.

The Swedish Pirate Party wants to do something about ISP snooping though, and they are planning to launch their “Pirate ISP”, which will ensure no data about users if kept, so that their privacy is protected. The idea is nice, but I can already see the lawsuits and search, arrest warranty being typed up, probably before the ISP is even launched.

And when Hollywood is finished getting the government and ISPs to do their bidding, for free, they will turn their targets on those that try to innovate too much. Because innovation could eventually lead content being published without having to be controlled by publishers, and that spells bad news for revenue. Google TV is next in Hollywood’s cross-hairs it seems, as the new proposed system which aims to present a common interface for viewing media, online and offline, on TVs may just be too innovative for Hollywood’s liking. In their submission to the FTC, Hollywood studios claims that Google TV could potentially allow users to interact with both legal and illegal media, in the same interface, and that’s will encourage users to all become pirates. Instead of seeing how such an innovation could revolutionize the way people buy content on the Internet, and instead of supporting Google, a company with a history of knowing how to get money out of the Internet and its users, they yet again focus on the piracy issue and the issue alone. Just like how music labels refused to work with digital music retailers and instead focused on more and more complicated layers of DRM, and then having the likes of Apple iTunes swallow up a huge chunk of Internet related profit that otherwise would have gone to the labels, Hollywood appears to be making the same mistake.

DECE has a new name and logo: it's now UltraViolet, but it's still an new, annoying DRM

Instead, their solutions is, you guessed it, more DRM. Hollywood’s new fairer DRM scheme, supported by pretty much all the studios expect Disney (who have their own proprietary system in the works), is now called UltraViolet. How is it friendlier? Well, it plans to make DRM protected files more portable, working in more players and systems, but it still has the stench of DRM all over it, and thus, all the same usual problems: lack of universal compatibility, the need for online authentication, and don’t expect the files to work forever as there is no guarantee whatsoever that any DRM system will be kept supported and updated (at high cost by the DRM operators) forever. The IEEE is also working on their own “fairer” DRM, which will make digital files more like physical objects, in that ownership can be transferred, so sharing something with a friend could mean that you lose the ability to use the file forever if your friend do not return ownership back to you. The scheme, called P1817, could even work in conjunction with the monster that is UltraViolet, to make everything a bit fairer you see. The funny thing is that by acknowledging the need to make things fairer, content owners have just acknowledged that DRM, at least in past forms, have not been fair to users. I would go one step further and say that DRM is always unfair to users, so if you want them to accept it, make sure you give them back something in return. Whether’s that lower prices, better services, or even just less hoops to jump through, it is needed. Content owners should not take users for granted, as they may just go elsewhere (and if there’s no legal alternative, guess where they will be, and have been, heading to?)

High Definition

In HD/3D news, as mentioned in the introduction, I managed to get PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D with the Mark II patch to play a Blu-ray 3D movie and have it display as proper 3D on my new Samsung 3D plasma TV.

It took a bit of work trying to get it to work, but I’ve posted the instructions here for those that want to give it a go. The 3D effects are great, even if you’re not getting full 1080p resolution, but that will only be possible when updated drivers are available for my ATI Radeon HD card. For now, it means I can play Blu-ray 3D movies in 3D without a standalone Blu-ray 3D player (although my free bonus one, part of a promotion Samsung were running here in Australia, should be on its way from Samsung, hopefully arriving before the PS3 gets its Blu-ray 3D update).

And sticking with the theme of logos ... BDXL won't play on existing Blu-ray players

But while I wait for my Blu-ray 3D player to arrive, it may already be obsolete, thanks to the idea of “upgradeable hardware” introduced by the Blu-ray format. The idea says that, like software, there may be a new version out every year and you would need to pay to get the new version, if you want the latest features. We’ve already had Profile 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 players, and I guess Blu-ray 3D counts as 2.5 or something. And when BDXL movie discs arrive (if they arrive), then we’ll all need new players again (4.0, since 3.0 is already taken by the fairly unused Blu-ray audio format). It’s nice having 128GB capacity, but not so nice when I have to yet again upgrade my Blu-ray player, despite how cheap players have become. Even the always versatile PS3 won’t be able to support BDXL, since the only thing that the PS3 can’t update through software, the Blu-ray drive itself, will need to be updated. And soon after Blu-ray 4.0, we’ll have Super-Blu-ray 1.0, with Sony promising a 1TB disc using an even more powerful laser. Downloads, streaming, storage lockers … if only everyone had the bandwidth to make download a Blu-ray quality movie a matter of minutes, rather than hours (or weeks, in certain Internet backwaters, like Australia), then we could get rid of the disc altogether, or burn our own discs by only replacing the optical drive in your computer, as opposed to an entire standalone player. It’s bad for the environment, bad for our wallets, and it’s just annoying.

But at least one thing to do with Blu-ray is going disc-less. Netflix streaming on the PS3 will finally work without a Blu-ray disc, and it only took a year after Netflix was first available on the PS3, and several after the Netflix was originally launched on the Xbox 360 (which had disc-less streaming from the get go). Better late than never, I suppose.

