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Weekly News Roundup (29 August 2010)

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

After my Australian NBN rant last week, there won’t be a pre-WNR rant this week. I really probably should have put that segment as its own blog entry, but then even less people would read it, and a good rant is only as good as the number of people that it reaches. There’s still no firm outcome in the Australian election, so the fate of the NBN still hangs in the air, but I hope it goes ahead, not just because it means I can finally have an alternative to my 0.8 Mbps 3G connection that dies every 30 minutes due to congestion at peak times. There’s a bit more to go through in this WNR, so let’s get started.

In copyright news, the RIAA is at it again, and it now wants the government to create even tougher copyright laws, claiming the DMCA that the RIAA and other groups hailed at the best thing ever, has failed.

YouTube or the RIAA ... I know which one I would choose if only one could exist ...

It has failed, according to the RIAA, because ISPs and websites can now “hide” behind it when their subscribers and users violate copyright. You see, the DMCA’s safe harbor provision protects ISPs, search engines and websites with user generated content as long as they have a copyright infringement policy which they enforce. Of course, the level of enforcement is left up to ISPs and websites, since enforcement can be costly, time consuming, and in the end, something will always get through. But the RIAA is not happy because, well, they’re never happy really. If they can’t stop 100% of all piracy, then they might have to innovate and stuff, and nobody wants to do that! But there is a reason why safe harbor exists, as otherwise Google, YouTube, and your ISP, would not survive the round after round of lawsuits that the RIAA, MPAA and others would love to throw at them, and not fail every time (haha Viacom, sucks to be you). I don’t know about you, but faced with the choice, I’d rather Google, YouTube and the Internet exist, rather than to make the RIAA and MPAA feel safer at night knowing piracy is stopped, even though it probably won’t bring them more money (since people who can’t afford to pay for stuff, still can’t afford to pay for stuff, even if you get rid of piracy completely). This Crusade Against Piracy needs to end.

But another day, and another new, innovative, fool proof, way to end piracy once and for all. The latest involved suing the people advertising on websites that host pirated content. That’s what Disney and Warner Bros. are doing by suing Triton Media which they claim supplied ads to websites hosting or linking to pirated content. But Triton Media may have been running one of the piracy websites in question, so it’s not an all out attack on advertising agencies. Yet. Cutting the funding source for piracy websites, and thus ensuring there’s less incentive to start one, sounds like a reasonable plan, but reputable ad agencies already have policies which prevent these type of sites from signing up, but the less reputable agencies won’t care about a lawsuit or two if they’re located in places that are hard to sue. Thinking about advertising actually makes me think of adult websites (you see, I normally never think about, let alone visit, adult websites … it’s not worth the money I’m paying for my crappy 3G connection with limited bandwidth!). A lot of adult websites that host free content rely on advertising, and if there was a Crusade Against Porn (heh, it’s CRAP again), then the “Won’t Someone Think of the Children Council” or whoever is running the crusade will be going after the advertising agencies providing ads to these types of websites for sure. And I’m sure they’ll be calling on government to monitor people’s Internets so they’re not downloading pron, and asking for tougher laws against ISPs, search engines and websites that allow the spread of pron to go unchallenged. And most of us would then recognise how stupid and futile that moral crusade would be. Just like this one.

But this is about money, so the crusade has even more fervent support. But if it really is just about money, then surely record profits should at least comfort those in power that, maybe just maybe, there’s light at the end of the piracy tunnel. But it seems the only thing they’re seeing may be the imaginary piles of cash that piracy is taking away, although those piles of cash will now and forever remain imaginary, despite what happens to piracy. And then greed will ensure that they will probably ruin whatever they did right (like innovate) to earn the record profits they have. It may be starting with cinemas, which have recorded amazing profits in the last few years, but ever increasing ticket prices are now damping people’s enthusiasm for 3D and big screens, it seems. So innovate, more customers and profit, greed comes in, ruins everything. That’s about right. They want to have their cake, eat it, then have another cake, prevent other people from eating free cake, and then make people pay them for eating cake.

Apple will do everything, including disabling your iPhone remotely, to stop you jailbreak it

And then there are cases when it’s not even about piracy. Take Apple’s recent patent application which could see them disable iPhones remotely if they’ve been detected as having been jailbroken. This is despite, or may be in retaliation to, the recent DMCA changes that allows for legal iPhone jailbreaking. Apple can put up only a very feeble attempt to portray this as a piracy problem, as iPhone app piracy is possible on jailbroken iPhones, but that’s definitely not their main concern. Their main concern, as always, is to ensure everything you do on the iPhone has something to do with Apple Corp, and if you even try to use it without Apple’s involvement, then be prepared to at least lose your product warranty (which may or may not be legal, depending on your statutory rights as a consumer), and at worse, have all your data deleted and your phone disabled. And by making sure everything has to do with Apple, it ensure their current and future profits. And that’s all it’s really about, money. There is a (good) argument that Apple puts out which says that a controlled eco-system means a better product, and that’s true. And if many of the apps that only run on jailbroken devices were made available by Apple, then hardly anybody would bother to jailbreak their phones. But for various reasons, some directly related to Apple’s bottom line, others relating to deals they’ve made with phone carriers and such (which also affects their bottom line), Apple can’t let you use your legally purchased product in the way you want to. I have a simple solution to this – don’t sell us stuff that we can’t do whatever we please with. Instead of selling us iPhones, rent us the hardware, for peanuts or even for free, and then you can get to control how we can use the device. Otherwise, if you do intend to make hundreds of dollars on the iPhones, iPads, or even PS3s, then the hundreds of dollars we’ve paid should be enough financial compensation for daring to play with (or “hack”) our devices and to want to do more with them. The versatility of most devices these days means there’s even more incentive to do more “hacking” than ever.

High Definition

And as a perfect way to segue from discussions about DRM to HD/Blu-ray/3D, the news about Samsung’s latest firmware update will do.

