CES 2008: Xbox 360 To Support Blu-ray?
From over at Homotron: It seems even Microsoft itself is making contingency plans should HD-DVD die in the face of the landslide victories for Blu-ray lately. A Microsoft manager said on Tuesday they would consider making a Blu-ray add-on for the Xbox 360:
"It should be consumer choice; and if that's the way they vote, that's something we'll have to consider," Albert Penello, group marketing manager for Xbox hardware said when asked whether Microsoft would support a Blu-ray DVD accessory in the event that HD-DVD failed.
When a major partner and proponent of HD-DVD starts talking about making a drive for a competitor's format, you know HD-DVD is in trouble.
The same manager was quick to say that should the death of HD-DVD happen and Microsoft releases a Blu-ray drive add-on, it would have no effect on console sales (as Sony is the main proponent of Blu-ray):
"I fundamentally don't think ... this has a significant impact on Xbox 360 versus (Sony's) PlayStation 3," Penello told Reuters in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas."With the PlayStation 2, DVD was a big part in the beginning, but over time, people were not buying it as a DVD player after first year or two."
I do agree that should HD-DVD die and Blu-ray become king, it will not ultimately affect the overall placings in the console installed base race (Wii #1, Xbox 360 #2, and PS3 #3), but I can see it boosting PS3 sales so that they are not so far behind. After all, the PS3 is the best Blu-ray player out there, has upgradeable firmware for future proofing, and also happens to play games (which due to the slow death of platform exclusive titles, means PS3 owners should be able to play many of the same hit games that the Xbox 360 will have.)
Now hurry up and die, HD-DVD, so Paramount can move on and I can get my hands on some Blu-ray Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica seasons. Mmmmm Jamie Bamber covered only by a towel in HD...
Microsoft's Xbox could consider Blu-ray support [Reuters]
[via: Kotaku]
Den Den Boy
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany, Movies-DVDs on 9 January 2008
· Comments (15)
Other stuff like this: Blu-ray, CES, CES 2008, format wars, HD-DVD, Microsoft, Xbox 360
They're both stupid formats. Why should we be striving for more expensive discs? Consumers shouldn't stand for this type of bullshit.
Well.
I'm not, at least.
@Gin
More expensive for better picture quality sounds reasonable to me.
You get what you pay for.
...and yes, I'd pay extra for Jamie Bamber in HD and only a towel.
Now I understand the problem, it's this sites ignorant and self-involved bias that keeps this string of inaccurate posts coming.
Get off it! HD-DVD enhances your existing DVD's and has the same quality and more features than Blu-Ray WITHOUT the 2-3 times higher cost.
Maybe you guys should get informed before posting or stop posting on HD rather than act as Sony shills.
@David B.
How does an HD-DVD disc enhance your existing DVDs exactly?
And where are you getting your pricing from? Checking online, it seems that BRDs are the same price (sometimes cheaper as from BestBuy) for the same title as the HD-DVD version.
Maybe you should get your facts straight before you go ranting like a lunatic against GG.net and making false accusations.
Hi-Def Jamie Bamber....SOLD! If only the towel had dropped. No, 'cause then I'd be all jealous of Xena having received a front row viewing of the goods.
By the way, does someone on here sound like an angry PR person? This person should relax with this.
I, for one, had a slight preference towards HD-DVD. I'm hoping for cheaper prices once a single format is selected by the market. I do, however, have my doubts about the price of these discs falling if they haven't fallen with the existing competition. ...does that make sense?
@David B.:
Your statement that "HD-DVD" enhances your existing DVDs is inaccurate. There is nothing in the HD-DVD standard that mandates enhancement of regular DVDs. The feature in many HD-DVD players that enhances DVDs is an extra feature added by manufacturers called an upscaler. Many Blu-ray players also feature upscalers (including the PS3.) Again, this feature is not inherent in the HD-DVD spec.
As for your price claims that Blu-ray is 2-3 times more expensive than HD-DVD, that is also incorrect. Prices are fairly constant and a quick glance through Amazon's HD-DVD and Blu-ray stores will quickly show you that HD-DVD is equal in pricing to Blu-ray.
BOTH HD formats are more expensive than regular DVDs by 2-3 times. Perhaps that is what you meant?