And finally in the ever rarer gaming section, Microsoft has finally revealed the official Kinect pricing. Which is exactly the same as the unofficial pricing all the retailers have been using for months.

The only surprise, and a good one, is that the $149.99 price includes a free game, Kinect Adventures. But it was Microsoft’s other announcement which were a bit more interesting, like the new “Arcade”, the Xbox 360 4GB, which is basically the same piece of hardware as the new “Slim” Xbox 360 250GB, except without the 250GB HDD of course. The price for this new console is $199, but if you buy it with Kinect in a bundle, it will be $299, so that’s another $50 off Kinect’s pricing if you buy it with the new console. Some will say that this attempt to compete with the Wii is doomed to failure, because the Wii will be much cheaper. But the Xbox 360 doesn’t need to be the same price as the Wii, since it’s a much better console (certainly plays more types of games than the Wii, in HD too). There’s no Xbox 360 250GB Kinect bundle, which is a shame because that’s the one I would like to buy. Kinect pre-orders on Amazon jumped back to the top 5 after the pricing announcement on Wednesday, but has since dropped down to 21. The Move bundle is at 49th.

And that’s the news I have for this week. Sorry about the rushed nature of this WNR, what with all the mistakes and mindless rambling, moving house takes a lot out of a person. You didn’t notice any differences? That’s good then. What do you mean “it’s same crap as usual”? Huh? Anyway, here’s to a less crappy WNR next week.

Posted in 3D, Computing, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (25 July 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (18 July 2010)

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

It’s like London buses, they say, you wait ages for one and then two comes along. That’s what happened this week with mid-week blog posts – two of them in the same week! I finally updated a feature that I haven’t touched in more than a year’s time, with a new edition of the “If I were to buy a new computer today …” feature. This feature helps to satisfy (a small part) of my desire to buy new tech all the time, as I can live vicariously through my readers (the use of the plural version may be inaccurate) by researching and finding out what kind of system I would buy, if I were to buy one today. I think I enjoy the research more so than the actual new computer itself, for some odd reason. I posted a couple of specs for different systems, so while everyone will have their opinion on what’s best, this may be a good start for those that don’t like the research part.

The second blog post was the June NPD US video game sales analysis. It’s come quite soon after the May analysis, but that’s because the May figures were delayed by NPD. Some good news in there for Microsoft, as their Xbox 360 console beat pretty much everyone except the DS, thanks to the new Elite “slim” form factor. I’m definitely on the market for one of these new slims, but I’ll wait until the holidays period to pick up a bargain (perhaps a bundle with Kinect, who knows).

Not a whole lot of “new” news this week, but some follow-ups of previous stories, and I am running a bit late today/tonight, so I’ll get through things quickly (and if you want more stuff, you can read my *both* of my mid-week blog posts, of course).

Starting with copyright news, despite the legal authorities trying to clamp down on law firms getting into the anti-piracy-for-money business, the pre-trial settlement style letter campaigns, more law firms are getting into the lucrative business it seems.

7000 people who have downloaded a Ministry of Sound compilation in the UK will receive a letter soon asking them to pay £375 to settle the matter out of court

The most recent is Gallant Macmillan, who represent the copyright holders of Ministry of Sound albums, amongst others, and they will be asking for £375 from those suspected of pirated a particular MOS compilation. But they claim they are doing things a bit differently, perhaps to avoid a public backlash, or to prevent authorities from finding fault with their actions. The funny part is that the £375 actually includes the cost of the compilation itself, which normally retails for £8.75, and so suspected pirates can actually keep turn their illegally downloaded songs into legal songs by paying the settlement fee. An expensive way to buy music, for sure. And instead of a situation where the copyright holders aren’t dealing with the law firm directly, but through another party in between (possibly to avoid the bad publicity if it all turns sour), Gallant Macmillan will only directly represent the copyright owners who have intention to sue, and not just the the threat to sue with no real intention other than to get some money through settlement fees. The law firms will all say the high fees, compared to the actual cost to the copyright holders, is high due to investigative costs and other legal costs, but the real intention perhaps is to scare people into paying and maybe even scare them enough to stop them pirating in the future. Of course, for every person that is scared into submission, there are hundreds of thousands that will still go on downloading.

And if these “small time” lawsuits (or threats of one) can’t scare people, then perhaps the government can do so through some kind of global treaty like the ACTA. And scary it is. Claims that hundreds of thousands of people in the UK alone could be jailed if the ACTA is adopted as law, by making copyright infringement a criminal matter, not a civil one, and even making “attempted piracy” a crime (so do a search on Google for “Toy Story 3 torrent” and you may be headed for jail). But most scary of all is that it’s all very secretive, as if the government know that the people that they represent will not like what’s in the ACTA and have done everything they can to avoid the public knowing about it – the US negotiators have been the key backers of keeping the negotiations secret. However, when the EU Pirate Party (remember that they now have a member in the EU parliament) invited themselves to a meeting to discuss the ACTA, and then were told that not only are they not allowed to discuss any aspect of the meeting of the ACTA with the public (which may very well be illegal under the EU parliament rules), that even notes weren’t being taken for the meeting in case it gets leaked. And it is then that the Pirate Party walked out on the meeting in disgust. But the leaks do continue from people that find the secretive actions unacceptable, but the more we read about the ACTA, the more scary it becomes. But you can just imagine members of the RIAA and MPAA sitting in the shadows, smiling contently, watching as their wishes becomes reality. Sort of like Cancer Man in the X-Files (the first few seasons, anyway).