The Samsung BD-P4600 is just one of the Blu-ray players affected by Samsung's firmware SNAFU

Samsung’s new firmware, believed to be DRM related, screwed up their BD-P*600 series of Blu-ray players that none of them, once updated, can now play Warner and Universal studios produced Blu-ray movies. Some users managed to downgrade the firmware, but those that couldn’t are now stuck waiting for Samsung to produce a fix, which won’t be coming until sometime in September. So it’s not okay to hack our own devices to make it do more, but it’s apparently okay now for manufacturers to hack *our* devices to make it do less (Sony … cough … Other OS … cough).

Okay, so this is not like the PS3 Other OS thing, because this was an accident, not a deliberate attempt to disable functions. But once again, it goes to the heart of the argument that frequent firmware updates are bad thing, and since the Blu-ray DRM sort of depends on this, this makes DRM a bad thing. Samsung stuffed up here, and they should pay the price. Something like a bunch of free Blu-ray movies for those affected might be nice, as long as these movies aren’t from Universal or Warner, of course.

But firmware updates are good when it helps to keep your hardware recent. The PS3 is a good example of these types of good firmware updates for the Blu-ray playback function at least, as successive ones have allowed the PS3 to keep pace with Blu-ray player development. Profile 1.1, 2.0, 3D … the PS3 has survived all of these, unlike other standalone players. But if the update is related to the optical laser, then the PS3 won’t be able to keep up, and this is happening now with BDXL, the new higher capacity Blu-ray format. Sony’s new standalone Blu-ray recorders, as well as those from Sharp, will now support BDXL, and it’s expected that standalone players will probably support them soon. But the PS3 won’t, and so could the PS3 be made obsolete as a Blu-ray player? I don’t think so, mainly because I don’t think movie studios will publish movies on BDXL. It is very much a recording format, and not even one that’s likely to be mainstream. There’s just no need for 100/128 GB discs, not when it’s much cheaper and easier to just provide multi-disc sets. But if BDXL do take off as a home recording format, then the PS3 will miss out.

The Blu-ray format overall though it still looking healthy, although as I talked about last week, the rapid growth seen last year is slowing down (but the major releases aren’t out yet for the year, and we’ll see how well Blu-ray does when Inception is out). Fox Australia thinks that 3D will help to ensure growth remains healthy. While it’s possible to deliver 3D via DVDs, there’s no standard like there is with Blu-ray (not to mention the lower quality), so this is one area in which Blu-ray is going to do very well compared to DVDs. Whether it will help it overtake DVDs as the most popular home video format, I really do doubt this. My experience with 3D is that it’s pretty much still a gimmick – good to have, some will love it, but I would prefer a good film (even in SD) over a bad one with great 3D effects, any time.

And some further development in the slow brewing, so quite boring war, between H.264 and WebM. The MPEG LA, the people responsible for H.264 licensing, has promised free H.264 streaming forever. So websites like YouTube can keep on using H.264 to stream their videos without worrying about a hefty licensing fee (although for Google/YouTube, they’ll be able to pay the fee with the change they find in Larry and Sergey’s sofa). But this latest development isn’t convincing Mozilla, because their problem with H.264 isn’t because it isn’t free (and licensing fee they would pay would be quite insignificant), but because it’s a closed, proprietary format. Unlike WebM. So unless H.264 can go open source, or at least some “web streaming” version of it to go open source, it looks like Firefox and Opera will be dealing with WebM instead, and webmasters will have to produce videos that work with both codecs, which is kind of annoying.

And in gaming, and speaking of Other OS (he said three paragraphs later), now that the PS3 has been hacked, there’s been calls for Sony to bring back Other OS. I mean if disabling Other OS was to prevent the PS3 being hacked for piracy, and now that it’s been well hacked, why not bring it back?

Sony is suing retailers who sell the PS Jailbreak kit in Australia ...

But Sony have acted quickly to stop the PS3 jailbreak device, suing three retailers in Australia who are selling the device in the federal court. And the next round of firmware update will surely attempt to do something to stop such devices from working, which will probably have produce some collateral damage, and cause something to stop working.

And that’s all the news I bothered to find this week. You know, it’s not me skipping news item after news item just because I was busy watching movies or playing games or something. I do actually have to look at the news item, see if it’s some press release or one form of advertising or another (“PS3 is most excellent, says Sony’s PR department”, etc…), or that it’s not an old news disguised as “new” news (a lot of that happening now, with websites spamming Google News and whatnot … there’s apparently this new format called HD DVD, according to a “new” news article I read this week), and then decide which makes it, and which gets skipped. It’s not as easy as it sounds!

Watching movies and playing games are much easier.

See you next week.

Posted in 3D, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (29 August 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (22 August 2010)

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

Another very light news week, and I was too preoccupied with other stuff to have time to make up some news, so basically, there’s not much to talk about. Which means I will have to go on one of my long, pointless rants until the required word count is reached, which is funny, because I’m not paid by the word (nor am I actually paid).

The Australian NBN promises to deliver Fibre-to-the-premise for 93% of homes

I shall start the ranting even before we get to the WNR proper, and it’s something I’ve rarely covered here: politics. Okay, I’ve covered plenty of politics, since unfortunately, the Copyright Crusade™ has become very much a political issue, although one that seems to receive bipartisan support. But today, I shall talk about the elections in Australia, and the result which leaves the future of the National Broadband Network in the air. I didn’t really want to talk about the elections before the actual voting, since this is not what this blog is about, and I’ve talked about the NBN before and the benefits it would bring, such as a truly on demand video service, which could go a long way in fighting the piracy problem. The NBN plans to bring Fibre to the Premise to 93% of Australian homes, to provide up to 100 Mbps for all, with wireless and satellite of at least 12 Mbps to take care of the rest of the 7%. The opposition to the NBN has mostly been about the cost of the project, and also with some objecting to the need for faster broadband, so I thought I would outline some of the reasons why I support the NBN:

Cost: $27 billion, over 8 years, in tax payer contributions, not $43 billion. Contributions will be earned back with interest under the NBN Co’s projections, so effective cost to tax payers is $0 for infrastructure that lasts for decades and decades. The $27 billion represents just 0.3% of the GDP over the 8 year build cycle of the NBN. As a comparison, Australia spends $27 billion per year on supporting a defence force with only 55,000 active personnel. And while the opposition has concentrated their attacks on the cost of the project, hardly anyone has attacked the value of the project – in other words, if the NBN could be built for cheaper, hardly nobody would be in opposition to it. Since the trial rollout is current under budget, the cost may very well be reduced, since the rollout process is very much a repeatable process.
Current Internet Access: Australia currently ranks 50th in terms of broadband speed in the world, below even New Zealand. This is for those that actually have access to ADSL, as there are 1.2 million pair gain or RIM affected lines that can’t access ADSL (no direct copper connection to exchange). RIMs, mostly located in new housing estates, do not have enough ports to provide ADSL to all homes that it services, and for those that it does, congestion means sub 1 Mbps speeds in peak times. Internet access in the bush is even more pathetic.
International Backhaul: Critics of the NBN say that having fast local speeds won’t matter if the International link is insufficient, and they’re right. Except Australia’s link to the rest of the world is more than sufficient. And increased local speeds will mean much content will be cached locally, which reduces the need to use International links.
Applications: In terms of current services, even accessing Google Maps and YouTube proves difficult for those in the broadband blackspot areas. 720p IPTV requires 4 Mbps for decent-ish video, with 1080p requiring, in my opinion anyway, at least 8 Mbps, preferably 12 Mbps. With IPTV, TV networks would no longer be locked to the limited number of stations they current broadcast on, bringing television into the 21st century. I also work from home, and having adequate broadband would allow many other Australians to equally work from home, thus saving employers money and helping the environment as well by reducing congestion on roads. Cloud hosting will also help software companies fight piracy. As will “DVD/Blu-ray on demand” type services, which also keeps your “video library” floating in the cloud, ready for access at any time (anywhere), which helps with storage and also casual piracy. Those that read this feature will know I’ve long been a proponent of such a system. And of course there are those applications that will only invent itself after the network is in place, much like how YouTube came about, not when people were still using dialup, but when broadband speeds had reached a certain acceptable level.
Alternatives: Wireless is dubbed an alternative to fibre, but the reality is that a shared service will never completely service the wide land that is Australia. Existing 3G and almost-4G services in Australia are already heavily congested. And any system that still relies on the quickly deteriorating copper network has no positive long term outlook. Relying on a private rollout is also infeasible, since the large geographical area of Australia, and the relatively low population, means no single company can afford to rollout fiber in the scale of the NBN, even if the business case is sound. Private companies would not look out for the national interest, and some will argue nor should they. The current unacceptable state of broadband (which both major political parties agree, that the current situation is unacceptable) has much to do with relying too much on privately owned infrastructure, and if private industry hasn’t come up with a solution 15 years since the Internet went mainstream, they are unlikely to ever come up with one.
Filter: The most controversial aspect of the proposed NBN is the proposed filter that also comes with it, blocking out indecent content, and possibly piracy related resources. The filter was always unlikely to pass through the senate, and given current election results, it’s unlikely to even pass through the lower house, so it’s pretty much dead. Which is good to see.

Anyway, in short, the NBN is good. And hopefully it will still be built. Let’s get on with the rest of the WNR now.

Starting with the copyright news, is piracy really bad, or does it actually help content owners. I’ve asked this question many times here, and I can only conclude that there is a positive side to piracy, and content owners are well aware of it (see Viacom vs YouTube, and how Viacom employees allegedly pirated their own stuff for promotional reasons).

The CEO of Private Media Group says piracy isn't the worst thing in the world

So it was interesting to read that the CEO of one of the largest porn companies in the world say that piracy may be a good thing. Pirated adult videos is even more of a problem than mainstream videos, because by their nature, they’re very attractive, and paying isn’t always viable (if someone else has access to your credit card bills, for example). Private Media Group CEO Berth Milton says that he not only accepts piracy exists, and he actually welcomes it, thanks to increased promotion. He also talks about selling things that aren’t easy to pirate, like physical objects. This is a topic I’ve been thinking about lately (no, not porn or porn related accessories), is that even with the dangers of going completely digital (ie. making things easier to pirate), not more is done to create a more balanced product. Remember when DVDs first came out and they all came with booklets with chapter stops and information about the movie, and then the booklet became a single sheet, still with the chapter stops, and now, there’s nothing inside the box except ads and sometimes an anti-piracy leaflet. A value added physical object, that is much harder to pirate, has been removed and studios wonder why piracy is up?

Lost: The Complete Collection on Blu-ray looks very tasty indeed, and all those goodies means it's hard to pirate the complete experience

I’ve long been an advocate of all digital distribution, but physical distribution still has its merits and will have a place in the “new world order”. And I would definitely like to see more unique physical products accompany digital music, movies and games. Games instruction booklets are so thin these days, there’s barely any explanation of the sometimes quite wonderful storyline. Sure, you’ll get to know the story when you play the game, but perhaps a little additional content, some back story, would help gamers get into the mood better, perhaps. And it’s good that collector’s editions now usually feature physical collectibles, but I think even the standard releases could use some more printed content and other things that are harder to pirate. This is definitely one way to compete with digital piracy. On that topic, I should mention the most excellent Lost Complete Collection Blu-ray, which I will talk about more in the HD/3D/Blu-ray section below.

Another way to fight piracy is to just give the content away, legally. Well not exactly give away, but ad-supported or subscription services like Spotify may just be another way to combat music piracy. A new poll shows that users of Spotify and related services are pirating much less music, and some have completely stopped. Ad-supported content sometimes do work, but most of the time, it’s hard to cover costs, let alone make a profit. Subscriptions do make more sense, because the discovery element of music means that it’s awfully expensive to legally purchase everything you want to listen to. Many have theorized, and it’s backed up by some stats, that a lot of people pirating music are only doing it so they can sample a new artist’s work, and many eventually end up paying not only for CDs, but concerts and more. And one of the best things about the digital revolution is improved access, and people want access without the current cost associated with it, and Spotify and other music services provide this without promoting piracy. I think the same model could work for video, because I see people recommending TV shows all the time, and I wonder how many are actually buying the DVDs just to check it out, and how many are following up on these recommendations by pirating the shows. Which is why Hulu is so successful I guess, but unfortunately, it’s only available in the US.