I rather doubt I'm a Sony shill with my assertion that the PS3 would remain #3 in the console race.
Yikes - this one got heated fast.
Microsoft would be smart to offer a Blu-ray add-on. Wasn't their whole point of having the add-on to be about "choice" anyway? Why wouldn't they offer an add-on that plays what is looking to be the new dominant hi-def disc format?
I for one am incredibly happy we're ending up with the one format. (and that my Blu-ray discs won't become coasters this year).
Every Blu-Ray disc from any retailer (except, for now, those from Warner Brothers) is being sold at a special promotional price. When HD-DVD goes, every Blu-Ray price will go up because of "higher manufacturing costs" or "promotional period has ended". Every HD-DVD has been priced, feature to feature, only a few $$ above the standard DVD pricing as it's regular price. Sometimes you'll see an HD-DVD release at $24 vs $18 because of additional content.
I don't know what you're talking about comparing Blu-Ray and HD-DVD disc prices. HD-DVD are consistently $20. And in multipack collections HD-DVD are consistently about $10 more than the same standard collection. Perhaps you're looking at the DVD/HD-DVD combo packs that Warners has been selling, which are $10 more than the other.
Many Blu-Ray machines come without upscaling. That is standard in every HD-DVD device - and Toshiba's upscaling conversion is superior to every upscaling system in any of the Blu-Ray machines - especially Sony's.
I'm willing to accept the confusion on these issues from the "general public" due to Toshiba's historical inability to market it's technologies and Sony's advanced skills at spinning it's products into something they aren't, but this has been going on to long and the technical and marketing evidence to readily available for an information source such as GayGamer to be spreading the biased Sony word.
My point is there are significant consequences to consumers that don't have PS3's and never will, and anyone that buys movies on discs, if Sony's is allowed to prevail with it's highly proprietary technologies over the much more consumer friendly and cost effective HD-DVD. Places like GayGamer SHOULD be the space that Toshiba's ineptitude and Sony's predatory practices are equalized. All I see is GayGamer jumping on the Sony charge to screw consumers in collusion with the movie studios. These posts are scandalous but incredibly uninformed.
Timsy: I consult with one of the "Blu-Ray studios" in programming and my interest is solely consumer protection, smart ass.
@David B.
GTFO if you don't like it here, and take your tin foil hat with you.
GG.net has never had a bias towards either format or company that has prevented it from reporting on a story and delivering the news.
Please explain, if you can, how reporting facts is showing bias? That would be like saying that any site that reports the Wii outselling the PS3 has a Nintendo bias.
As for your ramblings, where the hell do you get off on YOUR facts? Promotional price for a limited time? Where is this "extra content" when all of the titles I was looking at had feature-for-feature THE EXACT BONUS CONTENT?
If you're so upset by the fact that you are obviously nuts for, you're obviously taking it out on the wrong people. Why are you blaming GG.net for the fact that Toshiba, by your own admittance, has effed up their own marketing? Shouldn't you be complaining to them instead?
Why don't you take your haterade and GTFO if you don't like it here.
Oh, and I know Timsy can speak for himself, but I'll just say it: "It's better to be a 'smart ass' than a 'dumb bunny'", moron...
Anyone else suspect this may be part of the reason why MS has yet again decided against including the HD-DVD player as an internal component of the 360?
The only thing Bluray has for it is space, and HD-DVD could've overcome those eventually.
Otherwise, it has the usual Sony problems:
- Horrible DRM, which is *required*. At least HD-DVD didn't require you to have any kind of DRM. Yes, this means in the future when you burn your own Bluray discs, players can refuse to play it because YOU DIDN'T PUT YOUR OWN DRM SCHEME IN PLACE. Not to mention, for once, Microsoft actually wanted people to rip their HD-DVDs; in the HD-DVD spec, the specifically asked for a high level of interoperability with PCs, including ripping! Talk about weird for Microsoft. Sony actually has said they DON'T want people ripping the discs.
- HD-DVD was region encoding free (BD is only temporarily, and most discs have it already)
- HD-DVD has unified menus that were easier to produce (this may sound fickle, but it makes DVD production a lot easier, quicker, and cheaper).