The RIAA is spending millions to get back thousands, fighting piracy through legal channels

And you can see why the likes of the RIAA and MPAA want government to take over their job of preventing piracy. Because it’s expensive, and relatively unproductive. The RIAA’s latest accounts showed that in 2008, they spent $17.6 million in fighting online piracy, but only got $391,000 back in damages. Of course, they’ll say that getting money back from past acts of piracy is not the main point, the main point is to stop future piracy. But I’ll leave you to judge whether their efforts in 2008 have paid dividends or not in 2010, whether piracy is more or less common now. But not everyone in the music biz thinks the fighting piracy head on will result in anything. Peter Jenner, president of the International Music Managers Forum, a group that present feature artist music managers, says that the current thinking about copyright enforcement is no different to the 1930’s thinking about alcohol enforcement, also known as prohibition. And both, he says, are laws that is “offensive” to the general public. Jenner proposes some kind of levy to help pay for content being shared online, much like how people in the UK pay their licensing fees for the BBC. I’m not sure I agree with a “piracy tax”, since it’s unfair on those that don’t download pirated stuff on the Internet, however if there is a legal, publicly owned point of distribution, say a BBC for the Internet, and where a small costs are paid to access a good amount of content, then perhaps the solution has some merit. Much like how free to air TV exists, perhaps a free to download service, paid for by taxes and levies, might also exist to provide a good amount of digital entertainment to those that cannot afford to pay for premium content on a subscription based service, much like subscription TV. Using the same analogy, there will always be people who will try and succeed at getting “illegal cable”, but you can’t prevent all piracy, that’s just impossible.

And speaking of expensive lawsuits, Viacom’s billion dollar lawsuit has cost Google $100 million to defend (successfully, for now), Google’s CFO revealed. It’s money well spent (and peanuts to a company like Google, to be honest), and it’s an important victory for the Internet, not just Google. However, you can only imagine how much money was spent by Viacom, and you add both together, and apart from making a lot of lawyers happy, what else did it really achieve. Piracy is a cost to the economy, but sometimes anti-piracy is also a cost, and perhaps more costly if lawsuits had stopped websites like YouTube before it got off the ground.

High Definition

On to HD/3D news. The news last week was that the PS3 will get the Blu-ray 3D firmware sometimes in September. It’s good news for buyers of 3D TVs, and for 3D TVs in general, since it suddenly means there are millions of potential Blu-ray 3D capable players on the market all without people having to pay anything for it (other than the loss of the PS3’s Other OS feature).

The PS3 will start supporting Blu-ray 3D in September, but it's not known whether there are any limitations imposed by the PS3's relatively older hardware

There’s still some confusion about whether HDMI 1.4 will be needed, since the HDMI hardware on the older PS3 predates even HDMI 1.3. But Sony seems to think that this won’t be a problem, and I guess you have to trust them on this, and they even went as far as saying “The [June] upgrade basically makes every PlayStation 3 HDMI 1.4 compatible”. I don’t remember anything about an update that made the PS3 HDMI 1.4 compatible, other than the “HDMI deep color” option added in 3.40. But as long as the HDMI hardware can handle high bandwidth transfers, then it should work perfectly with Blu-ray 3D, without having to limit the resolution for each eye to only 1080i or something. And as part of the announcement, 3D support for YouTube will be coming to the PS3 soon, which will be interesting. It’s either going to be the same kind of 2D to 3D feature that exists on Samsung, Sony and a few other manufacturer’s 3D TVs, or it will mean that YouTube will accept uploads of native 3D content in the future and display it as so. Interesting anyway.

Not much going on in gaming other than what I wrote for the NPD analysis.

And that’s another WNR for another week. I hope you have a good week ahead and see in at the same place, same time next week for another edition of the WNR.

Posted in 3D, Copyright, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (18 July 2010)

Game Consoles – June 2010 NPD Sales Figure Analysis

Saturday, July 17th, 2010

Well that was a short break. Thanks to the May figures being released late, and the June figures being released on time, we have a new NPD video game analysis for you only two weeks from the last one. May wasn’t anything to write home about in terms of sales, despite Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy 2. June had some interesting developments, namely the mid month release of the new Xbox 360 Elite, you know the new slim version (even though Microsoft don’t ever use the term “slim”). The PS3 stock shortage issue seems to have cleared up, and Sony even managed to create a 250GB bundle early in June. So with all these happenings in mind, the hardware sales race heated up in June and it will be interesting to see if the stock shortage issue, which has been holding back PS3 sales, will finally allow the console, the “original” Slim if you will, to beat the “new” Xbox 360 slim. The figures are from NPD, a marketing research firm that releases games console sale data every month.