And last week I posted in the forum, but not here, about Google going Evil, the Google, Verizon Net Neutrality deal, or how Google learned to stop being so nice and love their corporate power. I didn’t post it here because, while there are copyright implication, it wasn’t so clear cut. But with the RIAA wading into the debate, it is now definitely more clear cut. The RIAA wants to use the deal as a platform to get ISPs to do more about piracy, with incentives (does not getting sued count as an incentive?). The RIAA, and the cohorts, are about the only people happy with the Google/Verizon deal, which is just so typical, really.

There’s more about piracy in the gaming section below, in regards to a surprising development for the PS3. But before we get to that …

High Definition

In 3D/HD/Blu-ray news, the news I posted about Star Wars on Blu-ray didn’t include a firm release date. It’s believed that October 2011 is when we can expect the trilogy (both the good and bad one) to come on Blu-ray. That still sounds like a long time though, but if it means a superior transfer, perhaps all the various editions of the film seamlessly branched, and new bonus content, and maybe a Lost style package (see below), then the wait have been worth it.

Speaking of Lost, the complete Blu-ray collection is available to pre-order on Amazon (please click link to buy if you want to buy from Amazon, to help out this humble, unpaid, blogger). I saw it being promoted on Jimmy Kimmel, and it really impressed me, and I’ve seen a few special editions in my time. Puzzles, black light, hidden content (did Matthew Fox say hidden discs?) – it all sounds like a fun package. And the best thing is that the price isn’t totally crazy either, currently less than $150 (Corrections: It’s $150 for the DVD version, just under $195 for the Blu-ray version) for all six seasons of Lost (that’s 5074 minutes of prime time TV), plus all the goodies. Well, it’s better than that Lord of the Rings package anyway.

And moving on finally to gaming. The PS3’s status as the only next-gen console not to have been hacked for playing copied games is under threat, with perhaps the simplest hack yet. So simple, that I’m still not convinced it isn’t a hoax.

This little device allows games to be ripped and the copied games to be played

But assuming it’s real (and I think it is, thanks to new videos being posted of the hack in action), the hack involves only buying a USB drive which when plugged into the PS3, allows games to be dumped to either the internal or external HDDs. And copied games can then be played back, and all of this is done with the latest firmware. Sony is said to be aware of the hack, so expect the next firmware to quickly plug the hole, but perhaps the USB drive can be software upgraded to defeat then next firmware update (or users can stick with 3.41, and resist upgrading). And so on and so on. It’s bad news for people not interested in piracy (or playing their backed up games), as this will mean more Sony firmware, which may equal more upgrading pain. It is ironic though that the hardest to break console requires the easiest to implement hacking solution in the end, although we’ll see how Sony fights this with their firmware updates.

And that was that. A very top heavy rant-astic edition of the WNR this week. See you next week.

Posted in Copyright, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4 | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (22 August 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (15 August 2010)

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

Looks like I’ll be managing to bring you this week’s WNR on time. Again, it wasn’t a week bursting with news items, but the NPD folks were kind enough to release their July US video game sales reports, and I was able to get the analysis done yesterday. The Xbox 360’s big win in July has people talking, mostly those who think that the result won’t last. I agree, because just like when the PS3 Slim was released, the sales boost is all very temporary. But as I said at the beginning of the year, 2010 is about Microsoft trying to make sure the PS3 doesn’t run away with things until Kinect comes out, and thanks to Sony’s mistake of not providing enough stock to the market, and thanks to the “surprise” release of the Xbox 360 “Slim”, Microsoft has managed to do this. Now, all eyes on are Kinect and whether it will give Microsoft the boost to overtake the Wii as the most popular console, at least in the US, for this generation. I think it may be possible, but mainly because the Wii isn’t looking too healthy – it’s an ageing console in terms of hardware, with mostly sub-par games (especially if one looks at third party titles), and both Sony and Microsoft will soon be able to do what the Wii can do. The only thing in the Wii’s corner is Nintendo’s ability to make great games, and it’s these great games and accessories (Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit …) that are keeping the Wii alive. For now. Anyway, on to the news.

Let’s start with the copyright news for the week. We’ll start with Viacom’s appeal of the US District Court decision in June to throw out their copyright case against YouTube.

Let’s be honest here, this news isn’t any sort of surprise at all. It wasn’t as if Viacom would just give up, and it’s very likely this case will end up before the US Supreme Court before we have a final decision. Viacom still argues that YouTube, knowing that piracy was happening on their website, didn’t do nearly enough to stop it and profited from it as well. YouTube argues that the US District Court’s decision was correct, that the DMCA affords them some level of protection for user generated content, as long as they had an active policy in place. Whether that policy is good enough for the likes of Viacom, and whether the policy was effective at stopping piracy, that’s an entirely different matter. It’s very much like the AFACT vs iiNet appeal I mentioned last week here, in that the copyright holders are demanding an Internet service provider (YouTube providing a video upload service, iiNet being the more traditional service provider) to do more to fight piracy, when the service provider feels they’ve already done all they can. Viacom feels they’re the victims, and and party to profit most from these activities is in fact YouTube, not the uploader (who doesn’t get paid) nor the downloader (who, if we’re honest, has many other better places to get their piracy fix). This argument has some merit, but there is only so much YouTube can do, and in the end, it has to be the copyright holder’s responsibility to point out which pieces of content violates their copyright, as only the copyright holders can say for definite if this is the case, unless we want an automated system with a high degree of false positives, which isn’t good for anyone. And Google/YouTube rightly points out that Viacom and other copyright holders sometimes are more than happy to let a piece of content that violates their copyright stay on the network, since the hype and attention it generates outweighs what potential loss that could stem from the copyright infringement.