- HD-DVD had stuff in it that is only coming to light in Bluray Profile 2.0, which means you have incompatible BD players floating around out there (this includes internet connectivity and special features like PIP, used extensively in commentaries and extras).
So once again, hype has won out over practical matters. Why that should surprise me is a mystery, as people are sheep (including, it seems, editors and readers at this website).
Blurray does have higher manufacturing cost, one of the reasons why the PS3 was delayed. Each format have their own advantages/disadvantages but its about time a format was chosen. You can probably google this or wikipedia for this info.
As for Hype? The PS3 did help Blurray get into people's homes, as bad an idea for the PS3 as it was. But it did get them there allowing more Blurray drives than HD-DVD drives. Also, the various film studios decides what they want to support regardless of what we consumers think.
I am dissapointed that Microsoft didn't put that much of a fight. They did a few things but letting Sony win the HD battle only funds their main competitor's console.
I'm going to wait a couple more months and then start buying some HD contents. :)
@lidofido
Wow. You're almost as clueless as David B. (could be that you're probably the same person considering you share the writing style and sport the same tin foil hat?).
Tell all of us sheep here how HD-DVD could've overcome the size barrier. If you're referring to multilayering, BRDs can do the same thing, so HD-DVDs would STILL be behind BRDs in storage capacity.
Other than that, I'm scared to think that you drank the same Kool-Aide as David:
- Sony isn't the sole company in the BRD consortium. Do some research.
- Microsoft isn't advocating people ripping their HD-DVDs. Do some research.
- Where's it ever been said that BRDs are only temporarily region free? Do some research.
- So, because HD-DVD has something first, and BRDs have it now, it makes them worse? It's called progress, you moron. Do some research.
- Considering that only the hardcore by first gen of ANY tech, it's not that big of a deal for the mass market / average consumer. If you had, oh, I don't know, DONE SOME RESEARCH you'd know this.
Hype has not won. Practical matters won. The practical fact that it is more practical to back ONE and ONLY ONE format is best for consumers AND studios. It doesn't make sense and has never been possible for two competing formats to co-exist in the way these two have been competing.
Furthermore, I find it highly insulting that you/David B find it necessary to insult the readers of this site AND its staff the way that you have. If you disagree with the tone, that's one thing, but the fact remains that the content cannot be contested for fact.
You bet on the wrong horse. Get over it.
@DJ
I didn't drink any kool-aid. I already own a standalone BD player and HD-DVD player (because I wanted a good standard DVD upscaler that came with the HD-DVD player, and a bunch of movies I really like are BD only), so I'm pretty much agnostic with regards to the formats aside from their strengths and merits. Glad you're so happy to call me clueless though.
Multilayering is of course, the answer.And as you said, BD can also do the same thing. Per layer, BD holds more; no one disputes that. Here is the the issue - per layer of BD, it costs at a minimum twice at much (and at current production levels with current equipment, much more than that). However diminishing returns come squarely into play when you hit the 50gb run - if you have some kind of monstrosity (this will already fit multiple movies and extras), will it make a difference to squeeze yet another more expensive layer on the disc, or just ADD another physical disc? The answer is born out by the popularity of TV series sets.
No one said Sony was the only motivating force behind BD. Anyone paying attention to the state of next-gen formats knows exactly who stands behind BD and HD-DVD and who sits on the committees. For brevity's sake, next time I'll say Sony et al, since that really seems to bother you.
Microsoft doesn't want you to format shift your HD-DVD? Ars would beg to differ:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/microsoft-hd-dvd.ars
As for region encoding, BD has had it from the beginning. HD-DVD doesn't even include it in its specifications, effectively meaning no region encoding.
Regarding BD Profile 2.0: Adding specs that affect hardware requirements AFTER the fact is never a good thing; it causes market confusion (authoring side changes are transparent and much more accepted). Try explaining to the consumer who bought a bargain basement BD Profile 1.0 player on sale because someone wanted to dump it why it won't play a 2.0 disc with all of the cool features unable to work. A show stopped? Of course not. Annoying? Oh yes.
Sorry you think I'm David B. I also think your hostility is much more indicative of your fanboyism on the issue, not to mention the fact that you think I'm someone I've never met. And now that I've gone back to read David's post, I'm wondering how you could get us confused at all, because he basically said NOTHING in his post.