The figures for US sales in June 2010 are below, ranked in order of number of sales (June 2009 figures also shown, including percentage change):

DS: 510,700 (Total: 42.6 million; June 2009: 766,500 – down 33%)
Xbox 360: 451,700 (Total: 20.6 million; June 2009: 240,600 – up 88%)
Wii: 422,500 (Total: 29.6 million; June 2009: 361,700 – up 17%)
PS3: 304,800 (Total: 12.7 million; June 2009: 164,700 – up 85%)
PSP: 121,000 (Total: 17.4 million; June 2009: 163,500 – down 26%)

NPD June 2010 Game Console US Sales Figures

NPD Game Console Total US Sales Figures (as of June 2010)

My prediction from last month was:

It’s time to make my usual predictions. With the PS3 stock shortage crisis over, PS3 sales should rise. The Xbox 360 would otherwise have been relegated to third place amongst the home consoles, but the new “slim” Elite may save the day, and maybe even sell enough to keep it above the PS3. I keep on expecting either the PS3 or Xbox 360 to outsell the Wii, but it hasn’t happened very often, and June is probably the same, although it has a greater chance than previous months. Not a huge month for new game releases though, so RDR may remain in the charts, with Super Mario Galaxy keeping up sales and possibly stealing a march on the RDR games.

So pretty spot on I would say, not hard though considering I only wrote the above two weeks ago. PS3 sales did improve, actually 97% better than in May, and very likely thanks to the end of the PS3 stock shortage crisis of 2010. Although I still don’t understand why the stock shortage had to occur in the first place. It seems to have cost the PS3 several months of beating the Xbox 360, and just as the stock issue cleared up, in comes a new Xbox 360 that again outsells it. And outsell the PS3 the new Xbox 360 did. And it even outsold the Wii, which I had semi-predicted above I suppose. Overall, it was an impressive 132% increase compared to last month, and the best non Holiday sales period for the console in some time. And even now, the new Xbox 360 SKU is still in the top 10, which is good news for Microsoft I guess. In fact, all hardware numbers were up compared to May, and historically, this has been the case in June. And software was almost exactly as I had predicted – a slow month still dominated by last month’s new releases.

Speaking more on the PS3, it seems the stock shortage was responsible for low sales, as once it cleared up, sales are way up. But I think a lot of the momentum from the release of the PS3 Slim has been lost in the last few month, and I don’t know who is to blame for it. It could be be because Sony underestimated the demand for the Slim (and the demand after the price cut) back in 2009, and sold all their future inventory during that time, and they’ve only been able to get supply to meet demand some 6 months into 2010. That’s the most believable scenario, but it still seems strange. Anyway, with stock no longer an issue. the PS3 is “expected” to outsell the Xbox 360 and maybe even the Wii, but that won’t happen until the excitement over the new Xbox 360 “slim” Elite dies down, probably just in time for Sony to launch Move. For Sony’s other console in the NPD data, the PSP, the news is less good. While it was up against the dismal May numbers, it’s still down 26% from a year ago, not as bad as recent results, but still bad. A PSP2 with some more innovation is what Sony needs right now.

For the Xbox 360, it was a very good month. The whole release process has been very well engineered by Microsoft. From the almost surprise announcement of the new form factor itself, to the really surprising announcement that it will ship within a week of the announcement, and the well designed nature of the new console (testing shows that it’s even more durable than the PS3 Slim), and the result is that it’s the second most popular console, the first most popular home based console, of June 2010. Let’s just hope Microsoft have plenty of stock of the new console, and won’t make the same mistake as Sony with their stock issues. And with news of a new Xbox 360 Arcade “slim” on the horizon, the momentum could carry the Xbox 360 all the way until Kinect is released, and that’s probably what Microsoft are counting on. I said at the start of 2010 that the Xbox 360 had to hold on to the lead it has over the PS3 until Project Natal, as it was known back then, was ready and Microsoft has done this and some extra. Of course, the PS3 stock did help Microsoft in this regard.

The Wii had another month of year to year growth, but that’s like comparing a poor month to a really really bad one. Well, not exactly, since it’s hard to say just what constitutes a good month or bad month. Compared to the PS2 lifecycle, the Wii is still doing very well. It’s only doing badly compared to itself two years ago, but Wii sales were never going to hold steady at those levels. So Nintendo will look at the year on year growth as a positive, not to mention the still healthy software sales (see below). The DS suffered another month of year on year sales drop, but this is like comparing a good month to a really really great one. When the 3Ds is released, Nintendo have another “great” month, I expect.

For software, not a great month for new releases as I had “predicted”. So we have lots of titles from last month still in the top 10. Interestingly, the only two new entries in the top 10 were all Wii titles, and both were third-party games. This is exactly what the Wii needs, for third party publishers to get a bite of the lucrative Wii trade, instead of always relying on Nintendo to come up with the goods. In fact, there are three non Nintendo produced Wii titles in the top 10 this month, although the best selling one was still a Nintendo production – Super Mario Galaxy 2. The continued success of Just Dance for the Wii actually bodes well for Microsoft I think, because Kinect will be able to do these types of games without breaking a sweat (unlike the people that are actually playing the game in question). Red Dead Redemption for the Xbox 360 held on to top spot this month, as did both of the UFC 2010 games. 6 of the top 10 were Wii titles, with two for Xbox 360 and two for the PS3. As usual, only sales figures for the top 5 are provided, and figures for the two new Wii titles are provided by Nintendo separately (hopefully Microsoft and Sony will catch on and also start releasing figures for the ones that don’t have it in the top 10).