And just because someone steals your copyrighted content, it doesn’t always mean you lose money. Someone using a copyrighted song in their home video that’s uploaded to YouTube would have otherwise used another song, perhaps a royalty free one, if they were prohibited from using the song, where’s the actual gain or loss for the copyright holder in this situation? Perhaps if there was a system in place where home users could pay a nominal amount, say $10, to use a song in their uploaded video, then the copyright holders could argue that there was an actual loss. But what if the video, with the illegal audio, became a hit and the song, as a result, becomes a hit too. Shouldn’t it work both ways too, that the copyright holder then have to pay the video uploader for their efforts in promoting the song? Or at the very least, allow the video to stay online, regardless of the copyright infringement. And this is why copyright holders should be the one responsible for signalling which content is okay, which isn’t – it’s more work for them, but it’s actually beneficial for them as well. YouTube’s only obligation is perhaps to make this process a bit easier, perhaps automatically help identify a list of potentially infringing videos, but they, like iiNet, should not be held responsible for determining whether an infringement has occurred or not. I know I like my analogies, but it’s like asking the bus driver to be responsible for something stolen on his or her bus, and not only responsible for the loss, but responsible for identifying the stolen object, the rightful owners, and to place guilt on the offender. I know Google are powerful, but legal authority is not something I would want them to have, no matter how easy it makes things for the copyright holders.

Is the FBI prioritizing copyright infringement over missing persons and crimes like identities fraud?

But with the hysteria over Internet piracy, I wouldn’t bet against the government giving Google, and other corporations, just exactly this kind of authority. All’s fair in love and war right? Love for ridiculous copyright legislation in the war against online piracy. The huge lobbying efforts of Hollywood and music labels are paying big dividends, and it seems the political will has translated to actual action, when the FBI is concerned. Citing recent reports which point to cases like missing persons and identity fraud are no longer “priorities” for the FBI, and the recent noises made about special task forces dedicated to fighting the serious crime of movie and music piracy, website techdirt can only surmise that the FBI takes copyright infringement far more seriously than those other crimes. Those that have watched the excellent HBO show, The Wire, will have noted how it identified the quickly shifting focus of the FBI when 9/11 hit, and the War on Drugs was no longer a top priority. Now, I’m not saying that the FBI now takes terrorism less seriously than people downloading a cam copy of Inception (great movie, btw), but it’s certainly possible that things like identity fraud, hacking, and other online crimes are taking a back seat to the Crusade Against Piracy (CRAP, for short). With Vice President Biden pushing for his friends at the RIAA and MPAA, the lobbyist busy in DC, scary stories being told to governments all over the world about the impending collapse of the world as we know it if people download too much, it isn’t too big a leap to come to the conclusion that there must be political pressure on the FBI to take action. And I recently reported on the diabolical plans by the French when it comes to fighting online piracy, basically making computer wire taps legal without seeking a court order (and I did mention the comparison with the reaction to terrorism, and how even during the height of the scare, nothing like this was being proposed seriously), and so nothing is too outrageous any more, now when this thing has morphed into a moral crusade.

Premium cinema experiences, bigger screens, 3D and just better movies, all help to fight piracy more effectively

And all of this when box office receipts from around the world are showing record profits for the film industry. Even here in Australia, where there’s relatively little current government action to curb piracy (current, but of course the Great Internet Filter of Australia proposed by the current government will see things turn nasty in the future, perhaps even more so than the proposed French model), and the courts haven’t given the film industry all they’ve wanted (referring back to the iiNet case), and by all accounts, Internet piracy is up – despite all of this, box office receipts for 2009 have just managed to break all records, and 2010 looks to be even better. So much so that even the traditional “piracy is ruining everything” brigade has to come out and admit that innovation at the cinema seems to be winning against piracy. Whether it’s bigger screens, budget Tuesdays, or 3D, or even just better, bigger films, a pirated video is not a substitute for the cinema experience. Are there people who would rather watch a poorly camcorded recording of a movie on their computer instead of going to a cinema to watch the same film on the big screen with friends? I actually don’t think these are the same set of people. I can understand why people with a quality home cinema set up may forgo going to the movies, price and comfort the key considerations, but people who are happy watching a slanted, cut off, inaudible version of the movie with someone’s head blocking half of the action, to me, just aren’t the kind of people who would pay $15 to watch a movie at the cinema. But I guess it also depends on the movies themselves. ‘The Dark Knight’, ‘Avatar’, ‘Inception’ – most people would gladly pay for the full experience (IMAX, 3D … and even popcorn). For movies like ‘Why Did I Get Married Too’, ‘The Tooth Fairy’ and ‘Furry Vengeance’, well, perhaps piracy is hurting these movies. And maybe that’s just it, that studios are concerned that the Internet makes filtering out bad movies too easily (both at the cinema, and when if gets released on home video), and so making good movies is all the more important these days. Maybe that’s why they hate piracy so much – it means they may actually have to produce better stuff!

High Definition

In 3D/HD news, for those in Australia that’s still wondering if we really need fast broadband (or just broadband) or not, here’s another application that’s will put further pressure on your bandwidth (or rather, throughput, but also bandwidth too).

Samsung will soon start to stream 3D content to their Internet equipped TVs and Blu-ray players. It will start with trailers, but move onto full movies, and games. 3D videos streams will be around 1.5 times larger in bitrate than their non 3D equivalents, and if we’re talking about Blu-ray 3D, then the peak bitrate is up at a high 60 Mbps. Let’s just for a moment imagine that Blu-ray quality 3D is to be streamed, IPTV style, then the 100 Mbps being offered by Australia’s National Broadband Network is just about enough. The only thing stopping someone from providing Blu-ray (or Blu-ray 3D) on demand right now is the lack of broadband speed, and bandwidth quota, and Australia has a great opportunity to catch up to the other countries that are already offering Gbps connections. We’ll find out this time next week whether the NBN will survive, when national elections will pitch one party that wants fibre to homes (but with the annoying Great Internet Filter of Australia), and another who think 12 Mbps, peak, is already good enough for most (but barely good enough to even stream proper 720p content, let alone 1080p or 3D). Generally speaking, if HD IPTV is to take off, ADSL2+ just won’t cut it, and considering there’s a huge percentage of Australian homes that can’t even get access to ADSL, let alone ADSL2+, money needs to be spent on infrastructure so Australia won’t get left out of the IPTV revolution.