Keep in mind that I'm coming at this issue from the POV of someone who has to work with DVD (standard) authoring on a regular basis and have had constant discussions with our "foundry" factory on transitioning to next-gen formats, AND I use both next-gen formats personally, I didn't "bet on any horse". I use both because I use content from both and have no attachment to either.
@David B., mostly
If upscaling is any less common among Blu-Ray players than it is among HD DVD players, it's only because more than one company is making Blu-Ray players, which allows for a little variety. In any case, it's nothing inherent to HD DVD; it's a feature that varies from player to player and one for consumers to consider. In any case, the market has spoken, and the BD players are selling. I especially don't think it's accurate to call Blu-Ray a highly proprietary Sony technology, or whatever you meant by that. Toshiba is the one flying solo in this format war. Samsung, Sharp, LG, Philips, and Panasonic are all backing the format and using their patents with actual products. Apart from some backwards-compatible BD players from LG and Samsung, where's anyone but Toshiba making an HD DVD player?
HD DVD and Blu-Ray are not the same quality. Almost all HD DVDs use VC-1, which I can tell you from experience is the ugliest of the codecs. I can actually see black squares overlapping the actors in a dark scene in Alexander. Seriously. Squares. What is this, RealVideo? FMVs on the Sega CD? And it consistently has problems with handling film's natural grain, highlighting some of it and aliasing some of it out, plus it tends to band shades of yellow, orange, brown, and black into just those four colors instead of the hundreds of shades they should be. Basically, it sucks at darkness, colors, and noise. The other formats have no such issue. I don't care about all the extra features in the world if I spent all that money on HD and the picture quality is disappointing. The movie is the only feature that matters, and Blu does it better. Its major technological advantage is bandwidth, not storage space. Even if Toshiba made a three-layer HD DVD that played in existing machines (keep dreaming), audio and video would still be stuck at a low bitrate. HD DVD only has 36.55 Mbps to work with for picture, picture in picture, and sound. For comparison, the Simpsons Movie is MPEG-2 at 37 Mbps, as in just the video. Fitting content on a disc is less than half the battle.
BDs cost up to a dollar more to produce per unit, and that's at a relatively low scale. Manufacturing is not the reason for any real or perceived price difference in the media. As for the players, Toshiba and Microsoft are the only companies selling them (with Toshiba the only company actually making them), so it's hard to get any idea what they really cost, but it's pretty obvious in both cases they're selling at a loss, especially considering all the freebies.
Your talk about special promotional Blu-Ray pricing and HD DVD being just a few dollars more than DVD is complete garbage. I'll ignore it assuming you thought you saw something to that effect once and clicked "post" without using your better judgment. Suffice it to say none of it's true.
Toshiba's upscaling is most definitely not superior to the PS3's. For one, it's unreliable about deinterlacing. The PS3 isn't perfect, but it is noticeably better. The major issue, though, is that Toshiba's players don't give any options for aspect ratios. You can't upscale a square picture to fill the screen like you can on the PS3. I want all 1920 pixels of bandwidth carrying visual data, not just the middle 1440, which I would then have my TV stretch into some approximation of the full image. And in any case, your intense brand loyalty will be less of an issue once Toshiba is making Blu-Ray players. Sony ended up making VCRs. It's inevitable.
@lidofido specifically
That article is from 2005, so the scope and function of managed copy were speculative at the time. Plus the major subject of the article is Microsoft, and we all know how good they are about delivering on lofty promises.
Region coding sucks, but at least Blu-Ray cut it down to three optional regions, and added the ability to set more than one. We're in the same region as Japan and Korea, so we gaijin can import all the high-def anime we want. For a while I was kind of hoping Europe would go red so everything would be importable in one form or another, but I guess I'll just have to research to find the region-free discs.
I have no love for interactive special features, as all the examples I've seen are worthless, but I have read reports that 1.1 BDs are loading dog-slow on 1.0 players. Firmware updates seem to be helping in some cases, but I'll admit the catch-up game is a growing pain for the consumers with dedicated players.
Also, you called people sheep for going Blu and you made several obscure points that are also favorites of David. The suspicion is more than justified.