Here’s the complete list of the top 10 software sales:

Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360, Take-Two) – 582,900
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii, Nintendo) – 548,400
Red Dead Redemption (PS3, Take-Two) – 380,300
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii, Nintendo) – 200,900
Just Dance (Wii, Ubisoft) – 174,800
Wii Fit Plus w/Balance Board (Wii, Nintendo)
Toy Story 3 (Wii, Disney) – 164,000
UFC 2010: Undisputed (Xbox 360, THQ)
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Wii, Warner Bros.) – 136,000
UFC 2010: Undisputed (PS3, THQ)

Time to make a prediction. The new Xbox 360 Elite fever continues, and there’s a good chance it will outsell the Wii (and PS3) yet again. So my guess is that the order of the hardware sales will remain the same for July, but with hardware sales generally down a bit compared to June as historically has been the case. As for games, Super Mario Galaxy 2 to rule in the absence of any real quality new releases. NCAA Football 11 should make the top 10, the Xbox 360 version outselling the PS3 version. How can I forget Crackdown 2, the sequel to the very first Xbox 360 game I ever owned. It should do well, but topping the chart? I don’t know about that (it’s already 39th in the sales charts on Amazon, and that doesn’t look like a rank that belongs to a number one title).

See you next month.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Game Consoles – June 2010 NPD Sales Figure Analysis

If I were to buy a new computer today (July 2010)

Monday, July 12th, 2010

You can build a computer today that is compatible with Blu-ray 3D

It’s been far too long since my last “If I were to buy a new computer today …” feature. They say 2 month is a long time in computing, but add a year to that, and it might as well be a decade. For those that don’t know, this feature aims to recommend a computer system that’s represents good value and future proofing, without costing the Earth. The last computer I recommended featured a Phenom II processor, a Radeon 4850 and “only” 1TB HDDs, so it’s definitely time for an update. But instead of going with the past format, I think I will do things a bit differently. People have different opinions about brands, so instead of choosing a brand for you (eg. Gigabyte motherboards), I will only list out the essential features and a rough price point of what you should be looking at, and then provide a sample system with the specs picked out using brands that I like. This way, you can read this guide to find out what are the features you need to buy, at roughly what price, and then choose your own brands as you see fit (or still use my recommendations).

Another change is that instead of providing just a single specification, I will be providing two specs. One will be the same type of system that I’ve been recommending in this feature, one that has a good balance between value and performance, for gaming, multimedia (Blu-ray) and general use. There will also be some optional items for this system that takes it to the next level (like SSD drives, or even 3D capability). The other will be for a home theater based system, where things like low heat/noise requirements are balanced with the need for extra processing power (for Blu-ray and other functionalities).

So let’s get started!

General Purpose System

Buying a motherboard is as important as ever, to ensure you get access to the latest techs such as USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps

So what should one look for in a PC that does everything in the middle of 2010? The last thing anyone want is a PC that’s obsolete within weeks of purchase (but given the speed technology moves, a few weeks may not be too bad!). Then again, nobody wants to overspend on features that they will never use. And while the ultimate gaming rig can costs upwards of $5000, it’s not to say that we don’t want a system that’s totally incapable of playing today, and tomorrow’s games. And Blu-ray … so many computer systems these days neglect to put in a Blu-ray/DVD combo drive that costs only a fraction above the price of the same drive without Blu-ray reading (or writing) functions. Sure, playing Blu-ray movies on your monitor may not be the best, but for $50, it may just be worth the price (and since this website/blog is very much in support of HD video, it would be a travesty if the systems we recommend don’t play Blu-ray, and with the optional 3D specs, you can get one that also plays Blu-ray 3D). So let’s look at what we think are the key features that you need to be looking for:

* CPU: The pick of the Intel bunch right now is probably the i5 750. It has just the right mix of price and performance, and by getting an Intel 1156 socket motherboard to go along with it, there is a degree of future proofing with faster CPUs definitely on the way.

* 4GB of RAM: Whether it’s DDR2 or DDR3, 4GB is really the minimum these days, although going to 8GB is probably a bit excessive.

* GPU: The ATI Radeon HD range is still where the perfect price/performance mix lies, as the Nvidia range simply isn’t attractive enough.

* USB 3.0: While chipsets from Intel and AMD are slow at bringing the next version of USB to motherboards, that’s not to say you should ignore this quite vital next generation connection format. USB 3.0 is here to stay, and it will offer transfer speeds for external drives that finally match speeds for internal ones.

* SATA III (6 Gbps): The SATA II 3 Gbps standard is just about not enough for today’s super drives, namely SSDs. You do not want to be left with a motherboard that does not support SATA III, when all the new fancy drives all do. Apart from the optical drive and the case accessories, the HDD is the only mechanical device left in the PC. Bring on SSDs!