It's official: Star Wars is coming to Blu-ray in 2011

Samsung also introduced a new portable Blu-ray 3D player. It doesn’t actually play 3D on the portable screen, you’ll still need a compatible 3D TV, so it’s not as innovative as it sounds. With the 3DS coming out, I think we’ll soon see portable Blu-ray players with autostereoscopic screens (that’s 3D screens without the need for glasses).

And good news for Star Wars fans, all six Star Wars movies will be available on Blu-ray sometime in 2011, George Lucas made the announcement at Star Wars Celebrations V. Of course, “real” fans will only want the first three, or is that the last three, movies. You know, the ones that didn’t suck. But real fanatics won’t care and will watch all 6 movies in one go while wearing their Jedi robes and swinging their hand built lightsabers. My only wish is that Lucasfilms include the original theatrical versions on the Blu-ray discs too, and pray that George doesn’t tamper with the films too much for yet another release (not much hope of this happening though, not with Star Wars 3D also in the works).

And finally in gaming, the NPD analysis means there’s not much I want to talk about here, except some more Blu-ray news, but this time, it’s got to do with the Wii.

Rumours surrounding the Wii 2 is hotting up, with the latest rumour suggesting that the console’s new 1080p resolution will be coupled with a Blu-ray drive too. But knowing Nintendo, it will probably be the only Blu-ray equipped machine that doesn’t actually play Blu-ray movies, because if the rumours are to be believed, Blu-ray discs are being used for Wii games to help curb piracy. It is true that Blu-ray discs are harder and more expensive to copy, but if the Xbox 720, Wii 2, and PS3/PS4 all use Blu-ray discs, expect burner prices to drop (they’re already not that high), media prices to drop, and piracy to increase. I think Nintendo do need a new console though, since the Wii is looking pretty outdated compared to what the PS3 and Xbox 360 will be offering via Move and Kinect.

And that’s all the news for this week. I won’t promise “more next week”, because chances are, there will be less. Have a good one.

Posted in 3D, Copyright, Electronics, Gaming, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (15 August 2010)

Game Consoles – July 2010 NPD Sales Figure Analysis

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

July figures are now available from NPD for US video game sales, and there are a couple of surprises, although probably only one good surprise for one company in particular. June figures showed some year on year improvement by the likes of the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3, which offset the bad news about the decline for the DS and the worrying figures for the PSP. July is traditionally not as good a month as June, so all eyes will on which consoles can do the business this month, and which are in serious trouble. The figures are from NPD, a marketing research firm that releases games console sale data every month.

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

Xbox 360: 443,500 (Total: 21 million; July 2009: 202,900 – up 119%)
DS: 398,400 (Total: 43 million; July 2009: 538,900 – down 26%)
Wii: 253,900 (Total: 29.8 million; July 2009: 252,900 – up 0.4%)
PS3: 214,500 (Total: 12.9 million; July 2009: 121,800 – up 76%)
PSP: 84,000 (Total: 17.4 million; July 2009: 122,800 – down 32%)

NPD July 2010 Game Console US Sales Figures

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

My prediction from last month was:

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).

I was I was close to the mark, but I just couldn’t see the Xbox 360 outselling the DS, not just the Wii, but that’s exactly what happened. Although the Xbox 360’s number one was earned with much help from decreasing DS sales, but when most consoles saw month to month drop in sales, the results were still remarkable. As for games, I think what I predicted mostly came true, but otherwise it was a slow month for game sales.

The Xbox 360, thanks to the new “Slim” or we’ll just refer to it as the Xbox 360 250GB, has done wonders for Xbox 360 sales, but that’s really not a surprise. The DSi, PS3 Slim all helped to post what proved fairly temporary sales increases, and the 250GB model may run out of steam next month. But of course, Microsoft has the new Arcade replacing 4GB, matte “Slim” version out in August, and so that might help keep hardware sales up. And then in September, Halo Reach is released, and a Halo title will always help push hardware sales, so it looks good for Microsoft until Kinect hits the market. Whether Kinect will prove a hit or not, that’s still too early to say, but early signs are encouraging.

For Nintendo though, decline in DS sales and an almost negligible year on year growth for the Wii is starting to look a bit worrying. Of course, with the 3DS on the horizon, Nintendo won’t be too concerned with the year on year comparison (which saw a 26% drop in sales), last year’s figure boosted by the DSi. The Wii numbers are slightly more worrying, since the numbers are starting to look like one for a console that’s running out of ideas. Price cuts can help, but with Sony and Microsoft’s own motion gaming systems on the way, the Wii looks quite last-gen in the face of the competition.

For Sony’s systems, the PS3 is still getting a healthy year on year result every month, but remember that the PS3 was doing extremely poorly this time last year (although next month’s figures for 2009 should start to reflect the Slim and price cut’s effects, at least partially), and large growth means nothing if you’re comparing it to a poor period. But compared to the Xbox 360 or the Wii, it still isn’t doing what it is capable of, and despite the poor Wii numbers this month, the PS3 numbers were still lower. And this is with the stock issues cleared up. The PS3 numbers for July 2010 are actually lower than the PS3 numbers for July 2008 (225,000), and that’s not a great sign despite price drops, new form factor, and many many more games being released since that time. The PSP, well, the less said about that the better. Pretty soon, the NPD will have to remove the PSP numbers just like they did with the PS2 numbers, because frankly, it’s just not competitive with the DS, even with the poorer than usual DS sales numbers.