* Optional – SSDs: I’ve talked about how great SSDs are in the past, prices have dropped, and although still high compared to HDDs, they may just be entering the affordable stage if you use them for system drives. Having Windows and a selection of your frequently used programs on the SSD drive will mean super fast load and access times, while keeping a TB sized HDD array for mass storage.

* Optional – 3D: The 3D hype is getting a bit out of control, but most of it has been focused on 3D movies. 3D gaming on the PC is often overlooked, but the most immersive experience may very well be on the PC. This is because of a few factors. First, PCs, unlike consoles, are versatile and through software updates, even older games can be made to perform in 3D (games are usually easier to make into “3D” than movies, since most games are created and rendered in a 3D fashion already, whereas older movies are shot in a 2D format called. Namely film). And because we tend to sit in front of monitors much closer than TVs, the 3D effect is much more noticeable. With 3D, if you want 3D on your monitor, then you’ll need to get a suitable Nvidia graphics card (that also accelerates Blu-ray 3D playback), as well as a 120Hz 3D monitor.

Sample Configuration:

Intel i5 750 (AMD option: AMD Phenom II 965)
Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4P (AMD option: Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H)
Corsair Dominator-GT 4GB DDR3 (2x2GB, Cas 8, 2000)
SSD Option: Corsair Nova 64GB SSD
2 x Wester Digital FASS 1.5TB HDD (64MB Cache, dual processor)
ATI Radeon 5770 1GB (3D Option: Nvidia GeForce GTX 465 1GB + GeForce 3D Vision Kit)
Acer S243HLbmii 24″ LED LCD (3D Option: Acer GD235HZbid 23.6″ or Samsung 2233RZ 22″ – both are 3D Ready @ 120 Hz)
Samsung Blu-ray combo drive
Case and (at least 500W) power supply of your choice
Price Range: Around $1400 (Minus $60 for AMD option; Add $180 for SSD option; Add $200 for 3D Option) – based on Newegg.com pricing

Just for the fun of it, here’s specs for a monster system where price isn’t an issue. What I call the “Lottery Winner Special”.

Sample LWS Configuration:

Intel i7 980
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9
2 x 6GB Corsair Dominator Triple Channel Cas 8 DDR3
Corsair Nova 256GB SSD
2 x 1TB WD Caviar Black SATA 3 (6 Gbps) HDDs
2 x XFX ATI Radeon HD 5970 2GB
Dell 27″ Ultrasharp IPS LCD Monitor
12x Blu-ray writer
Case and huge power supply for your choice
Price Range: Around $6000 – based on Newegg.com pricing

Home Theater System

A good HTPC case like this Antec Fusion combines a nice look and compatibility with both Mini-ITX and Micro-ATX motherboards

For home theater PC systems, the focus will be on keeping cost heat and noise down, cost as well, and that means sacrificing some processor power, especially when it comes to graphics card. Blu-ray playback is essential here, but almost everything else can be sacrificed for the previously stated criteria. Let’s have a look at the must have features of such a system:

* CPU: There are two ways you can go with the CPU. If you choose Intel, then you need one of the new Clarkdale CPUs, with the integrated GPU that can be enabled with the right chipset, it saves money on a dedicated GPU solution, and it even supports bitstreaming of the HD audio codecs via the motherboard’s HDMI output. The other route is with an AMD solution, using a Radeon HD 5000 series solution, which also works fine.

* Motherboard: The motherboard is important for home theater systems. First of all, it needs to be the right size, maybe a mini-ITX or Micro ATX, and it also needs to have the correct integrated solutions for our needs. For the Intel Clarkdale CPUs, we’ll need one with a H55, H57 or Q57 chipset to take advantage of the integrated GPU and bitstreaming support. For AMD solutions, if you don’t need TrueHD/DTS-HD MA bitstreaming, then a 890GX solution with an integrated Radeon 42xx chipset is enough.

* GPU: An integrated solution is mostly enough, but if not, you’ll need to go down the low profile card route. But regardless, you will need a GPU that can accelerate Blu-ray decoding, as to avoid using your CPU as much as possible (more CPU => more heat => more noise). For this, we need an Radeon HD solution, or the Clarkdale motherboard solution. If TrueHD/DTS-HD MA audio bitstreaming support is required, then an entry level Radeon HD 5000 series is needed – the Clarkdales support this when paired with the right chipset already. Another advantage of going with the Intel solution is that Blu-ray 3D acceleration is supported, assuming you have the required TV to connect the system to.

* HDD: We need a largish, but quiet HDD. The Western Digital Caviar Green series seems to fit the requirements.

Sample Intel Configuration:

Intel i3 550
Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3 (Mini-ITX, USB 3.0)
Cosair 4GB DDR3 (2x2GB, Cas 9, 1333)
WD Caviar Green 1TB HDD
Samsung Blu-ray combo drive
Dual HDTV tuner card of your choice (low profile)
Case of your choice (Mini-ITX or HTPC case)
Price Range: Around $700

Sample AMD Configuration:

AMD Phenom II X3 720
MSI 890GXM-G65 (Micro ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6 Gbps)
Cosair 4GB DDR3 (2x2GB, Cas 9, 1333)
WD Caviar Green 1TB HDD
Optional: ASUS EAH5450 SILENT (ATI Radeon HD 5450, passive heatsink, low profile ready)
Samsung Blu-ray combo drive
Dual HDTV tuner card of your choice (low profile)
Case of your choice (Micro-ATX or HTPC case)
Price Range: Around $680 (Add $65 for optional GPU)

So there we have it. The above should give you some ideas what you should be looking for in a new PC if you were to buy one today – from a $680 HTPC system, to a $6000 gaming monster.