Let’s move onto software. As expected, the two versions of NCAA Football 11 for the Xbox 360 and PS3 topped the sales charts, but the gap between the two console versions has narrowed considerable compared to last year. NCAA Football 11 sold slightly less than NCAA Football 10 on the Xbox 360, but the same comparison saw more PS3 sales. While the Xbox 360 holds a 1.6:1 sales ratio to the PS3, in terms of hardware, the software margin seems to be much closer. The Xbox 360 exclusive Crackdown 2 managed to get third place, while Super Mario Galaxy 2 is still the best selling Wii title for the month (New Super Mario Bros. was the only other Wii title in the top 10, at 9th). The DS version of Lego Harry Potter Year 1 – 4 managed to grab 5th place. For the Xbox 360, there were two more titles in the top 10, Red Dead Redemption (the PS3 version has dropped out of the top 10 for this title), and an oldie, but goodie, Call of Duty: MW2. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies for the DS was the remaining title in the top 10, at 8th.

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

NCAA Football 11 (Xbox 360, EA) – 368,000
NCAA Football 11 (PS3, EA) – 298,000
Crackdown 2 (Xbox 360, Microsoft) – 208,800
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii, Nintendo) – 193,000
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (DS, Warner Bros.) – 141,700
Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360, Take-Two)
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Wii, Warner Bros.)
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS, Nintendo)
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii, Nintendo)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360, Activision)

It’s time to make the usual predictions. Looking at the Amazon charts, the new Xbox 360 4GB isn’t actually doing fantastically, and it’s being outsold by the 250GB. So while most people are predicting that it would be another month where the Xbox 360 rules, I’m not as certain. I think sales will do well, but it might be the case of things being very close, with the new 4GB probably just allowing the Xbox 360 to sneak to top spot. In games, NCAA Football is usually followed by Madden NFL, the 11th version, and that will always do well. But otherwise, it’s another slow month before the busy holiday period begins, so the top 10 should look pretty familiar.

See you next month.

Posted in Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | 1 Comment »

Weekly News Roundup (8 August 2010, or thereabouts)

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Sorry for the late posting of this WNR. I was feeling a bit ill yesterday and couldn’t really get any work done. Still not 100% today, but as they say, the roundup must go on (I think I’ve used this “joke” before). Luckily, this week is very news lite, so it won’t take too long to get through this WNR.

Starting with copyright news, Australian ISP iiNet is back in court to fight the AFACT’s appeal of a Federal court verdict early in the year that basically let iiNet off the hook when it came to its users’ copyright infringement.

AFACT vs iiNet, Part II, started last week

While iiNet also has a few points of appeal in the case, it is mainly the AFACT that is severely unhappy with the verdict handed down earlier by Justice Cowdroy. The AFACT, for those that don’t know, is basically Australia’s version of the MPAA, representing the interests of movie studios. iiNet is Australia’s third largest ISP, and has increased in size since the court’s decision in February due to its acquisition and proposed acquisition of several competitors. The AFACT still believes that iiNet is liable for copyright infringement because it did not do all it can to prevent unauthorised downloads on their network, but iiNet argues it’s not really for them to decide what is authorised and what is unauthorised, without there being a court order to back up either claim. Since the notices that the AFACT sent to iiNet, which iiNet failed to pass on to subscribers, did not come with a court order, iiNet believe they were in the right to not take action. Regardless of the verdict in this appeal, it is likely the case will move to the highest court in the country before a final verdict on this issue can be made.

There was further development in the RIAA’s lawsuit against file sharing website LimeWire, with the RIAA’s request for LimeWire’s assets to be frozen denied. The judge did not feel LimeWire was engaged in any activities to hide their assets, and so found no need to freeze them. This may only be a temporary reprieve for LimeWire, as experts agree that the judge is likely to rule in favour of the RIAA, and order LimeWire to be shut down, in the near future.

The EFF is providing resources and links for people being sued by the US Copyright Group

For those unlucky individuals fighting lawsuits of their own, against claims made by the US Copyright Group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has now launched a new website section with resources on how to fight the charges. The new section, titled “USCG v. The People”, contains links to attorneys that can help represent defendants, as well as FAQs on the lawsuit and how to fight it. The EFF believes that current copyright laws, mostly written to target commercial offenders, not home users, is pretty lopsided when it is used against people who normally don’t have the means to defend themselves. The $1,500 to $2,500 being asked by the USCG is just enough to make retaining a lawyer too expensive, and so many people are paying up without seeking legal advice, even though some firmly believe they are innocent. Readers of this roundup will know my opinions as to the bias in current copyright laws, so it is not surprising at all that enterprising firms like the USCG will take advantage. The real question is whether paying $2,500 is justified when pirating a movie that doesn’t even cost $25, and while there are legal costs involved, there’s no way to prove any real damages has even occurred. Statutory damages works fine for commercial piracy cases, but when it comes to home users, it seems a little excessive. This is why we had the outrageous six and seven figure damages being awarded against individuals in the two infamous RIAA cases, one against a single mother, the other against a student, because statutory damages are too inexact to approximate real damages. A settlement fee of say $250 would serve the same purpose, and would seem a more normal amount for a “fine”, which is essentially what the USCG is asking for. Of course, a settlement fee of $250 will dull the USCG’s, and other firms’, enthusiasm for such mass lawsuits, but perhaps these mass lawsuits just shouldn’t exist.

Hadopi wants to put spyware in people's computers to monitor their Internet usage and software usage

But then again, compared to what the French are planning, these mass lawsuits may seem quite fair. Hadopi, the French agency set up to handle their three-strikes law, has proposed some changes which will make the law more effective. You’ll have to read my linked post to find out the full madness of what is being proposed, but the basic jist of it is to imagine the worst invasion of privacy and destruction of civil liberties that can be undertaken by a so called democratic government, and then apply that to stopping music and movie downloads, and that’s pretty much Hadopi’s plans. Hadopi plans not only to ‘tap’ your Internet connection, but also your *personal* computer, with spyware like software, just to make sure you’re not even thinking about piracy. It’s so outrageous, that you would think the plan is made up, but it is real. And the funny thing is that even during the height of the fear in regards to terrorism, it didn’t produce this sort of nonsense in terms of Internet surveillance. But I guess music labels and movie studios, with their vast *increasing* incomes, can produce moral outrage and cash (via lobbyist) in equal amounts, and their “argument” can be quite persuasive. This all sounds like something that comes out of countries like North Korea, not France, except North Korea will be doing this to preserve state authority, while the French are just doing it to protect the revenue stream of one particular industry (and at the expense of many other). In terms of the world’s problems, or France’s, Internet piracy should not even rank in the top 100.