Posted in 3D, Computer Buying Tips, Computing, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K) | 2 Comments »

Weekly News Roundup (11 July 2010)

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

Hope you’ve had a good week. It’s been busy again for me, but mostly non website related stuff. So no mid week blog again, but I am working on something (honestly), and it should be up early next week. It was a relatively busy news week, so let’s get started.

In copyright news, the big news occurred late in the week and it relates to one of the infamous RIAA lawsuits. Infamous due to the amount of damages awarded to the billion dollar industry trade group. The latest decision relates to the smaller of the damages (“only” $675,000), awarded against PhD student Joel Tenenbaum.

Joel Tenenbaum now "only" has to pay $64,000 for downloading 30 songs

The judge for the case, Nancy Gertner, has finally ruled on the damages awarded by the jury and has reduced what experts have called an “unconstitutional” amount. The new amount is now only a tenth of the original amount, at $67,500, or $2,250 per song. Interestingly, this is exactly the same amount per song that was awarded against single mother Jammie Thomas, after the judge in that case also reduced the amount of damages. However, even this amount was critisized by Gertner as “severe” or “harsh”. Despite this, the RIAA is not pleased at the judge’s decisions, and they have stated their desire to contest the ruling. I’ve previously analysed the original verdict and the original amount of damages, and it’s easy to see why the judge would think it was excessive. If you take into account the retail cost (not price) or songs, and the number of people that Tenenbaum or Thomas provided a full copy of the songs to, then it would take years of continuous sharing on a fast connection in order to rack up the amount of damages that the RIAA was originally awarded. There is punitive damages, but you have to question when so many people are doing exactly the same as Tenenbaum and Thomas, why only go after these two individuals? So the RIAA’s intent was to make an example out of these two, but I’m not sure the court appreciates this, especially when these two hardly represents the most notorious of song sharers, or someone who actually profited from their illegal activities. Perhaps the RIAA chose poorly when deciding to go after a student and single mother. I guess it’s better than trying to shake down 10 year old girls.

The Pirate Bay survives another day in Belgium at least

The “good” court news continues with a news item that was just posted today. A Belgian court has ruled that ISPs don’t need to cave in to the demand by anti-piracy agencies to shut down access to The Pirate Bay. It’s a big blow to The Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation (BAF), who had wanted the court to order the ISPs to blocks its subscribers from accessing The Pirate Bay. Instead, the court sided with the ISPs, which believe that it isn’t the place for Internet service providers to place judgement on whether websites can or cannot be viewed by its customers. The BAF obviously strongly disagreed, calling it the legal protection of “illegal websites”. It’s becoming clearer that anti-piracy groups wish to circumvent legal establishments entirely in their crusade against copyright infringement on the Internet. And this is exactly why they wish to avoid going through the legal system, since the result can often be quite unpredictable. The truth is that only a court can decide whether something is illegal or not, and only the legal system can provide avenues of appeal to make the system fair. What anti-piracy agencies are proposing, with some success, will remove many of the basic legal rights people have been enjoying for the last few hundred years, all in the name of a “speedy resolution” and an extremely biased outcome. This is a threat to the fundamental principles behind democracy and rule of law, and I’m always surprised that so called democratic governments go along with the demands of the industry without raising any of these issues, but I guess that’s easy to do when the same industry bombards you with scary figures about the “real cost” of piracy, some figures that have no basis in reality at all.

But not all government take the approach that everything the copyright holders say is correct. The Brazilian government is proposing changes to their own copyright laws that will copy aspects of the US DMCA, but at the very least, they are also considering the issue of fair use. Where the US DMCA practically overrules fair use whenever any kind of DRM is used, the Brazilian model will ensure that DRM can only be used on content that actually warrants protection, and that once materials fall into public domain, then the DRM should “naturally” wither away. A sort of timed DRM system, that automatically shuts off once copyright holders lose their rights on the content. It would also make it an offence for DRM to restrict access to content that otherwise should not have restrictions, such as public domain content, and that if DRM exists on such content, users will be free to hack away at it to remove it or disable it as they see fit. While it would still be illegal to circumvent DRM for copyrighted content, these provisions at least take into account the side effects of DRM, its ability to lock content forever and affect the way the content can be used. It’s one thing for DRM to prevent copying, but many rightsholders are using it as a way to shape way users use the content, and copyright laws should not permit this if these actions interfere with fair use. For example, if a publisher releases songs that can only be played on a certain device, thanks to DRM, and they secretly make deals with the device manufacturer, then how is this good for competition and thus the economy?

The 3DS will feature stronger anti-piracy features that are making publishers excited

And then we have publishers that are obsessed with DRM, to the point where if a good system isn’t available, they choose not to publish content to that system. Speaking of Nintendo’s new 3D DS console, the 3DS, THQ VP of global publishing expressed his excitement at the new 3D technology, but was even more impressed by Nintendo’s promised new anti-piracy technology, citing THQ’s reluctance to publish new titles for the original DS console due to piracy reasons. Now this strikes me as having exactly the wrong attitude. Or perhaps the right attitude when a publisher is not confident in the quality of its products. While popular games get pirated more, popular games also sell more. It’s only the poor games that almost always have a higher piracy-to-sales ratio, and in an industry where quality hasn’t always been the top priority (think of the number of poor to absolutely unplayable games being released every year), piracy is hurting. Of course, DS piracy has been made extremely easy by the use of R4 flash carts, but I’m absolutely certain that without the “easy to pirate” factor, the DS would be less successful than it is today. And it is this success that creates the large userbase in which game publishers can take advantage of, buy only if they produce good games that people want to buy. It seems too often anti-piracy measures are used not to stop piracy, but to stop people finding out too easily or too soon how crap something is, and this goes for content like movies and music too, not just games.

High Definition

Let’s move on to the HD/3D news. The big news of the week was Cyberlink’s release of the “Mark II” patch for PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D users. The patch adds Blu-ray 3D support, making it the first Blu-ray 3D solution for the PC that is available for general sale.

PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D Mark II Blu-ray 3D Options

PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D adds Blu-ray 3D support

So for those with Nvidia’s GeForce 3D Vision technology, or a suitable 3D TV to connect to, then Blu-ray 3D is now possible with a PC based solution (and if you have the right GPU, it may even be hardware accelerated). Of course, the lack of Blu-ray 3D content means there’s not much to use PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D Mark II on. Due to various reasons on my end, I cannot test Blu-ray 3D playback on PowerDVD Mark II with my Samsung 3D TV yet, so that’s a shame. PowerDVD 10 does include support for anaglyph red/cyan glasses, and I tried the 3D effects on the Monsters vs Aliens Blu-ray 3D disc, and it worked remarkably well (obviously poor colour reproduction, but that’s to be expected with an anaglyph system).

Speaking of software updates, Sony has finally put a date on the launch of the Blu-ray 3D update for the PS3, with Sony reps stating that it will be made available sometime in September. Once again, the PS3 has shown why its flexible architecture makes it a great Blu-ray player, if not the best (to be fair, standalones have caught up in terms of loading speed and versatility, although 2D players still can’t be upgraded to 3D mostly). What will be interesting to see is if the PS3’s older HDMI port can handle the increased bandwidth required by 3D, whether it can provide 1080p to each eye. In theory, it should, but we’ll have to wait and see.

But not everyone is interested in 3D, not even in tech-loving Japan. A recent survey showed that only 31% of those surveyed were interested in 3D TVs, with most citing cost, lack of content and having to wear uncomfortable glasses as major turn offs. I would also add that there are many that just haven’t experienced the new wave of 3D technologies (including 3D filmmaking), instead remembering back to the bad old days of red/cyan glasses as a benchmark for 3D performance. 3D definitely isn’t for everyone, and after playing around with my 3D TV, I would say that I definitely don’t want to watch hours and hours of content with the shutter glasses on, but it’s definitely something worth trying out for yourself. And it’s easy to get a demo, since every electronic store will surely have a 3D display set up by now thanks to the 3D hype. Of course, the cost requirements will be high right now, and many just don’t feel like replacing their recently purchased 2D Blu-ray player with a 3D player.

HDBaseT could take over from HDMI and use your existing cabled home networking setup

While recently purchased 2D Blu-ray players may already be considered obsolete, thanks to the bad precedent set by the introduction of Blu-ray profiles (ie. constantly upgraded specifications for hardware), HDMI itself may be obsolete, thanks to a new connection format called HDBaseT. The genius behind HDBaseT is that it’s entirely dependent on current technology – it users Ethernet cabling and ports, but instead of transferring data, it transfers audio and video (and data, like HDMI 1.4). The advantage is that because almost every device these days already have an Ethernet port, then turning that port into something that can also take audio/video would seem to make sense. And with HDMI not so good a long distances, the HDBaseT’s cable length of 100m should solve this problem as well. In fact, people are already using Ethernet cabling to extend HDMI, so this is really just taking an existing solution and turning it into a standard. With Sony, Samsung and LG backing the format, could it threaten HDMI? I for one don’t think so because HDMI is too well established. At best, HDBaseT will complement HDMI, but HDMI is here to stay. The bigger question is why didn’t we just move straight to something like HDBaseT, since HDMI has far too many shortcomings (like handshake issues, length issues, confusing version numbering, non hot pluggable …)

There really isn’t a lot of new things in gaming, unless you count the news that Hulu Plus on the PS3 won’t require PlayStation Plus as gaming news (which I don’t), so this is as good as any place to end this week’s WNR. Have a nice week and see you in 7 days.

Posted in 3D, Computing, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4 | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (11 July 2010)

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Archive for July, 2010

Weekly News Roundup (25 July 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (18 July 2010)

Game Consoles – June 2010 NPD Sales Figure Analysis

If I were to buy a new computer today (July 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (11 July 2010)

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