There’s actually some more copyright related news stories, but they also fit into the other regular sections, so I’ll cover them there to make this WNR seems more varied than in actual fact.

High Definition

In 3D/HD news, Kaleidescape, which got into trouble with the MPAA for daring to offer some innovation in the field of home theatre usage, is tempting fate again, but this time using a safer method to let people access their movie library without having to get up and change the disc in the player every single time.

... and just to make sure all the images in this WNR aren't all logos again, here's a pictures of the Kaleidescape M500 player

Kaleidescape’s old system relied to “ripping” the DVD to their media server hardware, which was why the MPAA and the people responsible for DVD copyright protection, were not pleased. Kaleidescape argued that their system was closed, that once the disc was ripped, there was no way it could be shared with anyone else, but the DVD CCA/MPAA didn’t agree, saying that their system could lead to a rent, rip and return process. The funny thing was that people who could afford Kaleidescape’s system were unlikely to the be the sort that pirate DVDs. The solution to this potential legal problem that Kaleidescape came up with for Blu-ray was to make sure people had the original disc in the tray before being allowed to access the digital version on their server, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of having a digital version (other than faster loading times). Kaleidescape aims to solves this problem by offering a Blu-ray disc vault system, a basically old idea of having a disc carousel system, so that users no longer have to insert the right disc, while still be able to access their movie collection that is stored digitally on the Kaleidescape server. Of course, if people made copies of Blu-ray and DVD movies to into the disc vault, then I think it would still all work, so one only needs to add a “burn” step to the usual rent, rip and return process, if one wishes to make the MPAA angry. But will the MPAA take offence at this new Kaleidescape system? Probably not, since many Blu-ray players can play copied Blu-ray movies and all can play copied DVD movies, so if the MPAA were to sue Kaleidescape, they would have to sue every manufacturer, including some that are the parent company of its members. And as for Kaleidescape’s system, I guess a disc vault makes sense since you do have to store the disc somewhere, if not in the covers that adorn endless rows of bookshelves. It’s a neat solution to people’s ever growing Blu-ray libraries.

Speaking of Blu-ray’s popularity, the recent Blu-ray sales result that I posted in the Blu-ray sales analysis thread seems to indicate otherwise, or at least point to some rather conflicting results. On one hand, the week ending 25th July saw, for the first time ever, a weekly result that was worse than the same week a year ago, in terms of Blu-ray market share. The simple explanation, however, was that it was comparing a fairly average/poor week in 2010 with the best week up to that point for Blu-ray, in 2009. But look deeper and you’ll find that the week’s top ranking Blu-ray movie managed to sell more copies than the DVD version. This isn’t rare, especially when Blu-ray versions are being sold at lower prices than DVD versions due to sales and whatnot, but this was the first time that this had happened for a new release movie, I think (well certainly true for a new release movie that was also top of the sales rank, because a movie that sold only 50 copies on Blu-ray compared to 40 copies on DVD, doesn’t really suggest much). It was just a shame that it had to happen with a movie called The Losers. Or perhaps it’s signalling that the DVD format is soon to become the loser, although I doubt that.

And finally in gaming, but still somewhat related to copyright, is that the PS3 is possibly using a new anti-piracy feature.

New is probably not the right word to use, since apparently, this feature has been around since a couple of firmware updates ago (but a couple of firmware updates, in Sony terms, is not that long). The new system scans the audio of the movie, compares it with a online database of movie audio files, and if it matches, it either means you’ve ripped your own DVDs or downloaded a copy, and it will prevent playback (or prevent audio). So far, it seems to be limited to selected movies, possibly those that are copied from when the movie was showing at the cinema, but the same technique could be easily adopted to prevent playback of your own ripped DVDs. Converting the audio files, which contain inaudible watermarks, doesn’t appear to defeat this copy protection measure. Regardless of what’s true or not, the fact is that movie studios don’t like people ripping their own DVDs even for personal use. It has nothing to do with piracy, it’s just that you’re using your own legally purchased product in a way they don’t like, and if they could stop you, using anti-piracy as an excuse, then they will do just that. Somehow the idea of having movies without some sort of DRM scares the studios silly.

And for the 3.41 firmware problems reported by users, that has been fixed by Sony, through an updated version of 3.41. Somebody failed (again) to properly test the firmware before releasing it, it looks like. It’s interesting to note that the version number remains the same, so no 3.42 or 3.41a. If Sony were really keen to own up to their mistake, they would have released a new version number, with the changelog indicating the SNAFU they made. And this again shows why one shouldn’t become Sony’s beta testers so willingly whenever a new firmware update comes out. Let those who need it urgently install it and test it for you, and wait a week or so before attempting it yourself. It’s just a shame that some of the PS3’s online services require absolutely the latest firmware, which shouldn’t really be the case since most of these services don’t require the new elements of the new firmware. There should at least be some kind of grace period or non mandatory updates, where online services continue to function with older firmware for a certain period, or that only certain updates are mandatory when it comes to certain online features (so if a firmware update only corrects a couple of typos, then not installing it shouldn’t prevent me from playing games online). This is the sensible trade-off if Sony insists on releasing so many firmware updates without apparent proper testing, as was the case with the last one.

And that’s all I’ve got this week, in terms of news, and in terms of energy, since I’m pretty tired from being slightly ill. So tired that I can’t think of something funny or witty to say at the end of this WNR. Not that I usually write anything funny or witty in the outro anyway. See you next week.

Posted in Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (8 August 2010, or thereabouts)

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Archive for August, 2010

Weekly News Roundup (29 August 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (22 August 2010)

Weekly News Roundup (15 August 2010)

Game Consoles – July 2010 NPD Sales Figure Analysis

Weekly News Roundup (8 August 2010, or thereabouts)

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